Hope

by Terry Tyler

  I left with Kendall.

  As we drove off, I looked over yonder, and saw the odd light glimmering through the trees, far out on the horizon to the left.

  "That's Hope Village over there," I said. "Can we go take a look?"

  Kendall glanced at me like I was nuts. "What for?"

  "I've never actually seen one up close. Have you?"

  "Er, no. Why would I want to?"

  "'Cause it's interesting."

  "No, it's not. It's depressing. All those poor people, stuck in there 'cause they've got nowhere else to go. And I don't know if I've got enough charge."

  "Yeah, you have." Bzzz, bzzzt, went something, somewhere in the car, and it started moving even more slowly then usual. But, like I said, I was kind of hammered, so I was willing to chance it. I craned my neck to stare out into the darkness. "Go on. Please." I had a brainwave. "I want to do a blog post about remembering the less fortunate at Christmas. I'll take a photo of both us, outside the fences, and put it on the piece."

  She laughed. "With, like, dead solemn faces?"

  "Absolutely. I'll even tag you in it."

  Big sigh. "Lita, I'm tired. It's okay for you; you've been knocking 'em back all night. I just want to get home, stick on a movie and get stuck into the Baileys."

  But I was on the kind of mission you adopt after twelve units of alcohol. "Pretty please, and you can have my non-dairy ice cream. It's the cherry one. There's a third of a tub left, and you can have all of it."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  She took a quick swerve off to the left, and a couple of minutes later her headlights lit up the sign saying 'Hope Village: 1 mile'.

  The narrow, one-lane road opened out, and at once the car was lit up by floodlights.

  "Fuck!" Kendall stopped the car, with a jolt. "I can't see bugger all!"

  I sat, waiting for my eyes to get accustomed to the light.

  The place was surrounded by high fences. There were guards. Three of them. All military and scary looking. That, I didn't expect.

  I felt a little whoosh of excitement. I'd been joking about the blog post, but all of a sudden I wasn't―except it wasn't going to be a piece of virtue-signalling schmaltz.

  Immediately, I regretted being drunk. I needed to remember all of this.

  We got out of the car.

  Two guards stood at the entrance gate, behind which was a large hut, about the size of a garage, with a sign that said 'Admissions'. The third guard patrolled up and down, inside, facing the vast buildings some two hundred yards away, across the grass. Lights blazed from some windows, but most were in darkness. I wanted to know what it was like inside. Who the people were, how they felt about being there.

  In the distance, I could just make out the movement of figures, see cigarettes being lit. Not something you see much, these days.

  Away from the cheery Christmas lights and shelter of the town, the night felt cold and raw, with that mid-winter, lingering, freezing sort of damp that you never normally notice because it's all wrapped up in the shiny red and gold of the season.

  "What's your business here?" one of them called out.

  "We're, um, just visiting," I called in reply. "Come to see a friend."

  "You need to be approved, and visits take place on Sunday afternoons only. Apply on the website. You’d best be on your way, ladies."

  Being the sort of girl who does as she's told, Kendall hesitated, and I sensed that she was about to go back to the car.

  "Cherry ice cream," I hissed in her ear. "Come on. Go chat them up for me."

  "All of it? You promise?"

  "All of it."

  Their eyes lit up as Kendall sashayed towards them, and I thanked Mother Nature for bestowing on her such beauty. I daresay if you woke up next to me you wouldn't kick me out of bed, but Kendall's the sort who, when she's pulling out all the stops, renders women like me utterly invisible.

  Her peach-painted lips turned up at the corners, and she let her faux leather jacket fall open to reveal a stunning expanse of smooth, light-tan cleavage; such was the rapt attention this gained that I reckoned an army of axe-wielding barbarians could have stormed the gates of the Hope Village with ease.

  "Can we visit you instead, then?" she purred. "We've just come to spread a bit of festive goodwill."

  She wore peach and olive green-patterned palazzo pants so generous in material that they looked like a long skirt, and high-heeled, black boots; she's always more confident in clothes that hide her thighs. Guard number three kept patrolling, with only the odd glance our way, but guards one and two were transfixed by her beauty, as she flicked her thick, sheeny hair over her shoulder.

  Guard One gave his mate a wink. "Breaks up the night, doesn't it? I'm Ray and this here's Amari." Ray had unremarkable features and sandy colouring. Amari was a big, handsome black guy. If we'd met them in a bar, I'd have got Ray.

  "Kendall and Lita."

  Oh boy. That's Kendall for you. Giving out her real name to strangers.

  Ray leant on the gate, goggle-eyed at her chest. "So what're you two really doing out here?"

  "Lita's a famous blogger," said my careless friend. "She's writing a piece about homelessness; Lita Stone, you've probably heard of her?"

  Now I was glad I was drunk. I'd had this all evening, but at least back at Highball she was bigging me up to people likely to know who I was. I gave an embarrassed smile and shoved my chin further into the funnel neck of my coat.

  Ray and Amari just looked at me blankly, but then Guard Three popped his head up, and let himself through the gate.

  "I know who you are," he said. "My Mrs, she's always on Twitter an' LifeShare when she hasn't got her nose stuck in a book; she'll say, 'Lita Stone says it's good, so I'll get it'."

  "Way to go!" said Ray. "We got ourselves a celeb!"

  I forced a smile. "Well, hardly―"

  Guard Three took out his phone. "Can we do a picture? For the wife?"

  I obliged. Next moment, Ray and Amari wanted pictures with Kendall, and then Guard Three decided he did, too, and while they were busy with one eye at the camera and one down her cleavage, I gathered my wits about me, and snapped off a few of the Village. I zoomed into the distance, which was when I saw a Nutricorp lorry down the side of one of the buildings. An outside light lit up the scene, and I watched men unpacking boxes, all of which bore the familiar logo.

  I wondered if the inhabitants of Hope dined on avocado smoothies and vegan pots-to-go. I guessed not.

  Guard Three, who said his name was Mitch, was the least interested in Kendall and the most impressed by my online notoriety, so I sneakily set my phone to record him answering my questions about Hope. A curfew is in place, he told me. No residents in or out after nine p.m., or before seven a.m., unless they have a work pass, and few of them have, because ninety-nine-point-nine-nine per cent don't have jobs, ha ha ha.

  I tried to gauge, in my inebriated state, how far I could probe. Brody tells me a few bits and bobs, but his contract forbids him to discuss either the cases of individuals or Hope's strategies, with civilians. Nevertheless, I always try to wheedle facts out of him. Last time I did so, he said, 'Look, they're fucking depressing places. You know I can't discuss most of what I do, so can we not, please?'

  Mitch, however, was more forthcoming. He didn't give a stuff about his contract, he said; he was handing in his notice as soon as his brother got his car mechanic business up and running.

  "Yeah, I don't mind talking to you. Just don't name me, okay?"

  Surreptitiously, I shifted the recording level to high.

  He told me that showers are taken on a rota, and meal times are set, in the canteen, with only two choices for dinner.

  "Meat based slop or vegetable based slop, with chips or pasta," he said. "You have to work in the kitchen or the laundry, or do cleaning or grounds maintenance, to get tokens to spend on fags, vaping products, sweets, soft drinks, that sort of thing. What it really means is that they're getting almost
completely free labour, instead of having to employ cleaners and cooks."

  "So, a bit like being in prison," I said, attempting an encouraging smile.

  "You're not wrong. Except that in prison you only have to share a cell with one person, and you get a TV if you're lucky. Here you can watch stuff on your own device, but only with earphones. On the upside, there's probably less chance of being raped in the shower." He laughed; I sensed he had made this joke before.

  Kendall was getting bored with Ray salivating over her tits, and said we had to go. I was good; I had enough for a piece.

  Back home, Nick was out. I found the whisky, Kendall ate the ice cream then got stuck into the Baileys like she was making up for lost time, and we put on one of the old Scream films because neither of us could be bothered to watch anything with a proper plot. I can't remember either it finishing or us going up to bed, though I have vague memories of Nick coming in, and laughing at me because I was so pissed.

  So now it's morning and we both feel like cack, though that doesn't matter too much because it's Saturday and neither of us is working, which means we don't have to shrug off our hangovers in order to appear, to the customers of Aduki and Zest, as if we actually eat the stuff we sell. It's definitely a lying on the sofa watching films day. Bliss. Seriously, there are few things I like more.

  Nick looks disgustingly healthy, and makes the coffee while I tell him what we got up to last night.

  Kendall says her Baileys headache is so bad it hurts to open her eyes.

  "And my chest hurts. I bet I've caught bronchitis. That's Lita's fault. Making me show my tits off to the guards just so that she could get her story." She gets out her phone and clicks on AutoDoc, that horrible little thing that tells you what might be wrong with you without you even asking it. Creepy in the extreme. "Look. I got an alert this morning. Says I might have costochondritis―whassat?―and I need more vitamin C. I thought there was vitamin C in cherries? What about all that cherry ice cream I ate last night?"

  "You need to get rid of that thing. Seriously."

  She's got first film choice. She's mad about horror of the group-of-teenagers-being-picked-off-one-by-one-by-bloodthirsty-madman type, usually set in a mountain retreat with no phone reception, but I can deal with that. It's fun to make bets on whose going to be killed next.

  Some time in the afternoon, when I've eaten my own body weight in cheese and tomato on toast, Nick comes out of his lair and asks me about the piece I want to write, based on our expedition last night.

  I'm half way through forming my mushy memories into some sort of order, when he stops me.

  "I don't think you should do it."

  My head is resting on a divinely soft cushion and I haven't even got the energy to lift it, let alone have a proper discussion, so I just croak, "Why not?"

  "'Cause it's too political. Lita Stone makes fun of social media trends, and reviews sci-fi books and face cream."

  "Yeah, well who's to say she doesn't want to write something a bit heavier?" Kendall says, pausing the film.

  He perches on the end of the sofa. "It's not just that. It'll have your name on it. You could even get those guards into trouble; it won't be hard for anyone to work out which Hope Village you visited, if they want to. And it's anti-government; it'll connect you to a whole new area of the internet."

  I think he's overreacting, but I take his point. He knows any piece I write is unlikely to say how fabulous Hope Villages are, and what great things Guy Morrissey is doing for the poor of our land.

  "Fair dos." I shut my eyes, and yawn. Right now I don't care about anything apart from him stopping talking so I can carry on watching the film, but I know tomorrow I'll be gagging to write my article. Then I open my eyes, see his boring into mine, waiting, and I get it. "You want to do it."

  "I do, yeah. It makes sense. Widow Skanky's anonymous, and hidden. No sources, no clue where it comes from."

  He's right, damn him. "Oh, okay." I reach over for my phone. "It's all on there. Knock yourself out." Never mind. I can take the piss out of flexitarians, instead; that's what Lita Stone does.

  When he's gone back into his room, Kendall snuggles further under her duvet and says, "It's just 'cause he doesn't want you to be a proper journalist, like he is."

  Gee thanks, Kendall.

  Widow Skanky says:

  Come on now, children, gather round! Today I'm going to explain why it's so important for you to work hard at school. No, stop all that groaning―this is important. You see, when you're a grown-up, like Mummy and Daddy, you need to know how to do lots of clever things so that men in suits will give you enough money to live on.

  Do you know what happens if they won't give you that money? I'll tell you―and yes, you there in the red jumper, you're right to look scared.

  If you don't have enough money to pay for your own house, you have to live in a nasty, scary Hope Village, where you don't even have a proper bedroom; you have to share with hundreds of others, who snore and fart all night and keep you awake. There are big guards to stop you going out to pick up a Chinese when you get the late night munchies. Food is like school dinners without the pizza, and you can forget your five-a-day. You can't even have a shower when you want one, but have to wait your turn behind all the other smelly people. Worst of all, you'll have to do horrid jobs like cleaning toilets just to get enough money for sweets, because Nutricorp is too tight to employ cleaners.

  Isn't that just dreadful?

  Beware, children: make sure you have skills aplenty when you leave school, or start being really nice to your rich relatives, otherwise you could find yourself bundled off into one of these World War II prison camps.

  At least back then you could look forward to being liberated by nice English and American soldiers in a few years' time―nowadays, though, it's the English and Americans who put you there in the first place.

  Extra homework, anyone?

  313,143 views. 93,456 likes. 18,934 dislikes.

  On Twitter it has over two thousand retweets and the usual sixty-tweet-long thread on which fans ponder Widow Skanky's true identity.

  Jensen says, "The Widow's been talkative today. Far more views than usual, too."

  Caleb Bettencourt takes the tablet from him; he reads, smiles, and hands it back. "A trifle, mate. He'll go too far one of these days; I'll know when the time is right, don't you worry."

  7

  Butterball Nation

  One year fades away, another is welcomed in, and I hang up the new calendar in the kitchen.

  Flu deaths follow the usual trend, i.e. up on this time last year, and I write a post about why this might be. I give statistics, not only of the deaths in previous years, going back to the final years of the last century, but the last government's stats about child and aged poverty, too.

  Is this too heavy for Lita Stone?

  I don't know, but it receives more views than anything I've written for six months.

  The 100 Best Blogs (subscribers: around ten thousand gazillion) puts it in the week's top ten, which results in more requests for advertising space. Because it's the first week of January―which is to the makers of diet aids as Christmas is to chocolatiers―requests flood in for me to review various products with the word 'detox' in the packaging. Most contain spirulina, wheatgrass, milk thistle, arugula, and Siberian cedar nuts, the beneficial properties of which, Cameron the nutritionist tells me, are exaggerated by many.

  Meanwhile, MoJo fitness centre ads and videos pop up on every site. If I see one more picture of MoMo's golden hair bouncing around her perfect bone structure as she patronises yet another group of the #UnfitForWork, I shall puke up my blueberry Nutribar.

  This year, the health food and diet product promotion seems more full-on than ever.

  #FitForWork trends on Twitter all day, every day.

  Which is probably why Mona Morrissey chooses this moment, when her fan base is at its most evangelical, to get controversial.

  It's such a clever move
that I could almost applaud her PR team, if the whole thing wasn't utterly sickening, and more than a little sinister, too.

  I've just got back from a weird morning at Aduki. The place was rammed with customers wanting to know the sugar content of absolutely bloody everything, and Esme seemed distracted; we were low on stock, too. I kept having to say, no, sorry, we don't have the vegan blueberry cheesecake or the mango and starfruit posset; how about a nice scone? I'm so relieved to be home, quiet and alone, and once more I thank the gods of rental properties for my good fortune.

  Kendall's at work, Nick's talking away in his room (he uses voice activated software to produce his articles, rather than typing), and as it's lunchtime I flop in front of the TV and get stuck into the brie and avocado panini that I threw together before we ran out of both fillings.

  I decide to take a look at Lunch Break. Four women presenters talking about 'issues' that are so obviously designed to appeal to the woman-at-home that they make me want to chuck stuff at the screen; not my usual choice of viewing, but, as I frequently remind myself, I cannot make authentic social comment if I know nothing of the concerns of Mr, Mrs and Ms Normal.

  Presenter Bonnie announces special guest time―woo-hoo, it's the First Lady herself. MoMo, in all her low-carb glory, here to publicise her work with the Department of Education to push the #FitForWork initiative in schools.

  Fair enough, I think at first, if it drags teenagers away from the video game console now and again, encouraging them to take exercise and eschew junk food. Ooh look, and they've brought on some real live schoolkids who've made New Year’s resolutions to attend after-school dance and fitness classes instead of dawdling home eating crisps. Glowing smiles and a sense of optimism all round.

  The whole studio hangs on MoMo's every word.

  Then presenter Lizzie introduces Kylie Jordan.

  I feel sorry for her as she walks on, and angry, too, because she is being used as a prop for MoMo. Kylie Jordan is at least three stones overweight, with massive thighs stuffed into too-tight jeggings, her scraped-back ponytail emphasising her moon-like face.