by Terry Tyler
I know. She's great. I'm so damn lucky.
Why will he tell Jaffa about me, but not me about Jaffa?
I thought I could cope with him shagging someone else if I didn't know about it, but―oh, I was kidding myself, wasn't I? It hurts, badly. Especially as this woman is obviously very important to him.
I face up to my own feelings, at last. Too late.
I'm in love with him, although I've tried so hard not to be.
So did he just want a farewell bunk-up, tonight? For old time's sake?
Would he have told Jaffa, if we'd had one?
Fucking stupid name.
My chest screams in pain.
Brilliant timing, Brody.
The tears hurtle down my face as I creep back to the cold, quiet living room. Dear Kendall and Nick. The only people I can truly trust. I clutch my stomach, doubling up as I reach out in the dark for the sleeping bag that covers the mattress, and curl down underneath it, screwing myself into a ball and sobbing my heart out.
I didn't know it would hurt this much.
I didn't know I was in love with him, but I do now.
CJ makes us coffee and breakfast in the morning, and I stare at her to see if she's avoiding my eyes. You're about to be dumped, girlfriend. She gives me a couple of weird looks. Then again, that could just be because I keep staring at her.
"I've got to go to work now, but Brody's upstairs on the blower, seeing if he can sort you out a place. Best of luck, you guys."
Yuk. Anyone who addresses a group of people as 'you guys' is straight off my Christmas card list.
Put that in your Grey Goose glass and drink it, CJ.
Sitting on my mattress on the floor, clutching my mug of coffee, I am transported back to every bad foster home I ever lived in. The weirdo in the corner. Unwanted, superfluous, begging for scraps.
A moment of clarity tells me it's why I preferred life online, where thousands of anonymous people told me I was great, worth something, where there were only words and nothing could hurt me. Who gives a shit about me, now, though? Lita Stone is dead.
Luckily, Kendall and Nick don't want to do anything except drink coffee and stare at the TV. I can't cope with conversation, either.
Brody comes down at about ten o'clock. His face tells me that he does not bring glad tidings, but we're used to bad news. We just look at him, in silence.
"Right," he says, perching on the edge of the sofa. "I won't soft-soap it. I can't get you a flat or a place in a hostel because the priorities are the old, and families with children. You're determined to stay together, aren't you?"
"I can't do this without Nick and Lita," Kendall says.
"No, that's what I thought. Okay, then, I'm afraid the only option is a Hope Village, but I've found you a decent one. The bad news is that it's two hundred and eighty miles away. In Northumberland. Good news is that it's one of the best ones. You could go closer to home in Leicestershire or Northants, but they're not very―"
"Northumberland's okay," says Nick. "I don't give a shit where I am." He looks at both of us. "Do you?"
The further away the better, as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to be anywhere that reminds me of all the places I knew when I was a proper person.
"It's only temporary, I promise," Brody says. "I'm on the case. Everything is going to work out fine. Trust me."
Yeah, yeah. Everything's going to be just fine. He promises. So Brody's doing the platitude thing too. I thought he was better than that.
He sends travel permits to our phones and orders a taxi to the station on his Cabz account; we'll be met at Berwick-upon-Tweed by a Becky or a Duncan, except that he doesn't say 'a Becky or a Duncan' because that was one of our in-jokes that belonged to happier times. He says 'a Client Liaison Officer', with a straight face, like he's talking to someone he doesn't know.
Then, all there is to do is say goodbye.
He tries to put his arms around me but I move away, so he talks, instead, about emailing and coming up to visit me; I just need to be patient. He actually sounds sincere, but all I want to say is why didn't you tell me?
He goes to kiss me but I turn my face so his lips make contact only with my cheek. He looks hurt, and I don't know why, when it's he who is holding back secrets from me, but I can't deal with any of it.
It's better just to stay dead inside.
The taxi arrives, and Nick and Kendall say thank you to him, and wave, but I don't look back.
21
Hope
Under other circumstances I might have laughed, and texted Brody to share the joke, because the Becky-or-Duncan who meets us at the station is actually called Becky. Well, it's 'Bex', anyway.
"Short for Becky, short for Rebecca!" she chirps at us.
Like we care what her stupid name is short for.
We don't smile. We don't react, at all.
We know so well the empty eyes of the newly homeless. We have been evicted from civilised society, but this brings with it a blessed freedom from social niceties, such as tedious small talk.
Bex can ask us questions, pretend to be friendly, and we can just stare, unresponsive, because we don't care what she thinks, because we won't lose anything by not acting in a socially acceptable fashion; there is nothing left to lose.
It makes me feel almost powerful.
She chatters away as we drive out into the countryside, going on about the training programmes that will provide real opportunities to diversify in our career expectations, and the Fit For Work classes that will equip us with optimum chance of success in those all-important medicals.
Anyone would think she was taking us on a corporate team-building weekend.
"And you're in the best possible place to achieve all this―last year Hope 37 came out in the top five of all Villages, countrywide!" Quick swerve to avoid a Nu-Pharm lorry. "I'm so lucky to work there; it's somewhere I can really make a difference, you know?"
As she turns up a side road, I think, fucking hell, this is it. This is really fucking it. Up until this moment I was still hoping for the reprieve that would surely come. For the king to thunder up on his magnificent steed, courtiers in attendance, and announce that no, we are not to be beheaded after all.
But the king has stayed home today.
The narrow road looks as though it might lead to a private country house, but I know better. It widens out, and I see it. Our new home, hidden from MoMo's Britain by trees. Huge, grey, one-storey buildings with few doors and windows. A fence around the outside, not quite high enough to give the impression of a prison. It looks like a small industrial estate.
She slows down as we approach a barrier, leans out and presses her hand onto a small screen, and the barrier is lifted.
"First things first; we'll get you registered at Admissions!"
Yippee.
Admissions is a garage-sized edifice at which we must present ourselves in order to exit or enter the Village, Bex says; here, we will be scanned and searched to make sure we are not taking out or bringing in weapons, alcohol, drugs or any other prohibited item. It's warm, at least; we sit on hard chairs and wait to be seen.
We don't speak.
This is just too fucking awful.
I'd rather be sleeping in that church.
Brody, why did you send us here? Why did we agree to come?
Because we have nowhere and nothing else. It's nearly winter, and this is all there is.
I think for a moment of him, soon to be curled up with Jaffa in his new home, and it hurts so much that I blink, hard, repeatedly, to dispel the image. I can't picture her, anyway; the name 'Jaffa' conjures up a clown with bright orange fluffy hair.
We sit in a line, backpacks at our feet.
Nick is called in first. When he returns, after twenty minutes, I ask him what it was like.
He shrugs. "What you'd expect. Intrusive shit."
The ever-smiling Bex leads me into the registration room, and I have my fingerprints taken and a sample of my DNA, for their r
ecords, they say. Then there's the bag search and full body scan to prove I don't have an AK-47 or a kilo of smack stuffed down my knickers. I'm given an identity card to present at my medical later in the week, and am asked basic questions to be enlarged upon at my reception interview tomorrow, such as whether I have any food allergies.
"Actual allergies," says the bored Duncan in the green polo shirt. He looks about seventeen. "Like, not just preferences."
I say that I don't have any allergies but don't eat meat and avoid dairy when possible, and he tells me there will be vegetarian options available at all meals, but non-dairy? Forget it.
Once Kendall has been processed, smiling Bex beckons a Duncan to take Nick away, then leads Kendall and me to the dorms.
Fucking hell. Fucking hell times thirty. The female dorm is vast, like a warehouse with rows and rows of bunk beds. Each has two lockers underneath for personal property. Good thing we've hardly brought anything with us; there's scarcely room for our clothes and toiletries. There are sockets in the floor by each locker, with USB connectors. Bex points them out like it’s a super bonus feature that we should be excited about.
Kendall and I are shown to a spare bunk in the middle of the room.
"Sheets are changed once a week; you strip your bed each Monday morning, and remake it yourself with the clean linen provided."
It's after five in the afternoon and many bunks are occupied; women lie down, scrolling through their phones or watching stuff on tablets, with earphones in.
A few read paperbacks or those horrible cheapo magazines with titles like True Chav Drama and Incestuous Scumbags Weekly that contain articles about girls who've had babies by their ex-con grandfathers.
Others chat.
A few smile and nod at us.
Many just lie, staring at the ceiling or the bunk above.
They all look depressed. Like they've given up. Not bouncing up and down with enthusiasm about diversifying their career expectations.
"Where are the kids?" asks Kendall.
Smiling Bex's head whisks round. "Beg pardon?"
"The kids. There aren't any children."
"Oh, they'll be in the family units." Bex pats her on the shoulder. "Don't worry, it's not true that we eat them for breakfast. Ooh―bad joke, sorry! But, yeah, the family units currently house no less than forty-two families who've fallen on hard times―and we're looking forward to the patter of tiny feet; a lovely lady came in only last week, who was revealed to be two months pregnant! With a bit of luck, she'll put us on the map―our very own baby Soraya!"
We look at her, blankly.
"You haven't seen baby Soraya?" Phone out, swipe swipe, and an eight-second video of a young Asian man and a pretty young blonde woman is thrust at us. They're standing in a garden, smiling their heads off, and cradling a gorgeous baby girl.
"That's Mandy and Khalid; they're all over social media, I'm surprise you haven't seen them!"
I say, "Yeah, well, social media hasn't been much of a priority for us, lately."
She composes her face into a horribly exaggerated expression of sympathy. "No, of course not. I do understand. Look, though; Mandy and Khalid met in one of the Leicestershire Hopes, and their lives have exploded." She gazes at her little screen in stunned yet admiring disbelief. "It's immense; the whole country's fallen in love with baby Soraya!"
We continue to stare blankly, and she puts her stupid phone back in her pocket.
"Now, if you'd like to get settled, put your stuff in your lockers, I'll show you the bathroom block, the community lounge, and the learning centre!"
Everything she says has an exclamation mark on the end of it. Still, that's better than a question mark. I suppose.
The bathroom block is huge, white, and stinks of disinfectant. We get to shower only every other day. Even in the summer, after we've been doing physical work. The community lounge is horrible, a massive, echoing room with pool tables and a 'bar', though alcohol is not permitted in the Village.
Cigarettes are, though; there are smoking shelters outside. Perhaps they're trying to kill us off.
The education centre is horrible, too. It's all horrible. I see rooms with desks and old fashioned laptops which, Bex tells me, have been donated.
I ask if we can go out. If we can leave.
"Of course you can; it's not a prison! But you will be assigned jobs, and then there's your courses and your Fit For Work sessions; aside from anything else, though, Lita, if you're always popping out, here and there, you'll lose out on the benefits of the community lifestyle."
Aside from anything else, though, Bex, the place is several miles from the nearest village, and I only saw one bus stop on the way here, about two miles away. Ah. Now I see why Hope is built in the countryside. It's not just so that we're hidden away from decent folks. It's so we have nowhere to run.
It's horrible, horrible, horrible, and it's our home.
We meet up with Nick in the canteen, for our evening meal.
He puts an arm around both of us; Kendall presses her face into his chest and starts to cry.
"Chin up, sweetheart," he says. "We've got each other, right?"
Our induction means we're late, and there's not much left. I eat pasta with a vaguely tomato tasting sauce, with a few things in it that might be courgettes. Kendall and Nick have pie and chips.
"What's in the pie?" I ask.
"Dunno." Nick lifts up the lid. "Something brown. Probably dog."
After dinner we play Scrabble in the community lounge, then go back to our dorms. Lights out at eleven.
This is it, then.
"I thought you ought to know, sir. There's been a rise in comment this quarter."
Caleb Bettencourt does not look up. "In what form?"
"Conspiracy theory blogs, mostly. We The People, Uncovered, Flashlight; the usual suspects. Shares and lots of, er, 'likes'." Jensen bobs his forefingers, a tentative suggestion of inverted commas around the word.
Caleb sits back. "Send me links to the worst offenders, and I'll shut them down before Uncle Paul sees them."
"On it."
"The Widow is silent now, I take it?"
"Oh yes, sir. Safe and sound and enjoying Village life." Both men laugh. "Naked Truth is still chattering away, but not about anything that concerns us."
"Good." He links his finger behind his head, bites his lip. "Okay, we'll do another media splash; get the ball rolling before Paul gets his Calvins in a twist. One in the south and one in the north."
"Any specifications?"
Caleb frowns. "One couple leaving the Village because the male partner has got a job―"
"Or the female partner. We haven't done house-husband yet."
"Nice, I like it. The other couple can stay in their Village because one of them is doing an online degree, yada, yada, you know the spiel. One white couple, one white man-black woman, I think."
"What about disabled?"
"No, that's trying too hard."
The men laugh again.
"Alex has created some amazing new mixed-race images," says Jensen. "C34 has gone down a storm―Mandy's got over two thousand friend reqs on LifeShare, and they're constantly trending on uChat. Oh, and you'll like this. Soraya has entered the top one hundred names for baby girls, straight in with a bullet at number seventy-seven."
Caleb Bettencourt throws back his head in mirth. "Now that is funny! What a beautiful name, darling; who were you named after? Why, a Charagen image!"
Part Two
The Village
22
Abandon It, All Ye, etc.
Three months later
I don't know if it's good or bad, the ease with which we've settled in. Good, because it shows how adaptable one can be, but bad, because we've accepted this hell as our new normal.
Or is it such hell? We're relatively safe and probably better fed than we might be if we lived in an impoverished Indian village, in a bamboo hut in the last remaining square foot of the Amazon rainforest, or und
er a bridge in Manchester.
The difference is that in any of those places, we'd be free.
I learn much from my fellow inmates about other Hope Villages in which they've stayed; some requested transfers to Hope 37 from the worse ones. Such a request will only be granted if you've earned good behaviour credits: working hard, attending #FitForWork, not punching anyone in the face, etc.
Even Hope has its social hierarchy; I detect the odd whiff of imagined superiority over those denied such a transfer.
Our bunk bed has become our home. I have the top; we agreed to take it in weekly turns, but this never happened because I couldn't stand listening to Kendall moaning every time she had to climb on and off.
The heating is switched off at lights out, so we sleep in hoodies, sweatpants and thick socks.
The (excruciatingly loud) alarm goes off at seven each morning, which means a quick dash into the cold, dark morning to the bathroom block next door, to queue for the loo; if you're wise, you set your own alarm for six-thirty. It's worth losing half an hour's sleep not to have to stand in a queue with a bursting bladder for twenty minutes. You take a shower if it's your turn on the rota―depending, also, if you are down for morning or evening shower―then stand in the breakfast queue.
There's a lot of queueing here.
Work starts at nine-thirty. I've got a cushy number in Wardrobe, which means I have to sort through donations, put stuff aside for mending or laundry, iron, price, and hang up according to size and gender. I quite enjoy it, actually. Nick's in the laundry, which he hates, and Kendall's in the kitchen, which she likes because she can get more to eat, and another reason that I'll get to later. We're paid with tokens, which we can exchange for clothes, make-up, cigarettes and vaping products, soft drinks, sweets, batteries, phone costs and Amazon credit. The 'shop' is in the canteen. I use most of my tokens on Amazon credit, for new audio and ebooks.
Twice a week, in the afternoons, we have two hours of classes. Kendall's doing English grammar, Nick's learning Photoshop. He loves it, and spends much of his personal time watching tutorials on YouTube. Thus, the Beckys and Duncans think he's great, and tell him he's got a great career ahead of him in ebook cover and social media avatar design.
