Hope

by Terry Tyler

  "You should have waited for me, Nick." This is, of course, a pointless observation, because the post is already up and out in the world.

  "It's okay," he says. "It's the content that's important. And I knew that if I waited for you to cast your eagle eye over it, you wouldn't let me post it."

  "Oh, Nick." There is nothing to say.

  He pats his chest, catching his breath, pulls off his beanie and wipes his sweaty brow with his arm. "I'm sorry, mate, I just woke up and I thought, I can't wait any longer. If we creep around in the shadows, scared of them, we're buying into their game. I'm not scared, and I have a right to expose injustices. They don't know who Naked Truth is, anyway."

  "Are you a hundred per cent sure about that?"

  "Yeah."

  He doesn't sound too sure. "Well, couldn't you be unmasked, like Widow Skanky was?"

  "I guess." He gives a huge sigh, and looks up at the sky. "Bollocks to it, Lita; I had enough of not being able to say what I thought when I was writing for Global, and since I lost the Widow I feel this fucking frustration all the time, like I haven't got a voice any more."

  I put my arms around him, holding his warm, sweaty back. He feels hot all over, thin and bony. Brody was more solid.

  "I get it," I whisper into the side of his damp head. "I do. I'm just scared."

  "What's the worst they can do? Hang us for treason?"

  We sit down on the damp grass, and he takes my hand.

  "It's out there now; the internet will work its magic." He pulls his phone out of his pocket and shows me.

  It's entitled The Truth No one Is Telling You About Hope Village.

  Oh dear.

  "There. Look. It's been shared on Twitter seven times, and it's already got five hundred and twenty-three views. People love this stuff. By tonight it'll be everywhere."

  He hands me his phone so I can read it, but before I apply eyes to screen I look out into the calm, golden beauty of that peaceful morning, and I think, all this stuff on these devices of ours, I'm starting to hate it, all of it. The trouble it causes. If the internet went down tomorrow, it would all be gone, and good riddance to it. For so many years I've lived my life online, but I feel a sudden, intense yearning not to be a part of it any more. For a permanent Offline Day.

  "Go on, then." He looks excited, expectant.

  I start reading.

  It's awful. Written in the worst sort of tabloid style, it badly needs those two hours spent knocking it into shape.

  "I wanted to make sure it appealed to the common man, because that's its audience. Like, no long boring facts."

  "But you need the 'boring facts' to justify it."

  "Just read it."

  'When I first entered the dark portals of Hope Village, I wasn't the first person to notice that there were very few children. Very odd, I thought. And I am here to tell you that in the year I've lived here, not one child has been born.'

  It's not convincing, and the sentence structure is appalling.

  '... I can now reveal that I have had medication given to me analysed by a reliable source, who confirmed that in this medication are present certain elements known to cause sterility in men. Someone, or more than one someone, are doctoring our medication!'

  Oh dear. Was he channelling Dwork when he composed it?

  "It should be 'is doctoring', not 'are'."

  "Who cares? It's what it says that's important!"

  'Our human rights are at stake here. What right do this government have―'

  "And it should be 'does' this government have, not 'do'."

  He laughs. "I get that wrong all the time! The editors at Global used to give me hell about it."

  '...I have undertaken a thorough and lengthy examination of the pictures in the press of Mandy, Joley and the rest of the Hope baby families, and am convinced that they are fakes, made by computer programs like Populus and Humanoid. I am a hundred per cent sure that these people do not exist. Look at it this way―why would the powers that be need to go to the trouble of setting up these fake families, if they didn't know that in Hope, no babies are born?'

  He hasn't even backed it up with a proper analysis.

  "You haven't explained the stuff about the shadows, or the observations about the social media profiles."

  "I thought it was too technical; you'd get bored reading it. People remember bullet points―that's how to get the word out to the man in the street, not by long, detailed explanation."

  'I live in a Hope Village. I am seeing this happen, now, today, and it's time the world knew about it.'

  I hand the phone back to him without saying anything.

  "You don't like it."

  "It's not one of your better pieces, no. To be honest, it reads like an uninformed conspiracy theorist rant, and a first draft at that. Come on; you know you should never publish without a cool-off hour, at least."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. I just got myself fired up, walking over here, and I had to do it."

  "You should have let me see it first."

  He looks away, tucking the phone back in his pocket. "You wouldn't have let me post it at all. I know just what you'd have said. You'd have been all, no, Nick, now's not the right time, Naked Truth isn't the right platform―"

  "Damn right I would. You need to take it down."

  "And do what? Faff about for six months because you're too scared to do anything?" He gets the phone out again. "A thousand and seventeen views, and a ton of likes. Who cares if it's not well-written? Or that it's not verified? Most people aren't like you and me. They don't analyse. I've got the info out there, that's what matters, and it's straight from the horse's mouth, i.e. someone who actually lives in Hope Village, not just some twat latching on to gossip." He stands, and holds a hand out to me. "Shall we go see June, then?"

  I take his hand and we walk on, on this warm, idyllic September morning, but I am weighed down with depression. He's taken what we had, and wasted it on a daft, sensationalist post that will get passed around and talked about for a week or so, then forgotten.

  He did it out of anger and desperation. Because he can't see a way out of Hope. That, I do understand.

  Even more than before, I feel as if the world is closing in on me. There's a darkness in my heart, and I can't shake it.

  As we walk, Nick checks the views and comments, constantly, and keeps passing me the phone to look at them. Most are moronic. After a while, I put my hand up to imply that I don't want to read them any more, so he takes to reading them out to me, instead.

  I tune out. My neck is tense, I can't stop clenching my jaw, and it’s giving me a headache. I feel scared for all of us. Nick, for putting out this stupid post. Me, for involving Andy.

  I need to enjoy this day. To put my worries behind me and make the most of every last second of the early autumn sunshine, but I can't.

  We get back to Hope at about five. When I stand in the scanner and put my arms out, I'm overcome with an angry panic. I don't know exactly what the guards see on their screens, but I feel naked, exposed, violated at the thought of them being able to look under my clothes. This is no way to live. I've done nothing wrong, I'm not a criminal, I shouldn't have to go through this just so I can return to the place where I sleep at night.

  I rejoin Nick as our bags are handed back, and I feel choked up. Like if I open my mouth to speak, I'm going to start crying. Angry tears, not pathetic ones.

  We dump our bags and queue for dinner.

  "I wish you'd cheer up," says Nick, as we watch vegetable pasta muck being spooned onto our plates. "It's done, it's out there. Now we've just got to wait and see what happens when it goes viral. My bet is that Nutricorp are going to have to start talking."

  I don't answer. He's a journalist, for fuck's sake. He knows how easily accusations can be denied if there is no proof.

  After dinner we go to the com lounge, because there is nowhere else to go, and never before have I longed so much to be on my own. This is hell. I can't do it any more. I could
just go, leave my phone here so I can't be tracked, and see if I can get a benefit-funded place in a hostel. My own room where I can shut the door behind me. That alone would be heaven.

  If I can do that, it'll be easier to get a job. Start finding a way back for all of us.

  I'm curled up on one end of the sofa, thinking about this, when Nick says, "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I don't fucking believe it."

  I look up. "What?"

  "It's gone."

  He hands me his phone. Where the post used to be, on his blog, there is now a blank space with these words: Sorry, the page you are looking for does not exist.

  "Perhaps Cole took it down."

  "Could have." Nick busies himself texting. "No, he didn't. He said he just clicked on to look at the comments, and it was gone."

  I shut my eyes. "Are you surprised?"

  He makes a 'hmm' noise. "You don't sound too bothered."

  I don't answer.

  His fingers tap away.

  "What are you doing now?"

  "Contacting the blog."

  Twenty minutes later, he receives a generic email, with relevant information inserted in the appropriate places.

  'Reply to your query regarding The Truth No One Is Telling You About Hope Village. This post was removed from the YourSay blog site for the following reasons: Content deemed libellous. Content likely to incite domestic unrest. Your blog has now been flagged by YourSay.com censors. Any future material will be scanned for inappropriate content before publication can take place.'

  "That's that, then," Nick says, and shoves his phone back into his pocket. "We'll have to work on Plan B."

  "Yeah." I shut my eyes. I feel too depressed to even think about what Plan B might entail. I hear him talking about the whys and wherefores and where we go from here, but I'm not really listening. I keep my eyes shut, and imagine a beautiful beach. A green, sunlit glade. A hill, on top of which I look out onto a vast horizon; I read once that such visualisation can help feelings of anxiety. It doesn't work. 'Cause I know I'm here, not there.

  I start to drift into sleep; my thoughts jumble, the noise of the room mixing with the dreamlike pictures swirling in and out of my mind. When the sound of nearby voices jolts me out of this not unpleasant state, I want to cry. I'm so fucking miserable I don't know what to do with myself.

  I raise my heavy eyelids, and see a Duncan sitting on the opposite arm of the sofa, talking to Nick. They're sharing a quip; this Duncan is one of the better ones. Let's give him his name. He's―ah. His lanyard tells me he's called Cobain. No prizes for guessing who Mum's favourite band is.

  "Yep, sorry 'bout this, mate," he's saying. Super-chummy. "You'll get extra tokens, though!"

  "What's happening?" My voice comes out all croaky.

  Nick turns to me. "They want me to open up the laundry tomorrow. Six-thirty."

  "Three hours early? What the hell for?"

  "We've got the engineer guys coming in, to service the machines." Cobain-Duncan gives me his best smile. His yellow polo shirt is so bright it hurts my eyes. "They're coming at noon and Monday's mega-laundry day, so we need to get cracking; still, Nick gets paid double time for hours put in before nine, so it's a win-win, yeah?"

  "Great." I shut my eyes again, placing my arm across them to keep my world as dark as possible.

  I do my best to drift off again, but it doesn't happen. Instead, I lie with my eyes shut and listen to the bleeps and pings of whatever game Nick is playing on his tablet.

  Eventually, he squeezes my knee and tells me to wake up.

  "I'm turning in now. Got to get up at six," he says. He reaches for my hand. "Sorry I got it all wrong. I know it was my fault. We'll have a talk tomorrow, decide where to go from here."

  He leans down to give me a kiss goodnight on the cheek and for a moment I think he's going to kiss me on the mouth, but he doesn't. I kiss him back, smile and say goodnight, and hardly even notice him go.

  30

  Alone

  Another Monday morning. By a quarter to seven I'm in the bathroom block; it's my turn on the shower rota and I enjoy the feeling of hot water rinsing away the sweat from yesterday's walk, if not the cheap, pungent odour of Nu-Cleanse. By seven-fifteen I'm walking back out, and I see Kendall yawning in the loo queue.

  "Don't speak to me or I'll wet myself," she says. "I'm bursting!"

  I call out to the rest of the queue to ask if she can skip ahead, her being pregnant and all that. They say yes, of course. I shout to her that I'll get her breakfast, she shouts back that she wants a fried egg sandwich.

  When we sit down with our food, she asks me where Nick is, and I tell her that he's got an early start in the laundry.

  Melanie joins us with a new arrival called Tanya, who tells us that she lost her receptionist job, and subsequently her home, when she was replaced by an electronic system. She loved her studio apartment ('it was just a glorified bedsit, really') but it had its own bathroom so the DSC classed it as a flat, and said she had to move to one-room accommodation. She refused, so they would only pay a third of her rent. Eventually, like us, she fell behind.

  Just a normal Hope Village story. Just a normal day.

  We put our plates on the dirty trolley, I say goodbye to Kendall as she goes off to don her overall and start the washing up, and I trot off to Wardrobe.

  I have six bags of donated clothes to look through. It's a good haul; the stuff is clean and folded, and I mentally thank whoever donated it. I'm glad I'm busy. I keep my mind as blank as possible while I'm sorting through the clothes, because I've got to calm this anxiety that keeps hitting me like someone's standing on my chest.

  The Situation keeps creeping into my head, though.

  What next?

  I'm so deep in thought that I don't notice the door opening until I hear a cough; I look around and see Bex standing there.

  For once, she's not smiling.

  "Hi," I say. "Can I help?"

  She gives me a hesitant, wonky sort of smile, and moves closer. "Lita," she begins, reaching out and touching my shoulder. I flinch; I don't want her touching me.

  "What?"

  "Lita, I'm so sorry, there's been an accident."

  The anxiety's back. That foot on my chest. "What? Is it Kendall?"

  She bites her bottom lip; she looks as though she's going to cry. "Not Kendall. It's Nick. In the laundry. First thing."

  "What?" My stomach dissolves. "What sort of accident? What's happened?" I grab her shoulders. "Where is he? Is he okay?"

  Her eyes are huge and watery, and her words come out in a jumble, breathless. "I'm so sorry. Lita―they said―you know, he was on his own in there, 'cause he'd gone to open up early, hadn't he? And when Rexy went in to start work at eight-thirty he found him. Just lying there." She begins to cry. "Rexy thought he'd just passed out so he raised the alarm and the medical staff came but he was already gone, and Doctor Kacszynski said it was that sudden death syndrome, it's, like, a totally unexpected cardiac arrest, there was nothing anyone could have done or―"

  And then all I know is that I'm shaking her and shaking her, she's yelling and crying, and then I'm curled up on the floor and this dreadful, scary howling noise is coming from somewhere deep inside me, I've pulled down a rail of clothes and they're all on top of me, and Bex is shouting, yelling out for help, pressing fucking buzzers, and I hear footsteps thundering into the room, and lots more shouting, and people are pulling me up, but I'm fighting them off, then there's a sharp sensation in my arm and my whole world goes black.

  I'm in a bed. Not my bunk bed.

  Kendall's here.

  She's got her arms around me and she smells of sweat and chips.

  I wish she'd get off. Her body feels heavy on me, and somewhere in the distance I can hear that she's crying, too.

  Nick's dead.

  I'm all alone.

  They killed him. I know they did.

  I push Kendall off, and I can hear myself yelling, screaming about them killing Nick, and Kendall
is trying to stop me―

  ―shh, Lita, stop it you've got to stop it you mustn't say all that crazy stuff you'll get yourself in trouble―

  ―but I don't care because it's true.

  Footsteps and strong arms. Another jab makes me yelp, and it all floats away again.

  I dream about Brody, talking in the kitchen about Jaffa.

  I'm crouching down, in the dark, behind the door, but I'm much smaller, and it's not Brody and CJ, it's that other time, when I was ten.

  That other time, when I crouched behind another door and heard the mummy and daddy talking. The mummy said I had to go because Georgina didn't like me, and the daddy thought it was a shame because I was a sweet kid and Georgina might get used to me, but the mummy said she had to put her own child first.

  The daddy said, "She'll be heartbroken. She loves old Tommy," and I did, I loved the dog and he loved me. He was a big, scruffy, friendly collie who slept on my bed and panted at me, and his face looked like he was smiling.

  I loved him so much.

  I cried and cried and begged them to let me take him with me back to the orphanage, but horrible Georgina laughed, and said, don't be stupid, he's our dog, not yours.

  But he wanted to come. He tried to get into the car when the daddy took me back, and howled when he wasn't allowed. The daddy gave me a picture of him to take with me, and I kept it under my pillow for a long, long time.

  I cried thinking about Tommy missing me, too.

  That was the first time my heart was broken. It mended, when I was older and realised that Tommy would have forgotten me long before I forgot him, but it took a long time.

  When I was a grown-up I thought about getting my own dog, but I knew I would love him too much and I couldn't bear that heartbreak all over again.

  I wake with tears streaming down my face, and I cry for Tommy, and Brody, and I even cry for poor little sixteen-year-old Lita being laughed at by the other girls when her first love melted into a mist of lies, but most of all I cry for Nick, and it hurts so badly that when a nurse rushes in and gives me a pill, I swallow it just so I can fade to black.