by Terry Tyler
"I am," Brody says.
"I always hoped the reason you never came back was that you'd found somewhere else to live. I see it on the news; some people, you know, they have jobs, but they still end up sleeping in those shelters because they can't afford the rent on even a single room."
"I know. That's how they get away with Hope."
"You shouldn't have been in that place. You and Nick." She wipes her eyes, and the sadness on her face nearly starts me off. "I'll get your letter. Don't worry; I kept it safe for you."
When she hands me the padded envelope that holds those pills and Andy's analysis, I am overcome by the importance of what I'm holding.
"I never looked inside," June says. "I wouldn't do that."
I smile, grateful, but I can tell she's itching to know what it is. Wouldn't you be?
"I can't tell you what it is, but it's going to help me tell the world about the monsters who run the Hope Villages. If that happens, you'll know about it. I'll make sure of that."
On the way home, fear hits me like a thundercloud. What do I imagine will happen if I publicly accuse Nutricorp and Hope Village of mass sterilisation, enforced miscarriage and possible murder? Will I have to go and live in Russia? Be in hiding, forever? Away from everyone I care about?
I voice my worries; even as I speak, they sound silly. I'm just an insignificant ex-blogger, not a whistleblowing CIA agent.
Brody stops the car. Rain falls on this bitterly cold, gloomy afternoon; I look out of the window onto empty fields, punctuated by nothing but old stone walls and an ancient-looking barn, way down the hill. There's not a person or car in sight; I have a momentary, half-fantasy about the world having ended.
"It's about how you'll feel if you do nothing. Not now, or next month, but in two years' time. Or five, ten years. Yes, you can carry on living at Lake Lodge and yes, we can have a good life there. You can forget all about Hope, keep Nick in a safe place in your heart, and just carry on. But every time you see a news story about those bloody places, you're going to feel angry with yourself, and wish you'd done something."
That annoys me. I hate people telling me how I'm going to feel.
"Or maybe I'll just be happy to be out of it."
"Yeah, there's that. It's up to you and what you feel is right."
I gaze out of the window again. "No pressure, then."
"Sorry. I'm just thinking about how doing nothing might affect you, long-term. Because you always spoke out, didn't you? Like when you saw the sinister side of the Kylie Jordan effect. Or when you knew those Nutricorp health drinks were a con, and Nick said you should have lied, but you couldn't, could you?"
"No." I sigh. "I still can't."
"Good." He draws me into his arms. "Down there, just a few miles away, and all over the country, thousands of families are having their futures decided for them, and they don't even know. If we do nothing, we'll be like the Beckys and Duncans and everybody else at Hope who thinks, yeah, maybe it's a bit weird that there has never been a pregnancy in the three years I've worked here, or that women pregnant on arrival all have miscarriages, but I'll turn a blind eye. They kid themselves that the Villages are a viable solution to a problem, like I did, at first. Lita, listen, because this is important: we can't stop a giant like Nutricorp in its tracks, but we can speak out. For the people who can't."
He doesn't say, for Nick and for Kendall's baby, but the words hang in the air.
"You're right. We're doing it."
"We are defined by the choices we make. That's all there is."
I rest my head against him, and think about that. I do want to be the person who does the right thing, not the safe thing. "Do you think I really might have to go into hiding?"
"Honestly?"
"There's no point in talking any other way."
"Yes, then. Otherwise you could have an 'accident'. Not one that can ever be proven, of course―like with Nick. But I'll be with you, whatever."
I draw back. "Will you?"
He kisses me. "Yes."
"You don't have to be."
He smiles, his eyes crinkling up, and I feel a gut-punch of love for him. I don't want to love anyone this much. It's not safe.
"I love you," he says. "It's you and me, now."
I grin at him. "Okay."
"Where you go, I go."
My eyes well up. "Fuck. Really?"
"Really. Just don't send me any more crappy emails. If you get cold feet, or something about me disturbs you, talk to me. Don't put two and two together and come up with a load of bollocks."
We laugh, and kiss. "Time to blow the whistle, then," I whisper, when we come up for air.
"It is." He turns round, and starts the engine. "And we need to have that other conversation I promised, too, but I'll wait until we're home."
Despite much begging, he refuses to elaborate.
"Patience, my love." He puts on some ancient bluesy jazz to drown out my pleading, but he's smiling, all the time, so I snuggle down in the seat, and enjoy the countryside flashing by, on that bleak, dismal, wonderful afternoon.
37
The Choices We Make
Brody's still got the secret smile thing going on when we get back. It's getting dark when we park up, and he takes my hand and leads me not to his or my cabin, but up towards Jaffa's house.
I feel the most glorious sense of home when we're walking up the path; lights shine from the windows of the cabins, warm and cosy against the biting cold of the gloomy winter evening. I don't want to leave here. There it goes, round and round in my head, again. I hardly think of the old flat with Nick and Kendall any more, but that might be because thinking of Nick is too painful.
Up the steps to the house, and Brody tells me to wait in the kitchen.
Molly, Sam, Anita and Morgan are in there, making tonight's vegetable curry and bread for the morning, and washing up. I take a cloth and start drying. The room is so welcoming, the long pine table already set for whoever wants dinner. I'm just thinking, again, what a glorious haven this is, when Anita, who has only been here a couple of months longer than Kendall and me, says, "God, I fucking love this place so much," and we all laugh.
I'm so lucky.
Brody appears at the door, and beckons me.
"Come on. Jaffa wants to see you."
I follow him up the stairs to the first floor, which houses five bedrooms and a bathroom. Up again to the second floor. Three more bedrooms. Then up again, to the attic level, which is, as far as I know, used for storage. It's Jaffa's personal space; no one comes up here, simply because they have no reason to. The overflow of residents' personal possessions is kept in a room on the second floor.
Brody digs out a key to open the door. It smells musty in here, like a second-hand shop, but not unpleasant. He switches on the light; it's packed high with old boxes, chests and furniture, leaving hardly a space under the sloping roof, apart from a clear path to a door at the other end of the room.
I know that's where we're going, and I feel nervous. Not Hope corridor nervous, but a little anxious, all the same.
He knocks.
"Come in!"
He opens the door, and I gasp in surprise.
The small room is brightly lit, and clean; it smells new, not like the room we've just come through. The most curious thing, though, is that it contains four desks, each with a laptop. Filing cabinets. A printer. Large noticeboards with a whole bunch of stuff stuck on them. Yes, it's an office. But Jaffa does the admin for Lake Lodge in her office on the ground floor. So what's this?
Jaffa sits at one desk, and another guy called Dennis, who I hardly know, is busy working at another. Jaffa stands up as we walk in, and she's smiling at me, in the same way as Brody.
"Wh-what is this?" I ask, looking around.
"If I tell you, do you promise to keep our secret?"
"Yes, of course, but―what are you, some sort of secret spy ring?"
She laughs. "No. Well, maybe just a little." She gestures at the desk
where Dennis works away. "Lita, welcome to J'accuse."
My jaw drops.
"It started when I left my old life. A friend of mine, Lucinda, started up a site to expose scammers in the publishing world. She was a writer; she began with the outing of vanity publishers who were conning vast sums out of naïve writers who thought they'd won a real book deal, proofreaders whose service consisted of running the book through spellcheck, that sort of thing. Then, when I became involved―anonymously, behind the scenes―it moved on to anyone who'd been scammed, or wanted to name and shame the perpetrators of injustice. We're not a legal body―we don't fight cases, because we want to preserve that anonymity, but we can direct you to those who can help. The people who contact us never see us or know our names, or where we're located; it's all done via the site, and it's not a money-making enterprise; it's only ever been run on donations. What we have is, as you know, a vast social media following. You want something out there, you come to us."
I look around me, almost expecting to hear lots of angry voices shouting out of the computers. "I can't believe it. You're J'accuse."
"Not many people here know. Yasmin does the graphics and other stuff you may find out about later, and Molly helps me write the site's content. Dennis has been working with me for ten years; he's my tech wizard."
Dennis turns round and gives me a thumbs up; he’s a tall chap, probably in his late fifties, dark, thin and bearded, and I've never had a conversation with him. He lives in the house and keeps himself to himself, though I've seen him in huddles with Jaffa on occasion, and wondered if they were a 'thing'.
"Dennis makes sure everything is rerouted around the world, via China, Jupiter, and the underside of a rock in the Australian outback, for all I know, none of which I absolutely understand, but he does, which is all that matters, because it's vital. Lucinda's not around any more; her life took a different path, that's all, so I became head honcho. Brody's been involved since he's been here, too; we get a number of complaints about Hope Villages."
Making a great effort to stop my mouth dropping with each new revelation, I turn to him. "But you didn't know about it before you moved here, though?"
"No. Even CJ doesn't know. It's a very, very well kept secret."
"I invited Brody into my lair after he told me of his disillusionment with Hope; he'd read a few theories about the lack of pregnancies in the Villages, and about their showcase mums being actors or computer generated, or whatever."
"Yeah, a few picked up on their LifeShare profiles being a bit iffy," Brody adds.
Jaffa nods. "We've been waiting for someone who had something concrete, though."
"Yeah, but I haven't. Unless Andy agrees to stand up and say, I'm the lab technician who analysed these samples, anyone could accuse me of making it up."
Just as I'm saying this, my phone bleeps in my pocket.
It's a text.
It's Andy.
Got letter. Gutted about Nick. Let me have a think. I'll get back to you.
I hold the phone up.
Brody says, "He's going to say yes. I feel it in my bones."
We are defined by the choices we make.
Am I strong enough to do this?
I've got to be.
Jaffa agrees that there is little point in moving forward without Andy, so now we just have to wait.
These next few days feel like a reprieve. Bonus days. A short time of freedom. Because if Andy does agree, I have no further excuse.
And once we put it out there, my life will change.
I go about my daily chores, but my mind is miles away.
I ask Jaffa how confident she is that 'the authorities' don't know who is behind J'accuse, and she said, "Pretty much, but one can never be entirely sure. Whether they know and see us as harmless, or are waiting for us to take a step too far―who knows? After all, if you're right about Nick, which I don't doubt for one second, they knew about Naked Truth, didn't they? And, I would imagine, who Widow Skanky was. From all you've told me, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the 'source' who outed him was actually associated with government."
"And Nick thought he'd got it licked."
"Exactly."
"So what makes you think Dennis is any better at covering stuff up?"
She pats me on the shoulder; she looks sad. "Dennis was able to track Naked Truth, too. I imagine they knew who Widow Skanky was for a long time before they decided he'd said enough; maybe they were just giving him enough rope to hang himself."
"So where does that leave me?"
For a moment she doesn't answer, but looks down at her hands, twirling one of her silver rings round and round on her finger. "We can keep you safe."
"How?"
She takes a deep breath. "We operate on a strictly need-to-know basis. Dennis knows a man who knows a man―who probably knows another man―who can provide passports. We have a couple of safe houses. Not in this country. If we go ahead with this, you will need to go to one, for a while. Until we consider it safe for you to return."
My mouth does that falling open thing again. "False passports?"
"Yes."
"You mean, a new identity?"
"On a temporary basis, yes."
"But how? Who?"
I can see how carefully she is choosing her words. "As I said, it's very much need-to-know. These people rely on absolute secrecy; if I can't guarantee that, they won't work with me. As for the safe houses, don't forget that I used to work in the media. I know people all over the world, some of whom have been involved with all manner of sensitive material; the network has built up over a period of decades, and it will keep you safe. You don't need to know any more than that, so please don't push me to tell you."
"No, course I won't." I shut my eyes for a moment. "I'm completely out of my depth here, aren't I?"
"Yes. Which is why it has to be your choice. Never mind any grandiose statements about doing the right thing; going up against Nutricorp is dangerous. It's about more than standing up for the downtrodden. If you speak out about what you know, you will be required to make a great personal sacrifice―don't kid yourself otherwise."
"I know." I really do, for the first time.
"I must ask one thing of you. You can't involve Kendall, in any way. By which I mean that you can't breathe a word to her. She's settled in extremely well, and she can stay here for as long as she wants to, but―"
"I understand. Discretion isn't one of her strong points."
"Precisely."
"I feel responsible for her, though."
"You shouldn't. She's a grown woman." She gives me a smile. "Brody thinks you want someone to be responsible for."
I laugh. "Do you two have lots of in depth conversations about me?"
"A few. I'm glad you understand about Kendall."
"I do."
"It may mean your not being able to say goodbye to her."
"Christ." I get up to look out of the window. Lights from the cabins gleam out through the night. Ours is in darkness, which means that Kendall is probably in the kitchen, enjoying that vegetable curry with her new friends. "This is like when people go into witness protection, and never get to see their families again, isn't it?"
"A bit. But it needn't be forever; the general election is next year, and although I daresay Guy Morrissey will be voted in for another term, who knows what will happen in the future? And Kendall's a great deal stronger than you give her credit for; she survived that godawful mother, and she adapted to life in Hope Village, didn't she? Better than you and Nick."
I lean my head against the window. "You're right. She did."
"Life's survivors aren't necessarily those who stride around, shouting about it. Sometimes, they're the ones in the background who accept change quietly, and just get on with living."
I turn around. "Right again. How do you know all this?"
"It's called 'being sixty-seven'." She gets out that precious piece of paper again, with Andy's analysis of the Nu-Pharm pills. "This is a
bsolute dynamite, you know that, don't you?"
Six days later
From an article on Global Online:
During a winter in which flu deaths are up once more, a spokesperson from the Department of Social Care has today announced that the number of cases reported within the Hope Village project is down again, decreasing yet further from the encouraging statistics of last year. Furthermore, homeless figures are down to a level not seen since the 1970s. Caleb Bettencourt of Nutricorp, the US conglomerate granted the contract to administer the Hope Village scheme, is quoted as saying that he is 'over the moon' about its success.
'Nutricorp is a hundred per cent committed to caring for the most vulnerable in our society, and providing them with new skills and coping tools to aid their progression towards a brighter future. Our success stories speak for themselves!'
Pictures of ecstatic Hope Villagers with beaming Beckys and Duncans are captioned thus:
Tim, 35, homeless for eighteen months, six months in Hope. Following an IT course, he has just landed a position as a Social Media Teamster with Nu-Media.
"Yay!" says Tim. "That's me doing a happy dance! I can't wait to move into the shared house that goes with the job!"
Josh, 47, and Lindsay, 45, homeless for four months, one year in Hope.
Josh says, "When the factory where we'd worked for twenty years went automated, we thought we'd never work again, but Hope gave us the opportunity to train as a Senior Care Providers. Our new jobs are so rewarding, and as soon as we've saved up a deposit, we're going flat hunting. We couldn't be happier."
Della, 21.
"I was kicked out of home when I was 15; I was in a dark place. I got picked up for vagrancy a year ago, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now, I'm off drugs, off drink and I'm training as a Nursing Auxiliary. Thank you, Hope Village!"
