by H M Sealey
“I don’t believe I’m right.” River says. “But I don’t believe you are either. I don’t believe any human being is ever completely right.”
“Now you’re not making sense.”
“In fact, half the time, I think the whole human race is intrinsically evil and it’s getting worse!”
I clutch the edge of my chair. Human nature isn’t spoken of in those terms, it isn’t allowed. When people do bad things, it’s because of poverty, or lack of privilege, or because they’re hitting back at the patriarchy. NuTru’s answer to everything is to throw money at it.
Ms. Chalmers staggers over-dramatically to the wall where there are a number of plastic pouches, each containing a different form. There are forms to authorise detention, or extra work. Forms to allow us to visit the toilet, or to go to the doctor. The staff here spend half their time filling in bits of paper. Every action has to be noted and dated and counter-signed. There are always lawyers sniffing around, especially here.
“I’m sorry dear, but I feel I must deal with your prejudice head on. I’m going to recommend more than just psychiatric treatment this time. Much as I hate to admit it, sometimes when we’re heading in a dangerous direction, only a short, sharp shock can bring us back from the brink.”
I watch Ms. Chalmers remove a red-topped form from the bottom pouch. She doesn’t use these ones much, they’re pretty serious. She takes out a pen and pushes her glasses back onto her nose.
“Do you understand why I’m doing this dear?”
River’s expression doesn’t change. “You don’t like the way I think so you’re going to authorise someone hitting me until I stop thinking that way.”
“No. No, it’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that. Hypocrite.”
That genuinely shocks her. “What?”
“Why is this any different from how they tortured witches to make them repent and become good Christians? Why should I repent and believe your religion?”
Ms. Chalmers gives a surprised little laugh. “Dear, nobody here has that sort of religion.”
“You do. You have a belief system that you’ll defend with your life, that you believe is the truth and you think if everyone just thought the same way as you do, there’d be peace. That’s no different to every other religion out there.”
We all watch in utter silence as Ms. Chalmers frog-marches River from the room, determined to defer to someone more senior. River has been accused of prejudice and hate. They’re about the worst crimes of all. Worse than killing in society’s eyes. Prejudice does more harm than murder. I think that was another of Diana Lamont’s little gems. I always wondered how the family of a murder victim felt about that.
Then again, when families no longer exist, I suppose there’s nobody to mourn death. Whereas the whole of society can become comfortably infuriated with prejudice and rant about it on Twitter without the inconvenience or pain of grief.
~
Elsie
I stare at the Bible on my lap, wondering in horror whether its very presence could contaminate me. It’s such a small book, it’s hard to believe the content is so dangerous.
Slowly, very slowly, I open the cover and gaze down at the front page. It’s yellow and dog-eared, and, to my surprise there are pencil marks all over the frontispiece. Scribbled words and strings of numbers that don’t mean anything. I frown and look more closely. There’s a name I don’t know scrawled in pencil, Sylvester Jourdete, and an address.
The address is next door. I don’t even know the old man next door. Why would his bible be here?
I knock it off my knee quite suddenly and leap up in case it bites me or poisons me, my heart thuds and I feel sick. I wonder what to do? How to get rid of it?
Remembering the locket, I transfer my attention back to that for a moment and wonder if it’s Gran’s. I run my finger over the carved flower on the front, it’s very pretty.
Then I find the tiny button and open it up. There are photos inside, four faces, a man, a woman and two children. The woman looks very like me, red hair and too many freckles, her nose wrinkled up in a smile.
I stare into her face and she seems to stare back with eyes very like my own. The male face beside her is darker, with ink-black hair and eyes like the night sky, sort of bright and shiny.
On the other side, on a tiny photograph cut into an oval to fit into the locket, is a picture of a boy of around ten and a girl maybe five or six years younger. I feel my breath catch in my throat. I remember him! I remember my brother! I remember his sandy-brown hair and his wide, green eyes. I remember the way he used to hug me close, and let me win at Snakes and Ladders. How did I ever manage to forget him?
So the little girl with red hair in bunches and a fringe too long for her face is me.
I stare and stare dumbly into the locket. Gran doesn’t have any pictures of me before I came to live with her. In my head my life doesn’t officially begin until then. I remember so little before that. I barely remember the people in this picture. My family. Mine.
“How could you?” I whisper, looking into the blue gaze of the woman. “How could you choose a dangerous ideology over your children?” She must have been breathtakingly selfish or else deluded. She ruined everything.
A tiny piece of paper falls out of the locket, a screwed up knot really, so small I almost dismiss it, but I take it in my hands and unfold it, smoothing it out and gazing down at the tiny handwriting curiously. Family Matters. Trust these people it says.
I stare at the words for a few moments, feeling peculiarly conflicted inside. Clearly I couldn’t trust them because they didn’t do a very good job of looking after me.
I re-fold the paper, place it back in the locket and click it shut. Despite how angry I feel about my mother’s choices, this locket is the only link I have to a piece of my past so I stuff it into the pocket of my dressing gown. Then I look at the bible as though it’s some lurking monster.
“If you belong next door, then you can damn well go back” I tell it, clambering to my feet and snatching up the bible. I should burn it or bury it, only it’s not mine to burn. Instead I put it in the other pocket; I’d feel less wicked if I were carrying a gun.
Determined to remove this offensive work of literature from my home, I clamber back over the sofa, push my feet into my slippers, and slide back into the cool, dark garden.
I blink and gaze around in the half dark, illuminated by a strip of pale lamplight creeping through the French windows. I don’t want to go to the front door, even carrying a bible could invite trouble and so I head for the fence that divides the two gardens.
It isn’t high, and the stump of the old cherry tree makes an ideal stool, allowing me to peer into next door’s garden. It’s neat and well-tended, like Gran’s, full of all sorts of fruit and vegetables that are rarely grown in this country any more. The carrots and lettuces are in tidy rows and the red-flowered beans climb enthusiastically up wigwams made of garden canes, they all look healthy, which means the old man next door must use a lot of water. I wonder how he acquires it?
Using the cherry-tree stump as a step, I swing my body up, over the wooden fence, catching my dressing gown on a nail and tearing a hole in it. The sound of ripping fabric sounds loudly in the dark and I keep my response to an angry hiss.
I scramble across the vegetable patch and my foot disappears into something soft with a pungent smell. With a groan of disgust I realise that our next door neighbour fertilises his garden with horse-dung. Grimacing, I tug my bare foot free, my slipper is swallowed up in the manure and I’m not sure I want it back.
Pulling myself out of the manure and onto the patio by the French windows, I shake the worst of the filth from between my toes. I’m cross now. How dare this Sylvester Jourdete leave something so incriminating in Gran’s house! I should throw the thing in his face!
But I can’t walk into someone else’s house with horse-poo all over my leg can I? That’s trespassing. I don’t know the old m
an next door, I only know he’s old and a man. He doesn’t interact with the neighbours.
Taking a quick breath, I pad into next door’s conservatory. It’s a nice room with an old fashioned rattan three-piece suite and several large plants in tubs. I mean really large plants in tubs, plants with enormous, tropical leaves and huge flowers. How on earth can anyone water plants this size? A few people keep cacti on their windowsill, and Gran has a little orange-tree for the fruit, but these plants? These don’t look like they produce food. I count quickly. Fifteen. Fifteen plants larger than I am, each sitting in at least twenty litres of soil. Wet soil.
Forgetting the bible, I reach out and touch the emerald-green leaf of a plant that must be eight feet tall. It’s like a tropical rainforest here, it even smells lush and wet.
“That’s a cheese plant. Or a Monstera Deliciosa to give it its proper name. I’ve been growing it for thirty years.”
I turn suddenly, realising I’m trespassing, wearing nothing but a dressing gown, one slipper, and walking manure onto the carpet. Rude does not adequately describe my behaviour.
“Oh. Oh golly! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
I find myself facing an old man. A man with thin, grey hair and a heavy moustache. He’s wearing a dressing-gown too, one with a red and gold paisley pattern, and tartan slippers. He’s smiling, and it looks like a nice smile.
“That’s fine, honestly. You’re Barbara’s granddaughter aren’t you? You live next door.”
I nod. “I....I found something, I think it’s yours.” I glance at my leg. “I stood in your manure. I’m sorry.”
The old man laughs. “It’s nothing that won’t come off with a bit of water.”
“That’s why I’m sorry.” Nobody has a lot of water to waste cleaning. Or to water a selection of giant plants. Not unless they’re stealing it from somewhere.
“It’s really fine. Can I offer you a drink? Tea or coffee?”
I’m surprised by the offer. People are less willing to offer drinks to strangers these days.
“Um. I wouldn’t mind a coffee?” The whole Gran thing has shaken me more than I realised.
“Come through to the kitchen. I would get my wife to make them, but that would be dreadfully sexist of me. So you’ll have to suffer my ham fisted attempt at a good coffee.”
The old man leaves the conservatory and I follow, curious and uncomfortable all at once. He looks old, but he’s very sprightly, he moves as smoothly as I do.
“So how is Barbara?”
Smuggling people out of the country without telling me. “Fine.”
“Good, good. Lovely lady your grandmother.”
“Yes.”
I walk into the kitchen and barely suppress my gasp. The windowsill is crammed with seedlings and there’s a palm tree in a pot as tall as the ceiling in the corner.
“You like my plants?”
“I uh – how on earth do you manage to water them?”
“We have a well, in the garden. It’s very deep. It was here long before this drought began and it’ll be here when the drought lifts. In the meantime, it serves us very nicely.”
“A well?”
“Yes. There aren’t a lot left today are there?”
“Like a wishing well?”
“Something like that.”
“And you’re just allowed to keep it?”
The old man fills the kettle liberally, without checking the volume of water. “I own this house my dear.”
That shocks me. “I didn’t think people owned property any more.”
“They don’t, not usually. NuTru’s socialist utopia doesn’t allow private ownership of very much does it.” He smiles at me again. “Don’t look so surprised. Actually, I lied to you. My wife owns this property and her family owned it before. She was able to apply for special dispensation.”
Special dispensation? I wonder what he means by that
The old man gives a happy sigh. “We have plants in every room. My mother was very fond of her plants.”
“They’re lovely.”
“I think so. It’s been such a pity, watching the gardens dry up.”
He places a spotty mug on the table and adds a sugar-bowl and milk-jug.
“Now, there should be some biscuits here somewhere. My wife makes the nicest oat cookies imaginable.” He opens a cupboard with a pale, wood laminate door and starts to pull out the tins, hunting through each one.
“The purple one Sylvester sweetheart.”
There’s a woman in the doorway; a pretty woman in a loose, silky kaftan with lots of long, grey hair covering her shoulders and a neat pair of glasses perched on her nose.
The old man locates the purple tin, opens it, and smiles. “Ah ha, perfect.”
“You must be the girl from next door.” The old woman sweeps into the kitchen in a fearless, youthful way that leaves me in no doubt of her confidence. “Elsie isn’t it?” She gives a little chuckle before checking the cafetiere and tutting. “I remember you when you were quite little.”
The old man fills a plate with biscuits and places it in front of me. I’m not hungry but I smile. I ought to know their names. They’ve lived next door for as long as I’ve been here and I didn’t even know there was a wife. He’s just the old man next door; I’m a little ashamed I don’t know any more.
“I’m sorry….I don’t know...I mean, I don’t remember...”
The woman chuckles again in a gentle, good-natured way and pulls out a chair. “We’re the Jourdetes dear, Sylvester and Hajjah. I doubt your grandmother talks about us much.”
The old man, Sylvester, puts a mug of coffee in my hands that smells delicious, proper coffee, not like the yukky stuff Gran buys. I probably won’t be throwing the bible into his face, but I will have to give it to him.
“I’m afraid she had rather an accident in the garden.”
To my surprise, the old woman picks up a bucket from the corner of the kitchen, places it below the tap and runs the water, adding fruit-scented soap.
“I don’t think it’s going to be very warm I’m afraid dear.” She watches the bubbles and turns the tap off, then she kneels beside me with a sponge and a towel, and begins to wash my leg.
“Please, please don’t.” I pull away, awkward by this show of kindness that I don’t deserve.
“Don’t be silly dear. You don’t want this all over your leg. You haven’t got any little cuts or anything have you? Only we have to be so careful about infections these days. When I was a girl antibiotics still worked.”
“Honestly, it’s fine.”
Hajjah tuts to herself. “If this drought doesn’t end soon everybody’s hygiene will suffer, I’d hate to see those diseases that were nearly eliminated thanks to good plumbing make a comeback.”
“We’ve got vaccines.” I remind her.
“Not every disease has a vaccine Elsie dear. Good old soap and clean water, that’s what put paid to some of the worst sicknesses. I’m surprised NuTru wastes their time focusing on non-issues when a possible epidemic is waiting in the wings.”
“They’re not non-issues.” I say, stung. “NuTru tackles inequality, that’s not a non-issue.”
The Jourdetes exchange a look I don’t quite understand. “Of course.” Hajjah responds in a sombre tone. “Although disease is rather discriminatory. It goes for the young, the old and the weak.”
Hajjah continues to wash my leg until there’s no sign of the manure any more. “There now, all done.” Her sharp eyes notice the hole in my dressing gown and she touches it. “This needs sewing.”
“It’s nothing, I just caught it on the fence.” Climbing over to trespass on their property.
She rises to her feet and places the bucket to one side. There are always uses for soapy water. Then she opens a drawer and takes out a small, red basket.
“You just let me mend it.”
“Please, you’ve already been so nice.”
“It’s really no problem.” Sylvester offers the biscuits again;
he’s right, they’re delicious. “Hajjah likes someone to fuss over. If you’re not careful she’ll try and knit you a jumper before you leave.”
Hajjah pulls a chair to my side and threads a needle. I swallow a mouthful of biscuit and stare at her. “Hajjah? That’s a really pretty name.” I frown. I know what I want to ask but it feels rude to do so.
“Thank you. I believe she was a narrator of one of the Hadiths. So my mother told me.”
I know all about Islam, everyone learns it, at school. “You’re Muslim?”
“Uh huh.”
“But shouldn’t you – I mean – shouldn’t you be over the border?”
“In the BSI?” She raises an eyebrow and slips her needle through the fabric of my dressing gown. “I got an exemption.”
“Oh. I didn’t know there were exemptions.” But it explains why these people still own property. NuTru have different rules for Ethnic Minorities.
“It’s harder to get one now I think, but when I was younger being married to an Englishman exempted me. It’s illegal in the BSI you see, like homosexuality.”
“Illegal?”
“Uh huh. Muslim men can marry non-Mulsim women, but not the other way round. I didn’t consider myself a Muslim by the time I met Sylvester anyway, but everybody else does.”
I frown and watch the way her deft needle pulls the thread and makes the hole disappear.
“How’s it possible to stop being a Muslim?” The BSI are very firm about that, they talk about their culture and heritage and how it’s so important to be recognised as a unique people.
Hajjah gives me a strange smile. “Islam is a faith dear, not a race. I changed what I believed, not my culture. I still consider myself Egyptian.”
I think about this; the BSI don’t make that sort of distinction.
“Oh, I didn’t know that.”
Hajjah turns her face towards Sylvester and smiles. “I became a Christian when I was twenty-one. My father was furious.”
