‘Ya may well be wantin’ ‘em all ye want, but they don’t be wantin’ ya back now, do they? Wouldn’t’ve left ya with us lot now, would they?’
The girl leaned back in her chair, her coal-black eyes reflecting epochs of memories. With her arms folded together, she contemplated Martha Burlington – a woman whose IQ equalled lemonade temperature.
‘S’okay, luv. Not yer fault ya were born a Ned. Sumday ya’ll understand.’
She was a world’s away from understanding. What did she do to deserve a prison? Apart from losing her memory and breaking state curfew, of course.
She was a scrawny child of pale complexion, crooked teeth and eyes like black marbles. Her clothes were equally one of the finest. It certainly wasn’t the customary hobo-look they fished off the streets of Keynes. Whoever the girl was, she had known wealth; she had known comfort. Who abandoned her? Even a simpleton as Martha Burlington found the arrival of the unmarked child, who called herself Vivian, at least puzzling.
‘Listen luv, me hands are proper tied. Yar not earmarked and... nobody in da ghetto came tah claim ya. An’ without no identity chip tah prove otherwiz, ye be waifs and strays Neds . The Madhad state would go as far as callin’ ya a dissenter . Yar in da right place, I tell ya. Ala Spuria’s a children shelter. Sheltering Neds is whut we do.’
‘But Miss Burlington, I’m not one of them Neds , I’m not!’ the girl protested, tears clumping in her eyes. ‘And I’m not a dissenter. I got “Vivian” popping into my mind. That must be what I’m called, mustn’t it? Mind, a Ned I am not. Please, you got to let me go!’
The large woman detached a long, boltsy stick and whipped it against the table. Vivian’s plate clattered on the old damp wood.
‘I don’t got to do nuffin’, hear?’ she flourished the stick, threateningly. ‘Won’t have me wage risked by an ungrateful dissenter. Can tell ya haven’t been taught in the way of Madhad. Now eat yar darn supper!’
Two crocodile tears made their way to Vivian’s chin. ‘I won’t tell anyone you h-helped me. I’ll say I-I escaped ! P-please, if you j-just—’
‘What d’ya wanna do, then? Join yer homeless lot? M’afraid law’s not on yer side, luv. Madhad law, and so backforth: “ All children without known parentage, living relatives or blood alliances are to enter Madhad state custody ”,’ chanted the woman as part of an often-rehearsed speech.
Vivian struggled to suppress a sob.
‘We found ya roamin’ dodgy ol’ Keynes yesternight. No identity chip, no nuffin’. Gosh it lassie, da state ya were in! Jolly pack’d with lice and hoo knows what little else. Ya should be thankful ‘tis be modern England an’ not som miserable scrapheap from the Floods, or ya would’ave turned organ-donor on da Chan Market. Now eat up! Ya won’t be seein’ such meals in a hurry. By the grace of the Madhad state, yah’ve been given a roof and a meal. Ya nameless brats should learn to appreciate—’
‘—nameless, am I?’ barked the little girl with new-found courage, her velvety-black hair ruffling past her small shoulders like liquid silk. The tears had dried on her porcelain face.
‘Trying to take that from me, are you?’ she was on her feet now, looking a decade older. ‘Vivian. My name is V-I-V-I-A-N.’
The fat woman grinned, looking intrigued. She stood up from her chair and pointed at some distant shimmer of bright-red light. Beyond the small barred window, a great neon-lit marquee advertised a bankrupt manufacturing line. It spelled “ Vivianne Threadline Industries Ltd. ” The last two letters in “Vivianne” seemed to have burned off due to poor maintenance.
‘Dat’s yar V-I-V-I-A-N right-in-da-kisser!’
The little girl stole a look from the derelict factory across the street, and the marquee flashing up its brand every few seconds. Could that be the reason the name “ Vivian ” felt so strangely familiar to her? Could she have been subliminally influenced by the neon-blinking name?
If Vivian wasn’t her name, who was she really? What was she doing all by herself, in dodgy Keynes, with nothing upon her except the clothes off her back? Why didn’t she have an identity chip in her earlobe, like the rest of the world? Why couldn’t she remember anything from the day before?
‘B-but I… I just…’ her black eyebrows reshaped into a frown.
‘Save it, luv. We’ll keep ya safe n’ fed till yar old enuff tah decide fer yarself. Or till a family finds ya dandy ‘nuff tah adopt yar sorry state,’ said Martha Burlington. ‘When people come by, heard it helps if ya smile.’
‘A-adopt me?’ Vivian’s marble eyes were now agleam.
‘Now luv, wouldn’t get me hopes up, if I were ya. None’s yet been taken, see?’ said the woman after intense thinking. Vivian sensed a hidden malice in her tone of voice. ‘Demand fer flower-bastarded tots be high fer low-end jobs. But as this be a shelter and ya lot ain’t earmarked, yar unemployables. Thus, not many proper folk see any point in adoptin. No earmark, no rights—’
But the rest of Miss Burlington’s explanation died in her throat. Her last words had awoken the mysterious orphan’s fury. Suddenly, Vivian looked quite mad. She sprang to her feet, shouting nothing other than “LET ME OUT OF HERE!” at the top of her voice, while her tiny fists worked recklessly upon the barred window. The people in the streets looked up questioningly, their eyes scanning for the source of the noise.
‘SHH! Shut up, yah stupid brat! Yar gonna get us all in trouble!’
But Vivian’s shouting would not desist. In a sudden fit of anger, Martha Burlington seized a small syringe from her chest pocket and filled it with the only thing that would put the little girl to rest, and for good.
Whatever happened next happened faster than any pair of eyes could capture it. Vivian lunged over the wooden table and grabbed Miss Burlington’s forearms sideways and forced the syringe out of her hands. It rolled away, its tarry content spilling across the cold stone floor. An agonizing shriek filled the crummy room. The three-legged table finally gave off and stale pork chops, chips and gravy got catapulted upwards, gluing onto the ceiling.
Martha Burlington emerged from underneath the broken table. Her blonde wig lopsidedly dangled from her left ear and her plump face was covered in fatty sweat. She gave off another shriek as she beheld her arms. Two fiery-red handprints seem to have been burned into her forearm skin; handprints matching the size and shape of Vivian’s tiny little hands.
Vivian looked as shocked as Mrs. Burlington felt. ‘I-I’m… terribly sorry,’ she began. ‘Not sure what… what came over me.’
‘ Dissenter ! Dunno how ye pull’d ‘tis little trick,’ she pointed a fat, trembling finger at Vivian’s white face ‘but aymma make sure ya rot here! This room, right here! As fer this-’, she now indicated the finger-marks shining ruby-red on her chubby forearms ‘-tomorra ya’ll be gettin’ yar worth counted bloody by Old Lumbersides!’
And with a disgruntled look as a final warning, Miss Burlington dashed out of the room, the boltsy stick at her armpit, and slammed the door in her rear. A loud metallic clang informed the only occupant of the chamber that the bars were right back against the entrance. She was locked in.
Old Lumbersides , as Vivian quickly learned, was a name instilling instant dread among the children of Ala Spuria . It comprised of a wooden beam—50 inches long or more—adorned on one end with little spiky multi-coloured plastic nuts and bolts.
The spiny stick was primarily used as re-education device for supposedly disobedient children. Apparently it was common knowledge that having their palms slapped bloody by Old Lumbersides would make children think about their wrongdoing and correctly reassess their misbehaviour. In Vivian’s case however, all it did was further complicate things.
Seven hundred and seventeen souls inhabited the orphanage, each c
hild glummer than the next. In describing Ala Spuria, depression was no longer a mental affliction, but an adjective.
The children were forbidden to interact among themselves in any way. Anyone bending the rule would automatically enter the jurisdiction of Old Lumbersides . The only occasions the children were allowed to steal a glimpse of one another were during those rare events when adults would show interest in adopting one from their numbers. Such events came to be known as Beamdays .
“ If ya ain’t beaming, ya ain’t leavin’! ” Martha Burlington often chanted as a reminder of the importance of pretence.
Yet again, as much as Vivian would force herself to smile—or even beam—whenever a potential new family would show up to browse, she could not do so any longer.
Pretending might have been easy at the beginning, but seeing how no family ever got through an adoption, her hope that even her widest smile could have convinced anyone to take her in was little at best. No bright future ever awaited the Neds, let alone their abandoned offspring.
Within months of internment in the shelter, Vivian’s smile ineradicably vanished. One by one, the demons of despair took safe nest behind Vivian’s marble eyes—now devoid of the hope for a better future to come.
A sinking feeling of hopelessness had taken a liking to her countenance, bestowing her with a permanent haunted look. Marked she was thereupon, even without the earmark. Unwilling confinement, food deprivation and cruel punishments robbed Vivian of her childhood.
Countless families toddled in and out of Ala Spuria in search of a child to give nurture to, yet mysteriously enough, none ever got taken. Whether by a flaw in the adopting system or because no one invested any affection in “Neds” – as Martha Burlington charmingly reminded her young guests – fact was no one ever left Ala Spuria. Except perhaps nailed shut in between four boards.
Death was a curious feat which occurred only too often.
‘ A beam a day keeps the mortician away, ’ Miss Burlington morbidly recited, her fat face breaking into a gaping grin whenever the number of children lessened.
As years passed over her unwilling imprisonment, Vivian lost track of time. Seasons flew by with the rushed span of hastened seconds. From her only window, day became night, and isolation, her steady companion.
Vivian would often spend hours peering through the rusty bars of her window at the street below. She often watched ant-sized people rushing in and out of sight, each with a brighter future than her own. It felt to her like she owed them something. Like she knew them in some estranged way. Even the old beggar asking for alms looked strangely familiar. More often than not, she individually wondered why their chaotic movement seemed to follow subtle patterns of logic.
‘P-please, I need a-a-air!’
Not once did Ala Spuria’s Shelter for Strays change its ludicrous procedures. Not for the asthma kid with asphyxia, not for the girl with measles outbreaks, and most especially, not for Vivian’s night terrors. Her barred window was a constant reminder that she was a caged bird; one who might never be allowed its own song.
Seconds became hours and months turned into years as time continued to affect everything outside her window. Before she knew it, she had stopped looking down on the outside world altogether.
It was as if Father Time had pulled to a halt, slowing the passing of its faithful seconds. Vivian would only acknowledge a new season had been dragged about by the biting cold or the simmering heat plaguing her cell. It told her whether it was winter or summer. Detained in one of the many closet-sized rooms of Ala Spuria’s Shelter for Strays, Vivian lost the count of years.
‘The sink. M-may I? My hands—’
‘—bleedin’, aren’t they?’ Miss Burlington smirked in obvious satisfaction. ‘Should’ve fought of tha’ before givin’ me dis ’ she rolled up her sleeves and held out her forearms. The fiery-red scars were still there, matching Vivian’s small handprints.
‘Now keep quiet, or I let Lumbersides loose on yar back too!’
The crude injustice behind her treatment had turned Vivian’s insides to lead. That was hardly a desired feat, considering shelter meals consisted of stale food and musty beverages. Her appetite gradually decreased until it eventually pulled to a standstill. Before long, Vivian had stopped eating altogether.
‘Speak again outta line and I’ll ‘ave yar tongue for it!’
A mere convict charged with abysmal deeds, she felt abandoned, depersonalized. Physical pain became Vivian’s daily confirmation of keeping alive. She couldn’t be dead if she vividly felt pain, could she?
‘Whassamatta? Lost yer nerve? Screamed nuff for a day, girl?’ barked a frantic Martha Burlington through beads of sweat and of blood. Her chubby arms waggled around like massive pork chops as the disciplinary stick worked its charm across little Vivian’s matchsticks arms. ‘Well say sumfin!’
But Vivian would only answer in blood. Time and again little droplets of scarlet would bounce away from her palms, into Miss Burlington’s face. To tarnish the face she came to loathe so much was her one moment of glory; her crude defiance. There was something about spilling blood that kept her fire going. Pain made everything real. Inasmuch as it broke her, it fuelled her right up.
‘Taken a bloody vow of silence, have’ya now? Let’s see if dis loosens yar tongue.’
Even after Old Lumbersides had completed its daily disciplinary proceedings and the scars in the palm of her hands had long faded, Vivian continued to bite her fists into a bloody mound. It was a painful tic she developed in response to checking how much life was still in her.
Plenty of it, by the looks of it. As long as the fire of life burned wildly within, so would her hope.
‘Stop doin’ tha, you stupid girl! Stop bitin’ yar fists!’
Alone in her cell, inside her own head, forged in the heat of her own suffering, her milk-teeth biting into her knuckles—so had she come to know herself, her true self. She was made of stronger materials than the wood they beat her with or the stone keeping her captive.
What Vivian discovered was a power greater and more universal than all the written laws of the cosmos. She came to recognize the universe itself would come to her aid, if only she bid it.
One evening, she did. As an umpteenth spring crept on, it brought Vivian more than the occasional whiff of toxic sewage from the outside street. Her inner sunshine came in the unlikely form of a hole-in-the-wall …
‘ Someone there? ’ said a girly voice, gentle as a gust of wind.
Vivian quickly wiped her tears, startled. The muffled voice seemed to have arisen from the western wall’s fundament. Had she imagined it? Was she hearing things? If she was, who could blame her?
‘W-who said that?’ The sound of human speech was but a half-remembered dream.
‘ I did. The cell to your right, ’ said the voice, this time perceptibly louder. It sounded like a girl her age.
The voice had been real. Vivian stroked the surface of the wall and determined it was at least four bricks thick. The massive wall should not have, by any means, enabled such frail voice to pass through. As she ran her fingers over the brickwork, she discovered why the construction had allowed it.
A gap large enough to pass a few fingers ran through the wall. The hole had been obscured by a tattered flyer advertising Ala Spuria’s philosophy of pretence “ If ya ain’t beamin’, ya ain’t leavin’! ”
No wonder she hadn’t seen the hole for so long. She hardly looked twice at that moulding poster.
‘ I’m Kate by the way. Just Kate, ’ said the voice behind the wall in a small hiss.
Vivian attempted to level her eye with the hole, thirsty to catch a glimpse of the girl in the next cell. The darkness was so thick it revealed no physical
features. Electricity was a treat only Ala Spuria supervisors enjoyed.
‘ Patricia Lara gave me the name. I quite fancy her. She’s trying to get me out of here. But you know how Madhad law goes. You think Kate is a nice name ?’
Years of institutionalized isolation and social anxiety made Vivian a highly poor interlocutor in conversations. She felt a million questions exploding in her mind. For the first time in her life, she had another soul to converse with rather than her own head. Even if she needed to glue her ear to a brick wall to hear anything, she felt grateful for it.
She wanted to ask Kate everything—from the history of her arrival at Ala Spuria’s Shelter for Strays, to her adoption possibilities and right down to debating the wondrous privilege of being given a name of her own—but no word came to her lips. It was as if Vivian had forgotten her tongue. It wasn’t unheard of either. Years of confinement did that to children.
‘ Cor, you’re awfully quiet! ’ said Kate, now sounding disgruntled, obviously taking Vivian’s lack of response as a sign of rudeness. ‘ Lucky you cried, or I’d’ve never known you’re there. ’
Vivian smiled, perhaps her first real smile in a lifetime. She pressed her lips onto the crack. ‘Nice to meet you, Kate. Wish I cried sooner.’
‘ Good thing you did. I hardly ever cry. Was in cell twenty-three. Moved me here last week after I flooded it. Put a fat boy there now. Well, as far as “fat” goes in here, with all the starving. Can’t remember his name. Doubt he even has one. Most kids here don’t. Do you have a name? ’
Vivian took a glimpse at the marquee outside, wondering what answer to privilege Kate with. After all, an actual real person had Kate named, even if it were ‘ just Kate ’, while Vivian had herself named by fishing it off a marquee across the street.
‘I’m Vivian,’ she said, trying to turn down the volume on her buzzing thoughts, ‘and I… well, I didn’t have a name so I… I named myself.’
Vivian Amberville - The Weaver of Odds Page 3
