I am Not A Number

by Lisa Heathfield

  ‘This is Ruby,’ Mum says.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, knowing that my smile isn’t right.

  ‘And Lilli.’

  The little girl nods.

  ‘You can sit with your mummy back here,’ Mum tells her. ‘And you can sleep for a bit more.’ They’re too far back for me to see now. ‘It’s a bit silly being in a coach in the middle of the night, isn’t it?’ she laughs lightly.

  ‘Thank you,’ the other woman says.

  When my mum sits back down again the forced brightness drops from her face completely. Darren reaches across the aisle to hold her hand. He doesn’t let go.

  My body wants to sleep, but I can’t. I keep wanting to message Luke but remember they’ve taken my phone. I lean my head on the window and there’s the relentless sound of the wheels. Sometimes someone coughs, breaking up the muffled noises of breathing. The fear that floats above all our heads sinks down to push into my stomach. It stays there, digging deeper.

  Darren is staring past me through the glass. The motorway is dark apart from the street lamps dotted along the side. And the few other cars that are around to overtake us.

  ‘Where do you think we’re going?’ I whisper.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he says, his eyes fixed on the trees that rise up on the bank outside. The smudge of them dips, grows, breaks apart. It’s too dark to tell what type they are. They’re clumped together like we are. They’re just trees. We’re just Core supporters. ‘But I think it’s possible that the Trads are taking us to a place where we can’t cause trouble.’

  ‘Are they allowed to?’

  ‘They’re allowed to do anything,’ Darren says. ‘They’re the ones in power.’

  ‘But they shouldn’t be.’

  ‘You know that and I know that,’ Darren says. ‘But until enough people open their eyes to what they’re really like then we might not stand a chance in hell.’

  ‘That’s not what you said before and it’s not what my Dad told me. He says there’s enough of us to make a difference.’

  Darren looks at me. He seems a hundred years older than he was this morning.

  ‘That was before John Andrews got voted in, Ruby,’ he says quietly. ‘Now everything’s changed.’

  Outside the coach windows it starts to get lighter. There are still clouds stacked on top of each other, but they turn from black, to grey, to dirty-white. I don’t see the sun until it’s pushing its way between them, almost halfway up the sky.

  Lilli has leaned over so far that she’s lying in Mum’s lap. Her eyes are closed, but I don’t think she’s asleep. I can see we’re going past the outskirts of a city, bricks upon bricks holding in so many lives I know nothing about. I wonder how many of them are Core supporters. Have coaches stolen them in the night too?

  We overtake a car and I look down at the man driving. His hands are on the steering wheel and his coat is on the seat next to him. I’m close enough to see a ring on his finger, but he doesn’t look up. He doesn’t notice us.

  ‘Help,’ I mouth to him, but he doesn’t see. And then he’s gone.

  We’re driven even further north. Buildings almost entirely disappear, replaced by hills. Mist hangs out of reach of the grass, touching gorse bushes and alder trees.

  ‘A deer,’ I hear someone say from in front of us.

  ‘Can we go and see it?’ A child’s voice.

  ‘Not right now.’

  The deer doesn’t move as we pass. Maybe it thinks that if it stays still then we won’t see it. That it’ll be safe.

  The old man from the back walks past us down the aisle, swaying into people a bit as he steadies himself.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I hear him say, but there’s no reply. From here, if I sit up straight, I can just see his face with the grey hat on his head. ‘My wife and I weren’t told to bring food with us. Could we stop somewhere to buy something for breakfast?’

  ‘We’re not stopping,’ the soldier replies.

  ‘It won’t take long,’ the man continues. I’m amazed how he can keep his face so kind. ‘Just a service station, so we can get a sandwich or something. A cup of tea.’

  ‘Sit down,’ the soldier says.

  ‘But my wife is hungry.’

  The old man might not look frightened but the tension hovering above us all thickens.

  ‘Just go back to your seat,’ I hear Darren whisper so quietly that I must be the only person to hear it.

  The soldier stands looking down at the man.

  ‘Don’t you understand English?’ he asks.

  ‘I understand English perfectly,’ the man says, his warm smile disappearing. ‘I’m beginning to think that it’s you who doesn’t understand.’

  The soldier grabs the man’s collar, pulls his face close to his own. ‘Give me your name.’

  ‘Mr Jesenska,’ the man says and he’s frightened now.

  ‘Get off him,’ the old woman screams from the back. Darren jumps up to stop her as she tries to run to the front.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘This won’t help.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Mr Jesenska says, as he pulls himself from the soldier’s grasp. ‘I’m finished here.’ He doesn’t rush as he walks back. He nods at Darren. ‘Thank you.’ Before he takes his wife’s hand. ‘We’re fine Violette.’ And doesn’t say another word as they sit down again.

  It feels different in here suddenly. We had seemed a bit more settled, but now it’s all changed. That fog of confusion is back. And I’m hungry, but it’s not just that making my stomach so painful. I want to curl up with a hot-water bottle on it. I want to be back in my bed, the curtains closed so I can start this day again and make it different.

  ‘You okay?’ Darren asks, tapping my arm.

  ‘What do you think?’ I reply. Mum glares at me, but I don’t care. Right now, I genuinely, really don’t care, because someone has taken over our world and shaken it so violently that all the pieces have broken off and are floating down again so wrong and I don’t know when they’re going to be put right.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Lilli says to Mum. It’s way past when we normally eat breakfast, but I’m more thirsty than anything. Mum looks in her bag, but all she has is half a packet of salted peanuts.

  ‘Better than nothing,’ Darren says.

  ‘Do you have a drink?’ I ask.

  ‘No. I’ve only got these,’ Mum says, pouring a small pile into Lilli’s palm.

  ‘Will they make me more thirsty?’ I ask.

  ‘You need to eat,’ Mum tells me, passing them across the aisle so I can have a few. It’s funny how normal they look, sitting in my hand. If I squint, I could even be eating snacks on a school trip.

  I’m feeling sick, so I suck the first peanut. The salt is sharp against the roof of my mouth and I was right about it making me want a drink. My tongue almost sticks to it. I try not to crunch it as I look out of the window and count the trees to try to distract me, but my teeth bite into it before I can stop them.

  I eat the last ones without stopping.

  Outside now there are huge hills that might even qualify as mountains. A river runs at the bottom of one, but it’s like torture seeing all that water there, unable to drink it. I heard once that the mind is so powerful that if you think something enough it’s like it actually happens. So I force myself to look at the water as it moves over the rocks. I kneel down next to it and put my hand into it. I can feel the cold, really feel it, wet on my skin, as I scoop it up and drink it. But when it gets to my mouth it evaporates.

  I thump the seat in front of me and thump it again.

  ‘Don’t,’ Darren says, holding my arm down.

  ‘I need a drink,’ I tell him.

  ‘They won’t get you one.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ I glare at him. My stomach hurts, my head hurts, the saliva in my mouth feels like glue.

  ‘Well, I do,’ Darren says.

  I yank my arm from him and chew on the silence instead.

  The coach finally pulls off the motorway. It winds its way a
long smaller roads. The hills are closer to us now and they calm me somehow. The packed earth and stones, how they’re so solid and immovable.

  Someone behind us is sick. The smell sticks to me and makes bile tick at my own throat. I wait for us all to start, but no one else does. I suppose none of us have much food inside us, since we missed breakfast and there’s no sign of lunch. The children on the coach are strangely silent, but a baby is crying, the sound of it grating around me.

  I try to think of something else, but all that’s in my mind now is Luke at school. How he would’ve waited for me at our spot this morning, probably right until first lesson started and then he would’ve texted me and I didn’t reply. Will he think I’m ignoring him or will he know something is wrong? I put my head on the window again and let myself cry, because what if he thinks I’ve left without even saying goodbye?

  And Sara? What will she think? Then there are arms around me and I know it’s Mum.

  ‘Shh,’ she says, kissing my hair. She pulls me away from the window and I curl into her. And I let her rock me, back to my place of safety, back to my childhood. I hold on to her and for the first time in a long time, I don’t want her to let go.

  The coach stops next to a tall fence and I stare at the lines of barbed wire stretched in layers around the top of it.

  ‘Where the hell’s this?’ Darren’s sitting next to Lilli now, holding tight to her hand.

  ‘An old army barracks, or something,’ Mum says.

  ‘Why does it look like a prison, then?’ I ask.

  A gate opens and I hold my breath as we drive inside. On either side of us there are big derelict buildings. We go past the rows and rows of blocked-up windows. There’s overgrown grass in front of them, broken paving slabs spitting up weeds.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ I ask Mum.

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’ She’s got that look she has when she’s only half listening to me, as though she doesn’t even realise she’s speaking.

  ‘Look,’ Lilli says, pointing out of their window. I sit up high enough to look out of the front. There are five other coaches like ours.

  ‘That’s an awful lot of Core supporters in one place.’ Darren smiles now. ‘I’m not sure they’ll be able to keep us here long without a struggle.’

  ‘Are they going to make us stay the night?’ Lilli asks.

  ‘I’ll try everything to make sure they don’t,’ Darren says. I feel better now, seeing the other coaches. Maybe he’s got a point and that safety in numbers is a good thing.

  A soldier stands at the front of our coach. I try to imagine him without his gun and his uniform. He’s just a normal man, underneath it all, nothing to be afraid of. Mum’s face says different, though.

  ‘You’re all to line up outside,’ he shouts. ‘We need to do name checks and sign you in.’

  ‘Sign us in?’ I look to Mum, but she’s staring straight ahead.

  ‘We’d like some food first,’ Mr Jesenska calls from the back.

  ‘We’ll feed you in due time,’ the soldier says.

  ‘Feed us in due time,’ Mum imitates quietly.

  ‘The children are hungry,’ a woman shouts.

  ‘Enough talking.’ The soldier’s voice hammers down the complaints.

  People start to leave and we get up to follow. I pull my bag over my shoulder and try to forget the hunger pains burrowing into my stomach. I thought I’d be pleased to be getting off the coach, but as I get closer to the front, a feeling of dread grabs my ankles until I can’t move.

  ‘Come on, Ruby,’ Mum says from behind me. She has to almost push me down the steps.

  At the bottom, a guard stands next to a table piled high with bags. He has his empty hand stretched out towards me.

  ‘I want to keep my bag,’ I say.

  ‘Hand it over.’

  ‘Just do as he asks, Ruby,’ Mum says.

  I don’t want to, but I have to. I throw my bag at the guard and his hands are on it before he adds it to the mound.

  ‘Go over there by that wall,’ he says and Mum is quick to give him her bag so that she can stay with me.

  ‘They’ll give them back later,’ she mutters and I have to believe her.

  Darren looks at us as we walk across what must’ve once been an exercise yard. There are still random poles sunk into the ground, two of them have the Traditionals’ flag held up between them. I turn away from it and instead see the length of high-up bars that make my arms hurt just looking at them. The brick wall has iron hooks sticking out of it, so it’s difficult to lean back on.

  ‘This is absurd,’ Mr Jesenska says, walking slowly with his wife. This close to him, I can see the wisps of his steel-grey hair underneath his hat.

  ‘These Trads will get a shock at the next election,’ Mrs Jesenska says. ‘You’ll see. The young will come through and vote a different way to stop this nonsense.’

  ‘Hurry up,’ a soldier shouts.

  ‘We’ll go in our own time, thank you,’ Mrs Jesenska says. The soldier looks stunned. People disobeying them clearly wasn’t part of their plan. He grabs her by the shoulder and makes her look right at him.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘In here you’ll go in our time.’

  ‘Get your hands off my wife,’ Mr Jesenska says, but the soldier stays gripping her. He’s hurting an old woman and it feels too wrong. As though we’ve stepped over invisible tracks into a strange new reality, one that’s twisted unsteady and nothing’s as it should be.

  ‘We want a society that knows how to be obedient,’ the soldier says, bending down so close to Mrs Jesenska that she must feel his breath. ‘So when we say jump, you jump. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ She puts her hand on her husband to calm him and I see how thin her skin is, raised veins running over fragile bones. The soldier pushes her into the line. Something tells me not to look at them any more. Look straight ahead and if I want some food soon, just do as we’re told.

  We wait. I can’t remember ever being this hungry or thirsty. I don’t know what’s worse – the pain in my stomach or my mouth that feels so dry I swear it’s been turned into paper.

  A child begins to wail. With no warning, it’s from nothing to full-scale crying. The soldiers tense. The eyes of the one nearest me overflow with sudden panic.

  ‘Make it stop,’ one of them shouts.

  There are gentle, soothing words further down the line, but the child’s cries still carve into the air. They’ve taken our bags, there’s nothing anyone can give the mum to help.

  My feet start to hurt. And I’m tired. My head is stuffed with lack of sleep. I try closing my eyes for minutes at a time and open them quickly, hoping I’m at home. But I’m not. I’m here and in front of me, stretched like witches’ skin between two poles, is the Traditional flag, its red slash glaring at us.

  I lean towards Mum. ‘Why’s nothing happening?’ I whisper.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Shh,’ Darren warns us. Normally I’d chuck him the evil eye, but I daren’t barely move my head.

  Eventually, a man comes out of the building opposite. He looks different to the rest. His green uniform is a bit darker, with red stripes on his shoulder, and he’s definitely got some sort of authority. He’s about the same age as my dad, but there’s no way they’d be friends. This man has got darkness in him. He stops in front of us and I try to slow my heartbeats and keep my breathing normal. I don’t know much about what they want from us, but I know not to show that I’m afraid.

  ‘We’re going to register everyone,’ he shouts. ‘Once we’ve processed you all, we’ll provide you with food.’

  ‘Processed. Like meat,’ a man murmurs.

  ‘They’re going to make us stay here?’ I hear someone ask.

  ‘No talking,’ the soldier nearest us shouts, so forcibly that his face spatters red. If that happens to a teacher in class it sets Sara and me off, but now I’m a million miles from laughing.

  And I feel a million miles from Sara. Will she have
any idea where we are? Did anyone see the coaches leave? Or did we just look like a bunch of tourists travelling through the night? I reach my fingers over the bracelet she gave me and find one of the charms. From the shape I can tell it’s the paint brush, which Sara chose because it reminded her of Luke. Is she in school now, the Trad band on her arm?

  The line finally starts to move. Mum keeps hold of my hand. I’d never have let her at home, but right now I need it. If I can’t have Luke then I want my mum.

  ‘Do you think they’ll bring Dad here?’ I whisper.

  ‘Shh,’ she says. She’s got a strange look on her face that I’ve never seen before. A thin layer of distress laid over her skin. Does she know more about what’s going on than I do?

  It’s starting to rain. Not heavy or anything, but enough to feel it. I tip up my head and open my mouth, hoping to catch some of the water, but it only makes me feel more mad as I’m so desperate for a drink. It just jumps these stupid little dots on my tongue.

  ‘I forgot my coat,’ I hear someone behind us say. Looking down the line I see two people in slippers. I doubt anyone was thinking straight when they woke us in the night.

  We move forwards some more as the rain gets a bit heavier. Mum puts up my hood as though I’m a child. Her coat hasn’t got one, but she brought her scarf and she wraps it over her head like a crazy old lady. I don’t mean for it to make me laugh, but the noise is out of me before I can breathe it back in.

  ‘Shh,’ she says, as she grabs my arm. ‘Stop it,’ she whispers harshly. But I can’t. A wave of it holds on to the back of my nerves and pushes it out of my mouth.

  ‘Quiet!’ a soldier shouts, but I’m doubled over so I can’t see which one. My hunger joins with the laughter and I’ve never felt pain in my stomach like it. It should make me cry but I can’t stop laughing.

  ‘Ruby.’ Mum is trying to make me stand up, but I hear Lilli suddenly laugh, all that worry bursting out of her in a happy sound.

  Something hits me on the back so hard that I fall straight on to the ground. Bright terror slams into me.

  ‘Don’t you touch her again!’ It’s Darren I hear yelling as my back burns.

  ‘Get in line,’ a soldier shouts and there’s a thump and silence. My hands and knees feel scraped from where I fell, but all I can think is that Darren is silent now.