Hope

by Tyler, Terry

  "Yeah, right, me and the other ninety-nine thousand people in the world who are doing it," he said. This comment was met with a bright smile and the advice to 'believe in himself'.

  When I told them what I used to do, it was suggested I might have a glittering future as a 'social media teamster', working in a 'street team' of the type employed by large companies, political parties and local government, creating fake social media profiles to rave about new products, or whatever ideas politicians want to embed in the minds of the electorate.

  Needless to say, the 'educational motivator' who suggested this career path to me did not describe it thus, but said the job entailed 'networking on social media to enhance brand awareness'.

  Yeah, yeah.

  Corporations like Nutricorp have huge rooms of them tweeting, LifeSharing, uChatting and all the rest of it.

  I said I'd rather never work again than become part of that shit show, so now I'm learning Spanish. Perhaps I'll go work in a bar in Puerto Rico.

  It's all bullshit, anyway. I was talking to someone the other day who's been in three different Hope Villages for over three years, and has only ever heard of two people getting jobs.

  At first we huddled together, didn't talk to anyone, just sat in corners feeling depressed, but after a week I said, look, this is where we're at now. We can either go under and get sent to the doctor for happy pills, or we can deal with it.

  Nick and Kendall allowed me this pep talk, and agreed.

  I don't want to talk to anyone either, but sometimes it does break the day up. Last week I got chatting to a woman when we were getting changed after our Fit For Work session: Helen, an ordinary, respectable mum-type, who looks as far away from the homeless stereotype as you can imagine. She and her husband live in a couples unit; their nosedive began when his supervisory job in a tech company was lost to automation.

  "I only worked part-time, at the tourist information office, because we didn't need the money, back then. We never wanted kids; we loved our hiking weekends, and our dogs, and that was all we wanted, our house in the Peaks and a quiet life. But Dave lost his job so we had to sell up and go into a rental, which was bad enough. We didn't make much profit because we'd taken out a second mortgage for renovations, but we kept our heads above water for a year and a half, lived off his redundancy and our savings. Looking back, we should have rented a one-bed flat in town instead of a cottage in the country, but we couldn't face it; well, you know, we thought Dave was well-equipped to get another position. He wasn't; he was told his skills had already become obsolete, then when he applied for more menial jobs they said he was overqualified." She gazed at the floor for a moment. "When our money ran out he applied for benefits, but he failed the medical; apparently he's not 'work ready' because he has high blood pressure and is a bit overweight. Isn't that crazy? Those vultures from Valid8 said it was his fault because of his unhealthy lifestyle. I think the truth is that we're over fifty, so we're on the scrap heap! So we got reduced rate benefits, and my own job was long gone by then, because who needs a tourist information office when you can look at a website? Oh, but that first month when you can't meet the rent―it's terrifying."

  "Tell me about it." I shuddered at the memory.

  "It's so frightening, isn't it? If you'd told me twenty years ago that we'd find ourselves in this position―you know, I thought we had a nice, comfortable fifteen years or so until retirement. We didn't have much, but we could have got by. It's a different world now, though, isn't it?"

  I feel so sorry for people of her age, who grew up in the last century. So different, indeed. "Wouldn't your family help?"

  She grimaced. "Yes and no. We borrowed off Dave's brother, but he wasn't happy about it. His wife, she told us about the Hope Villages and said they were supposed to be decent places to live until you can get back on your feet." She looked completely defeated. "I suppose we're lucky. If we weren't here, I dread to think what would happen to us. The worst thing was the dogs." Poor Helen; a tear rolled down her face. "We had to give them up when we went into the rental. They were taken by a farmer, a lovely chap, so I know they're happy, with plenty of space to run around, but I miss them so much." Then she frowned and said, "You know, the Welfare State was set up to help people who'd got nothing else, but now I reckon the whole system is geared towards driving more and more people into these places."

  Has she just hit the nail on the head?

  I haven't got a clue how we'll ever get out, give or take a lottery win. Not that we're allowed to play the lottery; it's classed as gambling.

  Internet use is allowed, via phones and tablets, but it's heavily monitored and controlled; many sites are inaccessible―gambling, porn, conspiracy theory blogs, anything anti-government, many of the news sites, the whole of the dark net, and some areas of social media. If you mention the Village, your connection is instantly broken. You can OMG and emoji away about the football results or the latest cute bunny video, but you can't say anything about Hope. The same applies to talking on uChat or Face2Face with friends and family on the outside. One wrong word, it's gone. Nick says it's AI controlled, via keywords and phrases. People try to get round it by using code, but few manage to do so for long, and it's not worth it; if you are caught, your devices are confiscated. We don't know where it's controlled from, but someone is watching, always. Everyone accepts this without question, because they have no choice.

  That's what I hate. That you have to become part of the Hope Village system. You're allowed to live here if you play the game; if you don't, you're transferred to one of the Villages from hell for the 'socially challenged', which really are more like prisons. People go in because they have nothing else, are treated like criminals, and so they start living up to expectations.

  Because Nick knows how to do all the clever secret IP address stuff he has more freedom on the web than most people, including access to Naked Truth, but I don't want to hear about MoMo, so I ask him not to tell me.

  I don't use social media at all, now. My blog is completely dead. I've heard others say that they used to be LifeShare addicts, but they don't bother any more, because that's all 'out there', and we're just 'in here'.

  We can write letters to go via snail mail, but we must use the laptops in the education centre, and they have to be checked and signed off before we can print them. This is, of course, for our own security. I wrote to Esme, but it was pointless, really, because I had to lie all the way through it. It was nice to get a letter back from her, though. Even though it was read by strangers first.

  I think it's your mindset you have to change. Like prison, Hope Village is its own society.

  Forget out there. Now, you're just in here.

  Except that you can leave, but you're supposed to have a release interview, and your new home approved. If they think you might skip off to go live in a crack house, you're hit with a restriction order, and the guards won't let you out. This is for your own protection, too, of course. There's no point leaving unless you have somewhere to go; your phone is tracked, and if you're caught dossing down in a shop doorway, you'll get picked up for vagrancy and sent straight back.

  It's because they're committed to curbing the vagrancy 'epidemic', Bex told me. I pointed out that vagrancy is not an infectious disease, and that it is homelessness that's the problem, not vagrancy. She frowned, and said, 'It's the same thing, isn't it?'

  Once you've become part of the Hope Village system, it's hard to get out.

  People do leave, now and again. Family members come to collect them.

  Hardly ever, though.

  Sunday is the day of rest, unless you're in the kitchens or on cleaning. Kendall usually works (extra tokens for Sundays), but Nick and I go out. Arms outstretched under the body scanner, a thorough bag search, and we're away.

  We had to go through rigorous interviews before our innocent walks were granted, I guess to make sure we weren't on the hunt for those crack dens, but it was worth it.

  The weather is mostly
bad, it being winter, and it's colder up here than it was down south, but I love it. I'd never been this far north before, never had any reason to, but it's like a different world up here. The countryside is bleak and wild; Hope 37 is built as far out in the middle of nowhere as you can be on this little island.

  Sundays make me feel free and happy. We just walk, and walk, and walk. We've found a village shop, where Nick uses real money, not Hope Village tokens, to buy supplies for the return journey. The woman who owns it is a sweetheart. We haven't told her where we're from.

  I've still got a hundred and fifty pounds in my bank account, for emergencies, so that if I ever need to escape, I can. Taking care to leave my phone behind, of course. Nick's got about the same, except that he's taken his out and keeps his cash on him, because he feels safer that way. Kendall's completely broke.

  Hardly anyone else bothers to go out. Some have visitors on Sundays, but the visitors have to apply for approval first, and many of my fellow 'inmates' say that their families and friends don't want to go through the intrusion this involves. Thus, we are further separated from 'normal' life. The visitors' lounge is monitored by cameras, microphones and wardens. Fuck that. Nick says it's no different from outside, because our phone calls and texts could be listened in to, our emails read etc. if anyone wanted to, but it feels different.

  I haven't seen Brody. Shortly after we got here, I sent him an email saying that, my circumstances being what they are, I thought it best we accept our relationship as over. I thanked him for all his help, but said he should get on with his life without worrying about me, because I would be fine. I cried as I wrote it, especially when I pressed send, but I had to do it.

  If he's starting anew with this Jaffa woman, I don't want him to feel guilty about me.

  Mostly, though, I did it because I couldn't bear the thought of hearing his voice or reading his words, saying that he'd found someone he liked better.

  I'm letting you off the hook, my darling. Except that you're not 'my' darling. You never were.

  I didn't want to say too much, because I knew the email would be read by whoever monitors them. If you say anything you're not supposed to, you get a message back from the control centre labelling it undelivered because of 'inappropriate content'.

  I got a reply almost immediately, in which he repeated all that stuff about my circumstances being only temporary. He wrote that he'd been approved as a visitor, and that if I changed my mind he would make the journey up to see me; he would take me out so we could have some time in private, because there were things he wanted to talk to me about. I can't remember what else he said. I read it once, quickly, and deleted it. It was the only way; if I hadn't, I'd have been poring over it for ever, peering behind the words and reading stuff into it that wasn't there.

  I imagine he still cares for me, because it's in his nature to try and help people, and he's clearly one of those guys who like to keep their ex-lovers as friends―like CJ―but I can't do that. To keep seeing an ex who no longer wants the intimacy you once shared would be like having your heart broken anew, every time; you'd have to be some sort of masochist.

  I tried not to think about his first Christmas with Jaffa; I wonder if he's bothered to tell her about Lita, one time blogging superstar, now a homeless statistic.

  I wonder when he met her, and by how much we overlapped.

  Christmas was awful here. You can't pin up a few bits of tinsel in an aircraft hangar and make it look like a winter wonderland. People actually got excited about the poxy Christmas dinner. Over-cooked turkey and pigs in blankets with soggy sprouts, followed by a crappy currant pudding with a bit of vaguely brandy-tasting custard and a few cardboard mince pies. All courtesy of Nutri-fucking-corp.

  We all attend our twice weekly #FitForWork classes, which I am sure we aren't, because the food here in Nutri-Land is decidedly lacking in nutrients.

  We wash in the showers with an all-purpose liquid called Nu-Cleanse. My hair is dull, straw-like and gets greasy more quickly than it used to. If you need meds or vitamin supplements, which an alarming number of people seem to do, the containers bear the Nu-Pharm label.

  If I was the suspicious type, I would wonder if they're trying to keep us all medicated.

  "I'll tell you what," Nick said, after we'd been here about a month. "Your mate at Horizon, he was right about there being no pregnant women or small babies, wasn't he?"

  Indeed he was. I feel too lethargic to wonder why not, though.

  Many are told, during the mandatory monthly medical, that they have this or that problem that needs regulating with pills. Kendall and I have escaped so far, but Nick's been given anti-anxiety tablets because he has trouble sleeping, and has been told that his vitamin D levels are dangerously low, so he needs daily supplements.

  He said okay, so as not to rock the boat, but he isn't taking them. Most do, though. As he said, stick someone in a white coat and give them a name badge, and people do as they say. He says loads of guys in his dorm are on extra B12, or iron tablets or cholesterol regulators, or anti-deps; if you go to the doctor and say you're a bit pissed off, you get pills.

  Every Sunday I feel like running and running, sleeping the night out in the open and taking my chances. Even though the reality would be waking up freezing cold, with no coffee or clean knickers, and worrying about hiding from the vagrancy police, but at least I'd be living my own life.

  Nick feels the same. Kendall, though, has settled right in. Nick says it's 'cause she's not that bright, so doesn't think about the big picture, but it's not only that.

  Kendall has found love in Hope.

  Within a month of us being here, she'd started a relationship with this oaf who works in the kitchen. Dwayne. Nick calls him Dwork.

  She's put on weight, because she and Dwork spend their tokens on chocolate and she's constantly nicking chips while she's working, but Dwork tells her she's gorgeous, not fat, which I thought at first was a delight to see. Now, I wish he'd picked on someone else.

  I'm not against him because he's thick, even though he is. It's not because his mouth hangs open when you're talking to him, or because he is proud of the fact that he's never read a book, or because he has a vocabulary of about twenty words, all said with great confidence in the Mancunian of the streets.

  I dislike him because he's a shit.

  He gropes her tits and arse in public, and leers at other girls when he's with her. He's good-looking, in a chavvy sort of way; blonde, a wide smile, a good body from what I can see; indeed, when she first told me they were flirting, I nodded and said, 'nice one'.

  I ate my words as soon as she introduced us.

  He refers to me as 'Kendall's brainy friend'. The happy couple often join Nick and me in the community lounge; they sit opposite us and wind themselves around each other. After five minutes or so, Dwork will say, "I love Kendall out of this world, me." I wait for it; I see the glazed look in his eyes, and I know what's coming next.

  "I'd never cheat on her, like," he says, as if I have suggested he might do such a thing. "I love her out of this world, me." And that's kind of it, as far as conversation goes.

  Worst of all, they're trying for a baby. Yes, in Hope Village. I'm intrigued by the logistics of this; they can't spend the night together, of course, but apparently they get it on in the kitchen store cupboard after serving has finished, and he's got a mate in one of the couples' units who lets them borrow it for an hour before he and his wife hit the sack.

  They've applied for a couples unit, but there's a waiting list, and you have to have been in a committed relationship for at least six months before you will be considered.

  Dwork reckons that if they have a baby, they'll get on the news, like, and be offered a council flat.

  "Like Mandy and Khalid and little baby Soraya," says Kendall. "I love the name Soraya; do you think it would be a cheek if I chose it, too?"

  "Might be a boy, like," says Dwork, copping a quick squeeze of Kendall's inner thigh. He brings a pictur
e up on his phone. "Look at these two. Emma and DeShaun, yeah? He's got a job at that Zest and they're moving into the family unit, but they've been promised a council flat 'cause he's getting a job and 'cause of kid, like. We could ask for one near me mum, then she could help wi' babby. Be right nice, that."

  "Ooh, and look at the little babe," says Kendall, cooing at the picture. "Baby Louis. Says they named him after the prince. That's lovely, isn't it?"

  Dwork already has two children, somewhere out in the big wide world. I asked him if he kept in regular contact with them, or if he supported them in his pre-Hope life.

  "Well, me ex gets paid off of the DSC for 'em, don't she? An' I want to see them but I can't, 'cause she's a right bitch. Breaks my heart, it does. I love my kids out of this world."

  I felt sorry for him, until I probed further, and asked what steps he had taken to gain access to them. He just looked at me blankly.

  "She never brought them round to see me once, not since she kicked me out. She's a right bitch, her."

  He and Kendall are both disappointed that, despite upping the bonking to Olympic level when AutoDoc tells her she's ovulating, she has not managed to 'fall'. Dwork goes to get checked out at the doctor where he is given extra vitamins that are supposed to aid his virility, but nowt's happened yet, like.

  I don't like to suggest to my friend that every month he fails to impregnate her is a lucky escape, but I do ask why she is so eager to start a family with someone who neither supported nor kept in touch with his existing children.

  "But it wasn't his fault," she insists. "His ex was a nutter, always accusing him of seeing other women, and blaming him for not having a job, when there aren't any!"

  I don't like to ask why he is so keen to start another family with someone he's only just met, either. Far be it from me to suggest that he has ulterior motives, i.e. a way out of Hope and into a flat.