Cull

by Tanvir Bush

  Alex gleans from Glenda that in response to the current situation, The Station has expanded to engulf the little park that had stood to its left. No more an avenue of trees and a children’s play area. Now there are cheaply built four-storey stacks. Each stack has sixteen one-bedroom, single-bathroom, airless and unheated ‘sections’ on each floor. There is no kitchen as all meals must be taken in the main hall. Every stack is rammed full of families recently evicted following the last welfare slashes to Housing Benefit. The far-left stack is for single parents under twenty-five. Any woman with only one child is required to share. There is a waiting list for every bed, and more often now than ever the beds are released in the single-parent block by sickness or prison sentence.

  ‘We are trying to get a laundry block built,’ says Glenda. ‘I can hardly bear to watch the young mothers trying to cope with just juggling nappies. You know, they can only stay in their rooms during the day if the baby is under six months. Otherwise they have to vacate at 9 a.m. and can only get back in mid-afternoon.’

  ‘Seems terribly harsh,’ says Alex.

  ‘It’s the contract. We are an emergency shelter but not a permanent place to stay. They must keep moving, looking. It is absolutely heartbreaking.’

  The sun is blasting down, crisping up the dusty litter, as Alex, Chris and Switch trot along beside Glenda through the walkway between the stacks.

  ‘What about the old homeless guard? Phil and the rest of that gang?’

  ‘Most of them aren’t around any more. Haven’t been for a while. Phil, though … I can’t remember when I last saw him here …’

  Glenda is short and tough, her skin blue with tattoos and glinting with piercings. Her eyes are tawny-lion-coloured. Alex cannot tell her age, and has never asked. She guesses forty-odd.

  ‘I am pretty sure Phil was one of the recruits,’ says Glenda.

  ‘Recruits?’ Seems a funny word to use, thinks Alex.

  ‘I must say, I am really surprised he left Switch behind. He was totally doolally about her.’ Glenda pauses to rub Switch’s ears and slide a hand down her muzzle. ‘Poor old thing. I’ve never seen her looking so skinny. Phil always took such good care of her.’

  They are heading over to the main building. It’s nearly lunchtime and the queues are forming, fanning out across the concrete pathway relatively calmly, heads down, concentrating on not making eye contact. A young woman in a cami top and shorts clambers on to the back of her boyfriend but there isn’t much laughter. ‘Geroff me,’ he says and shakes her off.

  A toddler grabs Chris’s tail. He turns to the boy, smelling confusion and an endless weary hunger. Switch growls a question, which the kid misunderstands as a warning. The little boy starts crying.

  ‘What’s with the fucking dogs, Glennie?’ asks the toddler’s mother, flushed, but not with heat. Red blossoms of booze-related rosacea on her cheeks, her nose, her chest. In the woman’s hand is a can of what smells to Chris like old apples and the detergent used in the public toilets.

  ‘No booze in the main hall, Shirley.’ Glenda points at the can. ‘You know the drill. This way, Alex. We’ll go in around the back and I’ll get some water for the dogs.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t mean to leave her … or she got separated from him.’ Alex is pondering on Switch while Glenda pops on the kettle and pours water into a large plastic tray for the dogs. They are squeezed into the little office behind reception, which smells strangely of sharpened pencils – a nice woody, metallic combination.

  ‘I don’t know for sure.’ Glenda is twisting one of several nose rings. ‘I think he was with a bunch of the old guys who were taken for the specialist rest and recuperation project in Manchester.’

  ‘What? Manchester?’

  ‘Yeah … I know it’s a bit weird but it kind of makes sense. In just the last eighteen months we’ve lost a third of our funding and been completely inundated with newly evicted families – I mean whole bloody families – mothers with two or three kids, parents with new babies. It’s bloody nuts, and of course anyone with children is priority. And it is so fucking hot! People are turning up with dehydration, babies foaming at the mouth. We just aren’t able to give the old guard the care they need, and this new scheme is supposed to take the weight off us. Hang on, I’ll call Donnie. He knows all about it.’

  She picks up the phone and dials, and in moments a slight, grey-haired man in black trousers and short-sleeved black shirt appears at the reception desk and calls into the office.

  ‘Hey Glenda. What’s up?’

  Rev. Donnie. He has the pale, slightly greasy look of a man who does a lot of night shifts, and he brings with him the waft of endless saucepans of cheap mincemeat. With mugs of tea, Donnie, Glenda and Alex hunker down on stools around the small office table. It is Donnie who tells Alex about Homeless Action!.

  ‘They used to just run simple national awareness-raising campaigns,’ he says. ‘Been around for … well … certainly over five years. I knew one of the original volunteers. When I last spoke to him, eighteen months ago, he told me they had secured a really big grant. The money was for both Homeless Action! and their sister charity, St Mark’s Hospice, a palliative care unit set up by a doctor called … um … Binding, I think. I didn’t hear any more from him until we got half a ton of Homeless Action! flyers and a request to hand them out to our clients. Glenda, do we have any left?’

  Glenda nods and steps carefully over the two sprawling dogs to open the filing cabinet.

  Donnie continues, ‘They were recruiting for volunteers for a new treatment centre and seemed especially interested in long-term addicts, long-term homeless with mental health problems, you know, chronic homeless, derelicts, the old guard as you call them, like Phil.’

  A new treatment centre? Alex is surprised. ‘I don’t remember hearing anything about it at the Cambright Sun.’

  Donnie shrugs noncommittally as Glenda returns and slaps down a leaflet.

  Alex squints at it through her heavy magnifying specs. There is almost no information on it – a couple of phone numbers, a strapline ‘Help us to help you!’ and lots of dull photos of clean single rooms and smiling men and women sitting in what looks like a sunny refectory.

  ‘They came down to collect recruits several times.’ Donnie taps the flyer. ‘We never really knew when but we are always so busy here it was hard to keep tabs.’

  ‘The address is the St Mark’s Hospice in Manchester,’ says Alex. ‘Why would local homeless allow themselves to be taken all that way on such a vague promise?’

  ‘There was a rumour …’ Glenda is stroking Switch’s head and won’t meet Alex’s eyes, ‘that there was to be some remuneration.’

  ‘They were bribing them? Did you tell anyone?’

  Glenda raises her leonine eyes and stares directly into Alex’s brown ones. ‘Who would we tell, Alex? Who cares?’

  ‘I am surprised Phil went,’ says Donnie into the tense silence. ‘He really wasn’t keen, especially as he wasn’t able to take Switch.’

  ‘How many of them were selected?’ asks Alex. ‘Who went?’

  ‘They picked up a group last month but I couldn’t tell you exactly who. Phil and his pals haven’t been coming here much lately. There just isn’t the space for them any more and so, to be frank, Homeless Action! may be able to help more than we can. Also, it does mean we can concentrate on the new lot. And speaking of … I best get back to the hall.’

  There is a crowd forming at reception now, and first in line is a man with his arm around a woman who is sobbing her eyes out, her arms a griddled mass of fresh scars. They look like they should be in a hospital emergency room, not at a shelter.

  ‘Err, I’ll leave you to it,’ says Alex, watching Glenda begin to process the latest group of desperate people.

  ‘Oh, hang on … before you go.’ Glenda has an odd, hopeful expression on her face. ‘Switch?’

  Switch looks up at the sound of her name, her tail wagging.

  ‘Could Switch stay with me
here, do you think? I mean, she is such a gorgeous girl, and it might be nice for some of the younger clients. Phil used to encourage the kids to play with her.’

  Switch wags her tail harder and whimpers softly. She can hear the sweet tone in Glenda’s request.

  ‘And you know, when Phil gets back she’ll be here.’

  ‘Of course!’ Alex is hugely relieved. She had been thinking her next stop would have to be the Dog Rescue Centre, and that wasn’t always a good place for a dog like Switch to end up.

  Chris nudges Switch and growls a goodbye. ‘Nice human choice,’ he says. ‘Smells less mouldy than your last one.’

  Alex Looks for Snakes to Poke

  At the flat, Alex calls both the numbers on the leaflet and leaves short messages at the electronic peep when no one answers. She types ‘Homeless Action!’ into the search engine and scans down through the results. New housing initiatives on the west coast, insurance companies, anti-anxiety self-help groups … but no private medical project that she can see. She wonders if the staff at The Station had heard it right. She tries a different angle, trawling through the government web pages, scrolling down, up, sideways, but no Homeless Action!

  She stretches and clenches and unclenches her sweaty feet, wishing she could afford a fan. Chris snores loudly, whimpers softly, asleep in his dog bed in the corner. Alex watches him for a while. His muzzle is getting greyer, and he has two more long white whiskers. For a moment Alex feels The Fear. The Possible Loss of Chris. The feeling drives her quickly into the kitchen towards the fridge, and while she is reaching for the cheap vodka and an ice cube, she has an idea.

  Back at the computer she types in ‘TOSA’, ‘St Mark’s Hospice’ and ‘Homeless Action!’, and there it is.

  ‘TOSA are pleased to announce that the Social Initiative Grant, in collaboration with government departments and local authorities, has been awarded to St Mark’s Hospice and their Homeless Action! initiative, implemented as part of the wider Care and Protect Act.’

  And that is all it says. When she clicks on Homeless Action! she is just redirected to the full text version of the Care and Protect Act. There is no other information about the project, no leads to any one person behind it and, in fact, no real information on what it actually is.

  Strange.

  She looks up the detail on the Care and Protect Act. Once again, up comes a link to the TOSA website, but no more information on Homeless Action!

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ says Alex.

  She picks up the phone.

  ‘You have reached the TOSA head offices. Please dial the extension of the person you require, or wait and an operator will be with you as soon as possible.’

  Bloody Vivaldi again, thinks Alex as tinny hold muzak floats wearily up into the handset. She waits.

  Eventually there is a click and, ‘Hello. My name is Jill. How may I help you?’

  ‘Hi Jill. Would you be able to put me through to someone who knows about the Homeless Action! group?’

  ‘I am sorry?’

  ‘The Homeless Action … ?’

  ‘Do you know what department that group would be under? I am not aware of having seen it listed here.’

  Alex can hear something defensive in the woman’s tone. ‘It is an initiative you, TOSA, are running with the government,’ she says, exasperated. ‘It has something to do with the implementation of the Care and Protect Act.’

  ‘Oh, my apologies, but anything to do with that is being handled through our Manchester offices. I can give you a number. Do you have a pen?’

  She rattles off a number and Alex just manages to jot it down.

  Alex dials Manchester and again gets an earful of electronic Vivaldi, but this time broken up with a voice repeating, ‘We are sorry, but all our agents are busy at the moment. Please call back at another time.’ After three attempts she hangs up.

  She looks up John Thorpe-Sinclair MP, the minister who introduced the Care and Protect Act, dials a number and eventually speaks to a cold, clipped voice that alleges to be that of his secretary.

  ‘I was hoping to speak to the Minister about the Homeless Action! initiative,’ says Alex.

  ‘If you send an email enquiry, he will get back to you when he returns from his holiday next week.’

  ‘Is there anyone else I could talk to?’

  ‘Have you tried calling the offices of TOSA Central?’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘Well, I am sure you have all the information you require, then. Good day.’

  The line is cut. Alex sits back, sips her drink from the cracked mug and thinks stonewall. The pips go on the radio, signalling the six o’clock news. Drought tops the bill, accompanied by hosepipe bans across the country, record temperatures, crops failing, war in dark places, bankers’ bonuses getting bigger. Same old, same old. And don’t forget yet another Cabinet reshuffle. The Right Hon. Stella Binding MP has become the new Secretary for Health and Social Care.

  Alex taps ‘Stella Binding’ into the search engine, then waits. The photo that pops up is of a very attractive middle-aged woman wearing a cleverly subtle suit that cleaves to her in all the right places without being gratuitous. Her hair is twisted up in a bun and her earrings are pearl, make-up minimal. In the picture she has been caught by the photographer as she is getting out of the back of a limo. Behind her, still in the shadow of the car, is a man. Alex pushes up the magnification. And then quickly pushes it up again. Her heart twists as the darkly handsome face of the Poet stares back at her.

  Hastily, she scans the article. Stella Binding and her husband, the writer and poet, Gunter Gorski.

  Wow, thinks Alex. Gunter is it, you toad? You cheated on Stella Binding? She can’t quite catch her breath for the memory of his hands on her body and the messy dismissal in the morning. Her fault? His fault?

  Her eyes flit briefly over the article beneath the photo. It covers Stella’s stellar career, her love of horse riding, skiing and philanthropy and the fact she is a committed Tory to the bone. There was a previous unsuccessful marriage to another MP, but no children. A miscarriage is hinted at. Her father is the eminent Dr Barnabas Binding, OBE. She is ambitious and intelligent, and the prime minister expects great things from her.

  Dr Binding. Dr Binding? Now where has Alex heard that name before? Or has she seen it? ‘Think, damn you!’ she hisses to herself. Chris wakes and yawns widely, and, seeing Alex sitting squinting at the magnified print on the computer screen, plods over and puts his head on her knee. Didn’t Reverend Donnie say something about a Binding being behind St Mark’s Hospice? Could it be the same man?

  Her inbox dings. It is another email from Gerald, editor of the Cambright Sun. ‘Where is my copy, Alex? By 8 p.m. or else.’

  Fuck. She trudges to the fridge for another bolt of vodka and does her homework, the promised article.

  WHY WORK WORKS

  A Cambright mum has turned her life around after being told by her daughter that she was ‘a lazy pig and fit for nothing’

  Jade Dunn, 35, a mum from Bales Hay Street, Cambright, has turned her life around following a fight with her daughter Kylie. Ms Dunn, who had previously been living off benefits for over ten years, had told social workers, doctors and the Benefit Agency that she had been suffering from depression and anxiety and was not able to work. Her daughter Kylie, now 15, had a different point of view. She told her mum that it was time to ‘change her life around’, and that she was ‘ashamed’ of her mother, who she accused of being a ‘lazy pig and fit for nothing’.

  ‘I knew I had to take myself in hand,’ said Ms Dunn. ‘I couldn’t let Kylie down.’

  Ms Dunn started by volunteering with a local charity, and after six months she applied for, and got, the assistant manager placement she had dreamed of. Now she is working full-time and loving every moment.

  ‘I would never have got off my couch if Kylie hadn’t shouted at me that day,’ Ms Dunn told the Cambright Sun. ‘I am so grateful to have my life back. Work definitely wor
ks!’

  Alex feels nauseous as she finishes the article and slams it over to Gerald’s inbox. In fact, Ms Dunn was still struggling with depression and anxiety, further complicated by exhaustion and what looked like the beginnings of a Parkinsonian shake. Having spent a couple of hours with her in the miserable dark second- hand shop she was now managing, Alex had a suspicion that the woman wouldn’t make it through another six months. She had stood in the back room, tearful, shivering like a beaten dog, telling Alex what a wonderful thing it had been to be screamed at by her daughter. ‘You sure you want me to say she called you “a lazy pig”?’ Alex had asked.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Ms Dunn had bitten her already frayed lips. ‘I was. I was a lazy pig. Kylie was right. And look at me now! Work definitely works!’

  Alex sighs, feeling like a complete bitch. It was a mean article and badly written to boot, but these articles were her contracted requirements. She has been commissioned to write ten of these ridiculous pieces for the paper as, to quote the brief given to Gerald by the Cambright Sun’s owners: ‘a counterbalance to the negative portrayal of the current welfare changes’. It wasn’t journalism, as far as Alex was concerned, but if it got Gerald and Job Central off her back and allowed her to carry on investigating Homeless Action! and Phil’s vanishing act, then she would compromise. There were only three more to do anyway: the disabled war veteran, now Paralympian and sports coach; the ex-junkie who was now a veterinary nurse (‘off the record, great access to product,’ she had nodded to Alex); and the ex-con who was now a parole officer with the H5 Police Group plc.