Blackthorn

by Terry Tyler

  In Shackers' End we mill the grains for flour, we bake the bread, the pies, the cakes and biscuits that are sold in the nob shops and the big market. The only way we get to taste the good stuff is to make 'substandard' items that get put aside to sell at our own scabby market.

  We have to be careful; Dawn Buck-Tooth gets wise if we make too many.

  We used to shop at the big market, too, but when Wolf North took over Blackthorn, ten years ago, they built a big hut down here where we can buy our gritty bread, scrawny chickens, small eggs, wonky vegetables, scones with no currants, and fruit that's about to go over. Lieutenant Hemsley told us this new market was for our convenience, so that we wouldn't have to walk all the way to the centre, but we're not stupid. We know the real reason is to keep us apart from the rest of the city.

  Fuck 'em, say most of us.

  We're tougher than that lot over the fields. If anyone attacked Blackthorn like they did Central it would be us lot who survived, 'cause we'd know how to fight back.

  Shackers' End is its own town, with its own three levels.

  My family is in the top end. It's called Logside 'cause our shacks are made of logs. A few, like silly Thora, think they're posh 'cause they live in the bigger ones near the bakery that have a tap with running water. She and her mum call their shack a 'log cabin'.

  Me and my dad work in the bakery, where I am totally the best pastry maker in the world. I'd like to be the best at something cool, like the bow and arrow, but no, I'm just awesome at making fucking pastry. I bet I would be good with a bow and arrow if ever I got to try, but shackers aren't allowed to have them.

  I lived with my family till I was sixteen, when I applied for my own shack. If you want to move out from your parents―or if you get married to someone who's turned out to be an arsehole―you go to the registrar, an old git called Haystack, and ask for your own place. I share with Laurel. It's only one room. We use the latrines and standpipe by the shower hut.

  Laurel used to live with her dad, but he got beaten up in the jail block after a protest, and died. The second lieutenants who run the jail block are scumbags who pick on gays and blacks, in particular, and Laurel's dad was black.

  Behind Logside is Midshacks, where the farm workers and builders' labourers live in shacks made out of corrugated iron and bricks, then behind that is Stinky Bottom, a sad place where you can smell the drainage ditches and cesspits over the far side of the west wall. If you live there you get called a stinker. They're the poor sods who clean for the rest of Blackthorn; they empty bins and clean cesspits, toilets, roads and all the buildings up the city centre, and they keep all the sewage systems and drains in working order. They're called stinkers 'cause some of them do, and 'cause toilet smells hover round the whole area. Their shacks are made from owt they can get hold of to keep out the cold and the rain.

  My very best friend, even before Laurel, is a stinker. He's called Jay. He doesn't smell, but his dad does.

  Jay's mum was a teacher. She was married, but shagging Jay's dad, Brook, before he got old and stinky. It was a big scandal because she got pregnant by him―Mum told me all about it―and her husband kicked her out.

  She soon went off him once she'd lived in his hovel for a while, but stayed until Jay was old enough to go to school, then she cleared off one night and never came back.

  Jay is a happy soul, but he gets sad when he talks about her.

  I met him in Clem's, which is the bar down the Bottom. It's a shit-hole, but sometimes me and Laurel go there 'cause it isn't full of people like my dad whining on about injustices, and Clem makes wicked shine that gets you totally off your face.

  Jay's lovely. He's got long, fair, curly hair, the kindest blue eyes and the biggest smile ever. I fancied him like crazy when we met―he kept smiling at me so I thought he fancied me too, but then he told me he's gay. He has to keep it quiet or his dad would beat him up.

  Brook started drinking after Jay's mum left, and never stopped. He's a big strong bloke who cleans the drainage ditches, so you don't want to get on the wrong side of him. I think Jay should come and live with us―he's twenty-one, same as me―but he's scared that if he left Brook alone he would drink himself to death in a pool of his own piss with the roof falling in, and he can't let that happen to him. He's not always a drunken wanker, Jay says.

  Can't say I've noticed, but it's not for me to comment.

  Jay works as a cleaner at the big market, where he nicks the scraps that get taken to the bins for animal feed. Vegetables that have gone over, mostly; he makes soup and stews out of them. He'd get in massive trouble if he got caught, but he hides it in pockets sewn into the inside of his trouser legs. He's clever like that.

  It was Governor North's great-grandfather, Phoenix, who founded Blackthorn, and the Norths have been in charge ever since. At least there won't be any more of them, 'cause Wolf hasn't got a wife and kids. Some say he's gay, others that he's half-demon and daren't have kids in case they come out with horns and scaly legs. I thought that was true until I was about ten, when Dad told me it was just a joke. Thora and simple Snowdrop still believe it.

  Wolf hasn't got any brothers or sisters, so Dad says that if he dies they'll have to have an election, with everyone in Blackthorn voting for who should be governor.

  The other day he was talking about it again, and Mum said, "I wish you'd stop talking about bloody elections, Tom. They won't let us lot vote for nowt. It'll be decided between North and his cronies."

  Dad kept on about elections being only 'right and fair', but Mum just laughed.

  "Yeah? I don't think they're worried about 'right and fair'."

  She said that the trouble with men is that they talk about how things should be, unlike women, who make the best of how they are, because we deal with the practical stuff like bringing up children and making sure everyone has clean clothes and enough to eat. Then Dad said that if nobody ever tried to make things how they should be, nowt would ever get any better.

  So they're both right, really.

  And I'm not spending my life bringing up children and cooking dinners, that's for sure.

  I was only eleven when Wolf became governor, but that's old enough to remember how life has changed since fat old Falcon's heart gave out and Wolf took over.

  The first thing he did was ban Joy, which was a drug that made you feel in a dead good mood even if you were having a really crappy day. It was made in the laboratories and you could buy it off dealers that came into the Beer Hut and Clem's, but Wolf said Blackthorn had been a city of drug addicts for too long. So that didn't make him very popular, but it was his next new law that got everyone gearing up for a fight.

  He said that nobody could go outside Blackthorn's perimeter without applying for permission. I remember sitting in the Beer Hut while Darius organised his first protest about it―yeah, my dad took part―but when he led the march up to the city centre they were surrounded by an army of guards who'd been waiting for them, and Wolf North came out and told them that anyone who wanted to wander about outside the perimeter was free to leave, but they wouldn't be allowed back in.

  It's not as bad as it sounds, 'cause Blackthorn is huge. You can walk in the woods over by the north wall, and there's a lovely little stream that runs down through the bottom of the spirit field, which is where the dead people are buried.

  Beyond the city walls are the fields for sheep, cattle and horses, the woods where the loggers work, and the wheat fields. It's all inside Blackthorn's perimeter, and guards patrol all round.

  Lieutenant Hemsley explained to us that the new rule was for our own safety, so we wouldn't bring back diseases from dirty outliers, and because the country was becoming a more dangerous place―he was right about that, at least, 'cause of the mob who attacked Central. Everyone is dead scared they'll come up here, too.

  "We must not live our lives in fear, but we must be aware," Lieutenant Hemsley told us, when it happened. "Many ordinary people, just like you, have fled Central―and hunger and
desperation may make these poor souls dangerous, too."

  That was enough to make everyone shiver in fear and huddle together, and be grateful for Blackthorn's walls and guards.

  There are definitely more travellers than there used to be. There have always been a good number of them, folk like Ryder who go where the work is. They come up here when the weather gets cold―we need extra loggers in the winter, and guards, 'cause outliers try to sneak in and steal our food.

  The travellers sleep in long huts up in the north corner of Shackers' End. They tell us that it's getting so bad out there in the winter that they're grateful even for a mattress in a hut, as long as they're inside our safe walls.

  The patrol guards say that the two outlier villages nearest to us, Boltwick and Mulgrave, are having a seriously bad time because of the cold, wet summers.

  Once a month we hold South Gate market, where we sell our produce and services to the outliers. Food, clothes, shoes, fertilisers, medication, alcohol―and you can get your horses shod, your arms tattooed, your hair cut, your teeth pulled out. Everyone in the north of England uses Blackthorn money: chips and crowns. Ten chips to a crown.

  I've been working on the pie and cake stall since I was ten, and this past year I've noticed that the outliers are getting scruffier and hungrier, even those from Boltwick and Mulgrave who used to look the same as us.

  Lieutenant Hemsley―he oversees the market―now makes all the outliers wash in our special disinfectant before they enter. He says it's 'just a precaution', but the travellers told us it's really because there's been dysentery in some of the outlier villages this summer.

  Wolf North and the lieutenants lie to us, but the travellers are our window onto the rest of the world.

  Chapter 4

  Evie

  Lucky Star

  Ryder first turned up two years back, and even Haystack the registrar must've thought he was hot shit, 'cause he was made a guard straight away instead of having to start off digging peat or cleaning like most travellers.

  He used to work as a guard at Central during the winter, but said he wouldn't go near the place now.

  We got to know him when he came to the Beer Hut. He'd tried Clem's, which is where most of the travellers drink, but he liked the Beer Hut better.

  "I like a quiet drink and a chat, not getting wasted on shine into the early hours with a quick punch up for a night-cap."

  My dad clapped him on the back; he and his mates are proud of their drinking hole. Fuck knows why; it's just a big hut with a wooden floor, stained tables and a scuffed old bar. It's cosy in the winter, though, with the log fire burning.

  That first night, everyone gathered round him to listen to his stories of life on the road. Even Darius, though I could see that he wasn't happy that everyone was listening to Ryder instead of him.

  Men are worse than women when it comes to competition, I reckon.

  Darius is a good-looking fella, tall with dark curly hair and a beard, so he's never short of a shag; Ryder isn't so tall but he's even more handsome, with his goldy hair and lovely blue eyes that crinkle up when he smiles. All the women fancy him (even Mum, I reckon), but he won't get involved in owt serious. That's not to say he doesn't get his rocks off now and again, but when it’s over the women don't start whining about what a bastard he is, like they do with Darius. They're proud that, for however long, Ryder chose them.

  All the guys like him, too; even Darius came round, after a while.

  After that first night, he got a big welcome whenever he walked through the door. People would buy him beers and ask for news, like they do with all the travellers, but with Ryder it was different, because he asked us about our lives, too. Like he was really interested. Some of the travellers talk to us like we don't know owt 'cause we haven't been anywhere, but Ryder wasn't like that.

  And then he became our hero.

  That first winter he was here was hellish cold, but we couldn't afford the logs to keep our stoves burning when we were asleep, so we froze at night. Laurel and I would put on all our jumpers, and our woolly hats, and huddle together in the same bed so we could double up our crappy thin blankets. We knew there were better blankets and quilts in the stores, but when Darius went to ask for some he was told to eff off.

  Lieutenant Slovis runs the stores, and he's the biggest arse out of all the lieutenants.

  "Big galoot just shrugged his stupid shoulders and said to wear our clothes in bed," Darius said. "I told him we already did, and he just laughed and said, 'Try shagging, it keeps you warm'."

  Then he rallied his gang and started to talk about another strike, but Ryder stood up and said he had a better idea.

  Darius puffed out his chest and set his shoulders back, like Thora's mangy old ginger cat who hisses at you when you get close to their 'cabin'.

  "Yeah?" he snarled. "What's that, then? Come on, I want to hear what some poncey traveller reckons he knows about life in Blackthorn."

  Ryder put up his hand, like he didn't want a fight. "You're right," he said, "I've only been here five minutes. But before you do something that will end up with you freezing your nuts off in a cell for the next week, will you give me a day or so to see if I can come up with a solution?"

  Darius actually clenched his fists; I don't think he even knew he was doing it.

  "Reckon you can take over and solve all our problems, do you?"

  Ryder never backed down, and he never stopped smiling. He said, "I don't want to take over from anyone; I'd just like to see if I can help, that's all."

  And he did. He bloody did.

  He asked which guards were more likely to help us. Dad suggested Byron Lewis, who's often on Lookout 9, near the bakery, and he agreed to take Ryder to talk to Lieutenant Thomas. She's pretty cool, and one of the few lieutenants who is part human. Blow me down if she didn't put his case to Governor North himself.

  "That old woofter probably just wanted to get into Ryder's kecks," muttered Darius, when he heard.

  Maybe, but it worked. The governor gave the okay: the shackers would be allowed to buy the poorer quality wool in the stores for a knock-down price.

  The decent wool is traded with other settlements or given to the knitters to make into jumpers for those who can afford them, and the crappy stuff is sold at the same knock-down price to other settlements, so Darius asked what the big deal was, but it was what Ryder did next that made him our hero.

  He and Thomas persuaded Slovis to give us boxes of ancient old fabric from the stores; stuff that had been there for years and years.

  "I'll bet Slovis was just after getting into Sarah Thomas's kecks," said Darius, "and I thought you were going to get us some blankets, not a box of mouldy rags."

  But Ryder knew what he was doing. His idea was that we would make patchwork quilts.

  Next, he organised us into groups. We'd sit in each other's shacks at night and on Sundays; the kids got the job of cutting the decent bits of fabric into squares, doubling them up and hemming them, and all we women sat knitting until our hands were sore, while the men would stitch all the patches together. We stuffed them with our old thin blankets, and some straw that Ryder got from the stables.

  Even Darius joined in, once he realised that nobody was listening to him grouching.

  Within a couple of weeks, everyone in Logside had lovely thick, warm covers for their beds.

  It was a brilliant time, 'cause we were all working together. We loved making the quilts, and everyone loved Ryder because he'd made it happen.

  In March, he left to go fishing in Norfolk, and some folk actually cried.

  Even Darius admitted he was sad to see him go, though he was drunk when he said it.

  Next autumn Ryder was back, and he had more up his sleeve.

  He asked Lieutenant Thomas―who is in charge of the hunting and fishing―if he could go out with the game hunters on his day off, to catch rabbits, squirrels and pheasants for Shackers' End, and she said she didn't see why not.

  "Probably tr
ying to get into his kecks," said Darius Fletcher.

  I think he was right this time, 'cause she did, which pissed Darius off even more; Sarah Thomas is well fit.

  So one day a week we had decent meat and, best of all, it was free.

  It was a hard, hard winter, but Ryder managed to cheer it up, and take our minds off how bad our food was. He told us about the Cornish settlement where he grew up―they had a drama group and would put on plays.

  "It's a great way of spending the long winter nights," he said.

  And it was. Much better than sitting in the Beer Hut just to get some free heat, or reading the same books by candlelight, over and over again.

  Darius and the loggers took the piss, of course, but we didn't care.

  Ryder wrote a couple of little plays to start us off, and that got us all going; people would sit in the Beer Hut at night trying to write their own, and it was a great laugh.

  Ryder was a brilliant actor and everyone always wanted him to be in their play. Silly Thora wrote one about a man and a woman who ran away from Central and fell in love, so she could be the woman and snog him, but Ryder said he thought Star, who is dead pretty, was 'more suitable for the role', and Thora had to be the mad old fortune teller in the woods, instead.

  Star's husband, Joe, wasn't that keen, but nobody could refuse Ryder.