Hymn From A Village

by Nigel Bird

  The vote was carried with a huge majority. The sea-creatures had it.

  Soon there were references to the sea all over the place. They quoted science and literature to prove their point, scraped up any old angle they could find to give them mileage on the sofas of Breakfast TV.

  The usual demonstrations were going on at the time: the anti-war, the pro-life, the send-poverty-into-oblivion, but none of the activists thought that a movement against Pisceans seemed worth creating.

  Wish I’d taken my soap-box to Speakers’ Corner with the other nutters and given it my best shot.

  When they moved against the government they had no chance. Came from nowhere, forced parliament to dissolve and formed a party populated by the best liked politicians in the country.

  H to O, they called themselves. I wonder which guru came up with that.

  Even then we couldn’t see the way it was going. We could have out-voted them three to one, yet H to O got in with the largest land-slide ever recorded.

  At first, they worked within the traditions of democracy, even made a few improvements. You didn’t see litter on the streets and there were no kids hanging around on corners any more – everyone was far too scared of what their special units might do to them to cause any problems.

  The Sharks they call them. The teeth of the law. Imagination was never their strong point.

  Jade didn’t take it any more seriously than I did, at least until Astrology Now came up with a few more statistics for us to think about. They did a survey of the prison population.

  Four out of ten offenders were born into Fire signs and, even more conclusively, when it came to crimes in categories one, two and three, the figure rose to sixty per cent.

  There was no mention of the way the Sharks had been targeting Leos for the previous six months or the way the judges seemed to have it in for the Sagittarians; things like that didn’t seem to matter.

  It wasn’t long before the press were calling for blood and the government leaped into action. Water puts out fire, they said, and it did. That’s when they came for her.

  The last time I set eyes on her, we were having lunch in the Sunrise on the Brecknock Rd. It was the usual for me, Spanish omelette and chips with onions on the side, two toast and a mug of coffee (the sort that looks expensive but tasted like it comes from the washing up bowl). Jade had the soup, straight from the can, with a bottle of water and a slice of bread.

  Always on a diet she was. Seems like a waste of time now. Still, if she’s alive, she’s probably satisfied with her body for the first time in years, all skin and bone, just like she always wanted.

  Shouldn’t kid myself. All bone and no skin is what she is. All bone and no skin.

  When they came in, I was at the counter talking to Stephanos, trying to come up with the solution to the Gooners’ goal drought. Decided we needed some new blood in the management and new legs on the pitch. Jade was watching the world go by from the window seat, so she probably saw them first.

  I thought it was just one of the routine checks, sniffing out the illegals and the unsavoury.

  It started like it did on any other day, a few people running for the exits, the rest of us getting out ID and trying to get it over with as quickly as we could manage.

  One of the boys in the kitchen made a move even before the bell on the door had time to announce them. Had his arms out of the washing up bowl and was through the back faster than Jesse Owens.

  I wasn’t surprised. There were new faces working there every time we went in. We didn’t mind who did the chopping or wiped the tables, so long as they could keep the prices down.

  Two minutes later the boy was back again, this time with a bloody nose and a set of plastic cuffs on his wrists.

  There must have been ten of them in the caff by then. I was too busy trying to catch Jade’s eye to try and count them. They were like grey clouds on a windy day the way they rushed from one table to the next. A plague of bloody locusts. There wasn’t time to do anything.

  I shouldn’t have talked out of turn, I know, but when I saw the way they were talking to her, the way Adam Harris had her by the elbow and was pushing her out to the exit, I guess I kind of lost it.

  Adam Harris always was a lanky bugger. Maybe it would have been different if it hadn’t been him. He was smirking at me as he took her, see? Looking down his nose, his face beaming the message loud and clear, “Who’s the daddy now, O’Sullivan? Who’s the daddy now?”

  True, we’d given him a hard time at school, but it wasn’t our fault he couldn’t manage to do anything without screwing up and it was nothing to do with me that the girls never gave him a second look, not unless they were staring in fascination at his teeth and his acne.

  “Let her go, Harris, or I’ll knock those corns down your throat.” The words were out before I had the chance to think. The shark in charge was all over me like a rash. His neatly ironed, grey shirt sleeve rushed towards me, his fingers gripping white onto the baton. He was married, or at least he had a ring. I wonder if his wife knew what he got up to at work. I could smell his aftershave and burning toast. Jade was shouting something, only it’s all blank now, like it were a silent movie or a cartoon strip with all the speech bubbles bleached white.

  Harris dragged her off, all the time smiling under his silly Thunderbirds hat. His hand went down to her waist then gave her bum a squeeze. That was the last I saw of her, that gormless goof groping her backside.

  “Took her on to bus,” Stephanos told me afterwards. He was making me sip water and held a cloth filled with ice cubes to my face. “With all the others. You a lucky guy, Sully.”

  Luck. One man’s luck is another’s misfortune. I wonder who got my share of the good stuff.

  The way I look at it, Harris is proof that there’s no such thing as a Piscean master race. Take the machine gun from him and he’s nothing. I’d like to meet him one day, down a dark alley, just me and him.

  That was when we had to get our ears done.

  It was the first time anyone tried to go up against them. The protesters were mown down on Trafalgar Square.

  The lines outside the official branders just got longer. From what I can remember, we were all there willingly. There didn’t seem to be anything to worry about as long as you weren’t a Leo.

  I got mine in Camden Town. After all, if you’re going to have the government impose a look on you, the least you can do is get it done with some panache. Stand out from the crowd. Do it in style. Even showed mine off when I first had it, just like I did when I got the mermaid on my shoulder.

  The mermaid was Jade’s idea, to celebrate our love she said. She had a seahorse down by her ankle so everyone would be able to see it in the summer. Turns out they were ironic choices, now she’s sleeping with the fishes and all.

  I don’t want Dimitri to end up like the people who looked after Miss Frank. Nobody ever remembers who they were, yet they were the real heroes when you think about it. Anne was there because she had no choice. The people who kept her in hiding, they were the ones who were risking something, just like Dimitri.

  Dimitri Karlov, for the record.

  He’s a good guy. Doesn’t need to be doing any of this. If I were in his place, I’m not sure I’d have it in me to put it all on the line.

  He’s a GP just over the other side of the Camden Road. Earns enough to own a pad in a quality spot, has two cars and a motor bike, holidays in the sun twice a year and pulls the women like no man I’ve ever known. There’s no way I’d risk that. Good job he’s not like me.

  I met him after they rumbled we were trying to leave the country. A dozen of us crammed into the false section of a container were headed to Amsterdam. It was supposed to be a consignment of organic dog food. Stank like the insides of a whale. Made us feel real Moby Dick.

  Don’t know how the Sharks got wind of it, but the driver pulled the plug on before we left the warehouse. Dropped us off in a park in the middle of Canterbury and told us to wait, so we did.
Three hours we hung around in the fog and then got instructions from a guy with garlic breath and a limp. He gave us pieces of paper with addresses and passwords. Had to get there under our own steam, he said, before disappearing from whence he came.

  Three nights it took to get here. Mostly on foot. The weather was lousy, the coldest June since records began. More of that luck I was talking about.

  Slept as best as I could during the day. It’s amazing how many places you can warm up when it’s chucking down with rain and all you’ve got are summer clothes. Train stations, the backs of burger bars and doorways of shops. Jewellers are best, all that bright light throwing out heat like their main job is to heat the street. When I was desperate I’d stand behind the exhausts of buses.

  By the time I arrived at Hilldrop Road I was a stinking mess.

  I waited until 10:30 and gave the door the two long and three short taps just as instructed. It opened before me as far as the security chain allowed. A smartly pressed white suit and a narrow silk tie were the first things I saw of him. I had to look up as far as my neck would crane to get a good look at his face, or at least the strip of face that was visible. There were smile lines at the sides of the stunning blue of the eye I could see.

  Unlocking the chain, he opened the door and greeted me as if I were one of his long lost relatives from Moscow. Even spoke in Russian before allowing any words of English to pass through his lips.

  “Welcome to the Monkey House,” he said in an accent that was all North London. “Come in and let me get a look at you.”

  I’ve had cooler greetings from relatives. I was half expecting him to tell me how much I’d grown once he’d finished with taking my bag and patting me on the back.

  “You’ve been in the wars, my friend. Come. I have just the thing to put the life back into you.”

  I followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the table. He was right about having just the thing, too.

  Three bowls of soup I had, the best food I ever tasted. Big chunks of vegetable and hunks of bread that must have come from a deli.

  While I scoffed it down, he passed over a glass of whisky that was like the magic porridge pot – every time I emptied it, he filled it up again.

  I felt them, the soup and the booze, warming my bones from the inside

  and then I felt nothing. Next I knew I was waking up in a strange bed made up with the kind of crisp sheets I thought you only got in hotels. The smell of washing powder blended with the aroma of the fresh coffee waiting for me on the bedside table is a cocktail I’ll take with me to the grave. I smell it as soon as I think about it.

  The luxury treatment only lasted for the one night, but I’ll never forget it.

  I knew it couldn’t be like that all the time. I had to move under the boards into my cell and I’ve been here ever since.

  I thought he was being paranoid at first, the way he made me wear headphones in the daytime to listen to the radio. He gave me this pair of slippers early doors, an inch thick with rubber tested out in space. Make me quieter than a church-mouse they do, and ten times more likely to break my neck, but I wear them all the same. Anything to keep him happy.

  He pops down to see me every so often. Tells me the news and how the Arsenal have been getting on. Best of all, I like to hear about his love-life. When I first knew him there was practically a different woman every week.

  He found something wrong with all of them until Aduke came along. I’m pleased that he’s met someone nice, don’t get me wrong, but I miss the buzz I got from hearing about his conquests. When you haven’t got someone, see, you’ve got to get your kicks from somewhere. He says he’s going to get a woman for me, only I don’t know if he has the guts. Even told me that there are people, men and women, who do that sort of thing for the cause. I’ll believe that when I see it.

  Six months ago, he started seeing Aduke, this Nigerian dentist. I knew straight away she wasn’t like the others from the way he talked about her, like he was finally with someone he respected.

  Usually it was the things he didn’t say that gave it away. There were none of the jokes or details I’d looked forward to, and all I got to know were the facts and the things I heard through the boards.

  I asked to meet her to put a face to the lady of mystery who had stolen my saviour’s heart. Should have known better. It was the only time he raised his voice in my company.

  Love can do funny things to a man.

  Not long after the paranoia started.

  Dimitri came home one day and I could hear him pacing his sitting room. I could tell there was something wrong because he still had his shoes on. Normally, he changes into his slippers at the door. Even got his visitors to remove their outdoor footwear in the hall. Always found that a bit anal, you know, worrying about germs and dirt like that. Mind you, being a doctor, I suppose you’re careful about those things.

  The pacing went on for about five minutes and then he closed all the blinds and shutters in the flat. Only time he ever did that was when he was expecting a lady, and even then he never bothered with the sitting room.

  He explained it all later.

  When he left the gym that evening he had a feeling he was being followed. Every couple of minutes he’d take the chance to look around and check. He didn’t do it in the way the average Joe might, not with all his training. No, he looked round only when he was crossing the road, used the reflections of windows, car doors and his mobile to take glimpses over his shoulder.

  He took a different route, looped the loop, tied his laces and turned back to read posters in windows and saw nothing. Still, he said, he knew they were there, could practically smell them.

  I couldn’t smell anything other than the curry he was carrying in the brown paper bag from the Indian take-away. He’d stopped in as an extra precaution.

  Passed the whole thing on to me, he did, said he’d lost his appetite. It was the finest food that I’d put into my mouth since the soup, the melting potatoes in their coating of spinach and the cauliflower florets that were more ‘a la brink’ than al dente. The rice was cold and the nan bread softened by steam, yet I could have eaten it again ten times over. If they offer me the chance of a last supper, that’s what I’ll have, that and my Spanish omelette on the side.

  For a few days I feasted on take-outs from every restaurant along York Way and the Brecknock. There were kebabs and pizzas and plain old fish and chips. The story was always the same. He’d not seen anyone, but they were there, lurking.

  Can’t say I minded much if it meant me getting my fill of international cuisine. My heart was too firmly set on a Mexican for me to care too much how it came about.

  Never got my burritos or my taco shells and curly fries.

  Next day, when Dimitri was out at the surgery, there were some ferocious knocks at the door. Normally people go away when there’s no answer, but not these folk. They knocked once more and then, before I knew it, the door was opening and a heavy set of boots came clomping in above me.

  Although I couldn’t see a thing, I had pictures in my mind of the three of them in their grey sashes pointing and gesturing as if they were in danger. Three boys playing at being soldiers. I’d put money on that Adam Harris was one of them, snooping around and leaving bugs and spy-sights wherever he felt like concealing them.

  Only took five minutes from start to finish.

  Soon as they’d gone I texted Dimitri just as we’d arranged.

  “Not feeling so well. Meet at Pineapple instead? J.”

  Since then he’s been more careful than ever. Can’t say I blame him. Maybe if he’d got rid of me he’d be here now, lying in the arms of his woman, feeding her strawberries or whatever he does that’s so irresistible.

  We talked it over. I say talked it over, but it wasn’t that exactly.

  To make sure there was no noise and that no concealed cameras would capture him shifting furniture and lifting the hatch, we exchanged written messages. Dimitri folded his up and dropped out knots o
f paper through the biggest gap in the boards as if getting rid of soil in the exercise yard of Stallag 13 or whatever it was. I passed mine back up in the space between the skirting and the rubber plant, which was safe as long as they hadn’t hidden anything in the leaves that pointed straight down.

  We decided that there was no point in looking around for bugs or cameras, because they’d see what he was up to and pull him in. A lights-out curfew was imposed for 10 every evening and there were to be no visits at all. Food would be passed down under the cover of darkness and he set about emptying the objects from the drawers of the chest and rubbing oil onto the bottom of the frame so that he could move it as quietly as possible. I’ve lost many a meal to a last minute topple, I can tell you.

  It’s worse when the spills are from the chamber pot.

  That was a month ago now.

  We thought it was going well, but maybe we aren’t as good at playing the resistance game as we thought.

  Hang on. Here he comes.

  I’ve been on at him to get the gate sorted since I arrived. Makes such a squeak it would wake the Pharaohs. I can feel the beats of my heart in my mouth.

  I’ll play it cool. Give him a ticking off for leaving me on my tod with nothing but cold soup and dry croissants to keep me going, then I’ll come clean and tell him how I’ve missed him and his Muscovite ways.

  It’s not him though. Not alone, anyway. Four of them by my count, possibly five.

  Off the gravel and up the steps, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I know the rhythm like it’s engraved in my genes, single steppers, two at a timers and even for the postman - he’s a three at once guy. Must be a 6 six-footer at the very least.

  There’s a key in the lock.

  The swing of the door.

  Stomping of boots. Definitely boots.

  They’re going straight for the chest.