by H M Sealey
Hajjah brushes a stray curl from my face. “And meantime, I come here whenever I can and try to help the girls. It’s either than or turning my face away and pretending it isn’t happening. But it is happening.”
After a little while Sylvester joins us, wiping his bloodied hands on a handkerchief.
“Goodness, that was a little bit dramatic wasn’t it?”
“Where’s Asim?” I ask.
“With his uncle. Baraq Saidah? Is that correct?”
I nod.
“He’s in good hands. I pay for one of the best doctors in the Border. You needn’t worry.”
“What about Kit?”
Hajjah’s face takes on a less tolerant expression. “Kit probably deserved everything he got.” She says, and I realise she isn’t fond of Kit Summerday.
Sylvester pats her hand. “Now Hajjah, that’s our Grandson you’re talking about.”
Hajjah snorts. “I’m ashamed of him. He’s worse than Zeb. At least Zeb has the decency to know what he’s doing is immoral. Kit’s helped break up thousands of families and he still convinces himself he’s on the side of the angels.”
Sylvester turns to me with a smile. “Now, what about some tea and cake Elsie, then you can tell me why you’re here.”
“I don’t know why I’m here.” I admit. “I was with Baraq in the BSI. Then he brought me to talk to Kit but I didn’t want to come back here…..” Fresh tears flood my cheeks and Hajjah wraps her arms around me.
“Poor thing. What a dreadful time you’ve had.”
I sniff. “Kit thinks I know something about Family Matters. I wish he’d just leave me alone.”
Sylvester takes my hand in his and draws me to my feet.
“This way Elsie.” He says quietly, leading me to a small, comfortable office with a squashy sofa along one wall and a desk messy with papers below the window. He smiles at his wife.
“Do you think you could rustle up something to eat Hajjah? Poor girl looks quite faint.”
Hajjah kisses him and leaves, I don’t object when he steers me towards the sofa.
“There are some things I need to tell you about Kit.” He says with a sad sigh. “Maybe I should have done so when we first met.”
He pulls a cigarette out of a packet and opens the window, seating himself on the windowsill so he can direct the smoke outside. “Don’t tell Hajjah I still enjoy a cigarette or two, she does so worry about my health.”
He sucks on the end of his cigarette and blows the smoke to the window.
“I had two sons.” He tells me. “Zebedee and Alistair. Alistair was Kit’s father.”
“Was?”
“He died.” Sylvester pauses. “Kit was always a very determined young man. Big member of NuTru’s junior branch Motivation growing up. Dedicated to Social Justice and socialism, determined to wipe out Christianity and Conservatism. He was activist for everything that involved protesting on the streets.” I listen without comment as Sylvester speaks, his eyes look as if they’re far away, seeing something I can’t see except through his words. “Then Alistair became a Christian. When Kit discovered this he….well, I’ve never seen somebody so angry, so let down. He thought his career would be damaged, but, in the end, he accepted it, grudgingly, but begged Alistair to keep his beliefs quiet.”
“And did he?”
“Not exactly. He joined Family Matters and started smuggling Christian families out of the country. There was a big call to take newborns from Christian mothers at the time and Alistair couldn’t bear it. I knew what he was doing, I supported him, but then Kit found out. Oh, he was far more ashamed of Alistair than his uncle Zebedee. Slave Trading Kit could reconcile with his twisted morality, but not Christianity.” He takes another long draw on his cigarette and gives a harsh, unhappy laugh.
“Kit convinced Alistair to end his own life.” A tear squeezes out of his eye and he wipes it away quickly. “He as good as killed my son. He played on his guilt so perfectly that Alistair truly thought it was for the best.”
There’s silence in the room. I don’t push Sylvester, I just wait until he raises his head again.
“That wasn’t the end of it though. Somehow it wasn’t enough to know his father was dead, Kit set about trying to track down the Family Matters network. But he doesn’t want to bring them to justice Elsie, I’m not sure he cares about justice, he wants to destroy the line and kill everyone involved, just in case one of them mentions his father’s name. He’s terrified that one day, it’ll be known that Alistair Jourdete was a member of Family Matters and Kit wants any evidence destroyed.”
I look at him in horror. “Gran…?”
“Bibi chose to finish her own life. Kit would’ve stopped at nothing to get more information from her. I think she did the right thing. I don’t think I could have protected her.”
I’m sobbing noiselessly when Hajjah returns carrying a tray with biscuits and tea. Sylvester throws his cigarette out of the window and wafts any smoke away.
“Here we are now.” She says cheerfully, before stopping and noticing that we’re both crying. “Oh dear.”
“It’s all right Hajjah, I was just telling Elsie a little bit about Kit.”
“He’s dangerous Sylvester.” She says, placing the tray down on the messy desk. “And one day he’ll work out just how much you know about Family Matters and I wouldn’t put it past him to have you arrested and interrogated.”
“I still outrank him Hajjah, and God willing, I will do until the day I die.”
“That won’t matter.” She shakes her head then smiles at me. “Milk and sugar Elsie?”
I nod. I’m not fond of tea but right now I could use the sugar.
“Thank you.”
“This land is a terrible place Elsie.” She says, placing a china cup in my hands and offering a little bowl full of sugar lumps. I take two and stir them into my drink. “Kit’s the biggest hypocrite I know. He hates the BSI with a passion yet pretends to toe the NuTru line about tolerance and diversity.”
“Why does he hate the BSI?” I ask.
“Because he’s frightened. He’s frightened one day he’ll be sent over the Border.”
“Why would he be?”
Hajjah exchanges a brief glance with Sylvester. “Because of me Elsie.” She says.
I’m confused. “You?”
“I’m Muslim, which makes him one quarter Muslim and he hates that. Although I have tried to explain that one can only be a Muslim if one follows the Faith. It’s not a race.”
Now I’m even more confused. “But Kit arrested Mrs. Blackwood for wanting to keep Noor from being sent to the BSI.” He’s on their side.
“As long as it’s someone else being sent over the Border, it’s not him.” She sips her tea and shakes her head sadly. “It was one of his biggest fears growing up, that he’d be sent to the BSI. He hates me for what I am, for what he somehow perceives I’ve done to him. You can’t reason with him Elsie.”
I sip my tea. I feel safer than I have for a while and I begin to relax.
“Can I see Baraq?” I ask.
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” Sylvester promises. “But then what do we do with you? Kit won’t stop until he knows everything you do.” He looks deeply into my eyes. “Tell me Elsie, do you have any information concerning Family Matters?”
I shake my head firmly. “I’d never heard of it until a few days ago. Then it turns out Missy’s part of it and has been for ages.”
“Yes, I know about Misaki.”
“You do? Does Kit?”
“No, and I mean to keep it that way. He suspects your friend Daichi but not his sister.”
Sylvester returns to the desk and takes something out of the bottom drawer. In his hand he holds the little bible I found.
“This has a lot of names in it, all expertly coded but Misaki showed me how to break the code. If Kit knew I had this….well, I don’t quite know what he’d do. I can never, ever let him know this exists. The people in here are the la
st link I have to my son, the one who didn’t think slavery was an acceptable business venture. I was proud of Alistair, I wish to God Kit could be too. But the only thing I can do in Alistair’s memory is help to keep Family Matters safe. I’m not part of the network. I like to think of myself as their….guardian angel. Yours too, if you don’t mind.”
I like the idea of a guardian angel so I don’t complain. Hajjah offers the biscuits and I take one.
“The only thing I can think of Elsie, is to find a way to get you out of the country.”
I shake my head. “I have a brother somewhere, and there’s Baraq. I don’t want to go to a place where I don’t know anyone. I don’t want to be alone.”
Sylvester wraps an arm around Hajjah’s body and she smiles and rests her head on his shoulder.
“I understand that. I had to fight to keep Hajjah with me.”
Hajjah kisses his cheek and he beams. “Shall we go and see if the Doctor’s got our friend Baraq settled in one of the bedrooms?”
We leave the comfortable little office and head up the staircase with the polished, brass banister that feels cold beneath my fingertips.
“What will happen to Baraq?” I ask.
“Happen to him?”
“He did try to kill Kit. He’s part of Family Matters too.”
“Then I imagine Kit will want to interrogate him.”
Baraq is still unconscious, lying in a bed, white bandages swathed over his torso. He seems more alive now at least, but still vulnerable. Asim is at his side looking like the frightened little boy that he is.
The Doctor is still with him, I cringe away from her but she barely even notices my presence. I suppose she must see a lot of girls, I’m probably no more memorable to her than a housebrick.
“How is he doctor?”
The Doctor is tall and thin with dark hair clipped up on top of her head and neat little glasses.
“He’s lost a lot of blood but the blade missed any internal organs. I’ve stitched the wound. He could probably do with a blood transfusion but his heart-rate’s steady. He’ll live to fight another day.”
“And my grandson?”
She rolls her eyes. “It’d take more than a knife in the leg to finish him off.” She jerks her head towards Asim. “You’re lucky you’re in the Border. He’d be suing the kid if this happened in Old Britain. But here? Well, he just looks like an idiot for letting a little boy knife him.”
“But he’s all right?”
“Limping and as angry as a bear with a sore head, but yes.” She clicks her bag shut and gives Sylvester a look of dispassionate professionalism.
“Keep your eye on him.” She nods at Baraq. “If he develops any sort of fever, call me. Not that there’s a great deal I could do.”
I approach the bed and gaze down at this man I barely know. Asim gives me a tired, watery smile. Behind me I can hear Hajjah and Sylvester talk in low, concerned voices.
“I ought to check up on Kit.” Sylvester says with feigned cheer, and then I hear him sigh and mutter, quite clearly in a sad sort of voice.
“I’m at war with my own Grandson Hajjah. Alistair would’ve hated that. He loved that boy.”
“You love that boy.” She replies in a whisper.
But Sylvester neither confirms nor denies this. I reach out an arm and rest my hand against Baraq’s flesh, feeling human warmth beneath my fingers and savouring the way his chest rises and falls gently, as if Baraq has no cares in the world. I’m so glad he’s not dead.
“My mother loved him.” I say to nobody in particular.
“I love him.” Asim responds.
“Kit knows he’s part of Family Matters. I’m sorry Asim, I shouldn’t have blurted it out, I was just so sure you’d already told him.”
“It’s done now.” Asim says, then he grits his teeth. “I heard them talking, murder’s not a crime here, people are expected to be responsible for their own safety.” He turns his head to me and says something no little boy should ever say. “I made a mistake. I should have aimed for the heart. I can kill Kit Summerday, and nobody will care.”
~
Josh
River and I sit side-by-side in a small, undecorated concrete room somewhere underground. I have no idea where we are and I don’t think it matters very much. Again I find myself longing for the life I barely remember as a child and again I find myself floundering in my own thoughts and memories. I’m not brave enough nor passionate enough to fight against tyranny. I’m not sure my fighting against it will do a damn thing. Not when the tyranny comes cloaked in tolerance and kindness. What’s not to like about the concept of creating a truly equal society? It’s only the people who have to lose their freedom to create that equal society who notice the discrepancy.
“Well, you’ve been a bit of a damn fool haven’t you?”
The woman sits on a hard chair in front of a small desk with little on it other than a cardboard box. She’s old, with shockingly bleached hair and too much red lipstick. The smoke from her cigarette irritates my throat and there’s no window so the scent lingers.
River sits beside me, hands clasped on her knees, a respectful expression on her face.
“I tried to expose my mother for what she is.”
“That wasn’t what you were told to do.”
This woman is known as Aunt Sally. She doesn’t offer a real name and we don’t ask.
“I took a chance.”
“You took a stupid risk.”
“It was my risk to take.”
“You risked Josh’s freedom too. And now that woman is garnering sympathy thanks to her attack by speech terrorists. You handed her more support River, and now nobody will believe the truth about her since it’s entered the record as a conspiracy theory.”
“My mother is selling people from Old Britain as slaves! She has to be stopped.”
Aunt Sally slams a hand down on the desk. “Your mother is using the same system we’ve been using for years to get people out of Old Britain!” She snaps. River blinks up at her, genuinely startled.
“What?”
Aunt Sally sits back on the chair and rubs the bridge of her nose.
“I don’t have time to deal with your stupidity. As far as the records are concerned you’ve both been brought here as slaves. That’s your cover, okay?”
We nod in synchronisation.
“The Juliet drug.” Aunt Sally continues. “Was developed by Kai Clarke for us. So that Christians can opt for Assisted Suicide, then we can get them out of the country, and revive them.”
“Hang on,” River’s eyebrows knot in the centre, she looks confused. “Kai Clark?”
“Is one of us. Yes.”
River stares with her mouth slightly open. Aunt Sally taps the ash from the end of her cigarette onto the floor.
“I have no idea who passed on the idea to Diana Lamont, possibly Kai himself since he never misses out on the opportunity to make money, but it doesn’t stop us from doing the same. If you’d succeeded in getting an investigation into the damn stuff you’d have wrecked one of our best escape routes.”
“I didn’t know that.” River admits.
“I know you didn’t know that. It’s on a need to know basis and you don’t need to know.”
She sits forward in her chair and scrutinises us as though we’re broken and she isn’t certain whether to bother mending us. “So now what do I do River? When one of our operatives stops taking orders and plays the lone wolf, what choice to we have?”
River looks horrified. “I’m useful to you.” She tells her. “You know I am. I got in and out of a Rainbow Centre for God’s sake -”
“Thanks to Kat Summerday! You’ve become a liability River. You suspected Howard Steele was prepared to betray you so you left him in a church. All those people! You could have been responsible for so many broken families, and all because you put your personal vendetta above your responsibilities to Family Matters. You manipulated Baraq Saidah into acquiring the Juliet drug fo
r you.” She shakes her head, exasperated. “I have no choice River. We can’t trust you any more. I’m sorry.”
River climbs to her feet and faces her. “So that’s it huh? What is it? A bullet to the head? Bang?” She glances around the cold room. “This is the Border right?”
“I can’t tell you where we are.”
“You can kill someone in the Border without repercussions. Much easier than trying to hide a murder back in Old Britain. Mind you, I’m a Rainbow Centre inmate, so nobody’ll miss me, will they?”
“We’re not going to kill you River. For God’s sake you’ve done enough for us to merit a medal, not an execution.” She sucks on her cigarette and coughs. “Left to me I’d give you another chance, but you’re Diana Lamont’s daughter. Your mother sent you back to the Rainbow Centre after making damn sure everybody knows she’s doing it because she loves you and wants what’s best for you. But you scared her River. I mean really scared her.”
“Good. Though I might have known she’d wriggle out of any trouble like the snake she is.”
“Hmmm. But she’s used your photograph in one of her interviews. And she wants regular updates on you. She’s not going to allow you the sort of freedom you had before. That makes you a liability.”
“So I just get kicked out then? After everything I’ve done for you?” River looks unsure. “I get to live out my days in a Rainbow Centre? I’ll slit my own throat first.”
Aunt Sally nods. “I thought you’d say that so that’s the plan.”
“What plan.”
“To Tell Diana Lamont that Ash Lamont is as dead as River. Suicide.”
“All right. I can live with that. What happens to me?”
“Well, we can’t keep you in a Rainbow Centre obviously. But without an official identity there’s no housing, no money, no chance of a job. No River, you can’t stay in Old Britain.”
For once River’s expression betrays surprise. “So where are you sending me?”
“You’re already here honey. The first step in your new life.”
“New life?”
Aunt Sally stubs out what remains of her cigarette and takes another from the packet. “This house belongs to a Slave Trader.”