by Mark Leigh
Her assessment was less of an interview and more of an interrogation. Flicking through the file she bombarded him with question after question after question, not just about his background and previous jobs but also on his views on party ideology and sex. In fact, he found himself answering more questions on sex than he ever had in his entire life, and that included the time he found himself testifying before a Senate Sub Committee on Sodomy. Vera also probed him about his upbringing and his family, prying deep, Dick assumed, to find out if there were any subversive skeletons hiding in his cupboard.
The training Taylor and Alice had provided served Dick well and he was able to give responses that were fast, confident and, more importantly, answers he was sure Vera wanted to hear. Despite this, Dick still felt uncomfortable. As Vera was making notes Dick had time to think about the look she’d been giving him. He was quite good at reading people but there was something about Vera that made him anxious. Her body language told him two things. That she knew he was faking it and she would take great pleasure in revealing his true identity as soon as this charade of an interview was over. Or that she was attracted to him. Either scenario filled Dick with dread. Eventually Vera put her pen down and spoke; Dick was extremely relieved to find that his anxiety had been misplaced.
‘Well, Mr. Brunel’, said an unemotional Vera Darling, closing the formidable file, ‘You certainly seems to possess the right experience, aptitude and attitude for this vacancy’.
Dick nodded and smiled. In fact he smiled for two reasons. One because he was relieved that he had survived the interview. And two, because he had just realised what Vera’s initials were.
She continued. ‘It’s almost as though the position here was designed exactly for you’.
Dick smiled again, this time slightly more nervously.
‘There are three more candidates to be interviewed and I will be making a decision within forty-eight hours. If you are successful, Mr. Brunel, then you would start on Monday. I presume that is practical?’. Dick told her that it was.
Vera continued, ‘One thing you should know, is that I am a very demanding boss. In fact, in the department I have a reputation for being a perfectionist and at times, a hard taskmaster. I insist on total devotion to your job and in going beyond the call of duty for the Party. I hope you are prepared for this uncompromising way of working’.
Dick wasn’t, but thought he’d better agree, ‘Of course. I am dedicated to the Party and relish the opportunity of working under you’. Dick wondered if Vera understood this admittedly weak double entendre but her reaction indicated she didn’t.
‘Good. Then that is all for now. Good day Mr. Brunel’.
Dick extended his hand in greeting but realised too late that Vera was not going to reciprocate. By then, he’d gone past the point of no-return and all he could do was change his move from a would-be handshake to a one-armed stretch and a yawn which, to be honest, looked ridiculous. Dick thought he’d just better leave but as he stood up and walked towards the door Vera called out.
‘Mr. Brunel?’
Dick turned and looked at Vera uneasily.
‘Yes, Miss Darling’
‘How is your sister?’
Dick was confused and somewhat alarmed by this seemingly random question. He paused before answering.
‘I don’t have one’, he replied nervously.
But Vera had her formidable file open again. ‘But your records indicate you do. Louise. Five years older’.
Dick hoped his expression concealed his inner panic. ‘I think you’re mistaken’, he said, trying to regain his composure but feeling the onset of a hot flush.
Vera gave Dick an incredibly steely glare. ‘Mr. Brunel’, she said coldly. ‘Surely you could not have forgotten about your sister?’
Dick gulped. There was an uncomfortable silence. He delved deep within his memory to recollect what Taylor had told him. Or was that the problem? Maybe Taylor hadn’t actually mentioned any sister. Was Dick being tested?
‘Are you all right Mr. Brunel?’ Vera enquired. ‘You look, well, a tad worried’.
Dick was worried.
‘Well?’ Vera pressed him for an answer with obvious impatience in her voice. ‘Your sister?’
The more Dick tried to think of a response, the redder and sweatier he became. He looked at the door but Vera was blocking any escape route. Then, after a moment, an expression that was more than a smirk but less than a smile crossed his lips.
‘Louise is my step sister’, he said. ‘She lives in Plymouth and she’s fine, thank you’.
Vera nodded and almost smiled herself. ‘Goodbye Mr. Brunel’.
Dick found his way back to the elevator and punched the button. He hoped the voice had announced ‘Ground floor’ but Dick thought it had warned him, ‘You won’t get away with it!’. It wasn’t until Dick reached the ground floor and walked out into the bustling street that he let out a huge sigh of relief and a rather noisy fart. After all, the interview had been extremely nerve-wracking.
- - o O o - -
Following the detailed instructions given to him by Taylor, Dick took the Metropolitan subway back home. It was clean, smooth and punctual. ‘What was it about dictatorships that always made the trains run on time?’, thought Dick to himself before realising it was probably the threat of severe physical punishment to the railway managers that inspired this sort of efficiency. A brisk ten-minute walk from the station later, and Dick had reached the sanctuary of Abode 168756, his new home. He’d been over his cover story countless times: he’d just moved into the area from south London and he was renting this furnished apartment from a friend. In reality it had been owned by a previous member of the Resistance who had just moved to Manchester, for both a new job and to transfer to the movement there.
Dick fumbled with his key card, walked through the empty lobby and then took the elevator to his apartment. Closing the door behind him Dick leant against it, shut his eyes and emitted an enormous sigh. For the first time in ages he felt very alone. Up until now he’d been in the constant company of colleagues in the Resistance. Now the job interview was over Dick had time to relax, which was good, but it was also bad because this meant he also had time to reflect. Dick hadn’t experienced loneliness in a long, long time. In constant demand all of his adult life he was virtually always in contact with someone. Of course some of these contacts were more intimate than others but there was always somebody who wanted a piece of him. Now he had no one to talk to. No one to phone. No one to e-mail. Worse, no porn to look at. Dick sighed then threw off his jacket and kicked off his brogues before exploring the apartment in detail.
Off the hallway was a bathroom, a kitchen that opened up on to a living / dining area (dominated by a huge flat screen TV) and a bedroom (dominated by a slightly less huge flat screen TV). Examining the wardrobe and chest of drawers, Dick was pleased to see that the Resistance had kindly provided him with a selection of clothing and accessories he’d need to blend-in; everything that the well-dressed would-be Assistant Communications Under Manager would be wearing this season. They had also supplied him with a small computer terminal. This tour of his new home didn’t take long since it was quite small. In fact, compared to Dick’s condo in 2010 it was absolutely tiny; he reckoned he could fit this whole apartment in his old guest suite. It was, Dick thought, so small that the mice probably had hunchbacks. It was, he thought, so small that you could turn off the bedroom light and jump into bed before it got dark. It was so small that… well that’s enough old jokes for a while.
After the ordeal of his interview Dick decided he needed a stiff drink. On opening the fridge he found the term was relative; all he found in it was a bottle of full fat milk and some lime cordial. Dick mixed the cordial, drained a whole glass, then slumped down on the couch. He needed company — and fast — and the best solution to take his mind off the situation seemed to be the television. Trying to find something to catch his attention Dick channel-hopped. The problem was there was only
one government-run TV channel, so channel hopping was actually limited to turning the TV on and off. The novelty soon wore thin and Dick decided that watching what was on was preferable to watching what was off. That afternoon he saw programmes about canal construction, iron ore mining, locomotive pioneers and embroidery. Unable to keep his eyes open, a combination of general tiredness and the soporific programme content, Dick took himself to his bed and fell into a deep sleep.
He was rudely awoken to the sounds of the Leader addressing him. Well not him personally, but all of the population. He reached over to his small bedside table and looked at his pocket watch, one of his new fashion accessories, to see it was 6am. Dick rubbed his eyes and looked again. It was still six am. Dick had heard rumours that there were actually two six o’clocks in each day, but he hadn’t been able to verify this. Now he could, and he didn’t like it, especially since it was a Saturday. The stress of the interview must have really taken its toll; he rarely woke this early or slept this long. The appearance of the Leader was pre-empted by very loud music emanating from the TV. Dick liked jazz, R & B, soul, pop, garage, rock, rap and hip hop. In fact there were only two styles of music he absolutely couldn’t bear. One was world music and the other was brass bands. The good news was that the New Victorians weren’t into nose flutes and making clicking noises at the back of their throats. The bad news was that they seemed to have a real affection for tubas, euphoniums and trombones.
The other bad news was that when the Leader spoke to the nation it wasn’t possible to turn the volume down, or in fact, the TV off (Dick would later discover that the television would automatically turn itself on at six in the morning every day). After the music died down Dick had to sit through various messages and proclamations from the Leader about increased coal mining and hovercar production statistics that were mind-numbingly tedious. The only thing that kept his attention was the leader himself. He was a reasonably handsome man with full beard and moustache and a very smart three-piece suit. Dick thought he looked familiar. He racked his brain trying to think whom he reminded him of, narrowing it down to one of the security guards at the Ministry of Information or a man he saw presenting the programme on canals the previous night. Then Dick realised that most New Victorian men looked the same; this was a society where to be different was to be dissident.
The Leader’s dull announcements were followed by boring pronouncements. These in turn were followed by more strident brass band music. Dick went to take a shower, only to find the loudspeakers in the bathroom, and in fact every room in his apartment, were all broadcasting the Leader’s proclamations. To block out the din Dick tried to shower with his hands over his ears only to find this was impractical, especially when it came to trying to wash his hair. He worked out how to control the water pressure and temperature with his elbows but when it came to applying the shampoo and massaging it into his scalp, well, no matter how hard he tried, he had to remove his hands from his ears. With the sound of massed trumpets and flugelhorns still ringing in his head, Dick dried himself.
He was contemplating how he would spend the day when the TV announced that it was time for the monthly bromide injection. He was instructed (or rather, commanded) by a severe voice to place his fist through a rubber-sealed hole in the bathroom wall. The Resistance had briefed Dick all about this and he remembered having a giggling fit when Taylor first told him the name of the process: fisting. Although it resembled one, Dick fully understood that this opening in the wall was not a ‘glory hole’. Inserting his penis, Taylor stressed, would not only be ‘wrong’, it could also be incredibly and exceedingly painful. Inside was a device that injected the correct dose of sexual repressants into a vein in the back of your hand. Anyone not subjecting themselves to the monthly injection would be identified and then investigated. The severe voice increased in severity and Dick did as he was ordered, first placing his flat palm on the scan plate next to the opening. There as a bleep and a light flashed green as his ID chip was read. Dick then gingerly inserted his clenched fist through the rubber seal. Two more sounds followed. One was a buzz and the other was a yelp as the injection took Dick by surprise.
Although the Resistance’s efforts at creating pornography were at best extremely soft-core and at worst, complete shit, what they were good at — or so Dick was told — was technology, and this included developing an antidote to the repressants. Taylor had told him that a member with a pharmaceutical background had managed to create pills that neutralised the chemical injections. They lasted for about a month, were completely undetectable, and quite amazingly, worked. Resistance members took their dosage when they were at the headquarters; it was far too dangerous for pills to be kept anywhere else. Dick had been told that it was not uncommon for the security forces to enter homes when they were unoccupied and conduct random searches for pills, party criticism, pornography or anything else deemed ‘anti-constitutional’, whether it began with a ‘p’ or not.
This impulsive thought about porn made Dick feel very aroused all of a sudden. Usually this was good but at this particular time it meant he had an itch he couldn’t scratch. There was nothing remotely pornographic in his apartment, not even old copies of National Geographic or that edition of Reader’s Digest with the feature ‘I Am Jane’s Breast’ which would always do in an emergency. Then Dick had a thought. Or to put it more accurately, he thought the unthinkable. He went to his jacket pocket and took out his wallet. He carefully unfolded one of the banknotes provided to him by the Resistance and examined it. There was a depiction of the Clifton Suspension Bridge on one side. He turned it over. He couldn’t… could he? Would he? He had to.
His trousers were straining under his bulge and he had to find relief in some shape or form. The form was Queen Victoria whose portrait graced the other side of the currency, an indication that the Party still held her in very high esteem. In the privacy of the bathroom Dick dropped his trousers and looked longingly at the banknote. He was sure Victoria had been young and attractive once. The problem was that the engraving that had been used showed her in her dotage and it took every single ounce of Dick’s imagination to make her appear even slightly alluring. It wasn’t long though before Dick got into the swing of things.
‘That’s it queenie! You know you want it!’, Dick thought to himself. ‘Kneel on that throne and take it all, you filthy monarch whore! I’m going to fuck you, you sovereign slut! That’s it. Hold on to your crown Vicky! Take my sceptre! That’s it baby, you dirty royal bitch! Take it! Take it all! I’m going to fuck your imperial brains out. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! YES!’
A combination of Dick’s great imagination and even greater desperation meant the banknote did the trick. It was a much more relaxed Dick who shortly afterwards left his apartment ready to face the day and explore his new surroundings for the first time.
CHAPTER 9
Dick was worried about meeting any of his new neighbours since he knew they’d be curious about the newbie on the block. His plan was to try and avoid them for as long as possible. ‘As long as possible’, of course, is open to interpretation. Given Dick’s situation it could have been half a day, a day, a few days or a week. It could also have been fifty-four seconds and that is the precise length of time it took from Dick locking his apartment door to bumping into the pleasant thirty-something couple that were waiting for the elevator.
Introducing themselves as William (a teacher) and Mary (a doctor), they welcomed Dick to the neighbourhood. On the short ride down they asked Dick about himself and what he did for a living; he told them about moving to the area and his recent job interview at the Ministry and they wished him the best of British luck. It turned out they lived in the apartment opposite. After saying their goodbyes in the lobby William and Mary turned right out of the apartment block on to the street. Dick didn’t really want to undergo any further questioning so he turned left. After a short while Dick checked that William and Mary weren’t following him; they weren’t. They continued to walk down the street in the op
posite direction. However just as they were about to disappear around a corner they suddenly both turned around, saw Dick looking at them, and gave him a knowing wave. Of course, it could have been a friendly wave, but given the circumstances, Dick had his doubts.
Even in the short ride in the elevator he felt that William and Mary seemed over-interested in his background. He wasn’t sure if this was just their natural neighbourly inquisitiveness, or because they were two members of the Party whose job was to keep him under surveillance and look for any signs that he wasn’t quite who he seemed. Maybe, Dick thought, following the interview the Party already had doubts over his identity and they were waiting for him to say something or do something that would trip him up. As a precaution Dick decided he would treat anyone he met as if they were a Party spy. Heeding advice from an old condom slogan, he decided it was far, far better to be safe than sorry.
- - o O o - -
Dick spent the day experiencing what it was like to live as a real New Victorian. He went looking for a coffee shop but the nearest he could find was a quaint tearoom that served eighteen varieties of English tea and a selection of muffins and buns. Naturally, Dick smiled at the word buns, much to the confusion of the demure waitress who served him. Sitting in a window seat, Dick read one of the morning’s newspapers which seemed full of the same sort of propaganda as the early morning TV broadcast. It seemed the Party had created stability and prosperity throughout the country but at the high cost of personal freedom. Nowhere in the entire newspaper, or indeed any of the other papers or periodicals that Dick read that morning did he see any example of sexual freedom or expression. There was a fashion spread in one of the magazines all about the latest bustles, and another about knickerbockers. And they were the sexiest things he saw.