“That was the summer that everything changed. My father was selling a lot of our land off to build new houses. The livestock was taken away and the builders were all moving in.
“The day before I left to go back to school, I was wandering around on my own, bored as usual, and I ran into Andreas, clearing the crops in a field. He looked at me all sympathetically when he saw me, like he felt sorry for me, even though I was a Pure and he was a Dreg. He put his arm on my shoulder and asked if I was OK.
“For some reason, it got my back up. I felt like he was patronizing me, like he just saw me as a little kid. I pushed him away, really hard, with two hands, and told him to get his hands off me. I called him a filthy Dreg. His face dropped, but it just made me angrier. I don’t know to this day why I did it, but I punched him, right in the face. I remember looking at him, lying there in the mud, his nose spurting with blood, and then just walking off and leaving him. The next day, I went back to boarding school.
“It didn’t take long for the guilt to set in, of course. I couldn’t believe how awful I’d been. I still can’t. All I wanted was to get home and apologize for what I’d done. I knew it would be hard but I’d make up for it, somehow. I’d find a way to help him with his work. I’d try to explain why I did it, although I didn’t really understand myself.
“When I arrived back that Christmas though, Andreas and his family were gone. Their cottage had been torn down to make way for the new houses and my father had dismissed them.
“He seemed totally bemused by my dismay at first and then, when I kept asking him to find out where they were, he got angry.
“‘You want to be careful, Jack,’ he said. ‘People will start wondering if you’re a Dreg sympathizer.’ I remember him sneering at me. ‘Maybe you should join the underground resistance.’
“He meant it as an insult, but the phrase stuck with me. I didn’t even know there was a resistance movement until then. It got me thinking: it must mean there were people out there who didn’t like the way things were, people who thought we should all be treated equally.
“I needed to find my best friend. I needed to tell him I was sorry, that I hadn’t meant what I’d said, what I’d done. I only joined the police so I could try and track down Andreas’s family. I never did though – nobody bothers keeping records of the whereabouts of Dreg farm workers.
“It doesn’t take long when you work for an institution like the police for people to work out that your views maybe aren’t as fixed as they should be – for you to be regarded as something of a liberal. The resistance are always looking for new blood and eventually, and very carefully, over many months, they recruited me.
“Helping others was the only way I had of apologizing, I guess, to Andreas. If I ever meet him again, I want to show him that I’m not the spoilt, spiteful Pure kid I was back then. That’s why, when the Cirque came to town, I made sure I was on the security task force. I didn’t know what I could do, but I knew I had to do something. As soon as they said that Vivian Baines’s son had been fraternizing with a Dreg girl and they were trying to escape together, I knew I had to try and help you.”
He looked at Ben then and his face was all shameful. “You were braver than me. You’d put your neck on the line straight away. Not like me. You’d never have behaved like I did.”
“Andreas would have known you didn’t mean it,” I said. “He wouldn’t have hated you. He’d have realized that you were just hurt and confused. You were just a kid then, Jack. Look at what you’ve done since. You saved us. Greta and I would be dead without you.”
He just smiled then, a sad kind of smile, and I wondered if he was missing Alice, his fiancée. Now, I realize, he must have been, not just then, but all the time. He must miss her every second of every day, just like I’m missing Ben now, but I think he never says much about it because he doesn’t want to make us feel guilty.
He gave everything up for us and he still thinks he’s a bad person.
I’m not excusing what Jack did, but the shame he feels, deep inside, and the guilt which is still eating away at him – they’ve made him what he is today. He’s determined never to let anyone down again – hell-bent on doing the right thing, whatever consequences it might have for him personally. He seems so confident most of the time, so bright and cheerful, but when you really know him, you see that there’s an emptiness there, deep down inside him. I wish I could take it away. I wish he would judge himself on the man he has become, and not the foolish boy he once was.
I think about what he sacrificed for us, and for the millionth time I’m flooded with gratitude. This must be the first time he’s been this far from Greta and me since we went on the run and I have no doubt that if I called now, he’d come running.
What would we have done without him these last few months? We’d have died out there on the streets, that’s what, or been captured, which amounts to the same thing.
He’s spent nearly a year now without even speaking to the woman he loves, the woman he wants to marry. He doesn’t even know if, or when, he’ll see her again. Every day, he must have had that ache inside him that I do. That cold, empty feeling.
Where is Ben, right now, I wonder? I hope he’s safe. What if he’s not? What will they do to him? What if they’ve locked him up somewhere? What if they’re hurting him?
A piece of cardboard draped over the front of one of the shacks moves suddenly and a woman emerges. Her skin is grey, her hair is sparse and thin; she’s really skinny. She’s wearing an orange uniform so I guess she’s heading into the city to earn her food tokens.
I hold my breath, flash her a look which must be more grimace than smile, and walk past her, gripping hold of Greta’s hand tightly. She doesn’t step aside to let us past, so we have to squeeze around her, awkwardly.
Once we’re past her, we take a few more steps and then I stop and turn around. She’s still there, standing in the middle of the path, the cold stare of her hollow eyes replaced by a glimmer of recognition.
Her eyes keep darting from us to something else, something beyond us, high and in the distance. I don’t have to turn back around to know what she’s looking at. The PowerHouse, adorned with our pictures, casting its shadow down over the slums.
I turn back around and keep walking, clutching Greta’s hand the whole time.
After a few seconds, I hear her footsteps, running off into the distance.
I stop and wait for Jack to catch up with us.
“She recognized us,” I say.
He nods, grimly. “She ran out of here just then as if she was on fire. Three guesses where she’s going?”
He doesn’t need an answer. We all know what he means.
She’s running to find a police officer, as quickly as she can. She wants to get her hands on all that lovely reward money before anyone else does. Damn it, we’ve hardly been here five minutes.
“What do we do?”
“Stick to the plan. They were hot on our heels anyway.”
We walk on, more quickly this time. Greta keeps looking behind us, her face full of fear and panic. I wish I could say something that would make her feel better.
Use your instinct, Jack said, but after a while everywhere looks the same. Decay and despair drape over everything, as rancid and rotten as the smell of the rubbish tip hanging in the air. Then, as we turn another corner, I see somewhere different. A hut, as tiny as all the others, but a little more upright, a little crisper, a little neater, a little prouder-looking than the rest. It’s got real windows, for a start, clean enough to see through and beyond them, in the dim interior, there’s a vase of wild flowers.
Flowers, here, in the slums.
I squeeze Greta’s hand and point towards it.
“Let’s try that one,” I say.
Her eyebrows rise in surprise when she sees the windows and the flowers, and she nods.
“Agreed.”
And so we do. Hand in hand, we walk slowly up to the tiny shack and knock on its thin wooden d
oor.
BEN
Neither of the police officers has said a word to me since we got into the car.
“What are we doing here?” I demand, time and time again, but they just stare straight ahead.
They stop the car and get out, the female officer opening my door and taking a firm hold of my arm, all without any response.
I shake her hand away, roughly.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on!” I yell.
The other officer comes round to our side of the car and pushes me on to the bonnet.
“Do you want us to cuff you?”
I stop struggling and let them lead me through the open ticket barriers and into the main courtyard.
I look around, overwhelmed by it all.
Pristine multicoloured pathways lead everywhere, neat flower beds fully in bloom alongside them. The buildings are all different colours too, all gleaming with fresh paint, all solid, all built to last.
It’s like a larger than life version of the old Cirque: the travelling circus that came into town, put on its dazzling display of death and destruction for a week or two and then moved to another town to do the same thing there.
There are no scaffold frames up, no sign of any construction going on. Everywhere is empty, but it’s ready. Ready to open, waiting impatiently to put on a show.
The officers lead me forward towards a huge hill right in the middle. Its grassy slopes are dotted with flowers and trees and various life-size figures are meandering about. Traditional shepherds holding crooks, tend their sheep. Ethereal maidens, dressed in white robes, wander and pick flowers. Girls with rosy cheeks carry milk churns on their shoulders, whilst nymph-like creatures frolic amongst the trees, tumbling together in ponds and streams.
Mythological creatures like these don’t really exist, not in real life. They must be projected images, so lifelike that you can’t tell the difference. If you touched one, would your hand go right through it, I wonder, or would you grasp something physical, something real?
A large hive is perched right on the top, hundreds of bees flit busily in and out of it, and behind it, letters, twisted from flowers: Arcadia: the Land of Milk and Honey. Arcadia: I’ve heard that word before. It’s Greek, I think. What does it mean? I wish I’d paid more attention at school.
I look at it. It’s obviously the centrepiece of the whole Cirque. Why? What happens inside?
Dread and fear twist in my stomach. I don’t want to go in there.
I brace myself for a second and then wrench my arms away from the police officers holding me, spin around and run towards the gates.
They run after me.
They’re quick, but I’m quicker.
I reach the ticket booths and vault right over one of the turnstiles, sprinting off down the sweeping entry road.
Behind me, I hear whistles blowing frantically and then sirens, lights flashing, the sound of footsteps sprinting in pursuit.
Something huge swoops past me, so fast I feel the air rush, and there’s a screech of tyres as it skids to a halt in front of me.
It’s a motorbike. A police officer leaps off it and stands there, barring my path, gun raised.
I stop. What else can I do?
I look around; I’m surrounded by armed forces. Twice in one day. There are the two officers who brought me here, flanked by six other officers. Behind them, security guards, wearing the government uniform.
One of them looks familiar. It’s Stanley, my old bodyguard. My heart gives a little jolt at seeing him again. It’s silly, I know, but I was fond of him in a funny kind of way. For years, he was always there next to me: a silent companion, my own personal shadow. I try to catch his eye, but he gazes passively into the distance. Some things never change.
What’s he doing here?
Something catches my eye as it glints in the sunlight, beaming down on the arena roof. I look up. There’s a sniper up there, his gun trained on me.
What’s going on?
Stanley, the sniper, the government uniforms. They can’t all be here for me, can they? No. There must be something else that’s brought them here. Someone else. There’s only one possible explanation. She must be here.
My mother.
Why?
I guess I’ll find out. I step forward with my arms held out in front of me.
“Go on then,” I say. “Since you lot are so obviously rubbish at keeping hold of me, you’d better put those cuffs on.”
The officers who brought me here break out of the line and walk towards me.
“No,” a deep voice says; it’s an older man in a black suit. “The boy’s right, you lot are useless. You nearly lost him all over again then. How can one boy escape two armed officers? Why wasn’t he cuffed in the first place? Get out of here! Consider yourselves suspended until further notice!”
The two officers look at each other and then slope away slowly.
“Cuffs?” says the man, and the other police officers scramble around for some.
He steps forward, grabs my arm, slaps the handcuffs around us both and pulls me forward, dragging me past the other officers, along the path, all the way into Arcadia.
HOSHIKO
There’s no sound from inside the shack, and no movement either. It’s a minuscule little place, like all the others are, so when the door’s not opened within ten seconds, it’s clear there’s no one there.
Next to me, Greta looks dismayed. I know how she feels: now we’ve got to psych ourselves up again to bang on another door, and there’s something about this place that looks friendlier than the others. Maybe it’s just the flowers, or the fact that it’s cleaner than everywhere else, but there’s a different feel to it, a more welcoming feel.
“It’s the middle of the day,” I say to Greta. “I suppose it’s not surprising that there’s no one about. They’ve probably gone into the city to work, like that woman from before.”
There’s no sign of any more people, just the sound of the kids in the distance, still kicking their can around the rubbish heaps. I can still feel the eyes on us though. These huts are so squashed together, there must be people in some of them, listening to us, watching us.
“What shall we do?”
“Keep trying, I suppose, until someone does answer.”
“Hoshi?” She’s looking up at me with big, worried eyes. “What are we going to say when we do speak to someone?”
“Tell them the truth, I guess. Tell them about the Cirque. Tell them we ran away. Hope they’re on our side – they should be.”
We turn away from the little door and that’s when he appears. Hands in pockets, scowl on his face, sloping right up to us: a boy, about Ben’s age, I’d say. Thin, freckled face, floppy, dirty hair hanging over his eyes, hands in the pockets of his ill-fitting orange work suit.
“What do you want?” he asks, abruptly. “What are you doing outside my home?” He steps closer to us, suspiciously. “Do I know you?” His jaw drops in surprise when he sees Bojo staring out at him from Greta’s arms and when he looks at me, his eyes widen even more. “Bloody hell, you’re the circus runaways, aren’t you? The ones the police have been hunting for all these months. What are you doing here?”
I give a quick glance behind him to check Jack’s still there. He is, stooped in the shadows a few yards away. It makes me feel a bit better.
“We don’t want trouble,” I say. “We’ve got nowhere to go.”
“And what’s that got to do with me?” There’s a challenging tone to his voice. “Why are you telling me that? There’s a cash prize for you,” he says. “Big money. They’ve said they’ll even reward it to a Dreg if they’re the ones who shop you.”
My eyes flick towards Jack again. He’s crept a little closer now and his pose is different. He’s poised, he’s ready. Could we get away if we ran? Get out of here before this boy shouts out and other people come running, all desperate to be the ones to catch us, to grab the golden tickets?
No
. We couldn’t.
Greta steps forward from where she’s been hiding behind my back.
“You should help us,” she says, bravely, “because we’d help you. Because we’re Dregs too and because Dregs stick together.”
He looks down at her, and an expression of amusement flickers across his face. “Is that right?” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes it is, actually. We’re not going to beg you but, just so you know, if you turn us in, they’ll kill us.”
He sighs wearily.
“I’m not going to turn you in, but someone will. There are plenty of people around here who are hungry enough. You should leave.”
“And go where?” I ask, desperately. “Where is there for us to go?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. Not my problem.” And he pushes us both roughly aside, opens the little rickety door up and slams it in our faces so hard that the whole shack shudders.
BEN
Once we’re at the door, the black suit guy releases me from the cuffs and pushes me inside, slamming and locking the door.
I’m all alone, for the first time in almost a year.
Alone in Arcadia.
What is this place?
The last time I was inside a circus building, it was the arena: a traditional big top, with circular rows of plastic chairs surrounding the central ring and the smell of sawdust and sweat and stale beer.
This place is completely different. I’ve never seen anything like it before; I’ve never heard of anywhere like it before.
I’m inside a forest.
Great gnarled trees curve around the edges, ancient and majestic. Way up high, the branches strain together so that they arch overhead in a leafy canopy. The air feels lush and alive; they must be real. Sunlight twinkles through, or what feels like sunlight, warming my back and casting dappled spots on to the springy grass beneath my feet. It’s dotted with tiny daisies, yellow buttercups and delicate blue forget-me-nots. I reach down and feel it with my fingers.
Dozens of tiny yellow birds – canaries, I think – are flitting about the branches. They sing and chirp continuously, their creamy voices soaring high into the air. It’s just an illusion, it has to be, but they’re buying into the myth. There are other birds too, their wings beating vigorously while they sup the delicious nectar – hummingbirds. On the ground, real peacocks strut around, ignoring me completely, their tails fanned proudly.
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