“Please!” I interrupt. “Stop it, all of you! You’re upsetting Greta. What are you all talking about?”
Felix throws his hands up.
“Now look what you’ve done!” He goes over to the window and looks out then speaks in a low voice. “Keep your bloody voice down, all right!”
Rosie shoots Felix a withering look.
“The Brotherhood are a group of foolish people, mostly male as you’d guess from the name, who think that the only way to fight the Pures is through violent means. They are not heroes, as my son seems to believe. They are dangerous and deadly criminals. They—”
“They are heroes,” Felix interrupts her. “They don’t just sit back and wait for change. They fight. Like you did in the Cirque.”
The Brotherhood. I knew I’d heard the word before; they were the ones who grabbed Ben and his brother once, at a football match. Ben said the whole group had been hunted down and executed. Obviously not.
A year ago, I’d have been all for groups like that. I hated all Pures back then – I’d probably have cheered if you told me a load of them had been blown up and killed.
Now, though, I realize that things are far more complicated than that. I’ve met Jack now, and I’ve met Ben. The two bravest and kindest men I know also both happen to have been born as Pures.
You can’t hate people just because of the group they were born into. There are good Pures; there are good Dregs. There are bad Pures; there are bad Dregs. Silvio was a Dreg, although he was desperate to prove otherwise, and he was the cruellest man I ever met.
The truth is, nobody is born better than others, and nobody’s born worse either; scratch the surface and we’re all the same. It’s the labels put on all of us that are the problem. The labels used to categorize us, to define us, to say who we are, what we can do.
Felix’s fists are balled up and his face is red with anger and frustration. “The Brotherhood are the only people who can really change things around here,” he says, angrily. “That’s why I’m joining them.”
Rosie’s face drops and she sinks down on her blanket roll. She clutches her stomach like she’s just been punched.
“No!” she wails. “No, Felix, you agreed!”
“I never agreed. I said I’d think about what you were saying. Well, I have thought about it and I still feel exactly the same! What’s the alternative? Sit back while they parade my brother up and down in the circus like a performing animal? Sit back while they kill him? Stay here in this shithole and wait for change to come to us?”
“Felix! Mind your language! There are ladies present! And yes, change will come to us. Things are changing!” she says. “They’ll change anyway without you putting yourself and others at risk like that!”
“Your mother’s right,” Jack says. “Change is coming, son. It’s coming soon. Not through blowing people up, not through cranking the hate up even more, raising even more animosity and resistance, it’s coming right from the top. Proper, permanent change. You know about the election, right?”
Felix nods, sullenly, his eyes downcast and hooded.
“You know about the candidates, then? You know about Laura Minton? That she’s pro-Dreg? That she’s running against Vivian Baines? She stands a pretty good chance of winning, from what I understand. A couple of years ago no one would have dreamed that would be possible. If she wins, they’ll bulldoze over these slums, shut down the Cirque, start all over again. Equality for all, opportunity for all, that’s what she’s fighting for. That’s how things change: by rebuilding the structure of society, not from blowing up innocent people.”
“The Pures aren’t innocent!” Felix snarls. “I hate them! They all deserve to die!”
He’s so angry, so full of hate. I know those feelings; I’ve felt them myself, every second of every day for the whole of my life. I don’t know him and I don’t think I like him, but I understand where he’s coming from. I get it now, why he was so moody with us. He’s damaged inside; broken and embittered.
Jack speaks again, softly, reasonably. “Listen, son, the Brotherhood are bad news. The answer to hate is never just to hate harder. We need peace. Proper, lasting peace, and more Pures want it than you know! Give Laura Minton a chance before you think about doing anything radical.”
Felix mutters something under his breath and then looks from Jack to Greta and me and then at his mother, her eyes pleading with him.
“There’s no time to sit and wait for some do-gooder Pure politician to try and win an election that the Dregs can’t even vote in! People are being suppressed and killed right now! My brother is in that circus right now, and the only people willing to stand up and fight back, right now, are the Brotherhood! That’s what I’ve always said, that’s what I still say!” He glares at his mother. “Anyone who doesn’t like it will just have to deal with it!”
He stands up and walks out of the hut, slamming the insubstantial door so hard that the cardboard walls wobble dangerously, and one of them leans in at the top, exposing the sky above.
Rosie bursts into tears and Greta throws her arms around her again.
“Please don’t cry,” she says. “He didn’t mean it.”
“He did mean it!” wails Rosie. “He meant every word he said. He’s going to join the Brotherhood and there’s nothing I can do about it!”
Jack’s on his feet, attempting to manoeuvre the wall back in line with the ceiling. She looks up at him. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry to behave like this when you’ve only just arrived. What on earth must you think of us? It’s just … I can’t stand the thought of him getting into trouble, or doing something he’ll regret. He will, though. He won’t change his mind!”
“He might do,” Jack says. “We’ll try and talk to him again, give him some more information. I know a lot about the Brotherhood – I used to be a copper, after all. You need to be seventeen before they let you join, right?”
She nods. “You can sign up on your seventeenth birthday.”
“And when is Felix seventeen?”
She looks at me, and then back up at him, her eyes welling.
“Last week,” she whispers quietly, before bursting into tears all over again.
BEN
The Cirque guards are dragging me across the vast courtyard when there’s a loud whistle from behind and a big white golf buggy comes trundling towards us, its mechanical whirring sound loud in the empty courtyard.
Silvio is behind the steering wheel.
He glides to a halt as he approaches us and switches the engine off, stepping down with a flourish.
“Ah, Benedict, you must forgive me my transportation method; my leg just hasn’t been the same since your girlfriend blew it up! Then again, your thigh probably still aches a bit where I shot you at point-blank range!” He laughs, his white teeth flashing. “Can’t believe I was such a poor shot. You’d think I’d have managed to kill you there and then! Bit embarrassing, really. Oh well, all in good time, I guess! Anyway, I’ve just had a wonderful idea! Before we acquaint you with your new bedroom suite, why don’t I take you on a little tour? Give you the chance to really get a feel for all the things we’ve done here?”
“I don’t want a guided tour,” I answer quickly. “I don’t want to see it.”
“I say what goes on around here!” His voice, vengeful and bitter, cracks like a whip before he reverts to the same ingratiating tone as before. “Anyway, you loved the last circus, I know you did! You couldn’t stay away from the place! We’ve excelled ourselves, if I do say so myself! It’s a much more interactive affair now and there’s far more action, far more blood and guts. You see, I know exactly the kind of things you teenage boys like!”
He laughs again, and nudges me. “Oh, silly me, you’re not like the others; you’re a little more … romantic than most, aren’t you? Well, fear not; you’ll find plenty of other pretty Dreg girls to replace Hoshiko in here, Baines. You may as well see if there’s anything you like – your last girlfriend’s as good
as dead, after all!”
Rage floods through me. I grab hold of him by his suit lapels, lift him up high, and throw him to the ground. Within a split second, the guards have grabbed hold of me, but not before I see him crumpled in the dust, see the shock on his face, the fear in his eyes.
He looks up at me, his crystal-blue eyes wincing in the sunlight. “OK, you want it like that, do you? Fair enough, don’t say I didn’t try to be hospitable. Guards, cuff him and put him in the trolley. You’d best stay close by though; we’ve got a wild one on our hands here.”
He pulls himself to his feet and brushes the smudges of dirt from his white suit. “Well, Benedict, let’s begin our guided tour!”
HOSHIKO
Once Rosie’s sobs have finally subsided, she stands up and starts busily sloshing the cups in the bucket of water and drying them with a cloth she pulls from inside one of the crates.
“I’m so sorry. You barely know us and suddenly you’re caught up in the middle of our family conflict. You’ve got enough on your plates.” She laughs. Well, it’s sort of a laugh; it has the sound of a laugh, but her face is still sad and exhausted-looking. “I bet you’re regretting knocking on our door now!” she says.
“Not at all,” Jack says. “I just wish there was something we could do to help you in return.”
She tidies the cups away and lowers herself back down.
“Felix has been angry for a long time, even before they took our Sean away. Their dad … well, he was in a bad place. He was angry too. He took it out on us, sometimes. He wasn’t always very kind. And then, one day, he just snapped. He was working in the quarry, mining for stone, and he just lost it. He hurled a huge chunk of rock at one of the guards. Caved his head right in, they said. He was shot on sight. Felix was only a little lad then, but that’s when all his hatred for the Pures started.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack says.
“It’s OK. The truth is, we’re better off without their dad. I wouldn’t let Felix hear me say that – he’d never forgive me – but it’s true. He wasn’t a nice man, not in the end. He’s damaged him: Felix, I mean, my lovely boy. He used to be so kind, so gentle. He always looked up to his big brother, especially once his dad was gone, and when they took Sean away, the last little bit of softness went with him. It’s torturous for him, not knowing if his brother’s alive or dead, not knowing what they’re doing to him. I’m trying to calm him down, trying to stop the hurt, but it’s hard. He feels it all so deeply. He works on the roads, digging them up, laying tarmac, that sort of thing. He goes to work, keeps his head down, gets his tokens, eats his rations, sleeps, goes to work again. The only thing that keeps him going, the only thing that fuels him, is his determination to get Sean out of the Cirque. That and his hatred, his need for revenge.” She shakes her head. “It’s eating away at him from the inside.”
Listening to her, I can’t help thinking of my own family. It must have been the same for them when I was taken, must still be the same for them, if they’re even alive any more. I wonder if they know about me. I wonder if they’ve heard the stories. They’re bound to have – everyone seems to know who we are.
“Rosie,” I ask her. “How do you cope when something like that happens? How do you keep going?”
She sighs. “It’s very hard, almost impossible some days. I just hold on to the belief that the world is changing, that he’ll be freed one day, and he’ll come home to me. That’s why I keep the place as neat and tidy as I can, that’s what the flowers are for. I find fresh ones every day, put them in the window so that when my Sean comes home he’ll see them and he’ll know we’re still right here, waiting for him.”
She stands up briskly. “Anyway, why am I still waffling on? I don’t know why I’m putting all this on you. As soon as Felix comes back, I’ll send him out to go and make an appointment with Kadir’s guys. He won’t have gone far. He’ll be back soon.”
Felix doesn’t come back though. Rosie keeps glancing at the door so much that, in the end, we all are. His absence becomes more and more palpable in the room as the minutes go by.
Who is this infamous Kadir? Request an appointment, she said. It sounds funny to me, like something the Pures would do, not us. They make appointments all the time. Appointments with doctors, or dentists, or lawyers, and then they sit in a waiting room in their smart clothes, waiting to be called by a receptionist. There’s a water cooler, Ben said, if they get thirsty, and teas and coffees are available too, if desired.
Does Kadir have a receptionist? A secretary?
I don’t like the thought of a Dreg having that much power; it reminds me of Silvio. Dregs don’t make appointments, and they don’t sit in smart clothes in waiting rooms. I don’t want to meet this guy who Jack has to suck up to – cower to – if you read between the lines.
I look at Jack. He’s thinking the same thing as me, I’m certain of it.
“I’m not sure about this,” I say. “I don’t like the sound of Kadir.”
Jack frowns. “You heard what Rosie said. He runs the slums. Even the police leave him alone to get on with it. If he’s got that much power and influence, the sensible thing is to try and make friends with him as quickly as we can.”
“That’s right.” Rosie nods. “You won’t get very far without him.”
“What if he won’t help us? What if he just turns us in straight away?”
“He’ll find out about us anyway,” Jack answers. “Loads of people must have seen us earlier. If he’s that well informed, he’ll soon hear about our arrival.”
Rosie laughs, nervously. “You’ll have to a bit careful how you talk to him, especially you,” she says to Jack.
“Why especially me?”
“You used to be a Pure. Not just any old Pure either: you were a copper. Kadir might be wary of that. He’ll want to make sure you understand who’s in charge.”
Jack raises his eyebrows. “I’m sure you’ll be safe,” she says hastily. “As long as you’re respectful to him, as long as you understand who’s boss. We’ll go soon. I’ll take you myself.”
“If there’s any chance you’re going to be put in danger by your association with us, then we can’t let you get involved,” Jack says, and Greta and I nod.
“There’s no danger,” Rosie says. “I promise you. Not from Kadir, anyway. I’ll take you to him myself.” She peers out of the window. “We should probably just wait until it gets a bit darker before we go out there, though. Everyone knows who you guys are. You’re famous.” She smiles at Greta. “Famous heroes.”
“Famous criminals, more like,” I say. “As soon as they see us, people are going to inform on us. Why wouldn’t they? What do they owe us?”
Rosie frowns. “That’s why we need to see Kadir, for protection.” Her eyes flick towards Jack. “Better you go to him than he comes looking for you.”
BEN
It’s only when I’m on the back of Silvio’s golf buggy, trundling across the acres and acres of land, that I begin to comprehend just how huge this place is.
Hundreds of fairground rides, all still for the moment, stretch on into the distance, their bright colours gleaming and fresh.
At first, I feel quite reassured. Maybe they’ve taken a conscious step away from all the horrible stuff that used to go on in the old Cirque. Maybe it’ll all be OK. There’s nothing wrong with fairground rides, after all.
I start to read the signs though, and a cold shiver of doubt whispers its way up my spine. Fatal Blow, one reads, Buried Alive, another. It’s when we whirl past a bumper car ride – Dodge the Dreg – that I know I’m right. This isn’t a normal fairground.
The huge Ferris wheel dominates the skyline to the right, its carriages lightly swinging back and forth in the breeze.
“Ah, I see you’re impressed by our big wheel,” Silvio calls to me, glancing over his shoulder. “You’re right to be. It’s a historical artefact, you know. It used to be the pride of the city, that wheel: the London Eye, they called it, because of th
e panoramic views it offered. They dismantled it when the slums started spreading everywhere. The Pures didn’t like seeing the way the Dregs took up so much space, the way they were polluting everything. They stopped using the wheel and it was eventually dismantled and shoved in an old warehouse. It was your mother’s idea to resurrect it; she thought it would make an impressive set piece. She’s clever, your dear old mum; you must be proud of her. It’s going to be one of the stars of the show when we open.”
He looks up at it fondly. “Do you know, it still worked? After all these years. It only took a few minor adaptations to turn it into a suitably dramatic ride for this place. We’ve called it The Wheel of Misfortune! Maybe you can have a ride one day, if I can persuade your mother to relax her restrictions a bit!”
His eyes light up with excitement. “I can’t tell you how much I’d love to get you into one of those carriages, Benedict!”
I don’t say anything; I won’t give him that pleasure. I stop looking about me and stare down instead, keeping my eyes fixed on the shiny metal floor of the buggy as we move on and on and on.
Eventually, the whirring stops and we come to a halt.
Silvio eases himself out of the buggy and comes round to the back, his cane tap-tapping on the ground.
“Well.” He grins, holding out a gloved hand. “Shall we?”
I ignore the offer of assistance and push myself up, trying not to let him see how difficult it is with my hands cuffed. My thigh always stiffens up if it stays still for too long, and being hunched up in the back of this buggy, even just for this short journey, has made it feel numb and inflexible.
Sabatini watches as I prise myself out and then reaches forward, prodding my leg with his cane.
“You could do with one of these, couldn’t you, Baines? Too proud, are we? Or maybe you didn’t like looking weak in front of your little tightrope walker. Didn’t want her to know you weren’t the big tough guy after all, is that it? I shouldn’t worry, my cane doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I’ve grown rather fond of it. It lends me a certain … gravitas, wouldn’t you agree? And it has several custom-made adaptations. I’m sure you’ll become familiar with them at some point.” He squares his shoulders and thrusts his head forward. “I feel stronger than ever now. Stronger and purer and better, despite your girlfriend’s efforts.”
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