by M J Dees
‘The President wants to know who stands with him,’ it read. ‘We are sending a list of everyone who signs their name to Dr MacDonald first thing TOMORROW morning. Will he see your name? Add your name by 11:59 pm TONIGHT, to stand with Dr MacDonald and to get onto the list of supporters he sees.’
When he got home, Jim found Annabel in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Jim asked when he saw her.
“It’s the abscess,” she struggled to say, with her hand pressed against her mouth.
“I thought you were going to go to the dentist.”
“I couldn’t find one that would open.”
“You might get septicaemia if you do not get it treated soon. You feel hot, let me take your temperature.”
“I’m okay.”
“You have a fever,” he said when he had checked the thermometer. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She shook her head, and Jim could see she was struggling to breathe.
“Come on, I’m taking you to the hospital.”
There were no buses, and it took them over an hour to walk to the hospital where they found a large crowd of opposition supporters had gathered and were glorifying the actions of Walker’s assassin.
Police were guarding the entrance to the hospital, and they soon learned that Walker’s assassin was being treated inside because a police officer had shot Walker’s assassin during the attack.
The nurses put Annabel on a drip and gave her antibiotics. After many hours, they announced they had found a bed and that they would keep Annabel overnight for observation. After many more hours, they transferred Annabel to the ward, and Jim was told he would have to go home.
The strikes and the shootings continued the next day, and mobs looted large houses. Jim divided his time between the hospital and the university where lectures had recommenced. During one lecture, a student rose and asked Jim for permission to address the lecture theatre about the current political situation.
“We should leave politics aside here and work,” said Jim.
The student sat down and was quiet for the rest of the lecture, but afterwards he approached Jim and asked whether he could explain his views to him in person.
“Certainly, just not in class,” said Jim, inviting the boy to walk with him as they talked.
“Independence is the only answer to the problems of this country,” he began.
“I am a moderate,” said Jim. “I am averse to any form of extremism. As a teacher, I must ensure that I spend my classroom hours on instruction.”
The student left and Jim didn’t see him at his next lecture.
At the weekend, they discharged Annabel from the hospital and she said she felt well enough to visit the house of one of Jim’s colleagues. Jim thought the social engagement would cheer her up.
When they arrived at the house of Victoria Philips, she grabbed Annabel with both hands and immediately led her to the sofa.
“We, women, have to stick together,” she said. “Did we want this independence? It’s all because of these foreigners.”
Annabel and Jim stared at her in silence while she launched into a diatribe about how foreigners had ruined the country and how women had to stick together to get through it all.
“Close the borders, completely close the borders,” she frothed with hateful rage, adding in lies about foreigners being showered with never-ending freebies while destroying the education system and the NHS.
“Sorry about that,” said Jim after they had left. “She’s a university lecturer, I thought her views would be more liberal.”
He tried to make amends by accepting an invitation to the house of Jayden Watson and his wife Madison, where the talk also turned, inevitably, to the demise of the assembly.
“I didn’t agree with Walker’s politics,” said Jim. “But the murder has created more confusion than Walker ever could have.”
“How dare you call him a murderer,” Madison Watson shouted. “He sacrificed himself for us, liberating us from this dreadful independence. He is our saviour. I wish I could heal his wounds. I’m not worthy of cleaning his shoes.”
With that, she ran from the room in tears.
“She’s at the end of her tether,” Jayden explained with embarrassment. “She is a passionate monarchist, and the independence dealt her a terrible blow.”
“I’m sorry for having upset her,” said Jim.
They shook hands, and Annabel and Jim left in a gloomy silence.
“We shouldn’t allow these two events to sway us,” Jim argued later. “And you shouldn’t judge the rest of the faculty by these two lecturers. It’s possible that some of the staff might be further to the right than we are, but if you listen to Carter’s fanaticism it’s not surprising that the academics and students want to react against it.”
The next day, Joe Wood asked Jim to meet him and Green that evening, so Jim had to go to the police for a pass because the 7 pm curfew was still in force.
“It’s only meant to be for doctors and midwives,” said the constable. “Not for academic meetings.”
Despite a brief hesitation, he issued the pass.
Jim didn’t want to visit Wood and Green, but he felt he had to be seen to try so they would not marginalise him in the staff room. Annabel did not mind him going alone. She was still recovering from the last two social visits they have made to his colleagues.
After he had fulfilled his obligation by visiting Wood and Green, Jim took the opportunity of his pass to see Carter, whom he challenged about his fanaticism.
“I’ve listened to the people around you,” said Jim. “They call the Scots stupid and yet they choose to be here promoting their message because they think the Scots are so dumb they can get them to do anything.”
“They aren’t dumb,” said Carter. “They are like innocent children who we need to win over to the side of good by childish means.”
“Like fake news?”
“If necessary.”
Carter wasn’t alone. He had his friend, Dylan Davis, with him. Dylan had been a banker before the troubles but was now unemployed, trying to do whatever he could to earn money for himself and his girlfriend. Like Carter, he was a dealer, and no doubt indulged in a bit of smuggling himself, but was no romantic and possessed a healthy dose of common sense. He aspired to be upper middle class and was a stamp collector. He shared his collection on social media and used an online catalogue to search for items by price or country. But his stamp collecting was not just a hobby; it was also a way of inflation proofing his money.
“If I go abroad,” he told Jim. “I don’t know how much they will give me for a pound, but if I take stamps I know they will always pay the full collector’s value.”
“I heard silver is good,” said Jim. “It’s cheaper than gold and more likely to hold its value, I’ve heard.”
“Couldn’t tell you,” said Dylan. “I could do with your advice, though. I have some books someone asked me to sell, and I wondered whether you could give me an idea of their value.”
He pointed to a pile of books on his floor. Jim had a look but saw little value. Most of the books had “review copy” stamped on the inside cover as if they had belonged to a journalist. There were many art books and a few on history and politics, and many classics in school editions. Jim picked up a few and when he looked inside, he found the name Grayson Walker stamped inside all of them.
“His widow gave them to me,” Dylan explained.
“His widow gave them to me and I’m giving them to Dylan,” Carter corrected.
Later, Jim tried again to dissuade Carter from joining the fanatics.
“Carter,” he said. “You can’t think that Dr MacDonald is a decent person.”
“Decent? What’s that got to do with anything? I’ve joined because I want to work for the purity of its goals. We must oppose the right.”
*
Jim woke to discover Alba had declared itself a people’s republic. As far as Jim could work out, the person in charge
of the country was Jack Allen, the apolitical politician whom Jim had seen speak at the memorial service for the ‘opposition martyrs’.
This first change Jim noticed under Allen was that when he arrived at work at the university, he discovered it was closed. He then checked his flip and discovered a host of messages explaining that the temporary People’s Republic Council had dismissed the chancellor along with most of the senior staff. There was a note attached to the gates on the Teviot Place entrance explaining that a new institution to serve the people would open soon.
But the gate was not completely closed, and inside Jim could make out groups of students shouting at each other. Jim couldn’t make out everything that was being said, but it was along the lines that to avoid violence, the students should go home before the police or army arrived.
The Edinburgh Police, and the constabularies of Alba had been essential in maintaining the current situation or rather not interfering in the political situation and now that the army had returned to their district commands, they too seemed unwilling to interfere in what they seemed to regard as the will of the people.
Jim wondered whether this was the case or whether the appointments of like-minded chief constables and the restructuring of the Army had not been a bid to manage budget deficits as the Government had said but part of planning for the independence which had stretched back for years.
The students ignored the pleas to disperse and continued debating in their animated way.
It was almost as if the seizure of control by Allen and the closure of the university had been part of some elaborate April fool’s joke and that, at any moment, Allen would reveal his lark, everyone would laugh and everything would go back to normal.
It was then that Jim read on his flip phone that the Scottish Assembly still existed, but had moved to Glasgow to avoid the risk of violence in Edinburgh. Was this fake? Jim had never experienced such a bizarre series of events.
Charlie Hamilton, who was not even the same party as Walker, had managed, during the chaos of Dr MacDonald seizing power, to form a coalition government and was attempting to restore democracy.
This coalition was promising both utopian and banal ideas to win over the hearts of the masses who viewed Hamilton as the lesser of two evils when compared with Dr MacDonald.
At a meeting of staff, everyone agreed that if they dismissed even one lecturer on political grounds, then the whole faculty would stop lecturing. They would not resign from office because they did not recognise that those in office had any right to take their roles from them.
The university did not close. Those whom the council had dismissed remained in office. Dismissed lecturers continued to lecture, and they held animated meetings in lecture theatres without the police, the army or any violence ever showing up.
While Jim felt more secure at work, in other areas, he felt much less so. There were widespread rumours of flip conversations being listened to in a Stasi-like surveillance operation. Jim would have been sceptical about the suggestion purely based on a lack of resources in Alba but it was plausible that parties in foreign countries with interests in destabilising the country might not only be monitoring the population but might have been instrumental in the manipulation required for the initial troubles in Westminster.
On the streets, Jim heard threats of independence tribunals. It all seemed to be out of control. How had it got to this from the simple idea of a manifesto for Alba, which is where it had all started? So many lies and broken promises.
The Bernican Brigade marched through the city and the minority celebrated the third set of troubles in just over six months, while the majority seemed to have no say in the matter.
Jim went to a meeting where Isaac Price, a member of the new parliament in Westminster, was speaking. Price praised the Government in Westminster for less talking and more action, substantial progress in balancing the budget, its leadership and the emergency constitution. The renationalisation process had begun, which was good news for anyone who had to commute by train. As he listened to Price speak, Jim couldn’t help thinking the devastated areas north of the border were moving at a much slower pace.
The more Price spoke, the more patriotic he became, talking about the hardships Alba had to endure under decades of different governments. He was attempting to massage the feelings of the Scots and kept deflecting questions about how much Westminster would attempt to interfere again. The crowd seemed convinced that Westminster had every intention to re-impose themselves on Alba.
Price finished by asking why people were still debating the troubles. It happened. It was all but a thing of the past.
On his way home, Jim read on his phone that Jim Allen had declared that Charlie Hamilton’s assembly could not meet, not even in Glasgow, and Jim felt just as depressed as he had before. There seemed to be no resistance at all. Everyone seemed to accept this removal of democracy as a foregone conclusion.
Allen had his support from the local police and the local military, and he had his military tribunal. Jim worried, not that MacDonald might replace Allen, which he without doubt would, but that Finlay Fraser would replace MacDonald. Fraser was ex-military and Jim was convinced that although they would have to force Allen to take violent measures, Fraser would be all too willing.
The banks closed to celebrate MacDonald’s declaration of Scottish independence, and when they reopened, Jim discovered there was a daily limit on withdrawals.
On his flip, Jim read that this new Government was planning the expropriation of property. Posters in the streets warned about the persecution by foreigners, while conversations overheard complained that the names of criminals are always foreign.
Foreigners were getting blamed for everything, and Jim sensed eyes staring at his dark skin and wondered whether he too was being blamed.
Jim saw a group handing out flyers against MacDonald’s committee and mobs yelling shouts of ‘foreign pigs’ immediately attacked them. Police and military soon arrived, and the crowd made to disperse at gunpoint. The crowd had gone, but Jim noticed that flyers blaming foreigners had appeared scattered on the ground and police drones still hovered overhead.
He picked up a flyer; it read:
As we finally have our great country back, we feel there is one rule that needs to be made clear to residents.
We do not tolerate people speaking other languages than Scots.
We are now in our own country again and Scots is the spoken tongue here. If you want to speak whatever is the mother tongue of the country you came from, then we suggest you return to that place and return your flat to the council so they can let Scottish people live here and we can return to what was normality before you infected this once great country.
It is a simple choice, obey the rule of the majority or leave. You won’t have long till our government will implement rules that will put Alba first. So, best evolve or leave.
God Save the President, the Assembly and all true Scots.
Jim wondered whether they really meant Scots, which was spoken by only one in four of the population, despite a resurgence in popularity.
The next day, Jim awoke to the news that the British Army, the army still loyal to Westminster, had surrounded the city where the Bernican Brigade camped in a state of siege, holding the city’s population hostage as a form of human shield. The local population, passive, was allowing the Brigade to push them around and the constabulary stood by waiting.
Glued to their flips and afraid to leave the house the whole day, Annabel and Jim watched the news develop and, as Jim had predicted, Fraser took over from MacDonald. Fake news from both sides filled social media. The Government was sending its paid assassins to Edinburgh. Students were on the march. Then there was a statement from the Bernican Brigade stating that MacDonald had dissolved his committee and the Brigade was preparing a statement on the Hamilton government, still exiled in Glasgow. Convoys of trucks with food and other goods were queuing to enter the city to replace the shortages which had blig
hted the country following the floods.
The sound of distant gunfire followed by two explosions silenced the amazed chatter in the house. A lengthy silence followed.
Annabel and Jim fell into a comfortable sleep, but awoke the next morning to read that MacDonald was still in charge and was ready to take on Westminster.
There was a statement from Allen: ‘I welcome the restructuring. The old committee no longer exists. I offer my help to the new emergency council whenever needed.’
There followed a general strike and items on social media and the news that anyone with weapons should surrender them to the new authority. There were rumours of the government reinstating the death penalty for those who did not comply. The last poll on capital punishment carried out in Alba had revealed the majority wanted it re-introduced.
Annabel and Jim became accustomed to the situation. Even the occasional sound of distant gunfire did not bother them anymore. It seemed as normal as the trams had been before they went on strike.
Social media reported the Brigade was being paid with money from banks which the government had forced to open their coffers. The rumours that MacDonald’s accomplices were raiding the kitchens of hotels for supplies of food filled further posts. Another post announced that the university would reopen with a series of lectures about the new regime. It was very difficult for Jim to believe anything he heard. The rumour mill was working overtime. The first rumour was that the gunfire they had heard had been shooting at a plane, then that they had shot the plane down and then that Charlie Hamilton, whom they referred to as the First Minister, had been on the plane and was now dead. Then there were rumours of fighting in the suburbs of Edinburgh and that they would use heavy artillery if the Brigade did not stand down, followed by rumours that the Brigade had routed the forces encircling the city and had sent them scurrying away.
Only one thing remained constant, the remarkable calm of the Edinburghers, as if nothing untoward was happening.
Chapter Five – 23 years and 7 months before the collapse