by M J Dees
Mila pushed a set of documents across the table towards Jim. He took them and read them. They were instructions for those listed for transfer to a refugee centre. They would confiscate all property and the forms were to be used to complete an inventory.
“They will search here eventually,” said Jim.
“Give me your diary,” said Annabel. “I will take it to Jenny Li’s.”
*
Jim got out of bed and looked out the window. A thick blanket of snow covered the city.
Mid-morning, a police officer arrived and asked Jim to follow him. He led him to a van full of similarly badly dressed ageing men like himself who were told they would have to clear snow from the front of council buildings.
The work consisted of a lot of walking and standing around and very little snow shovelling. There was a strong chilly wind blowing through the city all day and Jim’s hands, nose and feet were numb. In the afternoon, the sun made an appearance, but it did very little to warm him.
Jim was very glad to return to the relative warmth of the house. He found Annabel consoling Mrs Allen.
“At least he’s still in the prison and they haven’t sent him to a refugee camp,” said Annabel.
“Have you seen him,” asked Jim.
“No,” Mrs Allen sobbed.
“Then how do you know?”
“On Fridays, relatives can take new underwear to the prison,” Annabel explained.
Jim shrugged, unclear as to the link between underwear and proof that Mr Allen was still in the prison.
“If they accept the underwear, and exchange it for old underwear, then the prisoner is still there,” Annabel explained. “If they refuse the underwear, they have moved the prisoner to a camp.”
Mrs Allen held up a bag of underwear.
“Dirty?” Jim ventured.
Annabel and Mrs Allen both gave relieved nods.
“He’s still inside,” Mrs Allen confirmed. “Are the refugee camps that bad?”
“They say they work them twelve hours a day,” said Jim.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Annabel realised. “How was your day? I got some shopping.”
She showed him the potatoes, bread and tin of beans she had found.
Mila arrived with a cake she had baked from goodness knows what, and she joined in the consoling of Mrs Allen. Jim felt forgotten. He had wanted to share the tale of his day, but it seemed diminished in the light of months in prison Mr Allen was suffering.
“You did well finding ingredients for a cake with this rationing,” Annabel congratulated Mila.
“I have my contacts,” said Mila. “Don’t forget to give me the rent, we can’t be late.”
“It’s not due for another week,” said Jim.
“Better to be safe than sorry.”
“There was a quote from Anderson in the paper,” said Mrs Allen, changing the subject. “He said we had to endure the rationing. The timing was unfortunate, but we had to. He also said that they would send anyone caught trading on the black market or profiteering to a re-education camp.”
“They won’t allow us on trams or in the train station, either,” Jim grumbled.
“Four suicides this week,” said Annabel. “A couple arrested after a search took an overdose of sleeping tablets and two prisoners hung themselves this week to avoid being sent to a camp.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Jim.
“The relatives at the prison, they all talk. The other thing I found out today was that public officials are being issued with guns.”
“Did they tell you where we can find toothpaste or toilet paper?”
Mrs Allen shook her head.
“There’s none anywhere,” Annabel complained.
“And I can’t get a haircut,” said Jim. “Would you shave it off for me, Annabel?”
“If you want?”
*
Mila brought news of two more suicides.
“Fifteen police officers,” she said. “And they took all the food. Beat many of the residents.”
“Shh,” said Jim. “Olivia can hear.”
“Come downstairs,” shouted Mrs Allen. “We have cake.”
“And heating,” said Jim. “Let’s go.”
When they arrived downstairs, they found Mrs Allen in high spirits.
“Look,” she said. “A postcard. From the prison, he hasn’t gone to a camp. They will allow him to write every two weeks and I can write to him.”
“I heard of a man who spent three weeks in prison just for not writing foreign under his name when he signed a letter,” said Mila. “When they released him the prison officers told him that if he felt badly treated or short of food, he should sign his name without foreign again and they would look after him.”
She gathered her things and headed for the door.
“Just popping out, see you later.”
Annabel, Olivia and Jim enjoyed Mrs Allen’s cake and her heating until a knock at the door caused everyone to freeze.
“It’s probably just Mila, forgetting her key,” said Mila.
Jim opened the door to three men.
“Customs Investigation Department,” said one of them. “We’d like to speak with Mila Rivera.”
“She’s out.”
The men walked into the hall anyway, and one of them explained that the rent was overdue.
“What? But I give Ms Rivera the money every month and she transfers it into the account,” Jim protested.
“Well, she hasn’t. Nonpayment of rent can cause a high fine or even a prison sentence and a criminal record. You must come with us.”
“Daddy!” Olivia shouted.
“It’s okay, Olivia. Stay with your mother, I’ll be back soon.”
They took Jim to the Department of Investigations in the city centre, where the ignorance of the interviewing officer regarding the plight of foreigners surprised him.
“They do not allow you to take the tram?” he marvelled.
Back at the house, Jim waited for Mila to return. When she did, he confronted her aggressively about the matter, which she vociferously denied.
“It’s not just the rent,” Jim shouted. “You’ve got a mountain of potatoes in your kitchen going mouldy and yet we’re going short.”
“How dare you speak to me like that,” Mila protested. “I’ve just come back from my 80-year-old aunt. The Unity police have beaten her.”
*
Having received the name of the trustee who would look after their house, Jim went to visit him at his office.
Mr Quinn asked Jim to take a seat while he shut the door for privacy.
“They relieved the previous trustee of his post for being too trusting of foreigners,” Quinn confided. “If I don’t accommodate these people, you’ll find yourself with another trustee, which might not be good for you. But I would like to help you. I’m aware of your tough situation.”
“They want us to spend money on the house we don’t have,” Jim allowed the floodgates to open. “The tenant and the council are conspiring against me. They want to rent it without giving us a penny. Freeholders are meant to be compensated.”
“It might be possible to arrange a new tenant, but it would require the approval of the party which would not be forthcoming because, as you say, the council would not want to find in your favour,” Quinn stood up and moved to the window. “I have another plan which might work. I might have some other interested parties who might rent it for a higher value than the council wants, and then you might get it back when all this is over.”
“Might?”
“But it’s half lost to you already.”
“It’s very important for us to keep the house. Particularly to my wife.”
“I wouldn’t worry. This situation can’t last much longer.”
Quinn moved over to Jim, who intuitively stood up.
“I must rely on your absolute discretion,” said Quinn.
“Absolutely.”
“I can put none of this in writing,
you understand?”
“Of course.”
Jim did not think Quinn could save their house, but as they bumped elbows in parting, Jim felt that Quinn’s attitude had done him some good.
On his way home, a man riding past on a bicycle shouted at Jim.
“You damned foreigner,” he shouted as he rode past, seeing Jim’s armband.
When Jim arrived back at home, he went straight to his room, trying to avoid Mila, who was regaling everyone again with her tales of refugee suicides and beatings. Annabel greeted him with his dinner. He appreciated the meal but was fed up with potatoes day after day.
Chapter Twenty-Nine – 10 years 5 months before the collapse
They summoned Jim to the Grounds Trust, where they interrogated him again over the matter of the unpaid rent.
“You are an accessory,” said the officer. “You knew what Rivera was doing with the money.”
Jim spent some time explaining again that he did not know what was going on, and he had minor success convincing the officer who said he would have to return.
He took the opportunity of being in town to see Mr Quinn, the trustee, to see whether he could do anything about the house.
“There’s a 70% chance I’ll be able to convince that potential tenant,” said Quinn. “It all depends on how long the Government holds out.”
Jim thanked him and returned to the Grounds Trust, where he was told he would have to pay a fine for knowingly abetting.
“But it wasn’t knowingly,” Jim protested.
“I will not argue with you,” the officer on the screen said irritably. “If you don’t pay, I must pass the case to the State Prosecution Service. You are getting off lightly, Mr Smith. I could have demanded the entire amount you gave Ms Rivera.”
Jim sighed, took the penalty notice as it exited the printer, and left the office. By the time he reached the house, he was in a foul mood.
“Don’t take it out on me,” Mila defended herself. “I got us a reduction in the rent and I agreed to pay two-thirds of the fine.”
“From that huge stash of money you keep stored in your app,” Jim grumbled. “You’re not the one who has it on their police record, and they can re-open the case if they’re not happy.”
“I know, and I am very sorry. I know I did wrong. How many times do I have to apologise?”
Jim relented. He knew Mila was genuinely remorseful.
“You should both think yourselves lucky,” said Annabel. “They have sent Mr Allen to a camp.”
Jim and Mila turned to stare at Annabel.
“When did you find out?” asked Jim.
“Today, while you two were out.”
*
A group of children had only just finished verbally abusing Jim when a man, packing goods into the back of a lorry, came over to him and, at great personal risk to himself, gave Jim an elbow bump.
“How are you doing?” the man asked.
“Badly. Very badly,” said Jim.
“Sometime, you’ll have to tell me more about it,” said the man before going back to his van.
When he returned home with the shopping, he found Annabel and Olivia in tears.
“What is it?” He asked.
Annabel pushed a sheet of paper across the table towards him.
It was another decree of the kind they had become so accustomed to receiving. Jim read the note, which explained that refugees and anyone who lives with them may no longer keep pets. It explained that they also forbid giving the pets away to anyone to look after them.
“Take him to the vet,” Annabel sobbed. “He shouldn’t have to suffer the trauma of someone coming to take him and putting him down with the others.
The terrible news about the cat had dampened the good news Jim had wanted to share about his success at shopping. He had brought some fish for them, but they had no interest in it under the circumstances.
*
They waited as long as they could, but when news came that there would be an order forbidding refugees from disposing of animals as they wished, Annabel and Jim decided they should take Magennis to the vet before the vet closed. Annabel decided she would take Magennis herself.
Annabel gave him meat for his last meal.
“See how happy he is, how he plays,” she cried. “He doesn’t know that he is about to die.”
Annabel put him in the cat box and took him to the vet just before the surgery closed. Magennis was calm until the moment he saw the vet, at which point he panicked. The vet told Annabel he would handle it from there, and she reluctantly left him and went outside. There was a window through which she could see the vet and she saw him lift Magennis’ limp body and drop it into a bin liner.
Annabel cried the entire way home and did not stop when she got there, but hugged Olivia and they sobbed together for a long time.
*
The sound of crying interrupted their breakfast. Jim couldn’t work out at first whether the wailing was coming from upstairs or downstairs. Almost straight away, there was a knock at the door and Mila appeared.
“Mr Allen must have died,” she speculated.
Jim agreed.
They wandered onto the landing, identified the noise as coming from downstairs and, after a brief discussion, investigated.
Mrs Allen was clutching a letter.
“It doesn’t say how he died or why,” she wailed. “They summoned him to the police six months ago and never came back. They wouldn’t even let me see him. The police said it was trivial and that they would release him soon, but they never did.”
“Are you sure he wasn’t involved in something?” asked Jim.
“Certainly not!”
“But he wrote to you?” asked Annabel.
“Yes, he said things weren’t too bad in the camp.”
“Magennis died too early,” Annabel whispered to Jim. “He could have stayed with a non-foreign widow.”
“I’m going out to see if I can find any shopping,” said Jim, wanting to extricate himself from the miserable atmosphere.
The expedition was unsuccessful and as Jim approached the house, empty-handed, he saw the front door was open. Through the open door, he could see the chaos that had been left on the ground floor.
“They beat us,” Mrs Allen sobbed on seeing him enter.
“Are you okay,” he asked.
“My ears are ringing,” she cried, clutching her bruised head.
Jim rushed up the stairs and across the landing to his own rooms, where he found Annabel sitting calmly, consoling Olivia, who was in tears.
“What happened?” Jim asked.
“They came up here, and they called me a foreign whore,” she said. “Then, they took me downstairs and gave me a couple of slaps.”
“What?”
“Nothing serious, just stage slaps. They spat in my face twice and on my head a lot.”
“Did they touch Olivia?”
“Thankfully not, but she’s still pretty shook up.”
Jim felt angry, horrified, and guilty that he had not been there. He looked around the flat, which was as chaotic as the downstairs. They had emptied every drawer and every cupboard onto the floor. Pills, playing cards and sewing needles lay among cutlery, broken crockery and clothes. It was impossible to tell what they had stolen, except for the food, they took all the food.
The books all seemed to be there. They had taken some of Jim’s books off the shelves, but the dictionary which sheltered the pages of his diary remained untouched.
He marvelled at the ability of the house residents to keep their heads and felt shame for the whole of Britain.
After a while, they gathered the strength to go downstairs and see how Mrs Allen was. She sat weeping and Jim thought it was because of the beating, or perhaps the toothpaste and honey that they had distributed onto her head and around her room, but then he noticed a piece of paper in her fist.
She offered it to Jim to read. It detailed how Mr Allen had died while trying to escape from a camp
, they had cremated him and the urn was available to collect.
“He was sixty-three,” she lamented. “Why would he try to escape?”
After they had consoled Mrs Allen as best they could, they returned to their own flat and tried to tidy up enough to go to bed.
“It doesn’t look any worse than it did two years ago when we moved in,” said Annabel when they had reached the point where they could put Olivia to bed.
This gave Jim a pause for thought. It hadn’t seemed like two years since they had forced them out of their home and made to move into this shared house.
*
In the morning, Jim went to see Quinn to find out whether there had been any progress on the sale of the house.
“It’s 95% certain,” Quinn said. “The potential tenant is a resident in the village.”
Jim confided in Quinn everything that had happened, the search, the cat, Mr Allen’s death.
“I’m afraid to come into town,” said Jim, finishing his story. “I don’t think it is safe for me.”
“In that case, I shall communicate all further business by post,” Quinn reassured him.
Jim returned to the house only a little reassured and was washing some potatoes when he saw, out of the window, an expensive car pulled up outside. He carried on washing the potatoes until he heard the front doorbell. He dried his hands and rushed downstairs as fast as he could.
When he opened the door, he immediately received a slap across the face.
“What took you so long?” asked the man who had delivered the blow.
There were two young men. Jim led them upstairs to their rooms, where one of them spat at Annabel. Olivia ran to her bed and covered her head with her pillow.
“We are looking for a small suitcase that was left here when my colleagues came,” said the other man.
“It’s in the cellar,” said Annabel. “I’ll show you.”
The men followed Annabel all the way downstairs to the cellar door. Jim would have tried to save Annabel from the journey down the stairs, but he knew she had hidden things in one suitcase, and he did not know which.