by M J Dees
“I heard about Anderson’s speech about the total war on immigrants,” said Jim.
“Yes, he said the immigrants are to blame for everything and that the Government would tackle the problem with the most radical measures, if Europe doesn’t stop their threats. Total war is the shortest war is his slogan. He also said, ‘you are with us or against us’,”
“Even on the way here I heard a rumour that the remaining refugees were being rounded up for transport to the camps and that some don’t even make it to the camps.”
“I think you’re safe for now, Jim.”
“Thanks for the potatoes and bread,” said Jim as he got up to leave.
“You’re welcome,” said Mitchell. “Do me a favour and leave by this back entrance. I trust my secretary, but she doesn’t have to know everything.”
When Jim returned home, Annabel had left with Olivia to take his latest diaries to Jenny Li. When they came back, she reported rumours that something was brewing within the army, but what specifically she could not discover.
Jim reported what he had heard about mass transportation to the camps and what Mitchell had said.
He wondered whether they would arrest, murder, jail, transport, or kill him. Maybe they would kill him while ‘trying to escape’ or whether he would die in a camp like all the disabled he had heard about.
*
A van came and took Jim to a farm, or so it seemed. When they arrived, it looked more like an enormous warehouse than a farm, and guards led the group from the van around the side of the warehouse to a large rig parked next to an immense field filled with lettuce.
A member of staff picked sixteen of them, including Jim, who were told to stand on the rig where another guard instructed them on how to bag the lettuce. The rest of the workers were told how to pick the lettuce from the field and throw them up to the workers on the rig.
It was very hard work, but Jim was glad he was on the rig and not in the field. He spent the entire day catching lettuce and stuffing them in plastic bags.
By the end of the day, he was looking forward to getting the van home again, but instead of being led to the vans, the guards took them to a row of caravans.
“What’s happening?” Jim asked a member of staff. “Why aren’t we going to the transport?”
“You’re going nowhere,” the member of staff laughed. “Not until you have bagged up all of those lettuces.
He pointed to the immense fields behind the caravans, which stretched out as far as Jim could see. He was hungry. He had only had a cup of terrible tasting instant coffee at break time since he had arrived. Outside the caravans were picnic tables and chairs on which pans of potatoes sat, ready for them to eat. They were already cold.
*
The weeks ran into themselves, an endless cycle of work and meals and sleep. One supervisor would allow the workers to listen to streaming radio after 9 pm when the threat of a visit from the police was unlikely. On the news he heard Unity boast, the Government would no longer create additional money without declaring it publicly. That, they said, had been the downfall of previous regimes. Unity brokers in each community would match lenders with those who needed finance.
Jim gradually learned about his fellow workers. They had been shop owners, business people with dreams of making money and plans for the future. They were all without hope as they shared their stories with Jim.
“They’ll ruin us,” said one. “Even if the regime falls, the hatred for foreigners is now too deep.”
They carried out the work in silence, and in the evenings they sat for a long time over mugs of tea.
“You’d better put the mugs away,” said a supervisor. “There’s an inspection.”
“What’s your name?” an inspector asked Jim.
“Smith.”
“You are all asleep,” the inspector addressed everyone. “You must work faster.”
With that, the inspectors left, and they turned the radio back on.
The radio provided relief for the most part. At least when it was music, the news bulletins were difficult to bear. They blamed everything on the foreigner.
“What they don’t say,” said one worker who said he once worked in finance. “Is that there is a deep monetary crunch at the moment. A dark money network has sprung up and they are trying to bury it.”
“How does it work?” asked Jim.
“They offered people twice the interest they can get from the central bank in return for permission to shift the money.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Once these people had the permission of millions, they approached regional Grounds Trust authorities, which they knew were keen to invest and offered them finance in return for a cut of future earnings. They then sold mixed credit rights, which they could sell on a digital trading platform.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“They started buying and selling the rights.”
“But I thought they banned share trading.”
“Exactly. They had found a loophole. They shifted savings onto the improvised trading platforms, local currency values increased. The faster they developed land, the more the purchasing power of the local community increased. Local companies flourished.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“A flood pushed prices down somewhere. Several schemes tanked overnight on the trading platform. A cascade of failures caused community currencies to collapse and companies using those currencies went bust. The brokers immediately emptied their investors’ central bank accounts.”
“Why didn’t we hear about this?”
“Because the Government controls the media. They covered up the scandal. The central bank replenished the accounts, businesses that suffered received one off cash injections. They even negotiated a bailout from the IMP.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Roberts had to make some concessions, they dismantled informal credit trading platforms, and the schemes banned.”
“How do you know all this?”
The man gave Jim a wry smile.
“You were a broker, weren’t you?”
“What do you think I’m doing here?”
Chapter Thirty-One – 9 years 5 months before the collapse
Jim realised it had now been a month since he had been working at the farm. The supervisors now allowed them to play the radio in the fields, which allowed the eight hours to pass quicker.
The farm staff seemed to bear no resentment towards the ‘foreign’ workers.
Christopher, the supervisor, was 63 but looked hardly 50, a healthy man with a small bald patch. He kept authority with a touch of humour. He had been a butcher, but Unity had forced him into the farm work.
Jason was in his early sixties and talked proudly of his son, a doctor who, because of his mixed race, could no longer practice.
David was 70, but appeared strong, and was very attached to his foreignness. He, like everyone else, was in a mixed marriage and once worked in the fashion industry.
Matthew was the same age as Jim, but looked much older. He had suffered a heart attack five years earlier and was very easygoing. He talked often of his wife, who worked in a factory somewhere.
Joshua, small and in his late fifties, was bad tempered and used to be a chemist. Jim could not see any foreign connection in him.
Brian was in his sixties and also a chemist. His wife was a head nurse somewhere and his son wanted to join the army. He stuttered but was always cheerful.
Daniel was a tailor, Ryan, a labourer. Nicholas walked with a limp. Jeremy was dead, but the group spoke of him so often it was easy to believe he was still alive. Eric was a university lecturer like Jim. Tim had been a bank manager. Kevin wore his wife’s enormous summer hat. Andrew was 63 and very strong.
Richard seemed always employed somewhere else and would turn up in the evenings. 42 but looked much younger, slight with a gold tooth. Claimed to have worked in the film industry and with a blond wife and boy.
Ste
ven was in his mid-thirties and impressed Jim with his knowledge of literature. He said he was a supervisor at a steel works once, but Jim thought he was not old enough to pre-date the death of the steel industry. Jim heard rumours from the other workers that he had a quick temper and had mistreated a previous group of workers.
Mark, Jim had not seen but only heard spoken about. Ben had worked in retail and wore small glasses. Paul was always dissatisfied. Brandon was the painter.
The other workers would get fed up with the radio, only Jim, Christopher and Brian would want to listen but, as the others outvoted them and would switch the radio off. Turning to an international station was not an option, as a prison sentence would be the penalty.
Jim’s razor was now blunt and there didn’t seem to be any available, so he grew a beard.
*
They allowed Jim to return home for the first time in over three months. There was apparently a gap in the harvesting while they waited for the next crops to be ready.
When he arrived home, he hugged Annabel and Olivia for the longest time, and they all cried until there were no more tears.
After the welcome was over, Jim noticed how thin Annabel looked.
*
Annabel had to hold Olivia when the van came to take Jim back to the farm.
Jim had made Annabel promise she would visit the doctor while he was away.
He was told there would be only a month’s work left.
Staff were running around making sure there were pictures of Roberts on the wall in case the inspectors came.
They had already transferred some workers elsewhere, and Jim hoped they would find him work in Lancashire or at least Manchester so he could stay at home.
There were rumours among the workers that even the Unity police were treating foreigners less harshly. Perhaps they were worrying about approaching vengeance.
*
They returned Jim home with the news that he wouldn’t have to return to the picking work. Instead, on Monday morning he should report for duty at a warehouse where he discovered he would shovel herbs into bags.
Annabel admitted to him she had been to the doctor, and he had diagnosed a prolapse of the stomach because of loss of weight.
Over the course of the day, her condition seemed to worsen and her temperature went up to 40.2. Jim asked a neighbour to call an ambulance. Jim and Olivia could not go with her, and Jim worried it might be the last time he saw her.
Jim and Olivia went to the hospital with soap and toothpaste. They could not see her, but the nurse told them she was doing well and there was no need to worry.
*
Annabel discharged herself and was taken home in an ambulance, and went straight to bed. She was very weak, but was glad to have escaped from the hospital.
The doctor made a house visit to see if she was okay and said there were rumours that those of foreign heritage might be evacuated to a camp.
Jim told the doctor that he was still suffering from angina. The doctor gave him a leave of absence from work and went to see Mr Pereira, who was apparently suffering from heart disease and had now developed an abscess on his tonsils. It wouldn’t normally be a problem, but the doctor was struggling to get his hands on antibiotics and would have to lance it.
The doctor gave him as little sympathy as he later received from David at the factory. David told Jim they had diagnosed him with intestinal cancer and he was going to be allowed to travel to London for an operation.
“Don’t worry, it’s a routine operation,” Jim lied. “Afterwards, you’ll be full of life again.”
“Really?” David seemed to believe him.
*
Jim struggled to find a doctor. As people of foreign heritage, the surgeries would not deal with them. Eventually, Jim found a doctor who was willing to make a house visit, and he arrived at midday. Annabel apparently was not suffering from anything serious, and it was this news that gave Jim the strength to reveal what else he had discovered whilst talking to the BRA about finding a doctor.
“We have to move out on the 13th of December,” he announced. “The new place is south facing and has a stove, but more importantly, for you darling, it has a piano in a communal hall.”
He looked out of the window at the silvery moon and the frost, which was already settling on the trees.
“It won’t be good to be crowded with so many refugees,” Annabel warned. “Each mistrusts the other.”
*
It was Jim’s last day at work for a few days; they had given him leave to move to the house.
At break time, the conversation turned to stories about informers. One worker told a story about women on the train complaining about the government. When nobody intervened, she revealed they were Unity police and charged the onlookers.
Another worker told a story about a foreigner being abused on the street. When people came to his help, he revealed himself to be Unity police.
When he returned home from work, he spent the rest of the evening helping Eva to pack away the remains of their belongings. He mused that, although they possessed little, they had still accumulated a great deal more than the days they had to sleep on the allotment site. He looked at his plant and wondered whether it would survive another move.
As he packed his books and cleaned the kitchen, he felt exhausted and a little depressed.
*
Jim rose very early, cleaning empty shelves before the van arrived to move them to their third foreigners’ house they had transferred them too.
They were to share the first floor of the house with two other families, doors of the three households open into the same hallway, and they all shared a bathroom and a kitchen. The Pereiras and the Fernandos appeared to hate each other, the Pereiras warning Jim against Mrs Fernando and the Fernandos, a couple with a 14-year-old son, attempting to be friendly.
“At least he is the same age and a companion for Olivia,” said Annabel.
The Pereiras behaved like old friends, helping with everything, trying to outdo the Fernandos with their welcome.
It soon became clear that the three families would always bump into each other and get on top of each other all the time.
It surprised Jim to discover that Christopher, whom he had worked with at the farm, lived on the ground floor.
While unpacking the boxes, Jim suddenly felt a pain in his chest. Annabel made him promise he would try to get an appointment at the doctor.
*
Jim went to the surgery of the doctor, who had made a house visit for Annabel. It was the only surgery he could find that would still treat those classified as with foreign heritage..
“Angina,” the doctor concluded, following his examination. “Your blood pressure is below normal. I want to schedule an x-ray. You need to make sure you eat a balanced diet, cut down on alcohol, stop smoking if you smoke.”
“I don’t and I can’t afford much in the way of alcohol these days.”
“You are not overweight but exercise regularly – gentle exercises are usually safe.”
Jim thanked the doctor and went home to tell Annabel the result of his examination.
“The Fernando’s boy goes to work,” she said after hearing his news. “I’m worried that soon they might want Olivia to work as well.”
*
Jim was working at the factory when eight suspicious looking men with briefcases entered and took Daniel away.
“What was that about?” Jim asked the others during their break.
“His wife died,” one of them explained.
“So?”
“She was British, the only thing between him and a foreigners’ camp.”
“The police suspect some foreigners are spies,” said another worker
The supervisor lambasted Jim, once he had returned to his machine, for making more mistakes.
“But it’s so simple,” said the supervisor, exasperated.
Back at the house, Jim complained to everyone he passed. First Mr Fernando, then
Mr Pereira, and finally Annabel. They all gave him the same advice.
“Go see the doctor, get yourself classified unfit for work for a while, get a good sleep.”
*
Jim finally got an appointment with the only doctor still treating those with foreign heritage.
The waiting room was full, so Jim had to stand as he waited. He overheard a man to an old woman next to him.
“They should give them an injection, then that would be the end of them,” he said.
Jim wasn’t sure whether the man was referring to him as the wearer of a foreign heritage armband, or whether he was just being paranoid.
They called the man to see the doctor and Jim sat in the seat he had vacated, next to the old woman.
“That was nasty,” she whispered to him. “Perhaps one day what he wished on you will happen to him.”
“This time, your blood pressure is high,” the doctor said. “You have all the right results for a 62-year-old lecturer, not a 38-year-old. And you say you are spending 9 hours at a machine? Your body is clearly struggling with the change. Rest for a week, then we’ll see how you get on.”
*
After a return to the doctor, they gave Jim another week off work, but no more.
When he arrived at the factory, Jim realised the supervisor had demoted him to assistant, as he was too slow to operate a machine himself. They relegated him to counting and labelling.
“You’re getting stupider all the time,” the supervisor barked at him. “This label is crooked. I would be ashamed if I produced shit like this. I see we’re down to 4,000 again.”
The woman Jim was replacing could finish four times as much work as he.
“So, what did you do before they sent you here?” the supervisor asked him.
“I was a university lecturer.”
“The foreigners might be to blame for some things, but that is not right... there will be nothing good anymore for us old people.”
“I’m not allowed to say anything,” said Jim. “I can’t complain, it’s more than my life’s worth.”
“I know. I’m not allowed to talk to you either. But what good can this situation bring us now? Were you in the military?”
“Yes.”