Daz 4 Zoe

by Robert Swindells

  Alive! My eyes burned, I looked like a lunatic in an old horror movie and I was starting a headache but I got up and danced round the room, waving my arms, swooping by the mirror to grin at the frightful image I saw there. I took care not to stomp, because I didn’t want to wake my parents. I realised I was probably the only person in Silverdale who was glad the intruder hadn’t been shot, and I didn’t care. Let them stare. Let them call me names. Let them ostracize me for his sake if it suits their tiny minds.

  He’s alive.

  DAZ

  So Zoe knew i was okay but i dint know that, i’m worrid she be worrid so wot i done is, i went up 2 the dump. Dump is wear trash trucks go 2 empty plus the deepo is ther. i fort mebbe i fynd the crew wot graft rownd Zoe way and thay can slip her a noat. i know wot Zoe way called, she told me.

  i go up ther and ast arownd a bit and shorenuf i fynd the rite crew. 2 snags. 1 this fursday and thay dont work Zoe way til saterday. 2 crewboss nosy. ‘What you,’ he sez. ‘Subby-lover or somfing?’

  ‘Non ov yor biznis,’ i sez.

  ‘Not easy,’ he sez, ‘tork 2 a Subby kid. Trashman tork 2 Subby kids loos seeit, mebbe, loos job.’ Corshous littel basted this crewboss but fond ov peanuts, same evrybody.

  ‘Lissen’ i sez. ‘This Subby kid rich, rite? mebbe got peanuts 4 you, plus a noat 4 me. she be lucking owt 4 you, see – you chicken or wot?’

  He tuck my noat. Tanks mate,’ i sez. Tanks a lot.’ not easy 2 smuggel anifing in 2 Silverdale (or any ovver veezaville i gess) evry crew searcht at the gate, easy 2 smuggel stuff owt cos whos gonna fynd 1 littel fing in a truckful ov trash? aniway he tuck it and i’m finking thats better. Zoe know i’m alrite saterday.

  i’m going back frou the dump wen i herd futsteps behynd and sum 1 grab me and its Mick and a guy i dont know, thay frow me down in the muck and this guy neal on my back and twist my arm wile Mick jerk my hed up by the hare. ‘Lissen,’ he sez. ‘This from Cal. Cal knows you went frou the tunnel, got shot at. he finks mebbe the Subbies fynd the tunnel cos ov you.’ he slam my face in the muck, jerk it up again, blud in my nose and mouf plus loos teef and eyes water. ‘Cal sez stay owt ov that tunnel, understand?’ i understand but befor i can tel him he slam me down again, jerk me up. ‘Understand?’ a gud explainer old Mick but i cant tork, mouf ful ov muck and blud and teef. i nod my hed a littel but he done it again aniway and i fink, hes gonna kill me, but he dont do it nomore. the ovver guy get of my back so i can breev, only not 2 gud breeving blud and snot and bits ov toof. i roll over and sit up, holding my face. Mick kick me in the kidnies, sez ‘thay find that tunnel, we be back 2 finish you.’

  i sit a longtime holding my face witch it hurt very bad. no 1 com 2 help. You help Cal enemy, you Cal enemy 2 and no 1 needs that. So. i sit a longtime in the muck, then i get up and go hoam and tel our mam i fel off a nellifant.

  ‘You darft our Daz,’ she sez, and shes rite. And you know wot make me darft?

  luv.

  ZOE

  Saturday. One of those raw, foggy days when it never seems to get light. I’d written a note the night before and now I was hanging around with the thing in my pocket, waiting for the trash truck. I stood in the window looking down the garden. Naked trees, the lawn and pathway slimy with fallen leaves. I hoped the truck would be early. I go for Tabby around ten on Saturdays and my parents might notice if I broke my routine.

  Tabby had been sort of distant with me since my clash with Moncrieff over those stupid lines, though she had come up to me in the schoolyard Thursday morning and said she hoped I was feeling better. I’d forgotten I was supposed to be sick and almost gave myself away. I told her it wasn’t anything much and we chatted awhile, but there was a coolness about her which made me feel uncomfortable. It was as if in talking to me she was doing something she’d been advised not to do, and I wouldn’t be surprised at that.

  It must’ve been my lucky day because the truck came quite early, and as it drew up Mum called me. I went through to the kitchen and she handed me a bag of trash. ‘Be an angel and go put this by the can. It’s almost full and they might as well take it.

  I could’ve hugged her. I’d dreamed up an excuse to go down the garden just as the crew arrived, but it wasn’t nearly as good as this one. I grinned. ‘Sure, Mum. It’ll be a pleasure.’ She probably thought I was nuts.

  I took my time, and the garden gate opened just as I reached the can. The crewman gave me a little nod, with his eyes down the way they do, but as I put down the sack he moved up real close, hissed, ‘Here – take it,’ and thrust a crumpled bit of paper in my hand.

  I knew what it was and my heart kicked. I shoved it in my pocket, hoping nobody was watching from the house. As the guy went to pick up the sack I drew out my own note and slipped it to him. ‘Daz,’ I whispered. ‘Black Diamond. The money’s for you.’ I’d folded a couple of bills in the note. He nodded, looking past me at the house. I turned and walked away.

  ‘Did that man speak to you?’ asked Mum as I came in. She’d watched through the kitchen window. I nodded, trying to look cool. ‘Yeah, y’know – rough weather, cold work. Something like that.’

  ‘Well, I hope you didn’t encourage him, dear. They’re here to work, not fraternize.’

  ‘I know, Mum. I didn’t encourage him.’ It must be tough having a Chippy-lover for a kid.

  Like I said, it must’ve been my lucky day. The spelling wasn’t hot but what he’d written was beautiful. I read it over till I had it by heart, then shredded the note and flushed it down the John. I hated doing that, but to keep it would’ve been just too dangerous. And after that I got my coat and set off for the Wentworth residence. My luck might continue – who knows?

  It did continue, but it threw up a bit of a mystery as well. See what you make of it.

  I arrived at five to ten and rang the bell. This Chippy girl, Zena, usually answers. She’s a sort of maid but she doesn’t live in. That’s not permitted, and I sometimes used to wonder how she coped with the contrast between the beautiful house she worked in all day and the dump she went back to at night. Anyway, she didn’t answer this time. Nobody did at first, and I was just telling myself they weren’t going to when an eye appeared at the peephole and the door opened, and it was the guy himself. Paul Wentworth, Tabby’s old man. He’d a peculiar look on his face and I thought, this is it – he’s going to tell me to get lost, but he didn’t. He said, ‘Come on in, Zoe,’ and as he said it his eyes were darting around like he was trying to see in all directions at once. He shut the door so fast I almost lost a foot.

  He took my coat and asked how I was and if Mum and Dad were well, but I could tell he was thinking about something else. He put me in the library (no, I’m not kidding – the Wentworth residence has its own library) and went off to get Tabby.

  I was standing on a rug so thick it practically reached my knees, warming myself by the fire and gazing round at all the books when Tabby came in.

  ‘Hi.’ She grinned her old grin and I felt really good. ‘Hi, Tabby,’ I said. ‘Where’s Zena?’

  ‘Oh, we – she’s not here anymore. What shall we do today?’

  Quick change of subject. I looked at her. ‘Is something wrong, Tabby?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, ’course not. Why should there be?’

  ‘Your Dad. He seemed – I dunno – sort of nervous. Has something happened?’

  ‘No. Not really. Listen.’ She put her hand on my arm. ‘If I’m a bit cool at school – if I seem to go along with the other kids when they tease you, it’s because I have to, Zoe. I can’t explain. Not now. But I want you to know I’m the same friend I always was.’ She smiled and squeezed my arm. ‘We all are, in this house. Okay?’

  I nodded and smiled and said okay, but I wasn’t satisfied. I felt sure there was something going on that I wasn’t supposed to ask about so I didn’t, and we went up to Tabby’s room and played some of her fabulous records and talked about boys and clothes and all that, and lunchtime we went down Chiefy’s for hamburgers, but
it wasn’t like it used to be. I’d intended telling her all about Daz – the notes and everything, but I didn’t. At three-thirty when I was leaving she squeezed my arm again and said ‘remember’ with tears in her eyes, and I walked home not knowing whether the day had made things better or worse.

  And when I walked in the house the police were waiting.

  ‘Hello, Zoe. I’m Lieutenant Pohlman, Domestic Security. This is Sergeant Daws. We’d like to talk to you if that’s all right.’

  Domestic Security. Sounds cosy, right? Forget it. Domestic Security’s the outfit that spies on Subbies and shoots Chippies. The outfit responsible for keeping us in and them out. They’re the guys the government pays to keep everything jogging along exactly the way it is, and they’ll do just about anything to see that it does. So when the lieutenant said we’d like, and if that’s alright, I knew he wasn’t offering me choices.

  I don’t mind admitting I was scared. Everybody’s scared of DS, but I wasn’t so much scared for myself as for Daz. Oh, I knew this could only be about him, and if DS knew about us then whatever they did to me would be nothing compared with what they’d do to him. I assumed they’d intercepted my note and I wondered briefly what had become of the trash crew.

  Dad and Mum tried to talk to me but Pohlman got between us and said something to Daws and the sergeant ushered them out the room like it was his house and they were the callers. I heard Mum say she’s fourteen for godsake, and then the door closed and it was just me and the lieutenant.

  He told me to sit down which was just as well, because I’d probably have fallen down if he hadn’t. He took the other chair and said ‘Where you been today, Zoe?’ He was smiling and all like somebody’s favourite uncle but he didn’t fool me. I guessed my parents would have told him I was at Tabby’s, so I told him that too.

  ‘Tabby. That’d be Tabitha Wentworth, Paul Went-worth’s kid, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘They still let her see you?’

  ‘I – sure they do. Why not?’

  ‘You had some trouble in school, didn’t you?’

  ‘What trouble – what d’you mean?’

  ‘I think you know what I’m talking about, Zoe. I’m talking about Miss Moncrieff. About an imposition you did for her. I’m talking about brainwashing, Zoe.’

  ‘Oh, that. Yeah, there was a bit of hassle about that. It’s over now.’

  ‘Is it?’ he leaned forward, and he must be one of those guys who can’t lean and smile at the same time because the smile faded.

  ‘Is it over, Zoe? Don’t some of the kids call you names? One name in particular? Don’t they call you Chippy-lover?’ His face got red as he spoke, and spit flew from his lips when he said Chippy. I shrugged. ‘Sure. Some do. I take no notice.’

  This seemed to make him sore. ‘You take no notice? Your friends call you Chippy-lover and you take no notice? Don’t you like to have friends, or what?’ He was almost shouting.

  ‘They’re not my friends.’ I spoke softly. He sat back and ran his tongue along his lip. ‘Who are your friends, Zoe?’

  ‘I dunno. I guess I don’t have too many friends right now. Maybe I don’t have any at all.’ I wasn’t about to give him names. The friend of a Chippy-lover is a Chippy-lover.

  ‘Aw, come on.’ The smile was back. ‘It’s not that bad, surely? You have at least one friend, dontcha?’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Why, sure you do. Tabby. She’s your friend, right? You just spent the day with her.’

  ‘We – talked. It’s not like it was.’

  ‘Ah.’ His eyebrows went up. ‘Are you surprised about that, Zoe?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Does it surprise you that friends might want to withdraw their friendship from a person who makes trouble in the community?’

  ‘I don’t make trouble.’

  He nodded.‘Oh, yes you do, Zoe. When you wrote brainwashing on that imposition, you were suggesting that the State tells lies to the people.’ He smiled, but his eyes didn’t. ‘Now you may be too young to realise this, but when somebody communicates an idea like that to others, it can do a lot of damage. People – some people – are liable to start picking at bulletins, looking for inaccuracies. And of course if you’re looking too hard for something, you’re liable to think you found it even if it’s not there.’

  I didn’t say anything in answer to this. There was something wrong with it, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, and anyway I was too nervous to argue with the lieutenant. They can put you in jail or take away your citizenship. If you lose your citizenship you have to leave your suburb and go live outside. You have no papers and no rights. Bang – you’re a Chippy.

  By this time I was getting really confused. Why was Pohlman interested in all this stuff about school? If they knew about Daz, why didn’t he say so and get it over? Maybe he was enjoying himself, keeping me dangling. Or maybe -. I decided to find out once and for all. I looked at him.

  ‘Lieutenant Pohlman, have I done something illegal?’

  He smiled thinly. ‘I don’t know, Zoe. Have you?’

  This threw me. I mean, you don’t expect DS to admit it doesn’t know. DS knows everything about everybody. It’s the image. And it seemed this wasn’t about Daz after all. I guess I sort of gulped with a mixture of surprise and relief, though I tried not to let the relief show.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I haven’t, so why am I being questioned?’

  ‘You’re not being questioned, Zoe.’ He chuckled. ‘You’d know it if you were. No – this is more in the way of a warning. A shot across your bow if you like. It’s our way of saying we’ve got our eye on you, Zoe. You, and people like you. See, the trouble with your sort is, you don’t know when you’re well off. I mean, look around.’ He made an expansive gesture. ‘Silverdale, right? Silverdale’s got everything. Space, beauty, climate, all the amenities. You got theatres, clubs, bars, stadia, pools, restaurants – every damn thing you can think of. You got nice houses and good roads and schools and colleges and a university. And you’ve got the most important thing of all, which is security. You’re safe in Silverdale, Zoe. Safe and snug. Nothing can touch you. Nothing can hurt you. There are no hassles here. No problems.’ He looked at me. ‘Would you want to lose all that? Live outside? Is that what you want?’

  I shook my head and he said, ‘Then why are you making waves, kid? What do you want, that you don’t have already?’

  I shrugged and smiled. ‘I want it for everyone.’

  ‘Hah!’ He got up and bent over with his face about an inch away from mine.

  ‘Dreams, Zoe. Dangerous dreams. The world’s the way it is, and you better pray it stays this way because you’re one of the lucky ones.’ He straightened and went to the door, pausing with his hand on the handle to look back at me.

  ‘You wouldn’t last a week out there,’ he said.

  The cops weren’t out the door before my parents started in on me. What did they want with you? What have you been doing, saying, thinking? Is that it, or are they coming back? Do you have to report anywhere, and if so when? Did you co-operate and were you polite?

  I said, do we go straight into this second interrogation or do I get a cup of coffee in between?

  I got the coffee, and then I told them everything Pohlman said. I was still feeling relieved they weren’t on to Daz, but of course Mum and Dad didn’t know anything about that, and when I got through Dad had a face on him like a man who’s just been told he’s gonna be fed to crocodiles.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said flatly. ‘They’ll be watching us from now on. All of us, because we’re suspect.’ He looked at me. ‘I hope you’re satisfied, young lady. I hope you know what it is you’ve done here.’

  ‘What has she done, Gerald?’ At least Mum was trying to stick up for me. ‘She wrote some words, that’s all. Some foolish words, and the police have cautioned her. It’s not the end of the world, for goodness sake.’ She looked at me. ‘She’ll behave in future and every-thin
g’ll be just like it was.’

  Dad shook his head. ‘No, it won’t. That’s not the way it works, Amanda, and you know it.’ He got up and went to the window and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out. ‘Word gets around. Somebody says DS were at the Askew place last night, and somebody else says, Well, who’d have though it – old Charlie. And before you know it they’ve got you figured for one of those FAIR guys or something and they stop putting business your way.’

  ‘Fair guys?’ I looked at Mum. ‘What’s a fair guy?’

  Mum started to answer me but Dad broke in. ‘Fair. F. A. I.R. It stands for Fraternal Alliance for Integration through Reunification. It’s a proscribed organisation, Zoe. An illegal, underground outfit whose members believe the world’d be a better place if we tore down our fences and invited the Chippies to come share our lifestyle.’ He laughed. ‘They don’t seem to realise our lifestyle would perish in about ten minutes after we did that, and most of us would perish with it. They’re a bunch of spineless pinkos, and now folks’re gonna think I’m one of ’em.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I never even heard of FAIR. I didn’t expect the cops to come running on account of a couple of words on a stupid imposition or I’d never have written them. And I can’t believe such a small thing’s going to affect you and Mum, anyway.’

  He looked at me. ‘You don’t know, Zoe. You just don’t understand. Those people out there are full of hate. They want what we’ve got, and these FAIR weirdos want to let ’em take it, even though it’ll destroy everything we’ve worked for. It’s Pohlman’s job to sniff out those traitors, and I bet he thinks he’s done just that.’