by Mike Bursell
“Please tell me. I'm really not cross. You had to give it to me. It wasn't as if I was ever going to say 'yes'.”
“I know,” she replied, “but, but – I was so worried what I would have done if you had said yes. That maybe you would have done. I think I know you, but – you can't know your children, not really, not these days. And I don't know if could have coped if you had.” With this, she started weeping, noisily this time, so I just held her and wept, too, and my tears ran down onto her neck and coursed down her face, joining hers. But my tears weren't just because she was upset. I was thinking back to the discussion I'd had with Fliss. Because, even if it had been for a few moment, I had seriously considered joining the Enforcers. I felt like I was lying to her, even though I hadn't. Not really. Which didn't feel good enough: it felt like I'd failed her.
After a few minutes, we stopped crying, I sat back down in my chair and we drank our tea quietly. I picked up the flyer again and read through it, snorting from time to time in a mixture of amusement and annoyance. Mum sat and watched me. When we'd finished, she got up, pushed her chair away, and said, “Let's go and sit quietly in the garden.”
I glanced at my watch – I still had some time before Mo would be around. I got up and was about to follow Mum into the garden when I noticed her pick up her phone and, very pointedly, place it carefully on the work surface next to the hob. This was odd: she always took her phone with her absolutely everywhere, in case there was a crisis at work, and, I presumed, to keep on the right side of the “tracking law”. I was surprised, and intrigued.
“What …?” I started to say, but Mum put a finger to her lips and shook her head. She pointed at a spot next to her phone.
I shrugged, picked up mine, which, like hers, hardly ever left my side, and walked over to the the work surface. I placed my phone next to hers, and she led the way out to the garden. On the way out, she picked up a pair of wine glasses from a cupboard, and grabbed a bottle of white from the fridge.
I've never been quite sure how, just on Mum's salary, we have such a big house and garden, but we do. I mean, it's not enormous or a mansion or anything, but we've got 3 bedrooms we don't use, as well as a room that Mum uses as a study. I've always assumed that it must be something to do with my Dad, something to do with the divorce. Anyway, the garden isn't overlooked by anything, so it's really secluded, and I figured that Mum wanted to have a chat that would be nice and private. We went out and sat on a couple of chairs by at the end of the garden, and Mum opened the wine. She passed me a glass, and I held it as she poured me a full measure. She did the same for herself while I sat and held my glass.
I'd had wine before, at special occasions, but never just sat and had a glass with Mum. It seemed weird, but she took a sip, and so did I. It was rather nice, and I could see why Mum was having a glass, but why had Mum decided that I should have one?
We sat and drank for a while. The sun was shining, and the swallows were flying high above our heads: it was a beautiful afternoon.
Finally, Mum spoke. “I've just broken the law: I should report myself.”
“Really? What have you done?”
“I've given an under 18 year old youth alcohol.”
“Oh well, thanks.”
“You've broken the law, too.”
“Have I? What have I done?”
“You've left your phone in the house,” she explained, levelly, ignoring the fact that she'd just done the same.
“Are you going to report me?”
Mum thought for a moment. “No,” she answered. “Are you going to shop me to the Enforcers?”
I was careful to mull this over for a little longer than she had before I answered. “I don't think so. Not until I've finished this glass, anyway.” I took a longer sip. She reached for the wine and topped up my glass. “Thanks.”
“I'm very proud of you, you know,” she said.
“I know.” We were quiet for a while. “Why did we leave our phones inside?”
Mum took a while to answer, as if she was weighing up exactly how much to say. “We had an investigation. After the thing with your friend's father. In fact, it was part of a larger investigation, which I hadn't known about before. But it's because there's a rumour that they listen in on our phones, even when we're not at work. Because I'm tired of not being able to talk without having to worry about what to say. Because I'd like to have an unguarded drink with my daughter.” She paused. “Because, whatever They say, I think we can talk, and we must talk, and because, whatever the Government and that man Condie may say, I value you your opinion and I love you.”
I wasn't sure what to say at this point: it was a bit of a bombshell. So I took another sip of wine, and waited. I was beginning to realise that this was a truly adult conversation, and that the glass of wine was a sign of that. It didn't make the conversation adult: that had happened when Mum had spoken to me as an equal. But the wine had been her way of showing me that she was putting us on an equal footing – and also for her to make herself vulnerable, by making it obvious that she was breaking the law. And, of course, by making it clear that she trusted me not to turn her in. It was really complicated, I realised, and felt my head spin for a moment, and not from the wine.
Mum spoke up again. “I thought it would get better, but it hasn't.” I looked up, unclear what she was talking about. She caught my look, and explained. “You have to understand: when They – the Government – got elected, it looked like they were going to fix things. I didn't vote for Them – I wouldn’t ever vote for him – but everyone seemed to believe that they deserved a chance. He can be very persuasive, David: Condie, that is. He used his charm, and his charisma, and convinced people that he was the ‘good guy’.” She made a sour face, as if talking about him made her feel sick. “And They appealed to lots of people who had seen their pensions and their savings disappear. And we thought 'maybe They'll fix things, and we'll be back to normal', but that's not what happened.” She paused. “There are a lot of us, in the Police, who hate what the Government is doing. Particularly what the Enforcers are doing.” She took a sip of wine, and then another. “That's not policing. They're no better than paramilitary thugs. And we're not sure whether we're supporting them, or whether we're stopping them from even worse excesses. But most of us feel that we can't afford to risk resigning, in case the Enforcers gain even more power. Do you understand?” She looked at me, with a slight look of pleading in her eyes.
“I think so. But don't you sometimes feel like you're...” I wasn't sure whether to say it.
“Collaborating. With the Enforcers. With the Government,” she suggested.
“I suppose so. Yes.” I waited a moment. “I was trying not to use that word,” I said, apologetically.
“Collaborating? It's the right word,” she said, grimacing. “And yes, sometimes I – we – do. I think it's even harder for the more senior people. I've even avoided going for promotion a couple of times, because I really can't stand the thought of having to work with them more closely. Geoff feels it even more than I do.”
“But there must be some of them who don't, right? Senior officers who aren't bought into the whole Government approach?” I questioned, not that keen to be going into the details of Mum and Geoff's relationship right now.
“Oh, there are some who have no problem working with the Enforcers.” She wrinkled her nose, as if at a bad smell. “I try to avoid those. But it's difficult, I think, for the senior officers – those who haven't bought into the whole Enforcer thing – to avoid promoting them, sometimes. If they didn't promote them, then the Enforcers would step in, and it would just get worse.” She took a sip of wine. “And if they all moved into roles within the organisations run by the senior officers who are sympathetic to the Enforcers, then we'd end up with units who were all sympathetic. And we can't afford that.”
“So you try to spread them around.”
“Something like that. Because we have to keep the police policing. Doing what police work is ab
out.”
It suddenly struck me that, over all the years that I'd known Mum, I didn't think she'd ever told me what she thought that was. “What is police work about, then?”
Her eyes flicked up, and I saw a sense of pride in them that I'd not seen for a while. “It's about upholding the law. It's about protecting people who need protecting, and about stopping people who need stopping. You don't get to choose. You don't get to decide 'Oh, I don't like him very much, so I'm going to leave him in trouble.' If someone needs protecting, and if the law says they are to be protected, then you do it.”
“And if the law says they don't?”
Her face fell, and the pride was replaced with a look approaching shame. “Then you take them to the Camps, because that's what you're ordered to do, and that's what the law says.”
I felt horrible. That hadn't been the direction I was going at all, though I saw how that might have been what she thought I meant. I cast around for a different topic, however blatantly it might be. “But what about the Prime Minister: what you were saying about him? He never seemed that charming to me.”
She pursed her lips, and then spoke. “You never knew h… You never knew what he was like before he was Prime Minister. I watched his career. I …” she shook her head. “He can be very convincing. Very. And no-one's really doing anything about what’s going on.” She seemed to want to change the subject. “Most of the politicians who opposed the Government have been arrested, or have gone abroad. There's no organised opposition – just a few random riots from time to time, but that's not enough to bring down the Government. And Floyd, of course, but no-one really knows what they stand for, apart from being against the Government, and hating Condie: they’ve got that going for them, at least. And nobody really knows whether they can make any difference.”
I stopped with my glass half to my mouth, expecting her to say more, but when she didn't, I forced my wine to my mouth, trying to avoid shaking with shock. I couldn't trust myself to say anything for a moment, so took another short sip and placed my hand back in my lap.
“Are Floyd big, then?” I risked.
“Nobody seems to know. But they get things done which needle the Government. Not in big ways, but one thing that we do know is that the Government hates them. I think they can deal with the disruption that Floyd puts them through: but it's the humiliation. And humiliating Condie, most of all. All bullies hate humiliation, and that's what the Government is, and what he is: a set of bullies led by a bully. He, no, they are worried that if enough people mock them and show them up for what they are, then Floyd could form a real opposition movement.”
“What do you think?”
She paused and had a think, glancing up at the swallows keening high above us. She took another sip of wine and then replied. “I don't know. There are rumours, at work, about how Floyd is biding their time, gathering recruits, and waiting to attack, but I'm not sure. Honestly, to pull it all together and really make a difference, I think Floyd is going to have to mobilise the National Service volunteers, and that's almost impossible. That's why the Government makes sure that the Volunteers don't spend too long in any one placement: so that they can't organise and form a real movement.”
We were quiet for a moment. I didn't want to go into much more detail, as the last thing I wanted was for Mum to think that I was too interested in Floyd. This was exciting - exciting and terrifying at the same time. Maybe we should grow Floyd after all: maybe it really did have a future and could have a serious effect on the Government, if I could make it big enough, powerful enough. For now, though, I sat there and concentrated on enjoying time with Mum, knowing that we were sharing something much more than just a glass of wine and a chat, trying to avoid thinking too much about this new, dangerous thought. After a while, Mum looked at her watch.
“I ought to be getting some food on for supper. Unless you fancy cooking?”
I shook my head. “I really ought to be doing some homework.” Which was true, but the first thing I really wanted to do was chat to Mo. I daren't risk glancing at my watch, too: I didn't want Mum to think that I had someone I needed to call. She finished off her glass with a gulp and got up.
“Want any more?”
“Um, no thanks. Don't think it would help the maths I've got to do.”
She nodded as if applauding my judgement and headed off inside with the bottle. I stayed outside for a few minutes, sipping my glass slowly and trying to get my head round everything she'd told me, what it meant, and how different things were now that Kareem had worked out that Mo was involved with Floyd. I got to the end of my wine without realising, and tried to take a sip from the now empty glass, which brought me back to my senses.
I followed Mum into the house, where she was preparing some sort of fish dish, and nearly grabbed my phone before deciding to leave it downstairs. If she thought she was in danger of being listened to, then we all were. I hadn't occurred to me that the Government might be able to listen in on what we were doing even when we weren't making calls, and it seemed like an awful lot of effort, but I wasn't ready to take the risk.
Chapter 23 – Are you sitting down?
As I got into my bedroom, I plomped down onto the bed and reached down the side to grab the phone. I noticed that it was already flashing: Mo must be calling me.
I picked up the receiver. “That's a coincidence: I just walked into the room.”
Mo swore.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Yes, I'm all right. What about you? I've been ringing for the past 45 minutes: ever since my parents left for the pub! I was really worried when I saw Kareem going into the class-room, and waited around for a while, but you never came out. What happened?”
“Calm down. Well, maybe not. Lots has happened. And I've just had a very, very interesting chat with my Mum.”
“Um – OK. Tell me about it.”
“No – Kareem first.”
“But … OK,” he agreed.
“First of all, are you sitting down?”
“I'm lying down on my bed, as usual. Why?”
I took a deep breath, and said, quickly, “Well, it turns out that Kareem's not your standard National Service volunteer.”
Mo gasped. “No! He's an Enforcer? What does he know?”
“Calm down. He's not an Enforcer,” I paused. “But he knows pretty much everything. Or at least he's guessed.”
I'd expected Mo to panic, but, to his credit, he didn't. I heard him gulp, though, as he prepared to talk. “So it's all over. Are they going to come for us?” Then there was a silence as his brain seemed to catch up with all the information I'd been telling him. I let him work it through on his own. “Wait a sec. How do you know all this? And what makes you think he's not an Enforcer? And what makes you think he won't tell them if he isn't?”
“OK: I'll try to keep it quick. Mum's got supper on, and I've not started my homework yet, so I may have to go. I'll get back to you if I do.” We tended to wait till later before chatting on the phone, to give us a chance to finish our homework first. We'd discovered from experience that if we started talking first, we'd never stop. It wasn't just stuff around what we were going to do next, or the latest news, or what I'd been reading from the library, either. We'd just end up chatting about families, about what we'd been up to at school, people in our classes, even helping each other with tricky homework if one of us had got stuck. And for a boy, Mo wasn't bad. It was frankly good to have a friend – not a boyfriend, just a friend who happened to be a boy. I was beginning to realise that I just enjoyed spending time with him – really quite a lot – and this was the only way I could safely do it. I had a sneaking suspicion that he felt the same way. Well, I hope so. “The reason I don't think he's an Enforcer, and the reason I don't think he'll tell them is that he thinks I'm one.”
I left it at that. There was silence down the other end of the line. And more silence. And yet more. I was beginning to wonder whether the connection had dropped when I heard Mo cle
ar his throat. “Lena...?” he started, hesitatingly.
“C,” I reminded him.