by Terry Tyler
Radar was never outwardly drunk, but kept himself topped up with cheap spirits when possible. He stayed away from drugs. A snort or two of blitz once in a blue moon, but dependency was for suckers. He didn't consider himself addicted to alcohol, he just felt better with it than without. A little hazy round the edges, a nice warm blur, so he could forget who Radar was and just be Sid's right-hand man.
Sometimes he liked his role. Sometimes it was good to be the man. Like he mattered, and was not to be messed with. You had to be switched on, in Hope 23.
Once, just once, he allowed himself to follow his own judgement when dealing with an offender. Finchy, he was called. Cocky little fella, mouth on him—second tier, a blitzer who didn't have the sense to keep quiet. His crime: he took the piss out of the raging dragon tatt on Sid's upper arm while they were playing pool.
"Who's that, then—y' mam?" he said, and looked round at the assembled crew, grinning, like he expected them to laugh. Nobody said anything. Sid took his shot, and walked off.
Finchy wasn't to know that Sid's mum had died of a flu-like virus when he was a kid.
If he'd looked more closely, he'd have seen the tattoo on Sid's other arm, commemorating her life and death.
Radar was instructed to give him a serious pasting. Blind in one eye or mashed limb type of serious.
When cornered in the showers, Finchy's swagger disappeared. He sobbed, begged, said he'd been blitzed off his face since his girlfriend broke up with him.
"I never meant it, honest, shit just falls out my mouth, please tell Sid I'm sorry, please don't hurt me, I'll do owt he wants, owt, just please don't chop any bits off us!"
And he displayed the stumps where three toes should have been, courtesy of the hard men in the Hope before last, 'cause he wouldn't sell drugs to kids.
Radar couldn't do it. He let Finchy off with a broken nose and a couple of missing teeth.
As expected, Radar was summoned to the pool table for a game with Sid.
The pool table in the far corner was for so much more than knocking balls into pockets. If you got word that Sid wanted a game, it meant he wanted to talk to you. The rest of the inner circle would stay close, but at a discreet distance. Out of earshot. If action was to be taken, they would be alerted.
"You like what you got going on here, don't you?" Sid said, as he racked up the balls.
"I do." Radar was not about to act sycophantic. He'd been there when Mohawk was summoned after accepting a light consignment of blitz from a Nutricorp delivery guy—the kicking dealt out by Shiner and Brett was painful to watch. Mohawk had made out like he hadn't known, later admitting he'd been too scared of the courier to complain. Went on about how much he respected Sid, but he was still demoted to grunt. Radar wasn't having that. He'd let Finchy off with a mild assault because it had been a genuine mistake.
Sid leant over to take his first shot, his tattoo for his beloved mother clearly displayed. Stacey Bryant. 14-5-00 ~ 11-1-42. RIP Mum. "So you let that little turd get away with disrespecting my mum." Click-click. The perfect shot.
Radar looked at the table, not Sid. "It was bad shit, what he said. Which is why I gave him a pasting. But he was off his face; he didn't think before he spoke. He's asking to be let back in, 'cause he's genuinely sorry. Says he'll do anything to make up for it." Radar took his shot carefully to make sure it was not too effective, yet not so bad that Sid would know he'd ballsed it up on purpose. "He'll be a good soldier now. Trustworthy. 'Cause he respects you."
"What about you, though?" Sid stood his cue upright, hands over the chalked end. "Are y' gonna go off-script every time you don't agree with summat I've told you to do?"
"No." Radar looked him in the eye, wishing he'd had another swig or two of whisky before he got there. "I'm loyal. You don't gotta worry about me. From now on, I'll discuss it with you, first."
Sid nodded. "Alright. We're good. Long as you don't fuck up again. And you can send y' buddy Finchy to see me. I got a job for him."
Radar was surprised to have got off so lightly, and spent the next few days on a knife edge, waiting for what was to come next, because he knew Sid would test him.
When his instructions arrived, he was not surprised.
He was to take out Shiner, one of the inner circle who'd chosen a major snitching session over going into the box for two months. Shiner had a serious blitz problem, and he couldn't cope with the solitude. Privately, Radar thought he was mentally ill, though whether the blitz addiction was a cause of this or a symptom, he didn't know. Whatever; he did as he was told.
When Shiner was found hanging from a light fitting, it was reported as suicide.
Radar was just twenty-one years old. Shiner was his fourth kill.
Two years later, during an uprising in which the inmates protested against the ever worsening quality of food, Radar accidentally caused the death of a guard.
This time, Sid's influence couldn't save him.
Or maybe he just didn't try very hard.
Radar was given a jail sentence of eight years.
Transferral, incarceration and death mean that, as in prisons, Hope 23 had a shifting population. Once a main man left, their legend would live on for a maximum of a month.
Radar was gone; he would not see Sid, Finchy or any of the others ever again.
Chapter 10
Aileen
2051 ~ 2058
My new friend Cheryl—@MumNotMum—did so much to help me. After losing her son to NPU, she'd married again and had two more children which, she claimed, made her situation bearable. I couldn't see that I would ever find it so, but she said, "I have to keep it in perspective, or I'd be a lousy mum to my girls. And I've got Andy to support me emotionally—you've got nobody."
I wrote to, made appointments with and called everyone we could think of who might be able to help, including my MP and independent groups that helped parents of children in NPU, but any small hope was soon dashed. After a while, I was just going through the motions. I won't detail all I did over the next few years—the emails, the calls, the meetings, the waiting and waiting and waiting, because it would be as depressing to read as it was to live through. Cheryl joked that it was my hobby; aside from my two jobs, it was all I did.
One Saturday afternoon not long after Leah was nine, I had a final read-through of an impassioned plea I'd composed on the advice of @gingerbread, one of the rare mothers who'd actually got her child back. I imagined it being read by Portia French, by that time the Head CWO (Child Wellbeing Officer) at the Department of Social Care, and as I did so I saw myself through her eyes. I saw her opening that little envelope icon and thinking, 'Oh no, not her again', and I knew that all this effort was for nothing.
That Leah wouldn't want to live with me, anyway; she didn't know me.
A few days later I received my reply.
'…You were given the opportunity to keep Leah with you and transition to a Hope Village, but you made the selfless decision to place her in the NPU system. While I realise this has cost you a great deal, I remain convinced that you made the right choice for Leah. She is safe, happy, and developing as we would wish, in every sense. I urge you to seek acceptance of the decision you made, for your own peace of mind, so that you, too, may live a fulfilling life. I wish you blah blah blah.
For the first time, I felt resigned to the situation. Not accepting, but resigned. It was never going to happen. My flat wasn't Leah's home, and I was a stranger to her.
I rang Marc Halston, the man whose wife had done a bunk with my husband. He'd moved on just fine; Sophie was history. In the years since she left he'd had many girlfriends, found a social circle, and urged me to do the same.
Friends weren't a problem; I had a few of them, now. But dates never became relationships, because I always ended up bending their ears about Leah.
I didn't care.
Marc was between girlfriends at that time. He asked me 'how I was getting on', as he always did, but for the first time I didn't regale him with a run
down of all my fruitless wrangles with the authorities. I told him about the letter from Portia, and for a moment he didn't answer.
Then he said, "Do you think you can do that, Aileen? Accept the situation?"
I said, "I'll never accept it," and I heard him sigh. "But I think it's time I stopped."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. I've done all I can. There's no one left to ask for help, because no one's going to go against decisions made by the government. You know, I read up on so many cases in the past, decades back, where MPs fought for parents who'd had their children taken away, before the megacities—sorry, I know you've heard it all before. I was going to say that I thought because others succeeded, there was a chance that I would too, but it was hopeless, right from the start."
"I'm so sorry. What will you do now?"
"Christ knows. Just get on with my life and hope that when Leah's sixteen, she'll find me of her own accord."
"I'm sure she will. She's what, eight now?"
"Nearly nine."
"So you've got seven years to fill."
I laughed. "I have. I'll see if I can meet some new people. Get a better job. Try to remember what I liked doing before I had Leah." Already a plan was forming. I'd be forty-five when Leah was sixteen—if I concentrated on myself, I'd have something to offer her by then. She could ask to see me when she was thirteen, but if NPU thought such a meeting would be detrimental to her emotional wellbeing, they would deny her request; Cheryl told me that they almost always did. But not always. And at sixteen the choice would be hers.
The reports from NPU were now nothing more than a monthly rundown of her activities and achievements, with a few photos. I printed out my favourites and hung them on the walls of my box in Stack 231.
When I finished my conversation with Marc, I allowed myself a brief fantasy. Seven years' time. I would be cool and well-dressed, with a great job and lots of friends. Leah would seek me out, and we'd have so much fun that, within weeks, she'd apply to come and live with me—and by then I'd have saved up enough money to finance her through college. Or we might go away from here, somewhere else. Another country. Somewhere life wasn't so restricted. Europe, or New Zealand. And when she wanted to go off and live with friends, or get married, that would be fine, because I'd have a full life too, and one day there would be grandchildren, who would never, ever have to grow up apart from her, or me.
It could happen. All of it. It could.
Marc and Cheryl helped me. I noted their change in attitude, once I let go of my pointless quest. Marc took me out and about when he was between girlfriends, and introduced me to his crowd. I went on the ziprail to visit Cheryl in MC14 and had a few great weekends there, though it was hard seeing her lovely daughters.
The year before I'd done a counselling course, hoping to get a job at Balance and maybe help others in a similar situation to me, but they wouldn't take me on because of 'my proactive campaign against decisions made by respected professionals within the Department of Social Care'. Now, I considered trying to get back into marketing, but Marc had other ideas.
"You'll be competing with kids fifteen years younger who haven't just learned about the latest tech on a course, they live it. Why not try a change of direction? You don't really want to spend all day churning out sales bullshit, do you?"
No, I didn't.
I thought and I thought, and eventually I hit on it. I wanted to work with children. I had so much to give, so much that was locked up inside me with nowhere to go.
My boss at Barrington House gave me a great reference and the counselling course helped me secure a position in the Care Village, in Sunflower Lodge, which housed children with learning difficulties.
I adored it; I was doing something worthwhile, I felt needed, and every time I had a breakthrough with one of the children I was on top of the world. I actually started to feel happy, something I wouldn't have thought possible a year before. I became involved in the children's Phys Ed, taking them swimming, playing ball games; I became fitter, stronger. I grew my hair, I bought new clothes. I looked good, I felt great.
At home alone though, I thought of Leah just as much; I saw images of her tenth birthday, her eleventh, and it still hurt like hell, but I could deal with it now. I had a plan, I wasn't endlessly hurtling down dark alleys, smashing my head against the brick walls at the end and collapsing in despair.
I'd been at Sunflower Lodge for about two and a half years when something approaching romance entered my life. Rob, the new swimming coach. We worked so well together, and I knew that the children's achievements meant as much to him as they did to me.
He said he looked forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays, when I took my group to the pool.
"Best days of my week. I get to do something meaningful with a gorgeous blonde in a swimsuit—what's not to like?"
I'd had a couple of minor flings with men I'd met through Marc, but I still needed training wheels for dating. With Rob, though, it didn't feel like 'dating', because we already knew each other. He asked me if I fancied a few drinks after work, which ended up being dinner, which led to breakfast and the whole weekend. I told him about Leah of course, but briefly, unemotionally, because he was eight years younger than me, had not married or had children, and his elder sister just happened to be a 'senior educator' at the new NPU Teens, for over-thirteens, about which she was evangelical. Rob adored Georgia, seeing her as the expert on non-parental upbringing. I decided not to hold this against him. Wasn't like I was going to marry him.
Nothing would get in the way of my becoming the mother Leah would want to have. All I had to do was keep it up until she was sixteen.
I thought I'd reinvented myself. Turned the corner. I didn't understand how fragile it all was, that one little push could send Bright New Me back down that dark alley.
Rob asked me to dinner at the house of some friends I'd never met before, a lesser residence in one of MC12's gated communities; the host, Jesse, was a friend of Rob's from school, and was now a major brain in Tech Village.
Aside from Jesse, his wife Lorna and us, there were eight other guests, all new faces— one of whom was Rob's sister.
When we were introduced, I thought, I'll just keep quiet. I won't say anything.
I was seated at one end of the table, opposite her, and she held forth about how she'd been 'in on the ground floor' of NPU Teens. I'd managed to let it float over me while I tuned in to conversations elsewhere around the table, until dessert. By which time I'd had possibly a bit too much wine.
I was just drooling over the apricot and ginger posset when Georgia said, "So, Aileen," and beamed at me with that same fake, sympathetic smile I remembered from Portia and Jennifer.
So Aileen what? "Yes?"
She reached across the table and touched my hand. "Honey, Rob told me about Leah. Such a selfless, brave decision, but absolutely the best one, although I know it's not been easy, mm? Now, I don't have personal contact with Leah, because I'm at NPU Teens, but when Rob told me he was seeing you I sought her out, and I can tell you that she's as happy, stable and healthy as you could ever wish." Still with her hand on mine, she smiled at the rest of the diners. "I'm a big mushy heap of proud that MC12 won all the awards for both sporting and academic achievement last year and the one before. It's the highest performing NPU—Aileen's birth daughter couldn't be in a better place!" Once she was sure everyone was listening, she turned back to me. "I'll be happy to keep you up to speed about her, any time—all you have to do is ask." "Thank you," I said, and she carried on smiling, with no idea what was coming next.
I wasn't expecting it, either. It just came out. "Thank you for offering to keep me informed about the well-being of my own daughter, though I thought the best place for a child to be was with her mother."
She inched her hand away but her smile remained fixed, and she threw a nervous glance down the table. "Well, of course, normally I'd agree, and the fact that she's so well-balanced has to be a credit to you, too, but—"
; I couldn't stop. I'd held it all in for so long.
"Did you know I was promised regular visits that never happened? And that she would be returned to me as soon as I was 'back on my feet'? Well, I've been back on them for some years now, but your precious NPU made sure that by the time this was the case, Leah would not know me any more—month after month, all I got was thin excuses about why I couldn't visit her, so that their expert psychologists could confirm that, of course, the upheaval of leaving her carer and playmates to live with a total stranger would cause her trauma from which she would never recover. Still, what do I know? I'm only her mother—whoops, sorry, I mean birth mother."
Rob touched my leg and whispered, "Hey—it's not Georgia's fault."
I turned to the handsome face that lay on the pillow next to mine most mornings. "Maybe it's my stupid fault for believing their lies."
Georgia's cheeks turned pink. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Aileen—"
"Are you? Are you really? Can you help us reunite, then?"
"Well, no, I work for NPU, not against it—"
"That's what I thought. I could understand it if I was a drug addict or a drinker, or had psychological problems that made me a danger to her, but the only reason I signed up for her to stay in NPU temporarily was that her father left us for another woman, and I couldn't afford to support her on my own. Within a relatively short period of time, I proved to all concerned that I could. I've spent years going down every possible avenue to have her returned to me, but all I come up against is closed door after closed door; even those who are sympathetic to my cause can't do anything to help, because NPU and Department of Social Care legislation blocks them." I knew I was being incredibly rude to my hosts, but I was beyond self-control. "And you expect me to be happy that she's 'in the best place'?" My skin felt as if it was burning all over. I sat back, dizzy with fury.