by Rebecca Ward
Bodi stifles her first instinct, to rush to her mum’s side. She makes for the van instead. Crouching low, she skitters to the side furthest from the flat, hoping she won’t be seen. A rough cough from the other side of the vehicle makes her jump. She hears the sharp click and blow of a cigarette lighter igniting, the flame illuminating that side of the van for a few seconds. Shiny black military boots and a grey wool hat is all Bodi can see but she can put together the rest of the picture. Sallow, pockmarked face, sunglasses day or night, moustache, cropped hair, grey flannel army trousers, grey bomber jacket. It is TrueSec’s Special Intelligence Command Unit. A true misnomer, there is little special or intelligent about them. On the street they are known simply as the S. I. C. or Sick Boys.
She waits, crouching, holding her breath, until he wanders off again. Thankfully he seems to have little patience. All the while commands and jeers from upstairs are being met with silence. Her mum has shut down.
Bodi looks around her, working out where she can hide. She sees the door to the building’s rubbish room is open and she edges towards it. The wooden doors have slats, some are broken and she will just about be able to see what is going on. Inside the room grimy signs about tidiness and cleanliness are fervently ignored. The residents are meant to drop the garbage in large metal containers but most simply opened the door and throw their bag in, no matter what it contains. The acrid smell is unbearable. Bodi covers her mouth and nose with her hand. It takes everything she has not to throw up. Insects and rats find a happy home here and she is trying not to think how many of those new companions are close by. Her eyes are streaming from the odour but also because she is petrified. She cannot be found. They are here. And there is nothing she can do.
Heavy footsteps pound above her head and she follows the sound of them coming down the stairs. Bodi can see her Mum is outside, almost in touching distance. Head down, surrendered to her fate, she looks weak and fragile. Dragging her feet, the Sick Boys hold her under each arm. ‘Have they drugged her?’ she worries. It takes Bodi all her effort not to call out. Inside her head her voice is screaming, ‘Mum! Mum! I’m here!’
The Sick Boys’ belts hold large, sheathed knives and batons. ‘What can I do?’ Bodi thinks, her mind racing and her palms sweating. ‘Jump them? I’d be dead in a second.’
The Sick Boys are renowned for their brutal ‘act first, ask questions later’ approach. In fact, questions rarely get asked. They are the Presidents’ private army of rent-a-thugs.
Her mum is shoved in the back of the van and the door slammed shut behind her. Bodi whimpers like a hurt puppy as she sees her mum disappear. The other guards get in the front and start the engine. Taillights disappear round the corner and then nothing. There is always an eerie silence following a visit from the Sick Boys. Curtains twitch but everyone stays indoors, lights turned low. No-one steps in to help their neighbours because you could be hauled off as well. Self-preservation is king.
Bodi sits down on who knows what. She thinks back over the day and desperately tries to piece together how this has happened. She wonders what alerted TrueSec to their whereabouts? Had someone ratted on them? Had she gone out one too many times? Was it her fault? They have gone for years undetected, flying way under the radar and they have done nothing different in recent weeks.
She and her mum have been in hiding for as long she can remember. They move round the same faceless blocks of flats every few months. It is easier for her to leave the house now as she is older and a similar height and build to her mum. As long as they leave separately then their neighbours are none the wiser that there are two of them. Ruby says that is the best way to keep her safe. Today Bodi had got the free pass, which is happening more and more these days as her mum retreats into herself. Without friends around her, Ruby has few anchors in the world. She floats off into her memories, of Bodi's father, of her younger self. Bodi finds it increasingly frustrating when her mum is like this, not hearing her, not engaging with the world. They have been at loggerheads for months, Ruby disappearing more and more and Bodi fighting with the confinement of their lives. But now Bodi wishes she had just stayed home and maybe she could have got them both out of there before it was too late.
Bodi waits until her neighbours’ radios and TVs are blaring again before she ventures back to the flat. The door lock is broken, so she closes the door as best she can behind her, wedging a chair against it.
Things in their living room are still fairly orderly, just an upturned mug on the floor, which must have been dropped by her mum when the door was banged in. Bodi's mum had always known that this day would come and they were prepared. They merged their things so that it looked like her mum lived alone. One crumpled bed, few possessions, little in the way of furniture. Everything is just as she had left it a few hours ago except one important thing is missing. Her mum.
On the wall is their one piece of decoration: Ruby’s “Map of Inspiration”. Postcards and photos of her heroes that they take everywhere with them. Stuck on a well-worn poster of Rosetti’s Joan of Arc are images torn from magazines and postcards of heroes from Charles Dickens to David Bowie, Frida Kahlo to Wonder Woman. Right at its heart is a postcard of the statue of Boudicca and her daughters riding into battle that stands on Westminster Bridge. The warrior queen of the Iceni that Bodi is named after. This is the world they have created for themselves. The gods that they worship and the teachings that they follow.
Bodi goes over and touches the image of Boudicca. ‘What now?’ she asks her namesake. It is tatty from where she has done this so many times over the years, but it does not matter because she knows the image by heart.
Overcome by the day, Bodi falls into the bed, weeping into a pillow to muffle the sound. She feels bereft. Her whole body aches. She can’t stay here. They have an emergency drill and she has to follow it. The building’s caretaker will be in to clear the flat first thing in the morning, so she knows she has to get a grip and get out. But for a while she lies there, inhaling her mother’s scent and exorcising her pain. She is a million miles away from the Bodi of that morning. In one way she is free for the first time. No-one knows she exists. She could just walk out in the night and start again.
They have an emergency backpack that they update every Sunday evening. Bodi has started to get complacent about this and has to be nagged repeatedly to carry out what she considers an unnecessary chore. At the first sign of light, Bodi pulls it out of the cupboard and scouts the room for anything else she wants to take. She does not know how long she will have until her next meal so she grabs an apple and a half-eaten pack of biscuits from the kitchen counter and drinks a glug of water from a bottle in the fridge. She takes down the Map, folding it along timeworn lines and slots it safely into the backpack. She picks out some dull, unremarkable clothes and puts them on. This is no time to stand out. She has to go unnoticed, that way she can avoid being picked up by the authorities. She keeps on her army boots but changes into black leggings, a t-shirt and a plain hoody. She plaits her hair tight and pins it up, pulling her beanie back on. She triple-checks the contents of her bag: Photos. Money. Underwear. Fake ID. Pocketknife. She bundles everything else into a black bin bag. All her precious and much-loved clothes have to go, along with her favourite books. It is heart-wrenching. Her whole identity thrown in a rubbish bag. Sixteen years trashed.
The terrifying thoughts of what might be happening to her mum right now drives her out of the door. Backpack in place, hat on and head down, Bodi walks out into the dawn light. She is on her own now and she has to get to safety. Reluctantly, she hides her bin bag of possessions at the back of the stinking rubbish room. It is the safest place for it. As she leaves the block she feels she is walking away from what is left of her childhood. She realises has to become a strong young woman and take care of herself. She has to find a way to free her mother without being found by the authorities. Pressed against her chest, under her hoody, her painted locket holds the key to her future but she has yet to prize it open.
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Ever since she could remember Bodi has worn her locket. It isn’t pretty. In fact she wears it under duress because it looks like a kid’s craft project gone wrong. What it is, she realised as she got older, is an antique dipped in durgy pink paint and faded sequins. The paint has sealed it shut and she has kept it like that because she knows only to open it should “they” come. Bodi feels that she should go somewhere significant to open the locket and so she takes the road that leads to the heart of their city. It is still dark and the workers lowest on the food chain are her only companions.
Bodi sits at the foot of the statue, halfway down the steps to the disused subway. Only a few of the Underground lines run now since the bombings and fires. Ratty pigeons peck at used paper cups and cigarette butts. Tugboats pull containers of landfill along the river below. Big Ben chimes half past six in broken discords across the empty streets and above her head Boudicca’s black stallions charge their continual assault against the former Houses of Parliament. Once a stalwart of democracy, the great building’s gothic remains stand jagged and charred against the orange glow of the approaching dawn.
She tugs back the corner of the fly posters that have built up a thick protective layer around the base of the monument. She can just make out the beginning of the phrase that she knows so well. “Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, who died in AD61 after leading her people against the Roman invaders.”
When she was small Ruby would hoist her out of her pushchair to run her fingers along the indentations of the golden letters. ‘Here my little warrior queen.’ She would say. ‘Drink in her power and her beauty. See how blood can be so strong that you will do anything to revenge wrongdoing against your family. I would take on an army for you, if anyone hurt you, a legion of soldiers, just like her.’
‘Horses!’ Bodi would squeal and made a “clip clop” noise with her tongue. She had so loved those horses. Only now does she understand the significance of her mum’s words. She knows that Boudicca the Iceni Queen had taken on thousands of Romans and their allies and slaughtered them to avenge the attacks on her daughters. She was no saint, she had plenty of blood on her own hands, but she had avenged their suffering the only way she knew.
Bodi takes her locket off and starts chipping away with a penknife to open it. As much as she hates the look of this thing it is laden with huge sentiment and she does not want to break it. Its ugliness belies the power it contains. ‘Information is power’, was another of her mother’s mottos. ‘But use that power wisely,’ she would add. She sits for a few minutes tentatively chipping away; registering that sitting in one of the most public places in the city is not the most inspired idea. She gives it one last jab and it flies apart scattering its contents on the pavement. She grabs at them and scuttles down the steps to the underground station and leans in the large, gated doorway. Hands shaking she looks again at her hoard. The locket’s centre is a glorious old gold, like nothing Bodi has never seen before, inside it sits a folded piece of translucent paper. She sits rigid, cradling the tiny amount of hope she has left in her hand. Like a tiny bird only she can revive and she prays to all the higher powers she can muster that this will hold the answers. Bodi unfolds it carefully. It has been in there a long time and she senses it could easily dissolve.
On one side is a list of names and addresses, on the other is written the following:
My sweet Boudicca
If you are reading this then I am gone. They have found me. I hope that it is when you’re old enough to take care of youself. The alternative I can’t bear to consider. These people here were my friends, as true a family as I could wish for. There when I needed them. I’ve done my best to give us our independence, but if I’m not around they are the only ones I trust to help you. Get to them and they will keep you safe.
Be careful with these names Bodi, as it would do irreparable damage if they were to get into the wrong hands. Do not try to find me, it will only endanger you.
Remember, I love you forever and always,
Ruby xxx
Bodi turns the paper over to look at the names but they do not register. One thing she knows, without a doubt, to a man they were all members of the underground movement Populus. The phrase “Do not try to find me” resounds in her head. How can she not? How can she accept she will never see her mother again? Her whole world has collapsed within the space of twelve hours.
‘You alright kid?’ She looks up, a crowd is forming and that isn’t good. She stands up shakily and forces a smile.
‘Fine, fine thanks. Erm, just dropped some change,’ she says.
Bodi walks through the crowd trying to compose herself. The crowd disperses instantly, everyone has their own troubles to deal with. Bodi can still feel eyes on her, she turns back to the bridge to see if she is being followed but everyone is walking away. ‘Just being paranoid,’ she thinks.
That is it then, she will have to ask this new “family” what to do next. She sure as hell doesn’t know what else to do. All she has to do is track them down. Just that one huge, dangerous thing. Locket thrust deep in her pocket, she glances quickly at the first address and sets off north, away from the river.
Despite being confident in herself, Bodi is not exactly brilliant with new people. Not that she is a recluse, but her situation means she has led quite a secluded life. She never got to set down roots because they moved around so much. Her mum had left Populus when Bodi was around three and had broken all ties – or so Bodi thought – and consequently Bodi is pretty nervous about what she might unearth. Her mum rarely goes into why they left, she always says it was for the best and that Bodi is better off. ‘We stand a greater chance on our own’. That was what she said. Very cryptic. There are certain things she knows not to push with her mother and this is one of them. Well, this is the biggest of them. If she is honest that is why she is quite surprised that her Mum suggested she find them. Bodi never thought that Populus would be part of her life, just a painful episode in Ruby’s.
Populus holds mythical status among the lower classes of the city. It is hard to determine what is truth and what fiction about their exploits. Their leader, Clement, disappeared once they conceded to the President’s military forces. Disappeared rather than died is the general consensus, but again, who knows? There is always talk that Populus will reappear to take on the system, but over time faith in this had waned. People are divided on what good they had achieved. Had Populus’ actions inched them ever closer to the breadline? They lived in a blame culture. It is easier to blame someone else for your situation than take responsibility and Populus’s own violent actions means it is an easy, faceless target.As word got out about the inhumane treatment of those that spoke out, the public came to accept that they had absolutely no say in the future of the city. Confidence in change vanished and they trudged begrudgingly through ever-insular lives. Daydreaming edged further off the agenda. Posters of the President were plastered everywhere telling them they had never had it so good. Those that were torn down were replaced by ten more. The country is in more than a slump. It is face down and drowning in a dirty, shallow puddle.
Bodi has been walking for a while. She is surprised she has drawn little attention despite the desperation written large across her face. She has no poker face despite her best efforts. Her mum always knows when she is lying. She pulls her beanie further down and hands in pockets marches on. She checks her tatty AtoZ. The first address is in Camden.
When she finally arrives at the home of ‘Nancy’, the tower block looms above her like an aggrieved spectre. Bodi climbs nine flights of stairs to the flat, pulling herself up the last two by the hand rail, to discover not only is no one home but there is no home. There are no windows or doors, not even the metal shutters of an abandoned house. She can see from one side of the building right through to the open air. Wrecked by the elements and covered in graffiti and addicts’ old needles, this is not somewhere Bodi wants to hang about so she runs down the stairs two by two. When she gets to the ground she is
totally out of breath and bent double she staggers down the road.
Bodi feels panicked by how much she is losing control and as much as she tries to focus on moving forwards she feels a huge pull back to their old flat. But she knows from years of moving, that forward is the only direction available to her. And their old flat isn’t that anymore, she has to accept it. It is just an empty breezeblock box waiting to be filled with the secrets of another desperate family.
Bodi can’t believe it when she looks at the next address on the list. Marylebone. She had pretty much gone past it on her way here and could have gone there first. She isn’t thinking straight. Rationale has been replaced by adrenaline-fuelled panic. She keeps trying to put thoughts about what is happening to Ruby to the back of her mind but every time she finds her focus horrific images flood into her head. Images of torture and beatings. Images of her mum slumped in the corner of a cell. No one to call and no one to turn to. The sound of her mum’s voice telling her not to go looking for her. ‘Well, I’m not looking for you,’ she thinks. ‘I’m looking for Populus. And they can look for you. That’s not entirely the same thing.’ She convinces herself anyway.
Her legs ache from the long walk back south towards the river. Bodi stands opposite the second house on the list. It sits square in the middle of a small terrace, this time with its windows and doors intact. A mother walks past her in a daze, shush-shushing the baby screaming in a pushchair. Bodi manages half a commiserative smile, then spots a familiar black van turn the corner towards her so she heads down a side street. Heart pounding, she waits round the corner until they have passed and then retraces her steps. Knocking at the door she is met with half a woman’s face peering from behind a chained door. She remains silent, her one visible eye staring through Bodi.