I am Not A Number

by Lisa Heathfield

‘I wish it could be that easy,’ Darren says, as the queue moves forwards a bit. ‘They really believe that they can brainwash us into their way of thinking.’

  ‘How will they do it, though?’

  ‘They’ll try and wear us down through lack of food and sleep, for a start,’ Darren says.

  ‘And stupid punishments like making me run in the rain.’

  ‘You dealt with that really well, Ruby. Your mum and I were really proud of you.’

  ‘What, for sitting down when I shouldn’t have?’ I smile, as we shuffle forwards again.

  ‘That bit wasn’t so great.’ Even his face looks different in here. It’s like I’m finally letting myself see who he really is. ‘Seriously. We have to just go with their rules for now. They’re too unpredictable.’

  ‘Is that why you didn’t stick up for Mum when they hit her?’ I know my words are harsh, but I still wish that he’d at least said something, instead of standing there and letting it happen.

  ‘I couldn’t risk stepping in. That guard had my wife on the floor and a gun in his hand. You must be able to see that?’

  ‘I guess.’ And I know I do really. I think I just scooped up the anger I felt for the guard and threw it at Darren because he was the only safe option.

  ‘You must never doubt how much I love your mum. It destroyed me not being able to protect her.’ He hangs his head down and picks at the skin by his thumbnail. Already it’s bleeding slightly. ‘I feel responsible that you’re all even here. I should’ve guessed this might have happened and taken you somewhere safe.’

  ‘You couldn’t have known. There wasn’t a warning or anything. And even if there was, we wouldn’t have believed they could do this.’

  Darren looks up at me. ‘I just don’t want any of it to be happening to you. I’d do anything for them to let you all go.’

  I put my hand on his arm, something I’ve never done before. He feels like an anchor now and I need him next to me.

  ‘We’ll be out of here soon,’ I say.

  He nods once and leans his head back against the wall. I rest my head next to his shoulder and look along the corridor, crammed with people as lost as we are.

  In the morning, I feel like every muscle in my body is broken. I don’t want to be asleep as I’m too uncomfortable, but I don’t want to be awake either. I just want to be at home.

  After the queue for the toilet, the guards lead us past the sinks in the shower room. We’re each allowed to stop briefly and this time I do brush my teeth. I block out the fact that others have used the toothbrush and concentrate instead on the mint taste of the paste and how if I close my eyes, for this moment, at least, I feel clean and normal.

  The guard yanks it from my mouth. I watch her as I spit into the sink, before I join the queue to walk down the stairs for roll call.

  Outside we stand in line as the bitter wind finds its way too easily through the fence. Darren holds my hand and it’s the only thing that helps warm me. Further down I can see Luke. He’s talking closely to his dad and when he looks up and sees me he smiles, but it just makes everything that’s happening feel even more wrong.

  We stand and wait for so long that the cold starts to gnaw through my coat. I feel it rip my skin and feast on my bones. Behind us, Mr Jesenska has his arm round his wife. They both wear hats, but I wonder how they can cope with this at their age.

  Finally the line starts to move. Finally my number is checked. I’m too frozen to look back at Darren as I follow the others into the dining room, where a piece of bread and a glass of water is waiting.

  After we’ve eaten, a guard stands by the table and uses his gun to draw an imaginary line between us.

  ‘This half, go back to the room,’ he says. ‘This half, into the kitchen.’

  I want to sleep, or at least curl up on the mattress upstairs, but I’m in the wrong half. And an uneasy feeling hooks into me when I realise I’m not with anyone I know.

  I’m pushed with the group into the kitchen, where the steam is thick and warm. Instantly, I feel myself begin to thaw as we stand together, useless, our hands by our sides. None of us know what we should do.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ I hear a woman ask.

  ‘Use your initiative,’ the guard snaps.

  And we scatter among the people already working in here. I want to be close to the ovens where I know it’ll be warmest, but as I head there, someone grabs my elbow to stop me.

  I yank myself away, but they pull me back by the shoulder.

  ‘It’s me.’ Conor. He’s standing here with the number 312 sewn into the red material on his arm. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to hug anyone so much. But I remember where I am and even though he’s only a friend, I can’t be close to him in front of the Trads.

  ‘Luke said you were here.’ I smile at him.

  ‘Yeah. I heard it was a holiday camp, so I couldn’t resist it. Here, hold this.’ He passes me a tray before he opens a pack of frozen sausages and tips them onto it.

  ‘Taxing work,’ I say.

  ‘It’s just about the level I can cope with.’ No one has given him gloves and his fingers look frozen.

  ‘Where’s your mum?’ I ask.

  He nods over to the metal sinks lined along the wall. His mum has her back to us, a scarf tied over her head, her number stitched on the slash of red on her arm.

  ‘Is she okay?’

  ‘No. Her next chemo session is meant to be today.’ Anger spins from him.

  ‘Will they let her go?’ It’s a stupid question.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Conor’s eyes look suddenly wild and lost.

  ‘Maybe it’ll be okay to miss one,’ I tell him. ‘They could double the dose next time, or something?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Conor says. ‘Maybe.’

  His mum’s illness is scooping him dry. His laughter is so, so far out of reach.

  We take the trays to the workers by the ovens, before we go to the huge freezer at the back of the kitchen. Icy air drifts out when the woman there opens it and she passes Conor and me more bags of sausages, which we take back to the table.

  ‘I never thought I’d prefer to be doing schoolwork,’ Conor says, as he rips open another bag.

  ‘Is this all we have to do?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  There are so many people busy in the kitchen that no one notices when we’re done.

  ‘Fancy breaking their stupid rules?’ Conor asks me. There’s that spark of a smile in his eye. The one that’s got us both into trouble at school too many times.

  ‘Like what?’ I ask. The danger somehow feels diluted with Conor next to me. I can pretend that we’re on a school trip and the only people we have to dodge are the teachers.

  He points to the door next to us. ‘La porte?’

  I nod. ‘Après tu.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘After you, you doofus,’ I say and I push open the door and we’re through it before I even breathe.

  We’re alone in a small corridor. In front of us is a door with a glass window in the top and beyond it is the back of the camp.

  Conor grins. ‘Shall we?’ he asks.

  ‘Would be rude not to,’ I say. And he turns the handle to let us outside.

  The silence, the freedom is instant. I lean back against the wall and breathe it in, let it wash through my mind and clear all the clutter and nightmares of the last two days.

  I only open my eyes when I hear Conor walking away. He’s going towards the fence that keeps us in here, its barbed-wire teeth tangled sharp on the top. I don’t have to run far to catch up with him.

  ‘What if they see us?’ I ask.

  ‘They didn’t say we couldn’t walk out here,’ he says. I suppose he’s right, but I know they won’t like it.

  ‘Don’t touch it, though,’ I say, grabbing his arm before we get too close to the fence.

  ‘Do you think it’d electrocute us?’

  ‘Could do. And I don’t particularly want a fri
ed Conor on my hands.’

  ‘Should we hide behind that?’ Conor points to a blackthorn bush pushed up against the fence.

  ‘If they catch us together there then we really would be in trouble,’ I say.

  ‘We could try to escape. They wouldn’t be able to see us behind it and we could dig our way to freedom.’

  ‘This camp would be long gone before we got through to the other side.’ I wonder which of us I’m trying to convince.

  ‘You think they’ll let us go soon?’ Conor asks.

  ‘They’ll have to,’ I say.

  ‘That general guy said it was a trial.’

  ‘Yup. They want to turn us all into Trads.’ I laugh. ‘Well, good luck with that one, when they can’t even get the basics right.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you and I were cooking together for a start. Think about it – men in the kitchen isn’t exactly in line with what they want from their society.’

  ‘They’ll realise their mistakes soon.’

  ‘If we haven’t already got out of here,’ I say.

  ‘Do you think there’ll be an uprising from us, or something?’

  ‘Maybe.’ But I only say it to keep Conor positive. I don’t think I really believe it, because how would we stand a chance when they’ve got guns?

  Beyond the fence the land stretches out. It’s stopped raining and we can see for miles. Past the loch to the horizon topped by a mountain that touches the sky.

  ‘I wish we could walk out there,’ I say. It’s strange that it’s so close, yet we can’t even feel the grass the other side.

  ‘Think of all the nature things you’d be able to spot and tell me about,’ Conor laughs.

  ‘All the spiders I could throw at you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘You know I would.’

  I breathe in deeply, needing to share the air of the distant plants, the leaves, the roots.

  ‘This place reminds me of somewhere we went when I was six,’ Conor says. ‘When it was the three of us.’

  ‘With your mum and dad?’

  ‘Yeah. One big happy family,’ he says. ‘Not that I need to tell you about that.’ Conor and I both have absent dads, but his is far worse than mine. At least I get to visit mine and he phones Lilli and me fairly often.

  Conor kicks at a stone on the floor and it flips up, skimming past the wire and landing on the other side. ‘We were camping and he made a show of doing a big breakfast every morning. Eggs, bacon, the works – all on this little campfire. It was great. I loved it.’ He doesn’t look up at me, only scuffs another stone loose. ‘He took me fishing and we spent days just him and me and I thought he was the best dad ever.’ He breathes out heavily, letting his memories disintegrate in the air. ‘Then when we got home, he fucked off. Literally, the next day.’

  ‘To Cornwall?’ I ask. He knows that I get it. He was a bit younger than me when my dad left, but we share so many feelings. I get what it’s like to have the bottom literally fall out of your world. To wake up spinning in space.

  ‘He didn’t look back.’ Conor’s laugh hasn’t a speck of happiness in it.

  ‘It’s made you and your mum close, though,’ I say. She’s quite quiet when I go round to theirs, but she’s really kind and is always there if Conor needs her.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘But now she’s ill.’ I can almost see a pencil drawing the pain on Conor’s face.

  ‘She’ll get better,’ I tell him. She has to.

  Conor looks at me and I can guess the words he’s going to say. ‘Without chemo?’

  ‘We won’t be here too long,’ I say.

  ‘I’m serious about escaping, Ruby. There’s no way I’m staying here for much longer.’

  ‘Do you think it’s safe to try?’

  ‘Well it’s not safe for my mum to stay here. She needs her treatment to start again.’

  ‘You two!’ a voice yells. We both turn quickly to see a guard storming towards us, his hand on his gun. ‘What are you doing?’

  Conor puts up his hands and I copy him.

  ‘We were just talking,’ he says. If he’s afraid his voice doesn’t show it.

  ‘I felt sick,’ I say, as the guard gets to us. ‘I needed some air.’ Blood pounds in my ears. The mountain and the trees have disappeared. All I can see now is the anger on the guard’s face, his finger squeezed tight to the trigger.

  ‘You can’t come out here,’ he shouts, even though he’s close enough to touch us.

  ‘Then we’ll go back,’ Conor says, cool as anything.

  The soldier puts out an arm to stop him.

  ‘Are you together?’ he asks.

  ‘It depends on your definition of “together”,’ Conor says, looking him calmly in the eyes. ‘We are standing here together, yes.’

  The soldier’s teeth visibly tighten. I want to tell Conor to stop. We’re not at school now. This man is far more dangerous than a teacher.

  ‘Are you in a relationship?’ the guard asks.

  Conor looks at me and smiles.

  ‘Nah,’ he says. ‘Sorry, Rubes, no offence but you’re not my type.’

  Step carefully, Conor.

  ‘Get inside,’ the guard shouts. ‘Now.’

  We don’t run. We don’t even walk fast. I follow Conor’s pace as we head back towards the building. Towards the door that takes us back into a place I never want to be in again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Our great country. Unity for all.’ – John Andrews, leader of the Traditional Party

  Something has happened. I can sense it as soon as I walk in. Groups of adults sit close together, talking intensely. Zamal and his sister are crying and our mum is sitting with them on the floor. I go straight to Luke, who’s on a bed near them, writing in his sketchbook.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask. He looks up at me and there’s something different about him. A deep worry that wasn’t there before.

  ‘You know the mum with the four children? They’ve taken her and her twins.’

  ‘Taken them?’

  He closes his sketchbook and moves up to make a bit of space for me.

  ‘The guards came in after dinner and just took them away.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Could they have gone to that room where they took Lilli when the women were sewing?’

  ‘It felt different to that.’ Luke looks bewildered. ‘All the children were crying, the ones who were going and the ones who had to stay. Zamal and Rimi were clinging on to their mum.’

  Across the room, Rimi is now sitting on my mum’s lap, the remnants of tears still shaking her body, her rabbit clasped tight in her hand.

  ‘Why just them?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  I need to unpick the last hour and sew it back together so that none of this has happened. I’ll walk through the door and all four children will be playing. And then I’ll unpick the other nights – a week ago, a year. To before the time when the Traditionals really started to become a possibility. To a time when John Andrews seemed like a distant nightmare.

  The mother and her twins don’t come back. Destiny’s mum, Aba, has joined Mum on the floor with Rimi and Zamal. She’s telling them a story and, although I can’t hear much of it from here, it must be exciting as her arms keep circling out and above her head and Rimi is transfixed.

  I’m watching Zamal, though, and his fingers are bunched in a fist. He wipes away his first tears, but then lets the others fall. He starts to shake his head again and again, and when my mum reaches out to stroke his hair he pushes her away.

  ‘I want my mummy,’ he says, as he kicks out with his legs.

  Aba falters, but carries on telling the story. Rimi stares at her brother, her rabbit clutched under her nose.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll bring her back soon,’ Mum tells him quietly.

  ‘Where is she?’ Zamal asks.

  ‘I don’t know, sweetheart, but she wo
n’t be far.’

  It happens so quickly that I hardly realise Zamal has moved, before he’s running across the room, grabbing at the door handle.

  ‘No!’ Mum shouts, but already Zamal is in the corridor and it’s Darren who reaches the door first and disappears after him.

  ‘Zamal,’ Rimi cries and Mum grabs hold of her as we all stare at the empty hole that took her brother and Darren. We hear the heavy boots in the passage outside. And then there are Zamal’s screams and Darren is shouting and I don’t move. I can’t. Everything has stopped. My mind is frozen in this place, slowly shattering at the sounds of the guards yelling outside.

  Darren runs back in and he’s carrying Zamal, holding him safe. Behind them are two guards.

  ‘Stop!’ one shouts and Darren does. But he keeps his back to them, shielding Zamal.

  One of the guards raises a gun. He points it into the room.

  ‘There’s to be order in here,’ he shouts, his gun moving in an arc over those sitting on the floor. My mum is there and I can’t breathe enough. She doesn’t move, keeping her hand resting on Rimi, her eyes blinking.

  The silence is long and empty, yet filled with everything. With every heartbeat I’ve ever had, every blade of grass I’ve seen and word I’ve spoken. I hear them all and none of them, as the guard aims his gun at the people sitting and lying there. Some of them close their eyes.

  ‘You’ll be obedient,’ he says, his gun shaking slightly. ‘Or there’ll be no place for you in our society. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The words are dragged deep from a place of fear, yet I can’t join in as I stare at my mum lying there.

  ‘Good,’ the guard says and he starts to back away, still pointing his gun into the room. Both the guards go from us and there’s the sound of the door closing.

  Darren carries Zamal over to Rimi. I can’t see his face from here. I don’t know what he says when he kneels down next to my mum. But Zamal doesn’t let go of him, his arms staying tight around Darren’s neck. And now he’s silent.

  It’s later when a man stands up in the middle of the room. There’s a group of people sitting around him, among them his wife with their three-month-old baby. We watch him until one by one we’re quiet and silence washes over us.