It’s the first time I’ve been in here since they put us in grey dresses. If the general notices, he doesn’t say. He only seems pleased to see me as I stand here with the ghost of Stan too thick and heavy in my mind.
‘I got you these,’ he says, stepping out from behind his desk. In his hand is that same plate, but this time there are biscuits coated in chocolate. ‘They’re shortbread.’ It’s a strange eagerness in his voice. ‘They were Zoe’s favourite.’
‘Thank you.’ I hope he doesn’t see my hand shaking as I take one.
‘What can I teach you today?’ The general’s eager voice drifts in from far away.
‘Today?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I feel that we’re making progress.’
‘We are.’ I’m so calm, when really I want to scream until my lungs disintegrate. ‘I’m interested to know where the children have gone.’
‘We noticed during their classes that some weren’t advancing as we would have hoped. They still seemed too attached to their parents and we needed to separate them from that influence.’
‘Where are they?’
‘They’re in good hands.’
‘Are they still in the camp?’ I ask. The general drifts his fingers along his closed mouth, forwards and back, before he breathes in, his knuckles under his chin.
‘Most of them have been moved to a separate unit, but you have my word that they’re well.’ Most? He sits down on the edge of his desk, yet still he looms too large in the room. ‘You seem to have adjusted well to your new clothes.’
‘We could’ve just washed our old ones. And you took our jewellery.’
‘That’s not a bad thing,’ the general says, as he smiles at me. ‘We’re doing it for you. Would it help if you saw it as a rebirth?’
‘Maybe,’ I lie.
‘It’s about us trying to wire your brain correctly,’ the general says, boosted now. ‘Unplugging the lies you’ve been told and retraining your thoughts the right way.’
‘Do you really think that’s possible?’
‘Of course. But we also see the need for the process to accelerate, so we’ve recently begun using a neurosurgical treatment called leucotomy. It’s very clever and hopefully very effective.’
‘Are you operating on people?’ I hold my hands together behind my back. He mustn’t see that I’m shaking.
‘No. Nothing like that.’ The general leans forwards, his hands on his thighs. ‘It’s all done through electrical stimuli. Electric currents to the brain, to sever connections in the prefrontal cortex.’
It isn’t hunger that makes the floor fall from me.
‘Am I making it difficult to understand?’ he asks, his voice talking to a child.
‘It’s a lot to follow,’ I say. ‘But it’s interesting.’
‘They don’t feel a thing,’ he assures me. ‘It’s all done under anaesthetic.’
‘So they don’t suffer?’
‘Not at all. We’re using it alongside deep-sleep therapy. When they wake up they don’t know how long they’ve been asleep, or what treatment they’ve been given.’
‘So they do wake up?’ I don’t know how I form each word.
‘Of course. The ones who we think are ready.’
‘Are they all right?’
‘Absolutely. Their minds are wiped clean, ready to start again.’ He looks at me with a strange concern. ‘Would it help if you saw them?’ the general asks.
‘Yes.’ My voice is numb.
‘Come. I’ll show you.’ He stands up from the desk and automatically holds out his hand to me, before he seems to remember who he is and pulls it back. ‘I want to put your mind at rest.’ He walks past me towards the door.
We’re going now. It seems so simple as I’m following him down the corridor, one step behind. But out here, he’s no longer Zoe’s dad. I’m no longer a shadow of his daughter. Here, he is a man in control, his boots heavy on the floor, his shoulders broad, his arms big enough to snap me if he wants.
We go past the cleaning cupboard, further down to a door at the end. Is this it? Have the people who’ve disappeared been this close all along?
The general opens the door and I follow him in.
The smell of disinfectant is so strong that I nearly retch. Bleach tangled with false ferns and petals. A man in a white coat looks up and when he sees it’s the general he salutes clumsily.
‘Sir.’
‘Which beds are the leucotomy patients in?’ the general asks him. The room is so long, cordoned off with cubicle after cubicle.
‘The first six are for sterilisation. You need the further end of the ward.’
Sterilisation?
‘This way,’ the general tells me. And I have to follow him, one step in front of the other, past curtains that hide secrets I don’t dare imagine.
I keep my eyes to the floor, but it’s now that I see them. Children’s shoes lined up, three pairs in each section. Are they sterilising them? Is this what’s happened to the children who’ve been taken away?
‘Keep up,’ I hear the general say and beside me the man in the white coat has joined us and I know now that I walk with the devil.
He stops us in front of a grey plastic curtain. But I’m not ready. His fingers pull it back, but I don’t want to see.
‘Doctor,’ the general says. ‘Talk us through what’s happening here.’
My eyes focus on Destiny. Her head is clamped back on the bed. Her bottom lip is sunk down, her teeth exposed and rigid.
Above her, on the wall, is the number 198.
I know I’m breathing too quickly now, the sound raised in the quiet around us.
‘Do you know her?’ the general asks me. I stare at her bruised and swollen eyelids.
‘No,’ I tell him, as the doctor comes to stand next to me, so close that I feel the rub of his white coat on my arm.
‘Yes. Number 198. We think she’s responding well,’ the doctor says. He puts his hand on the sheet over Destiny’s leg, but she doesn’t flinch. ‘We’re trying her in an insulin-induced coma, so that we can better administer the lobotomy.’
I hang Destiny’s personality on each of his words and cling tight to it to stop myself from falling.
‘This is the homosexual?’ the general asks.
‘Yes. Hence the increased dose. The plan is to leave her with an infantile personality.’
‘Surgically induced childhood?’ the general asks.
‘Exactly. She’ll then get the chance to start again. We’ll be able to teach her the right way to be.’
‘You see –’ the general turns to me – ‘it’s completely pain free. I think it really could be the answer to everything. Would you agree?’
I nod.
‘We feel it’s quite a breakthrough,’ the general says.
‘Would you like to see more?’ the doctor asks. ‘We’ve had particularly fascinating results with the twins.’
I shake my head.
‘Maybe another time.’ The general smiles and pats the doctor on the top of his arm, his palm curving round the white coat.
Doctors are meant to save lives. Their white is the colour of angels.
The general is speaking, saying something else. But all I hear is Destiny’s silence.
And I’m being ushered away. I have to pretend that I don’t know her, I don’t care, that I can leave her here without looking back. Leave her in a room with rows of hidden children whose futures are being destroyed.
‘Has that settled your doubts?’ the general asks.
I have to reply to him. I have to somehow search for the right words through the darkness.
‘It’s very clever,’ I say.
‘I’m glad that you thought so.’
But I’m hollow now. There’s nothing left.
I wait in the cleaning cupboard on my own. I can’t go out, not yet.
Destiny is a number.
They have taken her and she is number 198.
Do you know her?
&nb
sp; No.
I disowned you.
I have left you there.
The cupboard air is too tight, too dark. I can feel it eating through my skin.
I left you there. And I can’t breathe. I find the door handle and twist it and I run. Away from you, Destiny. They’re stealing your soul and I’m running away from you.
We’re walking in pairs to the sewing block. I’m with Carol and behind us are my mum and Lilli when we see a new coach pull up, filled with more Core supporters. They stare out at us, their healthy faces behind the glass. And all I see is Destiny, her spirit falling on to the clean pillowcase.
‘Stand to the side,’ a guard tells us, as they start to unload the new people. The first person to come down the steps is a man with a boy on his hip, another clutching his hand.
I think there could be a way on to the coach, I hear Darren say as clearly as if he’s next to me. You have to time it right.
The moment the guard has his back to me I lean to whisper to Carol. ‘Tell Mum I’m going to be okay.’ I don’t give her time to understand before I slip away from her, through the chaos of new people and slide under the coach. I have to be quick. I have to find a place to hold before anyone sees me. There’s somewhere for me to grasp my hands away from the wheels and I lift up my feet until I’m balanced, my back on some kind of ridge. My muscles begin to shake, but I make them forget. And I wash my mind clear of where I am and what I’m about to do.
The noise beyond the coach eventually begins to drift away. A guard is shouting. Always shouting. There’s the sound of shoes walking and children crying. One is screaming. I take the sound and wrap it in the blackened floor of the coach above me. Into the grease and nuts and bolts, flattening the sounds of human suffering into the metal, until I can bear it.
Until the engine starting rocks terror into me, rolling in waves through my body, almost shaking my arms free. And the wheels must be turning because we’re moving. The ground underneath me begins to run, faster. It stops suddenly at the gate. Will they even think to check? If they find me, I won’t have time to blink before a bullet hits.
The ground moves backwards again, taking away my mum, Lilli, Darren. Taking Luke. I suddenly want to let go. I want to go back inside. I need to be near them, to know that Luke is almost close enough to touch, but we’re on a road, moving so quickly. My muscles hurt to hold on and I keep my eyes closed tight to what I’ve just done.
I know I’m going to fall. Every jolt in the road loosens my grip. My skin burns with the effort. But if I let go, Mum will never know. I’ll have just disappeared. Or will they take back my body and lay it out for everyone to see? Will they force Luke to look?
I won’t let go. Not yet.
Hold tight. Forget the road. Forget the speed.
‘I did more than sneak a note on board,’ I whisper to Destiny and I laugh, but I start to cry and I have to stop. I have to stay strong.
The sound of the road fills my world, the heavy hum, the engine beating out its rhythm. I try to sing quietly with it, but it takes too much energy when I need every drop.
Hold on, Ruby. It’s Darren’s voice I imagine I hear. Hold on.
Right now he must be digging the hole for the shower block, the spade hitting the earth. I see him wipe his eyes and look up to the sun. I’ll get you free, I tell him.
And I’ll save Destiny’s soul.
But the weight of the number they gave me is dragging me down. 276. It makes my bones lead and it’s too difficult to carry. So I let each of them drop. One by one the numbers fall from me, get caught by the tarmac of the road and roll away. And now I know I can hold on. Because I’m not a number. I have a name and it is Ruby West.
The coach slows and stops. I’m able to turn my head a bit to the side, enough to see long grass, a ditch.
Now.
I let go. The ground bites into me, but I push it away, crawling into the daylight, a snake in the grass. I roll into the ditch and don’t move. Wait for the shouts as I’m found. But the coach starts to drive away. It goes and leaves me.
I lie in total silence. From here, I can see the sky, a faint blue with clouds pushed into it. The type of clouds that have clear edges, as though drawn by hand. I lie and stare at them, at the leaves that stretch above me, clinging to their trees.
I want to sleep. To close my eyes in the comfort of this crushed grass. It’s cold, but I’m alive. And I’m beyond the fence.
Get help, Lilli tells me.
I turn on to my stomach and on to my hands and knees. I look above the ditch to the road at the small empty roundabout that slowed the coach and let me fall. Thank you, I tell it, before I scramble into the trees behind me. The forest is thick and dark and if I go deeper I might get lost, when I need someone to know what’s happening, to get us free.
I go back close to the road and start to crawl, but I’m too slow, the ground sharp and wet beneath my knees. I know I haven’t got much time before the next roll call. After a few hours of sewing, the women will be back in line to have their numbers checked. There’s not long to get help into the camp before the guards realise I’ve gone. I stand up, stoop low and start to run.
I hear a car coming. It’s getting closer as I scramble up through the ditch and I’m here and shouting and waiting for them to see me. A blue car appears and I’m crying because they’ll stop. I try to call to them, but no sound comes out and they’re nearly here, so close that I can see the man driving, he’s young and he’ll know what to do. But he barely glances at me. A brief glimpse of his eyes and a refusal to help.
‘No!’ I scream after him, running as fast as my shattered body can, my calf bleeding, a bruise on my shoulder digging deeper.
I want to fall back into the grass and curl up and get taken by the earth. Find a place where the world stops turning. But I hear my mum’s whisper on the wind. I feel Luke’s hand in mine and he pulls me further and further along the road.
There are buildings, a small street. I stagger towards the few people on the pavement. I feel hope, I feel terror and my mind struggles to find sense. A woman is scattering something on the ground and there are pigeons pecking with their petrol necks. I see their eyes and I see their wings and I hear Destiny as I run towards them.
But in the distance there’s a flash of green, a red slash, shining boots and I fall towards the nearest door. Inside the shop it’s warm, a heat that’s too hot and a fear that’s too close. Three people are in the post office queue. They all stand and stare.
‘Help me,’ I say, but they don’t move. There are three women and none of them step forward. None of them speak. ‘Please. They stole me. They stole us all.’ And I’m shouting as I rush towards the nearest person, so old she’ll fall, and I pull on her arm. ‘Please. They’re coming. Please get help.’
‘Okay, love.’ A door pushes open at the back of the shop and a man walks through, taking off his glasses so that they fall on a string around his neck. ‘I’ll have to ask you to leave.’
‘Please, no, no. They’ll take me back.’ Thirst sticks to my words, each letter made of rust.
‘Take you back where?’ He’s gentler now, but I know there’s a Trad soldier on the street. Before the man can stop me I run past him, to the door he came from and I’m through and in a room and the man is grabbing me by the arm, but I pull away from him and fall against a wall.
‘They’re killing us,’ I whisper.
He steps forwards and kneels down next to me. ‘You’re not in trouble. Just let me know where you live,’ he says. I look into his eyes and I want to trust him, but that word is dust to me now. ‘Tell you what.’ He gets a pen and a small notebook from his pocket. ‘If you pop your mum or dad’s number on here I’ll give them a ring and they can come and get you.’
The paper is useless in my hands.
‘My mother is in the camp. It’s not far away,’ I say.
‘We could phone her. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’
‘They took our phones,’ I tell hi
m.
‘Did you fall out with her? I know how you young feel about your phones, but it’s not worth running away. Your mum will be worried.’ I shake my head.
‘They put Core voters in a camp, for a trial.’ But he doesn’t understand. How could he? How can anyone believe that such a place exists?
‘What’s your name?’ he asks calmly.
‘Ruby,’ I say. ‘Ruby West.’
‘Well, Ruby, I’ve never heard of this camp. And I would know if something like this was happening close by.’
I reach out to him, but he leaves his hand by his side. ‘I promise,’ I say. ‘They shot Destiny’s mum.’ Aba’s blood mingles with my own and pours fire into my veins. ‘They’ve taken the children somewhere.’
The man rubs his hands over his eyes, before he looks at me again.
‘You’re very thin. Have you not been eating properly?’
The door suddenly kicks open. A Trad soldier is standing in the doorway, taking the light. I duck down behind the table, but he knows I’m here. I see his boots stepping towards me and I’ve hardly time to write my dad’s number on the notebook before the soldier grabs me and I try to crawl away, but he pulls me up. I scream, just as a hand clamps my pain back inside.
Another Trad is here and I kick out and try to fight, but I’m nothing against them.
The man from the post office tries to step in.
‘Now look here,’ he says to the soldiers. ‘You’re being a bit rough.’
‘She’s a danger to society,’ I hear one of them say and I bite down hard on his palm until his hand moves and I can breathe.
‘The camp’s in an old army barracks,’ I shout, before the hand is on my mouth again.
‘The old barracks?’ The man looks confused as I throw his notebook on the floor, my dad’s number hidden in the pages as they drag me out of the door.
The soldiers haul me through the shop, past people gawping who must see the Trads’ fingers too tight on me. Must see as I’m forced into a car, as I’m folded up, thrown inside. Too terrified to cry.
I close my eyes the whole way back. I know I should watch the trees, the grass, the freedom just outside the car, but it’s too painful. I’ve destroyed it all.
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