Breakdown (21 page)

‘See,' says Lenny. ‘it's one of them.'

‘A spider.'

‘An' I found one. That's a sign, ain't it? Tarquin, ain't it a sign?'

Tarquin says nothing. Lenny drags at Tarquin's arm.

‘It means we're going the right way. We're on the way. We're going to find everything in this book,' says Lenny. He does a little dance.

I don't know what to say. I cross my fingers. Send a silent prayer up to all Nan's Gods.

‘Don't get your hopes up too much, Len,' Tarquin says. He tugs Lenny's locks. ‘One dead spider ain't much of a sign to me.'

We hear them first, deep rumbling engines. The stones on the road shake. Trucks. Covered canopies. Sludge-green. Filth of ages. Rattling down the bumpy road at us.

It's not good. ‘Hide. We've got to hide,' I yell.

They come spluttering through the drizzle. Jerking their wheels round the ruts, ploughing through the pitted mud. The canopied frames swaying crazily from side to side.

‘Shit,' I mutter. I grab Lenny's hand. ‘Quick. C'mon.' Tarquin moves fast. He grabs hold of Lenny's other hand, shoves the suitcase into a ditch. Lenny freezes in terror.

‘C'mon!' We haul him.

‘Hide.'

Half carrying Lenny, we race for a gap in the hedgerow. Dead shrubs, woody, brittle, tangle along the roadsides. I catch my footing, trip on brambles, go sprawling. Get up. Run.

‘C'mon.'

We dive through the hedge. Fall flat. Press ourselves into the undergrowth behind it.

The army convoy reach the ditch with the suitcase. They don't stop. If they see it, they take no notice.

‘Just stay very still. Don't move,' says Tarquin.

Truck engines crank and rumble past us, like a distant earthquake.

‘Stay down,' hisses Tarquin.

An image flashes through my head.
A long-legged girl. Once beautiful. Her face disfigured. One eye black and swollen.

We lie there panting, hearts thudding. Through the gaps in the blackened hawthorn hedges we see a long line of vehicles winding down the hill. The first truck is well past us, past the gap in the hedge. Gunners are sitting on the tailboard with rifles. Thick black fumes choke out and gust up into the air.

Lenny looks at me, waiting to see if it's OK. I raise a finger, place it over my lips, press myself flat in the dead undergrowth. Tarquin tries to quietly tease stems and straggle them over Lenny.

‘If they see us, I'll get up. I'll head them off. You stay. You carry on. Get Lenny to the cottage,' he hisses.

I look at him, fix my eyebrows into a question.

‘I'll find you. Whatever it takes. Leave a sign at Hadrian's Wall or wherever. Lenny knows the Blah-Blah.'

I lift my head slowly. Roar of engines. Three trucks are past. I press myself into the ground, willing it to shield me. I lie there, my head splitting with a sudden terrifying headache.
We're not hidden well enough. They're going to see us.
Lenny reaches out his hand and takes mine in his. He holds it tight with his unspoken question.

‘It's going to be all right,' I mouth.

He's still gripping on with asking fingers.

But it's not all right. And if his hand wasn't holding mine, and I were on my own, I'd roll over quick as a flash, and get myself tucked into that hollow next to the hedge and
nobody
would see me.

But I can't. And I won't try to leave him again. So I lie there knowing the axe will fall.

And it does.

A shout goes up from a truck. A klaxon horn. The convoy stops. A deep voice barks out an order. There's a crash. A noise like a ramp dropping. Soldiers shouting. Engine spluttering.

Then shooting.

Tarquin springs up and races away from us down the hedgerow.

‘Don't shoot!'

‘Stop.'

‘HANDS UP.'

‘Don't shoot. Don't shoot!' yells Tarquin.

Another round of fire. I clap my hands over my ears.

I don't raise my head, don't open my eyes until I feel a heavy hand on my shoulder. It drags me up.

They aren't gentle. They aren't gentle with Lenny.

They snap huge hands right over his thin little wrists and haul him over to a truck.

They drag me up and stand me next to him, by the wheel.

‘Look what a pretty thing we got here.'

My heart hammers. My legs shake.

Filthy faces, stained uniforms, teeth missing, stubbled chins.
Where's Tarquin? What's happened to Tarquin?

It seems my heart stops. I forget to breathe.
What's happened to Tarquin?

‘Get her to the truck.'

‘Where's the boyfriend?'

‘He's down.'

Dear God. No.

‘She's one hell of a catch.'

‘A real lulu.'

‘She's gotta be one for the General.'

An ornate brass gate squeals open. Something creeps out, staggers to a table. Black bruising. Raw wheals.

‘Where is she?'

Dear God don't let him be dead.

‘Let me see.'

‘There's a kid.'

‘Hers?'

‘Get her up there by the truck.'

‘Get that runner.'

‘He's alive.'

‘Bring him in.'

He's alive.
I let out all the breath in me.
Tarquin's alive.

They take the BB gun off him. They beat him about the head with rifle butts. They haul him back to the truck.
He's alive.

‘Names?' barks out an officer.

‘Tarquin Carver.'

‘You.'

‘Lenny Carver.'

‘You.'

‘Melissa Hambrook.'

‘Where're you going?'

Lenny starts. ‘There's this place –'

I cut him off. ‘We're going to find work,' I say. ‘We heard there was work on the covered farms.'

The officer laughs.

‘You think you're cute,' he says.

‘No.'

The man looks at me.

I look right back. If he thinks I'm afraid of him, he can think again.

I hear Nan. ‘That's it. Chin up. The hedgehog curls up to protect his belly. Don't curl up. But don't show them your belly. Don't let them know where to hurt you.'

The officer shakes his head. He forces us into the back of the truck. Tarquin's face is swollen, bloodied. Lenny's gnawing his cheek and scrunching his thin little shoulders up and down.

I don't say anything. I stick my chin in the air and press my lips together.

In the truck, under the canopy, people sprawl on the floor. Dirty. Thin. Their hands long-nailed, filthy. Eyes stare at us. I hear the cab door slam. The judder of the engine. It stinks of diesel. We sway, start moving.

‘Are you what all the commotion's about?' says someone.

The truck jolts us. I try to protect Tarquin's head, hold on to Lenny.

I stare back at them. I tuck Lenny into the space beside me, help Tarquin to get comfortable. He's bleeding.

The truck swings round a curve in the road. We all lurch sideways. The truck takes a sharp left turn.

‘Three more for the death camps,' mutters an old man, grey stubble, bleary eyes.

Through the flapping canvas, I catch a glimpse of hedges, a long line of them winding down a hill. Blackened hawthorn. I don't believe it.

‘At least there's food there,' grunts someone.

‘Not what I heard.'

We're going back the way we came.

‘Must be.'

‘If you steal it.'

I looked over at another man, old trousers, holes, tattered, held up by string. ‘They watch you,' he says.

We're going back over the land we've just covered.

‘They starve you – work you to death. They're bloody concentration camps.'

I find a space on the floor. I wish I had the blankets. I'd roll them out for Lenny. He could rest. I could hide.

Instead Lenny scrunches himself up, tight against me. I cradle Tarquin's head in my lap.

Back towards London.

Gently I touch his face. I won't tell them.

‘Let me look.'

Blood is still oozing over his cheek. I wipe it away. There're two gashes across his cheekbone.
He's alive. Thank God he's alive.
One of them needs stitching. I hold the ragged edges together. I don't know what else to do.

Except to press them close as we head back towards Careem and the General and nowhere to hide.

We lurch to a halt.

Another arrest. I can hear them by the trucks, shouting. Voice of a woman. Then I hear her screaming. ‘My children! Let me go.'

The woman sounds terrified. I put my arm around Lenny and hold him. His body so thin.

‘They'll starve,' she screams. ‘They're only little.'

‘How old are they?' ‘Where are they?' Soldiers, not sure what to do.

I move to the back of the truck and lean out. Was she out looking for food? Left her children at home? I see someone. ‘Officer,' I shout.

‘The girl,' yells one of them.

The officer looks up.

‘Will you get her children?'

‘Shut up. Get back inside.' The soldier on the tailboard smacks his hand on my chest and shoves me back.

‘They'll starve!' the woman screams.

I struggle up, wincing. Find my place by Lenny and Tarquin again.

‘We'll send someone.' Voice of the officer.

‘Will they bring them to her?' I ask anyone inside the truck.

Nobody answers.

The canvas flap is hoisted up. The woman's pushed in. I see her eyes, crazy with fear.

‘We'll take them to one of the farms,' says the officer. ‘Now shut up. We don't leave children to starve.'

‘Not if you can put them into a harness,' says someone from further inside.

‘But will they bring them to her?' I ask.

Somebody shrugs.

The woman screams, a high-pitched keening. The officer smacks her hard across the face.

‘We don't have fuel to be running stupid kids up and down the country. You've broken the law. You're out on a public highway. You might be a scout for highway robbers. We don't know. You might be relaying them news, so they can ambush the convoy and kill the lot of us. Your kids will be collected as long as you give us directions – when we reach the farm camp. We're not Philistines.'

At least we're not going back to London.

The woman wails.

‘If you carry on screeching, I'll make sure we
don't
get them.'

Immediately the woman stops. She's shaking all over.

The officer in charge catches sight of me. His eyes linger on my face.

Philistines?
A story Nan told.
Something about the bees.
I try to remember
.

‘We going to a farm?' asks Lenny.

Something about Samson.

‘Where they grow food?'

It's a good question. Nan and I got the ration books. On the covers –
MINISTRY OF FOOD & COVERED FARMS
. We never got what was printed on the coupons though.
Cabbage. Onion. Dried Peas. Bacon.
We got a bit of lard every now and then, but that never came from any covered farm.

Tarquin is so quiet. I put my hand on his cheek. Very gently.

‘S'OK. Resting.'

I tuck my arm back round Lenny.

‘Will they get the little children?' he says.

‘They say they will.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘That's what they say.'

‘Why?'

‘Because they said they're not Philistines.'

‘OK.'

I look at the people in the truck. If they round up this number on every trip and send them to the farms, they should have enough by now, shouldn't they? Enough hands to produce enough food. So why did we never get what was printed on the coupons?

‘What's Philistines?'

‘People who do bad things.'

‘We're not Philistines?'

‘No.'

We travel all day. We go more west than south. Nowhere near London, thank God. The last shadows of dusk dissolve into night. The truck jolts to a halt. Someone shouts an order. Voices of soldiers. Tyres on gravel. The truck jolts forward again. Then stops. They order us out.

We climb down from the back of the truck. It's cold. I catch Lenny to me. I help Tarquin. I can see the biomes, huge ghostly domes, going on for miles, weird, like moons caught in the hills, circular, weightless, almost ready to lift up and take off. They're linked up right across the valley.

So these are the covered farms.

I see the fence, chain link, four metres high, barbed wire stretched across the top, the thin moon beyond. A prison camp. I see the rows of terraced houses. All inside the wire. I try to prepare Lenny.

‘Remember when we played that game about the hens in the henhouse,' I say.

He looks at me, runs his teeth over his bottom lip.

‘Behind the wire.'

‘There weren't no wire.'

‘Well, there should have been.'

‘Should there?'

‘Yeah, I forgot to mention it – to keep them safe from foxes.'

‘Oh.'

‘We got to pretend we're the hens for a while, to really get to know what it might be like to be a hen, living behind wire. Then when we get to our place in Scotland, we'll know exactly what it's like and we can give our hens the best life ever.'

He looks at me, nods his little head and says, ‘I'd never've thought of that.'

I stroke his head.

‘Is it part of carrying the Torch?' he says.

‘Yes. Yes it is.'

Tarquin doesn't say anything. He just looks at me. I wish he didn't. His look is so grateful. It makes me feel so terrible. He should be back in Games City. He shouldn't be here, pressing an old rag up to his swollen face. Feeling grateful that we're playing at being hens.

I drop my eyes.

When everyone's down from the truck, they line us up. An officer counts off groups of eight and dispatches two soldiers with each group. ‘Take them to the Induction Centre.'

We're marched along a track, gravel underfoot, old engine parts overgrown with weeds. Broken metal gates. Overhead, iron-grey clouds outlined in the last rays of the sun. Blood red. A high ridge of hills. The fence.

The Induction Centre is a disused village school. Brickwork. Old desks. Filthy white boards. Metal filing cabinets. We're taken from room to room. Stripped down to our underclothes. Issued blue boiler suits. They take Nan's coat. They take Dad's old hat and gloves. They take Lenny's hooded top. They leave us our shoes.

As we file out in our boiler suits, Lenny taps me. He nods very secretively. Then taps his tummy. ‘The Torch,' he whispers. ‘Got it down me pants.'

In the old canteen an officer numbers each of us. He pricks digits into our arms with a sharp pin. Tattoos some kind of stain. It stings. Like a sewing needle scraped hard across skin. Like someone scratching on sunburn, like a skinned knee. I feel every stick of the pin.

I look at Lenny, waiting his turn, biting his cheek, his fists balled.

‘Imagine it's a bee sting,' I say. ‘You won't mind the pain so much then.'

Lenny looks at me, lips pressed tight. ‘I will,' he mouths. I hold his eyes with mine till his number's done.

When they get to Tarquin, they see the Bone Cross Bone tattoo. The officer calls someone, points it out. They write it down in a book and prick his number onto the back of his hand.

I'm 278. Lenny's 279. Tarquin is 280.

We're marched into the assembly hall and formally addressed by a tall officer with a cap and stripes. He's got a moustache and a very scrubbed face.

‘We run the plantation system here.'

His voice is different – like Nan's – like he reads books.

‘You'll be given a fair trial and, if convicted, you'll be expected to work your custodial term out. You work from sunrise to sunset. Harvesting certain crops, you work an eighteen-hour day. You must be in line at the first sign of light. You close when it's too dark to see. You work in gangs with one soldier overseeing you. Women and children work the same hours as men.

‘At the end of every day you get in a line to have your produce weighed. Your daily food allowance will only be given to you once you have met your minimum target weight.

‘You stay in the village. There will be houses with rooms allocated to you. On Saturday nights you are allowed meetings. You get Sundays off.

‘We have an incentive system here. If you're hard working and regularly exceed your weigh-in targets, we can allow you extra food, clothing, time free from work and positions of responsibility. You can use the gardens attached to the houses to cultivate foodstuffs or rear animals for your own use. You may not take seeds or fertiliser or bees from the biomes.

‘As far as possible we will keep you in family, kinship and work-gang groups, but we retain the right to move you at any point, to any work gang, or any biome.

‘Presently you are on remand, awaiting trial, and will be expected to follow this schedule until you receive your sentences.

‘Sunrise tomorrow is at 7.10 a.m.'

He salutes, clicks his heels and marches out.

A smaller man in camouflage steps up.

‘And I'm the adjutant. I'm in charge of this section. You get up when we say. You work when we say. You stop when we say. We run this place and you lot are just a pile of shite.

‘We'll flog ya if you try anything. We'll flog ya for thinking about trying anything. So get that into yer thick heads. Look at ya! What a pile a wasters. You should be grateful we picked you up. You're the lucky ones – the ones that get fed and somewhere to sleep.'

He doesn't salute or click his heel. He just cracks a whip and belches.

They split us back up into our parties of eight and march us out of the old school and up into the village. Old stone. Slate roofs. Brick walls. They break the groups up and send us to different streets. We're given one room in one of the houses. The whole eight of us.

The bed is just a space on the floor to sleep. But a lot of the floorboards have been ripped up. Lenny finds an unbroken patch and drops down on it. He's so small and thin. I wish I had something to cover him. I think of the suitcase lying miles away in the ditch. No blankets. No warm clothes. Not a scrap to eat. I lie down. Tarquin does too. We huddle together. The others find spaces where they can. Someone argues about being too near the door. My number itches like crazy. I try not to scratch it. I see Lenny scratching his. I hold Lenny's hands still till he falls asleep. I'm starving. I don't think I can sleep.

In the darkness Tarquin's hand finds mine.

In the darkness his lips press softly against my shoulder.