Love on the NHS (28 page)

His eccentricity did not appeal to them. They would have rather been speaking to a burglar, a gang member or a con artist - all of whom they had more respect for than outsiders like Luke. His lack of confidence and difficulty with eye contact - along with the fact their superiors had even made them bother to expend time on a person of such low status - offended them. Their mentality, like most police officers', was a gang mentality. It was becoming more well known now that they arrested so many middle class people - who the media gave a voice to, for heaven's sake! Yes, the truth was getting out now. The police were vindictive, behaved emotionally rather than rationally - and that in the worst possible way unfortunately. They arrested more brutally when an officer had been attacked, even when the suspects had nothing to do with an incident of violence. Many of them believed heavy-handed summary justice was just as important as a legal system with the benefit of structured interviews, courts and checks and balances. Yet the most terrifying power of all they possessed was that of information - they invented it; and information is power. By sexing up statements and documents about what people were supposed to have said or done, they could alter how a person would be perceived in future. From courts to social services to employers performing background tests, all relied on police information, naive of the fact that many a police officer has a cunning skill for imaginative writing.

Luke had come to believe the police were in many ways the largest criminal gang of them all. They and criminal gangs were two sides of the same, cheap coin. Both used intimidation, violence and the power of the group to overwhelm the innocent. Neither were ever as good as they made themselves out to be - the police did not protect the community that much and criminals rarely helped the poor except themselves - more often than not criminals even stole and assaulted people just as unfortunate as they were. Working class criminals were enemies against their own class in Luke's mind: by spreading violence and disorder they made the existence of a heavy-handed police force necessary. True, sometimes political activists were unfairly labelled criminals but most who engaged in gang activity had no political convictions at all - they believed in nothing except their own greed.

Luke wondered: would he ever live in a time when people could recognize that almost all organisations of human beings were bad? Whether formal or informal. True greatness came from innovation - from the Einsteins, the Washingtons and the Franklins, the small independents. True, pooling together was always necessary to some degree but too often roles became etched in stone. The police and criminal gangs were arrogant, believing they were always right. They would always do what was best for their group rather than what was fair or good for all - and that was a profound character flaw each of these team players possessed; being part of a team of people who lacked individual backbone was hardly an achievement. In the long run, left unchallenged, such groups would lead to the extinction of the human race - as the Roman, British and Nazi empires all had almost had done in their abominable self-righteousness.

But for now Luke's thoughts were constrained to the more primal affair simply surviving. The police seemed intent on painting him the villain. Luke had posted anything criminal on Twitter. He had, however, mentioned Jolly's first name and asked various people to retweet a video he had made in which he performed lines from films, TV shows and plays about love. The police put a lot of pressure on Luke to remove the Twitter posts, even though it was impossible. The stress almost broke him. To make matters worse, comments the police made were hurtful. One officer boasted to Luke of how many women he had slept with, apparently not caring about the heartless irony of it. Perhaps Luke's neighbour Pete was right. "A person has to be possessing of a certain meanness to want to boss people about like the police do. It could be argued the police force doesn't attract the best people," he had once observed to Luke. When Luke discussed it with his mother, she opined that the police should have to have university degrees. Luke did not agree. In theory, it sounded good. To attract more intelligent officers would surely be an improvement On the other hand, many jobs that demanded university degrees such as the positions of doctors and social workers were often filled by incompetent people. Sometimes degrees could have a negative impact by setting a person into a one-track minded way of going about things.

On one occasion when Marzakios and another officer came, at one stage they talked to each other as though Luke was not there. Marzakios was telling the other about a policewoman who was pursuing a male officer who was uninterested. The matter clearly was not being dealt with as harassment. Luke could not help but feel it was one rule for people like him - and another for the police, the very people making his life hell.

After Jolly had banished Luke from her life, he noticed bizarre occurrences In a biology lesson one day he saw a list hanging on the notice board. It was a listing of the students registered for science in his academic year, separated into four classes. Taking a look, he saw there were four girls called Jolly in the various classes. The chances of were slim. It was not a common name and no other name on the list appeared as frequently. Then he began seeing lots of women who reminded him of Jolly, who had the same height and eye colour, a similar demeanour. When he shopped in supermarkets, suddenly there was a barrage of women at the checkouts and stocking shelves with a name tag with Jolly written on it. Luke was not sure he believed in fate but surely there was some message being sent to him.

He he was at home flicking channels on the TV, sometimes a film or two would be on. One would come on in which the female was the spitting image of Jolly and the male had the same first or last name as Luke. More films began to be shown with a romantic theme - usually the plot centring around a male who pursued a woman persistently, in the way Luke had. Before he had shown interest in Jolly, none of these things had occurred. Before Jolly entered the picture there had been a monsoon of war, horror and action films but now love films were everywhere he looked. Luke knew about self fulfilling prophecies and the mind's ability to only notice whatever it consciously thought of but neither of these accounted for everything he was witnessing. Something was not right.

Though he felt Jolly's destiny was intertwined with his own, Luke respected her decision. He was aware of the old saying that advised love is like a bird -

If you love someone set them free. If they come back, they love you. If they don't, they never did.

Luke followed that advice and set Jolly free. He no longer communicated with her. Although he could not stop loving her, he would not expect her to love him in return. She was her own woman. She had made her own choices based on what she thought was right. True love was not possessive and Luke did not want to be that way. He wanted her to have what she wanted out of life; as much as what he wanted. If what she wanted did not include him - though it would break his heart, let it be.

XLV

"Hi dad, how are you?"

"Oh hello! Good!" replied Bruno. "I've just been painting the living room."

"Have you got time to talk?"

"Yeah, there's time. I've not spilled anything so I don't have to worry about any paint sticking to the floor today."

"I've been reading about Switzerland."

"Oh right. I don't know much about there. That's near Germany and Austria, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I find it a fascinating country because it's got one of the world's lowest unemployment rates and pollutes by carbon dioxide far less than most countries - and the reason is trains; 16% of journeys in Switzerland are made by train."

"Wow. This is what I don't understand. Why aren't we looking at European countries like Germany, France and, as you say, Switzerland. We just do whatever America does!"

"Yeah, I know," sighed Luke. "To get a grasp of how amazing Switzerland's train system is you have to understand that America's citizens make only 0.3% of their journeys by train. And they are one of the biggest polluters on the planet per person. Both America and Switzerland are first world countries - and funnily enough, America has the longest amount of laid rail track in the world. The only problem is there aren't enough trains!"

"It's terrible really with all this global warming going on. I think we're finished, human beings. Listen Luke, I'm sorry but I've got to go - the bell's just rang. I think it's the postman. Bye!"

"Bye."

For the remainder of the morning, Luke researched Switzerland some more on the internet. Almost all power produced there came from renewable sources and despite how well most public services performed there, taxes were lower than in most first world nations. Probably in part because less roads needed to be repaired than in other nations - a very costly affair when potholes are taken into consideration. Per head, transport on rail transport seemed to produce far more economic product. Wages were higher in Switzerland too. Luke would have moved there in a dash had he been able to speak German. Even more impressive to him was that the army there was almost staffed by unpaid volunteers. It was one of the cheapest armies in the world to maintain and did help explain why taxes in the country were so low. It was certainly not poorly defended, though: almost every male citizen had a gun in the house and was enlisted in the army, so in the event of hostilities it would be hard to conquer the nation.

Though Switzerland was extraordinary, the cold weather there as well as the language barrier made it an unrealistic destination for Luke to aspire to live in. There was so much to learn from the Swiss though. If the United Kingdom followed suit in how it ran its army by not paying its personnel it could save a fortune. Suppose the UK got rid of the Trident nuclear missiles too; then it would be able to afford to create solar, wind, wave and hydroelectric power stations with the recouped funds, and in the process create thousands of sustainable jobs to end high unemployment.

 He learned that Swiss citizens received the highest amount in state benefits of any nation on a per head basis too. That included working people as well as those unable to work. Since the Swiss economy was envied around the world it seemed to prove to Luke that being mean with regards to giving welfare benefits was counterproductive. The way to get people to work, keep them working and build a dynamic economy was to support people no matter their situation - from parents, to disabled people, to elderly people, to carers, to the young - a flexible system that recognised fluctuating needs and unpredictable situations that require financial aid.

The ingenuity of the Swiss system was that it spent less on bureaucracy by not having to means test on many benefits. For example, whether a parent deserved a benefit or not was not an issue - all parents could claim a benefit for the costs of parenting. Since everyone got it, no one felt cheated and nobody was left destitute. It looked expensive at the first glance but when Luke thought about it, it was  very clever. By making it easier for people to keep working and afford to look after themselves, and by cutting out costly means testing, in the long run it resulted in a more productive economy - people were not scared to work as they knew a safety net existed. And so, in turn, there was no shortage of tax revenue to fund the system as due to the economy thriving people were earning plenty.

Having tired his brain with learning new facts, Luke headed out. He got to thinking about how trapped he felt. When he was out in Woecaster, waiting for the bus home was always arduous. Even awaiting the bus to the city could be hard but waiting for its return journey to Furchurch was hell. There was no telling who would be be at the bus stop with him. When there were unsavoury characters, no matter how he tried not to notice them, their shifting body movements - emphasized to mark their territory - and razor-like eyes would always distract him. It would get Luke so aggravated he would have to walk to another stop sometimes. As might be expected for someone with Asperger's syndrome, Luke had a marked need for personal space. Those who most upset Luke at bus stops were people who would be consider alpha males or very sociable females. They were liable to be bullying in their interactions with people like Luke, people who looked and acted differently to sociable people.

That kind of person was offended to share a bus stop with Luke - their eye contact would tell in no uncertain terms that he was not welcome. Their expressions seemed to say, "Go away! I'll hurt you if you embarrass me or act like a fool." To try to cope, Luke would sometimes drink and fall into further trouble. As Woecaster was a city of many football matches, there were often rough and ready people crawling the streets. He could not always find a bus stop free from noise or intimidating behaviour. He could at times buy an excessive amount of alcohol which he would drink as an anaesthetic to all the chaos. It would take hours of downing it before he could face going home. The very disapproving responses Luke would encounter while drinking made him feel like downing even more. It was bizarre that in Germany beer and wine was cheaper yet people drank less. As Germans tolerated street drinking and did not label people anti-social for having a tipple, there was no need for a German to binge drink. Many Britons could no longer afford to drink in a pub. Every year the government increased taxes on alcohol and prices in pubs always rose faster than in the shops.

A country where once peasant farmers raised their daily glass of mead or ale to their spirits, was now becoming so hypocritical and puritanical that it no longer resembled itself. With the police enforcing the new and strict alcohol laws, it was pushing drinking underground and forcing drinkers into acquiring the status of social pariahs. It was yet another trivial matter dividing people and turning them against each other. For regular public consumers of alcohol, it became natural for them to be wary of people around them. With patrolling and interfering police, drinkers had to be on their guard. As a result, many a drinker had little choice but to make a lot of eye contact with people around them in what could be intrusive and annoying, even aggressive. The law was making the problem worse. By making a scapegoat of drinkers, lawmakers managed to create more crime. Luke was fairly capable of handling the pressure but many others would get into violent fights, all the tension getting to them. It still upset Luke, though. He would rather have rather been able to -when he felt he a need - to drink in peace and relax than be constantly turning his head to look out for the police and angry puritans. By creating a culture that demonized alcohol, many people now automatically assumed anyone drinking was up to no good and could jump to conclusions and become aggressive because of it.