This is the sixth chapter of a novel being published in serial form in the Daily Sceptic. It’s a dystopian satire about the emergence of a social credit system in the U.K. in the near future. Read chapter one here, two here three here, four here and five here.
School was a safe-haven. One of the few places without judgement, it was a shelter from the outside world. Between the three kids, she’d been walking through these gates for nearly a decade. It felt like a home, of sorts.
Despite that, glancing up at the “Welcome to St Benedict’s” banner adorning the chiselled archways of the entrance, she couldn’t help wonder: how long before it’s ‘Efficients Only’ here, too?
The thought was painful, so she pushed it away.
First to find her waiting in the playground was Poppy. Strident and strong, rollerblades slung over her shoulder, black patent shoes incongruous against the blue and white tracksuit of her sports kit, she sauntered over.
“Wow, you’re on time for once!” her eldest exclaimed, with a wry smile.
“Haha,” replied Ella; then, “How was your day?”
“Good thanks! Did you remember to get me some new trainers?” Ella paused. “Argh god; I’m really sorry”. She cursed herself: her one non-work task of the day…forgotten.
“Mum….!” Poppy started, but then spotting her friend Verity as quickly forgot and ran off. “I’ll meet you at the bikes,” she shouted over her shoulder.
Next out was Libby; sweet, sensitive Libby, was always striving to please – would that be the downfall of her, Ella occasionally wondered – who at eight had a sense of the immutability of right and wrong more grounded, more unshakeable and more whole than most of the adults around her.
“How was your day?” Ella asked.
“My day was good, thanks Mama,” Libby answered, “we learnt about skeletons! Did you know we have 24 ribs and that grown-ups are starting to grow an extra bone in their necks because they spend so much time looking at their wrists? Sort of like a rhinoceros but the wrong way round Do you think you have an extra bone yet Mama?”
“Well, I’’m not —”
Before Ella could answer, Libby, who had just remembered that she was meant to “always ask one question back for every question asked to you,” was speaking again.
“And how was your day?” she inquired, keenly glancing towards Ella for approval.
Ella smiled.
“My day was good, thank you for asking.”
“What did you do?”
“Oh, you know. Just work stuff,” chivvy’ing Libby towards Ted’s classroom – why wasn’t he out yet – and as ever starting to fret about how long packing up the bike would take and whether they’d be off before dark.
“What kind of work stuff?” persisted Libby, increasingly interested in what it was she actually did all day.
“Oh just boring work stuff,” Ella replied. How sad to need to evade the natural curiosity of a child, she thought.
“Mum, this isn’t FAIR,” complained Libby, stomping her foot. “You told me always to ask lots of questions and I’m asking lots of questions but now you have to answer my lots of questions properly.”
“Ok, that’s fair, darling. If you must know, we were trying to catch some baddies.”
“Ooooh. Baddies. What had they?—”
Ella was spared from having to answer by Ted, bouncing up from behind and bodysplatting into her, a bundle of energy and love. “Mama!” he squealed. “Is there a snack?!” Embracing him fondly, she smiled at the rhetorical question – what parent would be insane enough to turn up at the school gates without a snack – but then froze on rummaging around the space in her bag usually reserved for snacks and finding it empty. Damn It. In her rush to get out of the house she’d left it on the sideboard, by the door.
“Okay, don’t be mad. I… have… forgotten the snack.”
“WHAT???!!!!!” Ted exclaimed, wounded. And five minutes of negotiation with an increasingly cantankerous four year old then ensued which ended – rashly and desperately – with a promise to stop along the way, Ella wondering even as she said it whether there was actually anywhere along the way home that they would still be allowed into.
“Is it the car or the bike, Mum?” asked Libby.
“What do you think?”
Libby and Ted groaned. The journey, six or so miles, could routinely take over an hour in the car. On the bike, dodging the dismal traffic, it took precisely 33 minutes. Speaking of things immutable and unshakeable there was none greater than Ella’s belief that the bike was unambiguously the better way to get home, a philosophy that no matter what weather, no matter how cold or how dark, no matter the number of bags, violins, hockey sticks, art folders and other random detritus they were carrying, she imposed with – her children would doubtless complain – an unswervingly authoritarian discipline.
Poppy led the way on her own bike. Forging ahead, fast and fearless, the others could barely keep up with her, the poor three-person tandem struggling under the weight of its load: Ella upfront, Libby chattering away in the middle and Ted cocooned in ski jacket and gloves, a giant marshmallow at the back, all manner of cargo – schoolbags and rollerblades and a cardboard model of a cathedral that someone forgot last week and “seriously Libs, why do you have three blazers in your bag, whose are all of these?!” (no one knew) – strapped into panniers and bags and on her back.
Their way home took them first down the fatigued, creaky roads of the ancient town, antediluvian buildings punctuated by faded spires; then past the old museum and nearby coffee shops, eateries and market stalls. There was not a time she cycled past that she didn’t regret not frequenting them more often when she had the chance.
Right on cue, a plaintive plea struck up from the back of the bike as they approached Phoebe’s Tea Barn, its dizzying array of multi-coloured cakes, scones and macaroons calling out from the window.
“Mama, can we stop at Phoebe’s?” Ted was asking. Ella pretended not to hear.
“Mama, I want Phoebe’s!” he persisted.
“Ted, we can’t stop at Phoebe’s,” said Libby.
“Why not?”
“Because we’re not allowed in anymore,” Libby continued.
“But why?” Ted was saying, “I love Phoebe’s!”
“Because we aren’t. We don’t have enough points.”
“But why can’t we get enough points.”
“Because it’s not that simple,” Libby said. “The people who make the points said so.”
“Mum, but I’m STARVING,” Ted persisted. “I’m going to DIE if I don’t have a snack. PHOEBE’S!!! PHOEBE’S!!!”
Digging his feet beneath the bike pedals he executed the equivalent of an emergency stop. They all nearly went flying.
She cursed herself again for forgetting the snack, and then cursed the world for being the way it was.
“Okay, hang on, let me see if they will give us takeaway,” she said. “Poppy!!” she called up ahead. “Stop for a minute, Ted is hungry.”
“Ted is always hungry!”
“I know, but he’s getting really grumpy. Let me just see if I can get them to give us a take away. Wait here guys.”
Parking the bike outside Phoebe’s Barn she walked up to the entrance. “Efficients Only” hung in the window. She opened the door, anyway.
“Hi there,” she waved to the owner, walking in. They’d been regulars in the days before. He recognised her, of that she was sure.
He smiled. “How can I help you?”
“Is it ok for me to just get takeaway?” she asked.
“Of course. What do you want?”
“I’ll get three of the macaroons if that’s ok? One strawberry, two pistachio.”
Handing her a bag, he smiled, kindly. “There you go.” And then, glancing through the open door to her progeny waiting patiently on the bikes outside, “Kids hungry, eh?”
“Always,” Ella smiled, flashing her BIM to pay.
“DECLINED,” the payment machine buzzed back.
She smiled apologetically. The owner raised an eyebrow. Then frowned.
“I was hoping… as it’s just takeaway…”
The owner shook his head.
“I can’t. We get in trouble even if it’s just take away.”
“Please,” she said, “couldn’t you make an exception just this once. Usually I always bring something for them but…
“I can’t do it,” he said, arms crossed and holding her gaze with a look that left no room for negotiation. “I’m sorry. It’s a £5,000 penalty for serving Non-Efficients. I can’t afford to take the risk. I’m so sorry, I can’t let you take those, you’ll have to give them back.” He glanced down briefly at the counter and nodded, as if to make the point that the decision wasn’t personal but a matter of simple policy.
Standing there in the door meeting his stare, small, demeaned, resentful, she momentarily debated whether she should just run out – was it worth going to jail for three macaroons? – before reluctantly handing the bag back.
She walked, head slung low, weighed down by embarrassment, or shame maybe, back to the kids.
“Okay little one, she said, going round to Ted and giving him a squeeze, you’re going to have to suck it up, there’s nothing I can do.”
“But Mum I don’t understand we used to always go to Phoebes,” he wailed.
“I know, Ted, but Libby’s right. Now we can’t. And I promise you I will make you The World’s Best Snack the minute we’re through the front door, but for now I need to you man up and pedal, you got that?”
“Okay,” he sniffled. She gave him a squeeze and waved to Poppy to get going again, but getting back on the bike it was Libby’s face that haunted her.
Turning around to thank her for trying to explain, she touched her hand. In the big, brown eight year-old eyes that stared back at her she caught a haunting look: that of a child, prematurely saddled by an understanding of being a stranger in a land whose morality she could not understand.
Look out for chapter seven next week.
M. Zermansky is a pseudonym.
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