This is the 11th 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 UK in the near future. Read the first 10 chapters here.
They’d been buying black market food from their local butcher, Robert, for a while. At first meat, but then when real fruit and veg dried up in Lillicos, also more general groceries. Ruddy and jovial, Robert was risking his livelihood, perhaps even his freedom, and they knew it. “No matter what guys, I’ll try to make this work.” Robert was a good egg, someone who understood that values and community had to be fought for.
In the days before, their Saturday morning jaunt down to Robert’s had been something of a guilty pleasure, not least because of the huge cheese and pie counter which filled the window, tempting them in. As a teen, Theo had worked in a butcher’s shop so he loved the experience of going to Robert’s, standing in the line of chattering neighbours, selecting the best cuts, letting the kids play hopscotch with the other local kids out in the yard at the back. It had become a ritual, something to be done together as a family before the real business of the weekend began.
That had all gone now.
Penny had left the day before, but the tense undercurrent left in her wake still lingered. Poppy had hardly said a word to them. Libby, sensing a friction she didn’t understand, had been sad and uncharacteristically quiet. Theo had been especially distant and distracted and Ted, usually her go-to daily dose of sweetness and bubbles was at his fractious, difficult worst.
She’d taken the first opportunity to get out, going on a run. Coming back in, she’d found Theo standing by the window, looking out. He’d been reading something though she didn’t think to ask what it was.
“I’m popping to Robert’s,” she said.
No answer.
“Helllooooooo. Anyone in there?”
She had thought he might jump at the chance to come with her, their weekly clandestine outing to Robert’s one of the few luxuries still afforded them, but, glancing up, he seemed to look right through her. It felt as if she was invisible.
“What? Oh. Sorry. No. I’m good. You go.”
She looked at him puzzled, but not stopping to put her finger on whatever it was that felt troubling, grabbed the shopping bag that hung on the back of the front door and walked out into the cool morning air.
Approaching his store slowly she scanned the long line of customers queuing outside. Efficients, lucky bastards, still permitted the weekly joy of selecting a cut from behind the counter, taking some time to browse the weekly specials, the pork pies, the cheeses and hams.
A couple of the people in the queue nodded to her, then glanced away. Jenny and James. The village socialites; friends, of sorts, once. Their parties had dried up when that awful ‘guidance’ about socialising and non-efficients came out. They were decent people even if the friendship had lapsed of late. Not like – what was she called – the one one standing behind James. Pallid and haggard, her strands of thin, brittle hair poking out like straw from beneath a green bobble hat. Jessica. That was it. Ella had never trusted her, and true to form Jessica was clocking her now. Her look said “You shouldn’t be here. I know that. You know that. So…?”
Damn it. She couldn’t risk Robert being snitched on, it would be supremely selfish. Plus, if her BIM got confiscated they’d have no way of paying for anything.
She carried on past Robert’s, looking up towards the sensors as she passed, making a point of carrying on, not stopping. At Lillicos, she grabbed a paper for Theo.
Theo. The distance between them bothered her. He had so much time for everyone else – the gallantry and devotion he lavished on the elderly ladies in the faded cottage at the end of the street, helping them with their bins every week and watering the plants in their little square patch of garden; the local primary school whose board he’d lent hours of his time to each month, at least before a polite note had appeared on the doorstep a few months back informing him that they were very sorry but his services would no longer be required as – regrettably and of course not their choice – they could only allow fully certified efficients to work at the school going forward; and their own kids, to whom he gave unbounded love energy and time.
And yet.
How he seemed to look at her this morning, as if she wasn’t there.
She carried on round the village, aware of being tracked by the sensor by Lillicos. She turned around and smiled up at it, pointedly, fluttering her eyelashes. At least someone was watching her.
By the time she got back around to Robert’s, the queue had dissipated. Jenny, James and bitch-face Jessica were nowhere to be seen, inside she presumed. She checked none of the sensors were pointing towards the yard. Her demeanour as casual and relaxed as she could muster, she ambled over.
A couple of the other village non-efficients were there: Nicole and Tania. Robert was with them, the smoke from one of his pungent cigarellos spiralling from his mouth as he spoke. She approached their clique. Robert was holding court —
“Apparently it was kidney failure,” he was saying. “Mind, been a lot of that recently, hasn’t there?”
Nicole nodded, silently.
“What’s this?” said Ella, joining the conversation.
“Mrs Balfond,” said Robert.
“She died last week. Sudden it was too”.
“Oh my goodness. That’s awful,” said Ella. She’d known Mrs Balfond, a lovely lady who had babysat for them once or twice when they’d first come to the village. She was kind and wise, the kids had been fond of her, too.
“She was,” chimed in Robert. “And a grandma, too. Four little grandkids she had, and she was only just turned 60. Gone before her time.”
“Do they know what caused it?” Ella said. “Or shouldn’t we ask?”
A look passed between them. Understanding that the boundaries of acceptable conversation had been reached, no one said more.
“Anyway, Mrs O. What can I do for you this week?” said Robert, taking another long, lingering pull on his cigar.
“Owners privilege,” he grinned, and then immediately in anguish snapped his hand back and swore. His BIM shot a snarky shockwave of reprisals up his arm.
“Oh blood and sand! I hate this damned bugger!!”
Shaking his wrist he continued, “I was just explaining to these lovely ladies that we’re mighty low on meat now – did you hear Huxley’s Farm went under last week, another one hit by the land grab, but I’ll do my best.”
“Anyway,” he said, stubbing out the end of his mini cigar on the wall behind him. “Better get back inside, can’t stand around chewing the chop all day can I… let me see what we have.”
“There won’t be any meat left, soon,” Nicole was saying. “We’ll all be eating the Government approved junk and biotech nonsense.”
“Isn’t that exactly what they want?” said Clara.
“Good news guys,” said Robert re-appearing at the door into the yard, “I’ve got just about enough for all three of you. Nicole your pork, and here you go: chicken for the two of you. I can’t promise how much longer we’ll be able to keep this up, though, we’re being hit from all sides.”
Ella thanked him profusely – if it wasn’t for Robert she wasn’t sure where they would be, although their reliance on him was troubling – and walked down the path with Nicole and Clara.
Nicole kicked her. “Watch it”, she said, her eyes wide. “Over there.”
Jessica was walking past the entrance to the Yard. She clocked them both, fake smiles and mock-gracious nods. “Hi guys,” said Jessica, her eyes darting down to the bag, and then darting back up towards them. Ella waved meekly, instinctively trying to hide her illegal spoils by casually slinging her shopping bag over her shoulder. But it wasn’t very subtle, and she knew it.
“Bloody hell,” said Nicole after they’d passed. “She’d better not report us.”
The divisions were ripping through the once cohesive community here, too. Reshaping friendships. Re-delineating political and social allegiances.
Walking briskly back towards home after parting with Nicole and Tania, she remained troubled by Theo’s remoteness. She now had the added anxiety of being reported. She hated this life and what her world had become.
She knew what this was. There was a name for it.
Ella could hear Theo’s voice in her head, chastising her for “misappropriating that word, fascism”.
Sure, history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes; but that’s exactly what it was, wasn’t it.
Look out for chapter 12 next week.
Molly Kingsley is a founder of children’s rights campaign group UsForThem.
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