This is the 15th 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 14 chapters here.
Standing behind the cold meat counter, Robert was slicing Parma ham. One ear was on the chatter of the boys in the meat prep area behind, one on the bustle inside the store.
“Oi, Larry! You heard the latest from Big Sal?” a boom from behind him came. Freddie’s. He knew their voices as if they’d been sons.
Big Sal was the Youth Conscription Minister. A charming lady – or perhaps ‘she’ had once been a ‘he’, it was increasingly hard to say these days – in her early 40s. Sexy and sassy enough to appeal to the young lads but sensible and suitably maternal sounding to win over the mums. Clever bastards, thought Robert. Everyone knew that to send the kids to war, it was the Tiger Mums they needed onside.
Robert glimpsed back. Larry was in full swing, pretty much salivating at the thought of Big Sal and, perhaps, the slightly too tight fitting khaki vest top she was accustomed to donning for media show rounds.
“So yeah, I was saying,” Larry continued. “The Community Conscription Band’s in Upper Twentford at the weekend. Fucking get in there mate! Two weeks’ training with SA80s, then us and the lads on the frontline. Picture of Big Sal on the inside of our tank as we blow shit up.”
Robert shook his head. He was old enough to remember when the generally received wisdom had been that war was a bad thing.
Nostalgically remembering the way things were, he looked up towards the front of the shop. Did a quick head count. Six. Shook his head. It was getting harder and bloody harder to compete. All those damned bio-food vouchers and pro-synthetics credits. But, blessings be blessings. Six wasn’t terrible – still enough for a bit of a queue to have formed – and anyway, better than last weekend.
He looked to see who was in this morning.
Approaching the front of the queue was Jessica, the village busybody wearing, he noticed, an incongruously ornate outfit for a Saturday morning. She was chatting to Jenny from across the road. Behind them was James, Jenny’s husband, looking like he was doing his best to distance himself from what, Robert surmised, was a fiery gossiping session going on beside him.
Slightly theatrically, Jessica tapped Jenny’s shoulder.
“Did you hear about Theo from No. 22?” she said, conspiratorially. Robert couldn’t work out if she was trying to be overheard, or just an incredibly bad whisperer.
“No, what about him?” replied Jenny.
“Well. You won’t believe it,” continued Jessica, almost gleefully. “He’s checked himself into the National Harmony camp. The one out near Ely.”
Robert frowned. He liked Theo, considered him a friend, of sorts. He’d noticed he’d not been in for a few weeks; had been wondering where he’d got to.
“Seriously?” said Jenny. “Golly. Well. I can’t say I’m all that surprised. He and Ella are a little bit out there in their views, aren’t they. Of course, one doesn’t like to use the word ‘conspiracy’, but —”
She looked up and, as if remembering not only the customers but the walls might have ears, caught herself.
Robert raised an eyebrow, but studiously carried on slicing his ham.
He’d known Theo from the first months he and Ella had moved. The local gossip mill – probably started by Jessica, come to think of it – had fired up with the news that a Well Known Writer had just moved to the village.
Robert didn’t have time for Theo’s articles back then – all too clever and pontificating by half – self-satisfied plays on words and them metaphors and silly-mes and what not, but without ever actually saying anything interesting or, come to think of it, particularly readable. “Say something from the heart, man,” he’d daydreamed about counselling him as he got to know him, but never daring.
But, after the advent of the efficiency programme, he’d noticed Theo getting bolder. Instead of just saying the stuff everyone else was saying, only with ‘cleverer words,’ he’d dared to say what everyone was thinking but no one wanted to say out loud – let alone commit to print.
He looked at Jessica. No, not everyone. Some of us. Us and Them.
He looked at the assembled throng inside the store. Everyone in here efficients, everyone in here obedient, everyone in here, him included, tacitly going along with it even though so many must have felt uneasy. The in-crowd and the out-crowd, nowhere more obviously than inside his shop.
Theo had done more than most to try and stop things. It didn’t seem right for him to be holed away in one of them camps.
The gossiping session continued.
“I never liked him much anyway,” Jessica continued, taking a small mirror out of her bag and absentmindedly reapplying her lipstick. “Smug know-it-all if you ask me.”
“Do you know Henry says that the kids are awfully disruptive, too? That Libby in particular. Just can’t keep her thoughts to herself.”
“Well, yes, I dare say,” replied Jenny. “And she’s always so busy. I try to include her —”
Do you, thought Robert. Do you really?
“ — but it’s like she can never be bothered giving us the time of day,” continued Jenny. “Always fighting this and that, like her work is more important than any of ours.”
Robert looked up. He wasn’t aware that Jenny had work; in fact, come to think of it, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her out of her gym kit.
He resolved to pay Ella and the kids a visit. She must be beside herself with worry. He could take them some cuts. Probably less risky than having her and the kids come down on a Saturday, anyway. He was starting to get nervous about being caught out back, too many knew what was going on.
“I knooooooow,” retorted Jessica, approximating Sybil Fawlty. “I lost count of how many times I tried to get her to one of our drinks evenings. But she just had no interest, none. I’ll tell you what it was, it was plain rude.”
The conversation drawing to its natural close as Jessica reached the counter at the front of the queue, she nodded to Robert.
Christ, he thought, looking at her tight-fitting tweet skirt and poker dot high heels. That’s some outfit for a Saturday morning. Borne out of years of habit, his face adorned itself with its most customer-facing smile.
“How can I help you this week, Jessica?” he said, being careful to let no hint of inner grimace peep through. Less than enamoured though he was with some of the customers, custom was custom and one had to be pleasant to one and all.
In anticipatory annoyance Jessica looked to the neatly lined up rows of meat. It wasn’t hard to see that the chicken kebabs were shrinking each month. Perhaps if Robert would stop supplying those ungracious so and sos out back…
She smiled sweetly back.
“Hiya Robert, I’ll take some of the kebabs, though I see they’re looking a bit anorexic again this week. Everything okay with business?”
He stared at her, hard, subconsciously noting that the cumulative effect of her bright green dangling earrings and the shockingly red lipstick that she had inexplicably applied a few moments ago reduced her look to something close to a Christmas tree.
“Oh yes, Jessica, you know how it is. Can’t complain.”
Well, we are being screwed till our eye sockets bleed by the land taxes what with all the credits for the bio-foods and fake meats and each week it’s harder and harder to get people in here and didn’t you used to be in twice a week and now what, you’re down to once a month – mind, in this case I’m not complaining there’s only so much of your ditzy little face I want to see in my shop and blimey, those earrings really do make you look like a Christmas clown. And yes, Jessica, we’re up shit creek, no oars in sight, and now you mention it, it would be really grand if some of you lot could speak up for us but of course you won’t will you, you’ll let others do the dirty work, then slag them off behind their backs…
“Oh yes, I know how it is Robert,” Jessica drawled.
Do you? Do you actually Jessica, with your five Porsches and one Bentley and husband who works for – which one of them is it – I forget – Demerna? Faizruller?
Before he could formulate a respectable reply, Jessica said, pointedly, “Have you considered cutting your customer base? I’m sure people would understand. They know it’s hard times. Maybe concentrate on those of us doing our bit? Like we’re all meant to be doing. You know. Maybe only serve those of us allowed inside.”
She let the word linger.
Robert looked at her, more determined than before to take something to Ella.
“I’ll have a think about it.”
He handed her the parcel.
After she left he shook his head.
Robert had never really considered his place in society before all of this, just a straight talking tradesman doing his job, the job of his father before him and his father before that. But now, you were either persecuted or persecuting – not that anyone would call it that but that was the truth of it, wasn’t it.
Well he supposed one could never know before it happened how one would react in such a situation. The violence of his reaction and his hatred of the perennial injunctions to snitch on one’s neighbours, to deny custom to those who at the end of the day were only standing up for what they believed in – had taken him aback. With Theo he had found a comrade, of sorts, the way that the last years had brought people from different walks of life together and made bedfellows out of the unlikeliest of folk.
The boys at the back of the shop were continuing with their banter and talk of war, conscription and glory. Punctuated by the thud of their cleavers and then falling to a whisper when saying something about Big Sal. He might have to have a word with them about that.
He watched Jessica cross the road and collar another unsuspecting sod to listen to her views. God, he hated that woman.
Yes, he’d make Ella a little parcel, take it down to her after work.
Look out for chapter 16 next week.
Molly Kingsley is a freelance journalist, lawyer and founder of parent campaign group UsForThem.
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