Blemished, The (8 page)

“D
o I look like a Slum kid?” Angela asked.

The three of us had managed to sneak out of the house without waking Theresa. We stood in the garden wearing our newly ripped and dirtied clothes. Angela smeared another handful of mud on my skin. I stepped forward and mussed Angela’s hair.

“You do now!” I said with a quiet laugh.

Daniel glared at us through the dark, the full moon reflecting in his blue eyes. The sky was clear of clouds and stars twinkled above us.

I straightened my back. “Which way do we go?”

“Follow me,” Daniel replied.

Angela looked at me and I could tell by the way her eyes glistened and her mouth twitched that she wanted to laugh. I wondered if Angela had ever broken rules before. The exhilaration of doing something naughty made her giddy. I put my finger to my lips to try and calm her before moving after Daniel, I knew it was wrong but a bit of sneaking around was exactly what we needed to lighten the mood after the day we’d had at school.

The ghettos were quiet at night. Dad always said that after 9pm the world of the Blemished silenced. Of course he usually said that after a few glasses of whiskey so I’d never really paid much attention. It turned out that he was right. We walked past dark houses, only alive from the flicker from their television screens, the people inside glued to Ministry programming with drinks fixed in their stiff hands. As we walked we saw no one. Part of me thought we might bump into Sebastian out on a jog, but the only sound we heard was the drunken voice of a woman a few streets away. There was a crash and a thud followed by a curse as she fell over a gate or a bin. Then a neighbour yelled out of their window to shut up and she did.

“Poor woman,” Angela mused.

As we moved forward the houses around us became smaller and more bunched together. They formed lines of rickety, uneven terraces surrounded by concrete yards filled with junk. The pavement crumbled beneath our feet and weeds poked out between gate posts.

“We’re getting closer to the Slums,” Daniel said. “You need to be on the lookout for Enforcers now, okay?”

We all mumbled hushed agreements and instinctively moved closer to each other. Daniel walked next to me on my right, his arm brushing against mine. I swallowed dryly as we approached the Slums, the realisation hitting that we were doing something illegal. The same giddiness that overtook Angela at the beginning of our journey had infected me and I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing. But as I was distracted by my own overexcitement I didn’t see the shadow of the Enforcer approaching. Daniel grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back into a narrow alleyway between two rows of terraced houses, moving Angela with his other hand. I shrank into the darkness, leaning hard against the cold bricks.

I heard the heavy footsteps of the Enforcer’s boots on the crumbling pavement, crunching with each movement. His black leather uniform creaked in the darkness and there was a chink-chink noise as his baton hit the metal clasp of his belt. All Enforcers wore large plastic helmets, making their shadows look even more enormous, like a bubble-headed alien.

I held my breath, no longer wanting to giggle, almost certain that the noise of my heart pounding against my chest could be heard streets away. Finally the Enforcer came into view as he walked past the entrance of the alleyway, just as I felt as though my heart would beat right through my rib cage. A droplet of sweat dribbled down my forehead and Daniel reached over in the dark and took my hand in his.

The Enforcer paused right at the mouth of the alley-way, looked at the floor and bent at the knees to retrieve an item from the ground. I flattened myself against the cold, hard bricks, gripping hold of Daniel’s hand. Daniel turned to look at me, his eyes inscrutable in the darkness. The Enforcer held up the object, examining it, and then tossed it to the floor. I could see in the moonlight that it was a button from Angela’s jacket. Almost nonchalantly, the Enforcer moved on, leaving us alone in the darkness. We waited until the crunching footsteps faded away before slipping back out onto the pavement.

“That was close,” Daniel said with a grim smile. I realised now why he had been so unimpressed with our foolishness. This wasn’t a joke, it was bad for Blemished girls to be out this late without an adult chaperone and we could get into serious trouble.

“I’m so scared!” Angela whispered. She didn’t look amused any more, only afraid. “Maybe we should go back?”

“Yeah, you’re right, this is––”

“Shhh!” Daniel pulled us both back into the alley way just in time.

Further down the street I heard the noise of more footsteps and then a cough. These footsteps were different to those of the Enforcer, less measured and succinct. They were more hurried and sloppy and belonged to a person, a civilian. As the person approached I became curious and peeked over Daniel’s shoulder to see who crossed the mouth of the alley way. There was enough moonlight to be able to make out their build and the features, and when they walked past, it was unmistakable that this man was my dad.

I smothered a gasp into the sleeve of my top and hid back behind Daniel. Dad didn’t notice anything; he walked on in a hurry, without turning his head. For a moment I thought I’d imagined it. What would my dad be doing near the Slums? I felt sick.

“Mina, was that your dad?” Daniel whispered.

“You thought so too?” I replied. “I hoped it was just the moonlight playing tricks.”

“It looked an awful lot like him,” Daniel said, his voice thick with pity.

“Why would he be here?” I said.

Angela took my hand and squeezed it. “Maybe he’s lonely, Mina.”

I couldn’t stand the sympathy on their faces. I couldn’t stomach what they were saying. “No.” I shook my head vehemently. “He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do anything that disgusting!” I wrenched my hand free from Angela’s and stepped out of the alley.

“Where are you going?” Daniel called after me. “I thought we’d agreed to go back?”

“I’m following him,” I said. “I have to. You two go back if you like, I’ll be fine.”

I stopped and looked at my friends and in that moment I didn’t want to be like them. I
didn’t want to have parents who disappeared or needed me to crush pills into their tea. I just wanted my dad, my reliable history Professor Dad who made spaghetti and dusted the kitchen cupboards.

Daniel moved towards me slowly and put a tentative hand on my shoulder. I wanted to shrug it off. I didn’t need their pity. There would be a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything. “We’re not leaving you on your own. We’ll all go, but we’ll be extra careful. Okay?”

I nodded, trying to ignore my own gratitude.

“Now, come on, before we lose him.” Daniel lead the way again and I followed with Angela feeling a little numb and very terrified.

*

From the alleyway onwards our surroundings degraded even further. We passed smashed glass, boarded windows, crude murals, even cruder graffiti, burnt out cars and feral cats.
Constant noise drifted from the distance: music, shouting and chatter. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought we were heading to a busy town. I saw the faraway glow of fire and lanterns.

“They sit around bonfires,” Daniel explained.

“The music?” I asked.

“Musicians and singers play around the fires. There aren’t any houses in the slums, just huts and squats. There are a few warehouses filled with people and a few old pubs that are now brothels,” he explained. “One of the abandoned warehouses is the place where most of the Resistance meet. Many of them live there too.”

“If the Enforcers patrol the area, why don’t they stop all the crime? And why don’t they arrest the Resistance?” I said.

“They don’t know about the Resistance. At least I don’t think they do. As for the other stuff... well they turn a blind eye. That way they get... freebies.”

“How do you know all this stuff, Daniel?” Angela asked in a quiet voice. It was obvious that despite Daniel growing up in her house he had never told her any of this or even hinted that he knew about the underground world of Area 14.

“Some of the men I work with,” he said with a grimace, “are not the kind of men you would want to meet.”

Daniel stopped walking and we followed suit. We had come to the top of a hill overlooking the Slums. Down the street I saw what Daniel had described; huts built in a haphazard manner, leaning on one another for support and made of corrugated iron; bonfires everywhere with people cooking food or dancing around them. The smell wafted up, a combination of alcohol, burning rubber and dirt. Narrow paths weaved between the huts and run-down pubs and old warehouses. On these paths roamed the Enforcers, walking with relaxed gaits with their weapons at their sides. As I strained to see through the dim light, I saw that in the middle of all this was my dad.

“I
can see him!” I said. I moved to walk down the hill but Daniel stopped me with a hand on my elbow.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “You might find out about things that you don’t really want to know.” He squeezed my arm gently. “It’s not too late to turn back.”

I hesitated. Following my dad would be the stupid thing to do. Turning back was safe. But then I thought about how little I knew about my mum before she died, and how much I had always wanted to know about her. I didn’t want secrets between me and my dad any more. I wanted to know everything. I met Daniel’s eyes. “Yes. I’m sure.”

“Okay, then we have to do things exactly as I say. Firstly, we walk down this hill sticking to the shadows, and once we get to the Slums we have to blend in. Avoid eye contact with any Enforcers. Above all – keep up with me. Okay?”

Angela and I nodded in unison. I felt a gulp in my throat but ignored it and the three of us set off down the hill.

“What are you going to say to your dad?” Angela said quietly in the dark.

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“Well, when you find out why he’s come to the Slums, what are you going to say to him? Are you going to confront him?”

“I... um... I guess I haven’t thought that far ahead.” I paused. “What would you do if it was your mum?”

“Mina,” she said with a sigh, “you’ve seen how I am with my Mum. I give her pills to help her sleep and I t
ell her lies all the time, like: ‘sure Dad’s coming home soon’ or ‘it doesn’t matter if you forgot to make me my tea.’ I’m hardly the expert when it comes to confronting parents. But, I dunno.” She shrugged. “I guess if it was me... Well, I think of it this way. How long do you really get with your parents? Soon we’ll have the Operation and things will change. What’s the point in rocking the boat – making things worse? Maybe you should just enjoy the time you have together.”

“You mean not say anything?”

She held her hands up as though in surrender. “Like I said, I’m really not an expert. But, those little lies between me and my mum, well they seem to make things better, you know? One day, if I told her everything, maybe it would change things between us.”

“We’re almost there.” Daniel looked at us over his shoulder. “Remember what I said.” He frowned. “And there’s something else, something unpleasant.”

“What is it?” I asked, wondering how much more unpleasant things could get.

“There are teenagers in the Slums, like us, and they are often out on the streets at night which is how I’ve managed to blend in when I come here. They beg and,” he glanced at Angela, clearly wanting to protect her from something, “offer other stuff. Be careful of anyone who approaches you. Remember – stick together.”

As we approached the hubbub of the Slums I looked through the huts and bonfires for my dad. All around us people stared with hollow eyes. It was a destitute, rank place, and I felt a chill down my spine. A woman to my right lifted up a short skirt provocatively as Daniel passed, her face was rouged, eyes lined in black, I folded my arms around my chest and wished I’d never seen my dad.

“Mina,” Daniel whispered to me, “I see him. I think he’s heading to one of the warehouses.”

I craned my neck and stood on tip-toes until I saw him too. He looked so out of place that it tugged on my heart to see him walking in corduroy trousers and a woollen jumper, a history professor in a den of iniquity.

“I see him!” I broke away from Daniel into a jog, weaving between beggar children and prostitutes, trying not to look at the Enforcers as I passed. Behind me I heard Daniel shouting for me to wait, his voice growing faint. I didn’t stop. I was too close. I couldn’t risk losing him again.

Dad ducked through a set of huts and moved around a bonfire where a woman danced to a violin player. I followed, keeping my head down and in the shadows and moving swiftly. The huts continued for another fifty feet and then began to thin out into a sort of courtyard of compacted mud. The courtyard was outlined by an old run-down pub and a warehouse. Dad walked through the centre of the courtyard and stopped outside the pub where a woman, slicked with make-up, lounged against the wall with her hand on her hip. My stomach sank. Could he really be one of those men? I stopped and hid in the shadows. Finally, he turned away from the pub and walked into the warehouse on the right. I breathed a sigh of relief.

But I still wanted to know why my dad was there. Daniel and Angela were lost in the huts somewhere. I was on my own now and I had to figure things out for myself. Sticking to the shadows I made the decision to go around the warehouse and try to find a window or something to look through. As I moved closer I saw that just inside the f
ront entrance stood a tall dark-haired man with his arms folded. My dad nodded to him in and the man returned the gesture. My dad had been here before – he knew these people.

I crept around the side of the building trying not to breathe heavily but feeling a rasp in my throat. I stayed low, bending my knees and back. I was good at being out of sight – I’d been doing it all my life. But all the same I wished that Daniel was there to help me and tell me what to do.

The compacted mud turned to paving slabs. Age had led to disrepair and I tripped over raised corners, pushed up from the undergrowth of weeds. The warehouse walls were concrete breeze-blocks, rough to touch. As I made my way to the back of the building I saw the large loading bays with steel overhead rolling doors big enough for vans. The doors were rusted and stuck just under a foot from the floor leaving enough room for me to squeeze underneath. I saw a low light coming from the gap. I dropped down to my belly and manoeuvred myself into the best viewing position. There were a number of people gathered between the empty stacks – the goods from these warehouses had been emptied years ago and shipped off to London. From my angle I could just see from their feet to their torsos. I had to move closer. I took a deep breath and wriggled under the door.

I stood and immediately ducked behind one of the stacks. The shelving units were compact and climbed all the way to the ceiling. As I surveyed the area I saw people camping on the lower shelves, using them like bunk beds. Sleeping bags and pillows were strewn messily on the cold, concrete floor. I had no idea that people lived like this and felt ashamed that I’d taken my house and my dad’s privileges for granted.

I looked deeper and saw a group of people, mostly men but with some women, in the throes of an intense discussion. I held my breath, it was the Resistance. My dad stood with a tall man in a leather coat. He had a short crop of dark hair and nodded along to whatever it was my dad was saying. I had to get closer if I wanted to be able to hear.

I moved silently through the stacks without attracting any attention, placing my feet quietly on the cement floor, padding like a cat. Luckily the Resistance were in heated debate and unlikely to be easily distracted. As I moved closer I heard phrases like “It’s too soon” and “we need to do something” but couldn’t piece them together. In between two stacks, a few feet away from the group, I saw a pile of boxes and made my way to it. I crouched down behind them and watched.

The first thing I noticed was how few people there were: perhaps twenty or thirty. If Daniel was right and it really was a Resistance meeting, this was poor. I’d always assumed them to be a dangerous and formidable group of militants – purveyors of organised chaos – not a group of tired looking people talking to each other with their arms folded. I concentrated my attention on my dad and the dark haired man.

“Everything is set up, you just have to tell me when,” the man said. I saw him in profile now and that he was perhaps in his early thirties, good-looking and well built. He watched my dad with a nonchalant curiosity, almost arrogance.

“A few months, maybe more,” Dad replied.

The man tipped his head to the side. “That long? You know you need to get to him before they do.”

“She’s not ready yet,” said Dad. “But you have the arrangements in place?”

The man
rested a hand on my dad’s shoulder. “What did I tell you, Brother? Relax and I will take care of everything.”

I shifted my weight on the floor, relieving a growing cramp in my leg and inadvertently bumped one of the stacks, knocking an empty tin can to the ground.

“What was that?” said Dad, looking around him.