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Subject: {ASSM} {Story} Omega - Chapter  Twenty (8,627 Words)
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 2003 21:10:06 -0500
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Omega
=====

Summary of whole novel
======================

Omega returns the adult reader to the world of childhood 
imagination: a world populated by the fantastic, the fabulous 
and the thoroughly improbable. But a world where adult 
concerns of poverty, injustice, prejudice, politics and economics 
are all too real. In this world, the reader is taken on a search for 
the Truth in a more literal sense than one would expect. On the 
way, the reader meets characters familiar to childhood who 
confront this question with different formulations and very 
different solutions.

The novel is a picaresque satire that takes the reader to places 
that exist only in the imagination, but are also very like those of 
their normal experience. The novel takes the reader to some 
very bizarre places and their even more bizarre inhabitants. It is 
likely to appeal to anyone who has not forgotten the childhood 
pleasures of reading in bed, but is impatient with facile answers 
to difficult questions.

For more: http://bradleystoke.0catch.com


Previously
==========

Beta and I meet Una outside the Cat Embassy. She gets taken in to give
birth to her child. We comfort her after the succesful delivery.



Omega - Chapter Twenty
======================


"Una must be wondering where we are," remarked Beta as 
she lay on the bed, my arm around her shoulders and traces of 
sweat still pasted to her brow. "We must see how she is."

"Must we?" I asked reluctantly. I'd become very comfortable 
on the bed, lying so close to Beta's warm naked body in the 
bedroom's luxurious surroundings.

"Yes, we must!" Said Beta firmly, detaching herself from my 
arm and standing up by the side of the four-poster bed. "Get 
your clothes on, and we'll go and see her. She's just down the 
corridor!"

I did as I was told and followed Beta as she padded along the 
thick carpeted corridor past the large portraits and painting to 
Una's room. It was opposite a splendid portrait of the King 
holding a pair of scales and sword, presumably showing him as 
the source of Justice in his Kingdom. We gingerly eased open 
the door to see Una very much awake, and chatting idly to the 
Hen who was still sitting there. She smiled as she saw us enter. 
Beta rushed to her side, and I sat on a chair just by the bed 
next to the cot where her baby was sleeping.

"How are you feeling?" Beta asked with some concern. "Better 
I hope?"

Una nodded. "I feel so battered and torn. As if my entire 
insides were pulled out of me. Which I suppose they have 
been. He's still sleeping isn't he? The baby I mean."

"He looks like nothing could ever wake him up," I commented, 
glancing at the small blue huddle, his fists close to his face, 
breathing softly and slowly.

"It's so difficult to believe I'm a mother now. What will people 
in Unity think of me now I wonder? Or Rupert as it's now been 
renamed. Perhaps they'll treat me better. I can just hope."

"What's your home town like?" Wondered Beta sitting on the 
edge of the bed and grasping Una's hand in her own. "It's in the 
Country isn't it?"

"Yes. Leagues away. It was a long and arduous journey from 
there to the City. It's quite an ordinary town, I suppose. 
Nothing very unusual about it to look at. There's a town hall, 
plenty of churches, a cinema, a few supermarkets and a lot of 
countryside surrounding it. If you visited it, you'd probably not 
come away with any great impressions, although of course 
there are some old buildings and a nice cobbled square to 
remind you of its long glorious history. I believe there'd been 
some sort of battle fought there, years ago. The Battle of Unity. 
It was rather important I think in deciding the political structure 
of the country. But it's very different from the City, and not just 
because it's such a smaller place. It's a lot less liberal. There's 
no homosexuality, no pornography, no alcohol and no football. 
All those things have been banned in the town as a result of 
legislation passed absolutely hundreds of years ago, by different 
complexions of local government. And even though nobody 
really knows why they were made illegal, nobody's ever 
thought of changing it. Or those who have probably just left the 
town to live somewhere else. So, it's a quite dull place to live 
in, but quite peaceful as well. There's none of the crime and 
violence you find in the City."

"Did you enjoy living there?" Asked Beta to encourage Una to 
keep her thoughts off her present predicament.

"No. Not really. I always wanted to leave. Like most people, I 
suppose. But there are jobs there in local businesses and 
factories, so I suppose many just stay there for the work. I 
thought it was really boring. And quite oppressive really. Like 
most parents in Unity, mine were very strict, and there wasn't a 
great deal I was allowed to do. Seeing boys for instance was 
very much discouraged. My father works in the courts. He's 
some kind of solicitor, and well respected in the community. 
My mother works part-time in a factory where she weighs 
chickens before sealing them in plastic and then attaching 
labels. They wanted me to grow up a respectable girl: not the 
slut they think I've become. They had no sympathy at all when I 
ever suggested I might like to leave Unity and live anywhere 
else. Like most people in the town they believe that the world 
beyond is a kind of bedlam of alcoholics, drug takers, 
prostitutes and criminals. And after having lived in the City for 
so long, without a home and in the gutter, I can't say that  their 
fears were wholly wrong.

"Most people, whether girls or boys, have to serve in the local 
militia for a year when they leave school. I've no idea why. 
Unity isn't at risk from invasion from any other town, and most 
districts of this country don't find the need for such an 
obligation. In a sense I've been fortunate not to have had to do 
that. All that parading and marching and physical exercise. 
Standing out in the town square for hours, whatever the 
weather, and costing the town I don't know how much to have 
a disciplined force of adolescents who do nothing more 
constructive than build irrigation trenches, gather in harvests 
and guard the town hall from imaginary enemies. As a girl I 
wouldn't even have had the relative fun of learning how to use 
guns or to fight. I would have been expected to prepare meals, 
make beds and wash clothes. It was not something I was at all 
looking forward to: and I'd long ago resolved to leave Unity 
before I was called up. As I have. But not at all in the way I'd 
have chosen.

"However, it makes some strange sense in Unity. Everything is 
so well regulated. Even without the national service it's almost a 
military regime. School was just the same. These horrid tight 
uniforms I had to wear from the moment I started at primary 
school. You didn't wear a school uniform, did you?"

Beta shook her head. "No. I didn't have to wear anything at 
school. And neither did the teachers."

"Your village must be a lot more liberal than Unity, I can see 
that. My uniform was an ankle length skirt and a blouse with a 
high collar which almost strangled me. And it had to be very 
hot for us to be allowed to take off our jackets. We had to 
wear these ugly hats, the same colour as our uniforms, which 
covered everything but our plaits. The boys had to wear 
uniforms as well, but theirs weren't nearly so tight or restrictive 
as the girls'. We had an hour of assembly every morning, where 
we had to endure a moral sermon. When I was first at school, 
this would have been a Church of Unity sermon, but now it 
would be something to do with Illicitism. No other religions 
were permitted in the town, besides the Church of Unity which 
had been founded by some really puritanical people hundreds 
of years ago. Often the school sermons were nothing more than 
an excuse to damn all the other religions and faiths. Part of the 
doctrine was that only people in the true church had any chance 
of salvation in the day of Judgement, and that God had already 
decided whether we were to be saved at the moment of our 
Conception. This meant that the whole process of family 
planning was horribly complicated and involved the active 
blessing of a minister from the Church. It was a wonder anyone 
ever had any children at all.

"There were several hours of physical education every day, 
much of which took place after hours. I hated that. My Sports 
Master, a large cockerel with a wooden leg, was quite savage 
with those he thought were shirking. And that more often than 
not was me. I'd be slapped with a clout from his heavy wing if 
he saw me showing less enthusiasm than I ought as I fell over in 
the mud while playing hockey or girls rugby. He wasn't the 
worst by any means. The Moral Standards teacher was 
particularly fierce and rather sadistic. And the Physics teacher 
was always scathingly sarcastic if I made a mistake, which I 
often did. I was really no scientist, and I showed no inclination 
to ever be one."

"You seemed to have had a fairly dismal education," I 
remarked.

"Wasn't there anything at school you actually enjoyed?" 
Wondered Beta.

"I enjoyed Art. I was quite a good artist, I think. It was the 
subject in which I most excelled. And our Art teacher was very 
sympathetic. She was quite unconventional by Unity standards, 
though she'd probably seem extremely conservative in the City. 
She wore pretty silk scarves and let her hair hang loose.  Most 
of the teachers actively disapproved of her, and I imagine the 
parents did as well. She gave me a lot of encouragement. Even 
giving up some of her free time to help me in any painting or 
sculpture I was working at. It was when I was being creative I 
felt most fulfilled. It allowed a release which was mostly 
suppressed in every other activity.

"The school had very strict rules on the kind of Art we could be 
exposed to or work on. It had to be one of sculpture, painting 
or drawing, and it had to be representational. Only people, 
plants, objects and sceneries were permitted. Abstract 
expressionism, collage, surrealism, impressionism and the use 
of other materials were expressly banned. It was also expected 
to be celebratory of life as it was in Unity, and never even 
implicitly critical of it. My fairly negative views confronted my 
teacher with a dilemma. She was obliged to ensure that my 
portraits displayed expressions of proprietary and dignity 
appropriate to the status of whoever I was portraying and to 
suppress any experimentation in content or materials. But when 
we were alone together she showed me pictures of the more 
modern art you can find in the City and in the Art Gallery just 
outside the Suburbs. It was a revelation to me to see sculptures 
that hinted at physical reality, rather than explicitly expressing it. 
Paintings which made no attempt to represent photographic 
reality. Art which used found materials, technology and 
industrial detritus. And Art which dealt with political and social 
issues, which showed naked bodies, which depicted aspects of 
the world in its less salubrious aspects. At first I was baffled. 
How could this be Art? I asked myself. But I had somehow 
opened a door of opportunity and `sthetic expression I'd just 
never suspected was possible, which seemed somehow much 
more profound than what I had previously known, and there 
was no way to close that door. I worked privately on my own 
pieces, using modern techniques to express myself, but I had to 
hide them from everyone, including my teacher and most 
especially my parents.

"They were not keen on my enthusiasm for Art. They 
considered it a waste of time and effort. Anything of no 
apparent utility was anathema to them. In fact, they were quite 
angry when they learnt of my ambition to leave Unity and 
attend Art School in Lambdeth. This embodied two sins for 
them, both contemptible: the pursuit of vain worthless 
endeavour and exposure to the sinful world beyond Unity's 
borough boundaries. They didn't actually forbid me from 
studying Art at school: its only virtue in their eyes was that it 
was the sole subject in which I excelled and could help me 
graduate from school with sufficiently high grades to be a 
satisfactory marriageable proposition. However, they did coax 
me to take a more active interest in science and mathematics. 
These were worthwhile pursuits as they were so evidently to do 
with the real world."

"Didn't you enjoy science?" Beta asked.

"Not at all. Even though I studied them diligently. The way they 
were taught was so joyless. It was all equations, laws and facts. 
It was always a process of learning how something was meant 
to be according to a stated axiom, how it was expressed 
according to a particular equation and then solved by a neat 
juggling of figures. Specific gravities. Integrals of parabolic 
curves. Enzymes and subcutaneous fat. It all seemed so dull 
and boring. It also seemed so remote from the real world, even 
though that was exactly what it was supposed to be about. All 
those strange elements with horrible smells in laboratories. All 
those measurements of what was supposed to happen which 
were always wrong, however accurate the measurements, if 
they contradicted the calculated result. I just couldn't relate to it 
at all.

"I much preferred going to the cinema or theatre than studying 
science. There was only one cinema in Unity, and plays were 
only staged occasionally at the theatre which was mostly used 
for functions. I know now how very limited was the selection of 
plays and films permitted in Unity, but they seemed relatively 
adventurous at the time. They presented a doorway to the 
world beyond Unity. A doorway most definitely not present on 
local television and radio. The world beyond seemed so 
exciting: full of opportunity and promise. And throughout my 
adolescence that was where I wanted to be. Anywhere in fact 
than Unity." 

"Did you have any friends at school who shared your views?" 
Beta wondered.

"I had very few friends. We were supposed to report any 
antisocial behaviour or persuasions, and so it was very difficult 
to make friends in the way which is so natural and ordinary 
here in the City. This was further complicated by all the political 
changes that were taking place in Unity."

"Political changes?" I asked.

"Yes. The way the Illicit Party took power in Unity. In fact it's 
not even called Unity any more, though I find it really difficult to 
think of it by its new name of Rupert."

"Rupert? But I was in a place called Rupert just a few days ago 
where I saw the President Chairman address a rally. Was that 
the same place?"

"I suppose it could have been. But then there are so many 
towns, villages and boroughs called Rupert now, it's very likely 
it was somewhere quite different. Was it a very hilly district, 
surrounded by forestry and an enormous lake?"

"I didn't see any hills," I admitted. "It was very flat open 
countryside."

"Then it must have been a different Rupert. It seems every 
place that has adopted an Illicit local government has honoured 
the President Chairman by naming itself after him. It seems odd 
to me that anywhere would choose to name itself after a foreign 
marsupial dictator, but then I never really warmed to Illiberal 
Socialism. In fact, I just don't understand it at all. The Illicit 
Party didn't take power suddenly. It was originally banned, 
along with the Red and Green Parties, but a few Blue Party 
councillors converted to Illicitism, claiming that the policies of 
their original allegiance didn't really represent their ideals or 
those pursued in Unity. Being in the majority group of the 
council with the White Party, they unbanned the Illicit Party, 
and exerted pressure to ban the Black Party which represented 
the local opposition. Then some of the Black Party candidates 
converted to the Illicit Party, and the White Party councillors 
found that they were no longer members of the leading group. 
They became the official opposition, which they remained until 
they too were banned and physically expelled from the town.

"At first the change of local government made little difference. 
After all, everyone in Unity was a member of the Church of 
Unity, and the council's policies were fairly consistent with that. 
There were some changes. A Rupert Youth group was formed 
and a lot of my fellow pupils joined it. They began wearing 
dark green overalls, Illicit Party armbands and Rupert badges 
on their breast. Although, it contravened the strict school 
uniform rules, the authorities found that enforcement of the 
policy for these individuals was quite impossible, as so many 
teachers and parents themselves started wearing Rupert suits. 
And, of course, the fact that the Rupert Youth could wear 
different clothes encouraged others to join. Pictures of 
Chairman President Rupert began appearing everywhere, and, 
bit by bit, more and more streets, buildings and institutions 
renamed themselves after Rupert and the causes of the Illicit 
Party.

"The local government instituted all sorts of apparently very 
popular new decrees. The Illicit Party struck a very 
sympathetic chord in the people of Unity, even though no one 
ever seemed sure what it really represented. At first, we were 
told that Illiberal Socialism was merely the political expression 
of the Church of Unity, but if this was so why did the council 
close the churches, ban religious assembly and order the 
burning of all bibles, hymnals and prayer books? The object of 
morning assembly seamlessly mutated from the affirmation of 
faith, to the promulgation of political propaganda. A Party 
official, a tall Rooster whom nobody had ever seen before, 
would strut and rant on the school stage, inciting us to shout our 
praises of Rupert and his causes. Political education classes 
became compulsory, where we had to read the Illiberal 
Socialist Worker Daily and digest long dull and impenetrable 
articles, which seemed to be full of the most ridiculous 
contradictions and assertions. Cinema and television now only 
showed films imported from the Illiberal Socialist Republics 
which were either very violent and vindictive or horribly dull.

"The other pupils seemed to love all this stuff, and I felt 
increasingly isolated. I was picked on for my lack of devotion 
to the Illiberal Socialist cause, and soon, like everyone else, I 
had to adopt a Rupert suit myself. At first, it was quite 
liberating to wear these baggy loose-fitting overalls, but it was 
just one uniform replacing another, with the difference being 
that it was unwise to wear anything else even when not at 
school. The curriculum was modified to reflect the change of 
government and Art classes were now made even more 
restrictive. The only acceptable subject was the portrayal of 
President Chairman Rupert and the only criterion of excellence 
was how noble, gracious, wise and virtuous the depiction. If 
you've ever tried painting or drawing a koala you'll know that 
this isn't the easiest task in the world. The most popular pose, 
and the one we were most encouraged to depict, was of 
Rupert gesturing into the mid-distance, his chin slightly raised, 
surrounded by admiring followers in standard issue Rupert 
suits."

"Didn't anyone dissent against all this?" Beta asked.

"Yes. Some. Not many. They were either expelled or 
incarcerated. At the very least they could expect to lose their 
jobs. Worryingly the definition of dissent kept changing. At first 
it meant demonstrations, protests or circulating seditious 
material. Later it came to include not wearing a Rupert badge; 
not hanging a portrait of the President Chairman in the house; 
reading or owning proscribed literature and not remembering 
the lyrics of In Praise of Rupert and the Truth. Most people 
were either active in the Illicit Party or were applying for 
membership: an honour which became more elusive as demand 
for it grew. Those who were Illicit Party members had all sorts 
of privileges and responsibilities denied to everyone else, and 
so everyone wanted to join.

"I didn't like Illicit Party members at all. They were never 
anyone I liked. In fact the party consisted mostly of bullies or 
conformists or just the horribly petty. These are probably the 
very attributes the party most likes and I was sure that my 
application for membership was doomed from the very start. In 
any case, I only applied on my parents' insistence as they were 
worried that otherwise I might be denied the benefits of a good 
education. My father told me bluntly he didn't want any 
daughter of his to be thought unworthy of the privilege. So 
every day after school, I obediently attended all these tedious 
meetings where we were favoured with extra indoctrination, 
and allocated all the boring messy jobs that those who were 
already Party members didn't have to do any more. Putting up 
posters. Selling copies of The Illiberal Socialist Workers 
Daily and The Truth. Collecting funds door to door.

"Paul, my mentor, as he was called, was a tall, not 
unhandsome, boy from the year above me, whose wealthy 
parents had made their fortunes from the egg retail industry. He 
seemed rather more pleasant than the other Illicit Party 
mentors, and I considered myself very lucky in having him 
rather than the others. He smiled readily and sometimes made 
jokes about the Illicit Party which were very nearly disloyal. He 
subscribed enthusiastically to the Illicit Party's views on Cats, 
Communists, sexual deviants and modern artists, believing that 
they should all be strung up and tortured. Indeed, one of his 
less engaging features was his tendency to detail exactly what 
horrible torments he would be quite happy to administer 
himself, if need be, on such reprobates. He relished the power 
his Illicit Party membership had given him, and was quite 
immodest regarding his conquests of women.

"I soon very much regretted having him as my mentor as his 
sexual ambitions became more obvious and he expressed them 
more forcefully. He told me of the various girls he'd made love 
to, what they had done and how good it had been. I wasn't at 
all interested. I had very definite principles regarding 
relationships and I didn't want to be considered just a casual 
lay. I had been inculcated that any sexual liaison outside of legal 
matrimony was prima facie wrong and fully justified the rather 
severe sentences that Unity (and now Rupert) attached to the 
crime. I also knew that it was always the woman rather than the 
man who would be regarded as the erring partner. He was very 
insistent however. He made plain that my likelihood of 
becoming a Party member was very much contingent on 
satisfying his desires. He variously accused me of being frigid, 
sexless and a bitch. He told me that women were devised to 
serve men's desires and that my reluctance showed that I had 
none of the qualities demanded of members of the Illicit Party. I 
had never read or heard anything relating to Illiberal Socialism 
that said that women were obliged to have sex with men 
whenever it was demanded, but he dismissed this. It was 
obvious, he said, that I hadn't gained a proper understanding of 
the spirit of the ideology or mastered its more intricate 
interpretations.

"After a while, he seemed to lose interest in me, having started 
a relationship with another Party member also blessed with 
relatively wealthy parents, and who was also one of the most 
strict and doctrinaire of the female party members. I sometimes 
speculated whether she permitted Paul the carnal satisfaction he 
believed was his right, but if ever anyone gave the impression of 
being frigid it was she.

"One night, after school, he told me to come with him in his car 
to an outlying district of the borough where there was a 
perceived need for more posters. He packed the car with piles 
of posters with Rupert's face and single word captions like 
Justice, Plenty and, strangely, Unity. I had no reason to 
suspect his motives. I had often been in his car before, as had 
his other party applicants. He always enjoyed showing off his 
affluence and hated walking. We were soon out of the town, 
and up in the hills. I had no idea where this village was, but in a 
vague way I had been looking forward to the journey, as I had 
so rarely been out there by car. I was a little worried when, 
high up the hill and far away from the town or, indeed, any 
village, he slowed the car and pulled it into a layby. And then, it 
was there, in the evening air, with the sound of frogs chirruping 
in a nearby brook, and with no one to hear my screams that he 
..."

Una abruptly stopped. A tear was dripping down her cheek, 
and her eyes stared out in horror. Beta squeezed Una's hand 
and smiled kindly. "You don't have to go on, you know. Not if 
you don't want to."

Una shook her head, squeezed her eyes tight, but more tears 
squeezed free. "Paul is my baby's father. He forced himself on 
me. He slapped me when I resisted. He pushed himself on top 
and tore off my clothes. He ripped them into rags. He pushed 
his way into me. Brutally. Savagely. It was loathsome. It was 
painful. I hated him. I hated it. I shouted. I struggled. And then 
it was to no avail. Nothing more could be done. It was over. 
He got dressed and while I was crying and sobbing, he got 
back into his car and drove away. Not that I would have 
contemplated ... ever ... whatever the distance home ... ever 
getting in that car with him again!"

Una paused as more tears streamed down her cheeks while 
Beta silently comforted her by squeezing her hands in her own. 
Beta was clearly appalled by Una's account, but was unable to 
say anything which could properly express her feelings. "It must 
have been the worst day of your life."

"And so it was. Up until then! I just lay in the grass out of sight 
of the road for I don't know how long, numbed and soiled. 
Eventually, probably because it was getting quite cool, I picked 
myself up and spent a futile twenty minutes looking for my 
knickers which Paul had ripped off, but they were nowhere to 
be found. I had the distressing fantasy that Paul had kept them 
as a souvenir of his conquest. My clothes were in a terrible 
state. He'd torn the fabric quite badly, and however hard I tried 
I couldn't recover my modesty at all. The front kept falling 
down. But in a sense I didn't care. I was so defiled that 
modesty seemed an unnecessary luxury.

"I walked along the road not knowing where I was going, and 
with no thought of a destination. It was dark, lit only by the 
stars and the crescent moon, and only the occasional 
headlamps of cars illuminated the road. I walked and walked, 
muttering to myself constantly, cursing Paul, cursing the Illicit 
Party and cursing myself. I don't know how long I'd been 
walking. Hours maybe. Paul had taken me to a very remote 
part of the countryside. There were fields, hen coops and 
stretches of road spookily overshadowed by trees.

"I passed several houses, farms and cottages, wondering 
whether to knock on the door and plea for assistance. I 
recognised that at some stage I'd have to do this if I were ever 
going to find my way home. But they were all so forbidding and 
I was so frightened of what they would think of me in my state 
of distress and immodesty. Eventually I decided to take the 
chance and approached a small house, isolated in the hills, and 
one of the few not named after Rupert or one of the Illicit Party 
icons. I think it might have been called Rose Cottage or 
something else relatively harmless. There were lights on, shining 
through the curtains and illuminating the flowerbeds outside. I 
hesitated on the doorstep for many minutes, and then with a 
burst of reckless courage I pressed the doorbell and waited for 
a reply.

"One came fairly soon, from a man in his thirties who I was 
pleased to see was not wearing a Rupert suit (quite an unusual 
sight by then). He looked at me with a puzzled expression while 
I stared at him totally unprepared for what to say. I had 
somehow imagined that I would know instinctively. It was 
obvious to him that something was wrong, but he was also not 
sure how to respond. At last, he asked: 'How can we help 
you?', on which cue I burst into tears and blubbered 
incoherently.

"'You better come inside,' he remarked kindly, opening the 
door wider and letting me enter. A woman in a loose flowery 
dress (another rare sight) appeared in the hallway and after 
scanning me asked the man: 'What is it? What's wrong?' The 
two of them started discussing me, as I tried as best I could to 
cover my breasts with rags of Rupert suit that stubbornly 
refused to stay in place. At last she announced: 'Well, she can't 
just stay here!' and I was escorted into their living room and sat 
down on an old armchair just by the unlit fireplace. I looked 
blankly around me, just happy to be out of the evening chill and 
to be with sympathetic people, however unconventionally 
dressed.

"I gradually became aware of my surroundings. The pictures of 
landscapes, the photographs of exotic places and a refreshing 
lack of portraits of Rupert. The couple who owned the cottage 
sat down on their sofa, and I observed for the first time a third 
person standing by a book case and looking at the pages of a 
book which did  not have the ubiquitous dark green binding of 
Illicit Party literature. I'd never seen a woman like her before, 
though of course she wouldn't look at all out of place in the 
City, nor indeed in most of the country. She was a black girl, in 
itself unusual, with an enormous mass of black curly hair, 
wearing very tight shorts and a brief singlet which revealed the 
whole of her navel and the curves of her waist. She was a 
friend of the couple who owned the cottage, she came from 
Lambdeth and her name was Anna..."

"Anna!" I exclaimed. "Is it the same Anna? The one I was with 
two nights ago, Beta?"

My companion frowned. "If it is, she's certainly changed her 
appearance."

"That would be entirely consistent." 

"Do you know her, then?" Una asked, bewildered. "How 
strange! She was the first person I'd ever met from outside 
Unity. She was so unconventional and her attitudes so liberating 
and refreshing. Her language was peppered with expressions 
I'd never heard before and she had an air of self-confidence 
women in Unity just never have. She put down the book on 
Law and the Modern Fowl, and approached me. She asked 
me questions sympathetically but very bluntly, and very soon 
pieced together what had happened to me. 'You poor girl!' she 
said again and again. 'How absolutely jolly horrid it must have 
been!'

"She managed to steer conversation away from my 
predicament and talked about life in Lambdeth and how 
different it was in Unity. It was odd to hear opinions about 
Unity, and the Illiberal Socialist government, and the way things 
were done, that were so unashamedly critical and also so much 
in accordance with my own. I felt a kind of liberation in all my 
misery. There were other ways of seeing and doing things, and 
there were places where this was normal. I giggled at her 
disrespectful comments on President Chairman Rupert and 
how ridiculous the koala looked with his grandiose gestures, his 
ankle length overcoats and his broad hat. She made sarcastic 
comments about Illiberal Socialism: how it never seemed to be 
sure if it was right, left or centre, but was always authoritarian 
and dogmatic. The couple nodded in agreement with her, and I 
became aware that I had somehow stumbled across a house of 
covert dissidents who I'd always been told were the most 
abominable and despicable of all people.

"I also noticed that they were sipping a strange clear liquid from 
curiously delicate glasses and that an open bottle of the 
substance was sitting on the table. I associated it with the 
strange smell on Anna's breath, and felt a frisson of wickedness 
as I realised that they were partaking in illegal substances: in 
this case, white wine. I had learnt that alcohol caused people to 
behave in the most frightful and violent ways, but my hosts 
seemed nothing but wholly civilised.

"I was beginning to relax, when the doorbell rang. The man 
stood up, quite startled. He anxiously hid the bottle of wine in a 
cupboard. He and his wife then went into the hallway, closing 
the door behind them. Anna stayed with me, holding my hands 
in hers, occasionally stroking them. 'I wonder who it could be 
at this time of night? More visitors, perhaps?' she mused. The 
door reopened and the woman appeared again, looking rather 
agitated. 'It's the police!' She whispered firmly. 'They'd been 
informed that a partly naked woman had been seen walking the 
road near here and they're asking everyone what they know 
anything about it. But then they saw that Jacob and I aren't 
wearing Rupert suits, and don't have a picture of the koala in 
the hallway, and now they're asking all sorts of questions...'

"The door opened again, and the man entered rather sheepishly 
with three police officers, one of which was a Rooster. The rest 
was just an unremitting nightmare. They identified me as the 
woman who'd been immodestly dressed and I was immediately 
arrested for indecency and, more seriously, disrespect to the 
Illicit Party for allowing my Rupert suit to get into such disrepair 
and losing my arm band. The couple owning the house were 
arrested for being revolutionary seditionaries, alcohol 
traffickers, possessors of illegal literature, and a whole host of 
other crimes,  - some of which seemed to be based more on 
idle fantasy than from any evidence that I could see. They were 
even charged with having encouraged me to dress immodestly. 
Anna was also arrested, but as she came from Lambdeth even 
the police decided it was futile to press too many charges, 
although they were very rude and abusive to her.

"From then on, the nightmare just deepened. Anna was 
expelled. The couple who owned the cottage were put on trial 
for a preposterous litany of crimes. And I ... I was totally 
humiliated. I wasn't likely to be executed, as seemed quite 
likely for Jacob and his wife, but the crimes I'd been found 
guilty of just seemed to pile on me. I was guilty of association 
with seditionaries, use of alcohol, promiscuity and indecency. 
Then, while imprisoned in a police cell with a woman accused 
of adultery, and denying it vehemently, other charges were 
directed at me. Paul gave evidence of my promiscuity and of 
my shamelessness in seducing him away from his betrothed for 
the satisfaction of my base lustful cravings. His fianc,e even 
came into my cell for the sole purpose of spitting in my face. 
Pupils from my school gave evidence of my anti-social views 
and my lack of enthusiasm for the cause of Illiberal Socialism. I 
was supposed to have been stirring dissent amongst my 
fellows. My paintings, drawings and sculptures were deemed 
proof of a seditionary and unacceptable disposition. Not only 
those I had done before the town had converted to Illiberal 
Socialism, but even those since. I had failed to portray the high 
standards of propriety and dignity associated with the great 
President Chairman. The fact that my Art teacher was now 
serving a jail sentence for distributing illegal literature and 
corrupting minors, became evidence of how far from 
vindication I was.

"My parents were not at all supportive. My mother even said 
that she'd always suspected that I wasn't worthy to be a 
daughter of her husband. She said some very hurtful things. 
This became particularly bad when I was not only diagnosed as 
no longer being a virgin - and therefore guilty of the crime of 
pre-marital sex - but also pregnant. My father slapped me 
forcefully on the face, cutting the inside of my cheeks against 
my teeth and making me spit out blood. My mother declared 
that my father and she had decided to disown me. 'A slut like 
you can never truly be our daughter!' 

"As a minor, I couldn't be executed or imprisoned for my 
crimes. Being pregnant, I couldn't be caned, lashed or put in 
the stocks. So at my trial a couple of months after I was 
arrested, the court reluctantly decided to expel me from the 
district of Rupert for the rest of my life: a punishment they 
believed severe enough for me to atone for the severity of my 
crimes. I stood in the dock, between two police officers, tears 
running down my cheeks from the humiliation of the horrid 
things that had been said about me, hardly hearing the actual 
sentence through a haze of fear and worry. The magistrate sat 
in his Rupert suit underneath an enormous portrait of the 
President Chairman, and gave a long and unflattering account 
of me and how I represented the kind of scum that the district 
had throughout its history tried to excise, and that my expulsion 
could only be welcomed by right-thinking townspeople. I gazed 
up at the idealised portrait of Rupert which depicted him 
holding a set of scales in which enemies of Illiberal Socialism 
such as Cats and Anarchists were shown tipping off and falling 
into what appeared to be the flames of hell. And it was to there 
that I felt I was now consigned!"

"And so that's how you came to be in the City when we met 
you?" I asked. "You had been expelled and you made your 
way there."

"Yes. Where else could I go? I thought that here at least I 
could start a new life. But it wasn't an easy journey from Unity. 
Quite a few hundred leagues separate the City from my home 
town, and I had very little money. In fact, I had nothing but the 
Rupert suit I was given to wear and some basic possessions: 
now long since stolen. I travelled by foot, by hitch-hiking and 
by clambering onto the wagons of freight trains. I lived by 
begging and very soon even had to sell my body just to have 
enough to eat. I travelled through many different boroughs: 
some much more friendly than others. I stayed for a month in 
Lambdeth, which gave me a foretaste of life in the City, and 
which compared to Unity seemed quite urban enough.

"By the time I'd reached the City I was quite noticeably 
pregnant, and I had already suffered more than I'd believed 
possible. I had slept in barns and deserted hen coops, often 
sharing with other animals usually much better prepared for 
sleeping rough than me. The only beds I slept in had been those 
of men who were paying to have sex with me, often quite 
perversely because I was pregnant, rather than despite it. I had 
lost and gained clothes and possessions. I was hungry, filthy 
and ragged. I had expected the City to be big, busy and full of 
buildings and monuments of splendour and size. I hadn't 
expected so much poverty. When I had learnt that even the 
poorest people in the City earned thousands of guineas a week, 
I thought that everyone in the City was phenomenally rich, and 
hoped to gain some of this bounty. But I hadn't realised just 
how very expensive the City is, and I soon came to learn that 
my pregnancy, my vagrancy and my lack of friends 
discriminated against me in the City just as much as it did 
everywhere else.

"For the wealthy, the employed and the tourist, there is much to 
recommend the City. It has none of the petty tyranny of Unity. 
People can say and do pretty much what they like. For those 
like me, the City is sheer hell. I soon regretted coming here, but 
where else was I to go? At least, I could beg and 
uncomfortable though they may be there are places to sleep at 
night where you risk assault, but are usually just left alone. The 
parts of the City I spent most of my time were not those that I 
would ever have chosen to visit as a tourist. I slept in derelict 
building sites, deserted houses, park benches and railway 
stations: often just to be evicted by police or by those who 
reckoned they had better rights to sleep there than me.

"I learnt about aspects of the City no one had ever told me 
about. The crime and violence. The gang warfare between the 
different species. Bird against reptile. Rooster against Sparrow. 
I learnt to identify which districts were effectively out of bounds 
to humans like me. Districts where it is dangerous to walk at 
any time of night and day. Districts where there is casual 
violence and gang warfare. Districts as small as a block or as 
large as a whole borough. There have been nights where I've 
sheltered behind cars as gangs fought with machetes, 
submachine guns and flick-knives causing unspeakable harm to 
each other. I've seen people killed. Sometimes suddenly in a 
blaze of gunfire: often randomly directed at a street full of 
people presumably in retribution for similar horrors against the 
perpetrators. Sometimes slowly in horrifying agony: screams 
echoing around the streets and people walking by not wishing 
to look too closely in case they too attract attention.

"The violence became worse the closer it came to the General 
Election. There are many gangs who have adopted political 
allegiance to one party or another. There are gangs which 
support the Black Party. They dress in black, often in leather, 
and direct their hatred against particular species, particularly 
Cats, and more often other races of the same species. The 
hatred expressed by spaniels towards terriers, white humans 
against brown ones, mustangs against ponies: it's senseless and 
obscene. There are gangs which support the Red Party, the 
Blue Party, even the White and Green Parties. I don't believe 
the gangs even know or care what the political parties they 
supposedly support actually represent. They're just another 
badge of membership to set themselves apart from other gangs. 

"What horrified me most, however, was how so many gangs 
now seem to support the Illicit Party. And these are the gangs 
which seem to be the most violent, the most well armed and the 
best organised.  How did that happen? And do any of them 
have any idea what it would be like for them to actually live in 
an Illiberal Socialist society? I soon came to fear the Illicit Party 
gangs more than the others. They were the ones who clung 
most jealously to their territories, who would be most likely to 
organise political demonstrations and who soon became most 
famous for their use of grenades, mortar bombs and semtex. In 
one case I heard of, but thankfully never saw, an Illicit gang 
managed to invade a Red Party gang stronghold, and, unlike 
the usual practise of a symbolic victory marked by a few 
murders and a quick retreat, they methodically massacred 
every single member of that gang, apparently using some pretty 
horrible methods of torture not to gain information but simply to 
inspire terror and what they call respect."

"That sounds horrible!" Gasped Beta. "Don't the police do 
anything to stop it?"

"They're mostly totally impotent. And they're pretty corrupt as 
well: often themselves involved in the organised crime that goes 
on in the City. I never got involved in gangs at all. I'm a 
foreigner to the City. Gangs only recruit from amongst those 
who're born here. It's safer for them. But I've suffered from the 
crime. I've had everything I've had stolen not once but several 
times. Whenever I have anything, it gets stolen! I've been 
attacked - totally randomly and with no provocation. I've been 
raped several times. My pregnancy has been no defence at all 
from any kind of abuse. I have lived a life of begging, 
prostitution and even petty theft. I have been maltreated, 
abused and threatened. The City is most definitely not paved 
with gold. I've only known the very occasional guinea that gets 
dropped onto the cracked and shit-covered pavements. The 
City has not been kind to me, and I cannot be expected to be 
kind about it!"

"...And then we met you!" Smiled Beta with as much 
reassurance as she could. "But surely we haven't been the first 
people who've shown you kindness?"

"No. You haven't. I've met many kind people. Not just those 
who throw me money as I beg: even some of those who have 
paid for my sexual services haven't been too ungenerous. There 
have been people who have extended a helping hand. Given 
me a hostel bed for the night. Given me money. Just taken the 
time to speak to me. Helped me after I've been beaten or 
raped. Enough people to remind me that kindness and 
goodness exists everywhere. But what can they do? They can't 
afford to help me for very long. They haven't the money or 
resources."

"But Lord Arthur has the resources and power. He helped 
you," Beta reminded Una.

"Lord Arthur? The enormous lion? Well, yes he did help me. 
He took me away with him on his back out of the park where 
we met him into the wide streets of the City. That would 
probably have been fun for me if I'd have been in a fit state to 
appreciate it. People and cars just parted like waves to let him 
pass as he strode carefully along the avenues to the hotel where 
he was staying. And a very impressive hotel it was too. I'd 
often passed hotels like this in my wanders. I may even have 
raided the waste bins of that very one. Towering high above 
everything: enormous suites and servants everywhere. The 
furnishings were gilt and sparkling. The carpet was piled high in 
luxury. As we entered the hotel foyer we were descended upon 
by countless minions who attended to Lord Arthur and on his 
instructions whisked me off with great care and attention to his 
hotel suite, high above the City. The maids were most solicitous 
of my health and it seemed they couldn't do enough to help me 
and make me as comfortable as they could. I was fed with a 
very full and appetising meal, which was fortunately not too rich 
for my weakened state, my body was cleaned and my filthy, 
fusty clothes were replaced by crisp clean laundry-smelling 
ones. 

"I was laid in a large double poster bed: the most comfortable 
bed I had ever been in and incredibly welcome after so many 
months of sleeping on the hard pavement surface. The room 
was especially large to accommodate the lion. The room was 
as large as one of those in an art gallery: able to allow Lord 
Arthur space to pace back and forth in front of the wide 
windows while talking to himself and barking out instructions to 
the maids. He promised me so much. He said he would get 
expert attention to ease my pregnancy. He said he would see 
that I would have a home to stay in after I had given birth. He 
said that he would atone for his neglect of the poor and needy 
by treating me in a way that would compensate for the many 
millions of lives he had directly or indirectly ruined. 

"Most of all, however, he spoke about himself. And most of 
what he said was rambling, incoherent and quite clearly not said 
with me as the listener in mind. He cursed the Red Party for 
coming into power. He cursed the banks for not extending his 
credit when he needed it most. He cursed his advisers. He 
cursed himself. As he droned on and on, I dozed off to sleep, 
occasionally awakened by a growl or a subdued roar. Even in 
all that opulent splendour, my chief concern was for my baby 
and the occasional pain it caused me as he struggled inside me. 

"I never spoke to the lion again. My afternoon and night 
alternated between deep and fitful sleep. Sometimes I was 
awake for long enough to see if it was day or night. The tall 
buildings of the City surrounding the hotel seemed much less 
forbidding now that I was elevated so high above the streets. I 
saw them lit by the high afternoon sun, and then, seemingly not 
long after, they were looming shadows lit by rectangles of 
lighted windows. It was then that I realised I was again sharing 
the room with Lord Arthur who was stretched out on the hotel 
floor, almost like an enormous kitten and not nearly as 
formidable as when he was awake. I smiled to myself, content 
that I was secure, and slept soundly until late this morning.

"However, I was misled. I wasn't going to become Lord 
Arthur's charitable concern. I was woken, not as I'd hoped by 
the sound of one of the maids in a smart apron and hat carrying 
a breakfast tray, but by very rough shakes and the 
unsympathetic: 'Wake up, you slut! Wake up! It's time you 
cleared out of the room!'

"I opened my eyes to look at a stern tall Rooster in a uniform 
surrounded by some rather threatening uniformed staff. 
'Wassat?' I asked, not really believing the dramatic change of 
treatment from the day before. 'Where's Lord Arthur?'"

"'He's gone! And so's his credit! He's not paid for the room 
and not likely to do so either. You can't pay for him, can you?'

"I shook my head. I had nothing. I was pushed out of bed and 
only allowed enough time to get some clothes on before being 
roughly escorted down the back stairs reserved for servants, 
and out by the rear entrance into an alleyway of rubbish bins 
and wastepaper, just between the hotel and some law courts. 
The staff who escorted me, carrying me off the ground by my 
shoulders and only just mindful of my pregnancy, showed very 
little of the respect and courtesy the staff had expressed the 
previous day. They didn't disguise any of their contempt for the 
'pathetic old bankrupt' they considered Lord Arthur to be and 
his social life. I came to realise that they considered me to be 
some kind of whore that the lion had brought into his room for 
some perverse sexual activity, and that they had seen enough of 
this kind of activity not to consider it at all unusual, even if it 
didn't soften their disgust for it.

"So, I was back in the streets. My baby was kicking me from 
inside. And the City was just crowding in on me. All I wanted 
was somewhere to rest, but wherever I went was wrong. I was 
always pushed on by someone or something. And I suppose 
that's how I came to be in the Ambassadorial district when you 
met me. I've no idea how I got there! I was in such a haze! 
Everything was so unreal! The only thing I knew was the pain I 
was in!"

"But you're here now!" Said Beta comfortingly. "You're safe 
and sound! All you need now is to go to sleep and rest. 
Everything will be all right."

"I hope so!" Exclaimed Una, desperate to believe Beta. "I do 
hope so! I would so like my baby's first days to be ones of 
comfort and security." She raised her head and glanced at her 
child asleep in a pose of utter abandon. "I hope that after all I 
have been through there will yet be a happy resolution!"


For more: http://bradleystoke.0catch.com

-- 
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reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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