Omega (39) "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 fiancée 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!" 21 Physically Beta and I were much more refreshed after our good night sleep in a bed, but the benefits of that slowly dissipated as we stood for over an hour at the slip road to the busy motorway junction not far from the embassies. Our thumbs hopefully gestured at the cars and lorries as they sped by, but none showed us any sympathy. "How much longer must we wait?" sighed Beta plaintively. "Surely one of these hundreds of cars must stop!" A car trundled by slowly, looking likely to stop but it drove by loaded down by the luggage piled high on its roof. A van covered with Illicit Party slogans shot by, its occupants sticking their heads out of the window to jeer and gesture rudely at us. Beyond the slip road was a vast junction of roads where cars and trucks hurtled along totally oblivious to our presence. Then, just as hope was diminishing to its lowest ebb, an extremely long stretch limousine which had just sped by, suddenly stopped and parked on the hard shoulder a furlong ahead of us. It was driven by an alsatian with a peaked cap and uniform. The door opened slowly and the monstrous form of Hubert emerged rearwards, still in his enormous overcoat. He urgently beckoned us, and we obediently ran towards him. "I thought it might have been you!" he remarked. "I had just about time to tell the chauffeur to stop. Where are you heading?" "The Suburbs!" I said breathlessly. "Back home again. And with your young ladyfriend. So you've been persuaded by that Rupert chap that that's where you'll find the Truth! My friends aren't quite going that far, but I think we'll be able to take you some of the way. Get in the car!" We needed little prompting, and followed Hubert into the limousine. However large it had appeared from the outside, it seemed even larger inside. Large enough indeed to accommodate a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus and a rather fat man in addition to Hubert and ourselves. The chauffeur turned his muzzle round to look at us, and seeing that the door was closed, he manoeuvred back on to the slip road. "These are friends of mine I met in the City," Hubert announced to the company. "They're both good friends of Tudor, the chap I told you about." The hippopotamus wore a tee-shirt that just about managed to cover most of her belly sporting the cryptic message The Balance of Justice, and a pair of floral shorts. The rhinoceros wore an open denim shirt, studded with buttons, and checkered trousers. The City was written above the crown of the broad brimmed hat he wore. The man rested a camcorder on his bare hairy knees, and wore a striped shirt, shorts and a very similar hat sporting the words I © Her Maphrodite. He examined me steadily. "Hey, don't I know you!" He announced. "The Suburbs ain't it? You gave me directions to the Centaur Hotel? Just a few days ago. You remember?"
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