The Girl in the Shadows Read online

  I would rather it had been any other comrade but her. Perhaps it was because they didn’t have direct responsibility for me, but with the others I was a lot more successful at gaining a little leeway here and there – they’d occasionally allow me an unreported giggle if something funny happened or allow me to make a mistake. But Sian took her duty so seriously that the smallest indiscretion would be reported to AB without a first, let alone second chance. It was as though she poured all her energy into a pointed effort never to become close to the child in her charge.

  She was often assisted by Comrade Josie, who was almost three years younger than Sian, also white, and wore her brown hair, when long, in a tight bun or a twisted plait. She looked the perfect stern lady; I can still remember the glare of her blue eyes. She used to stare, stare, stare at everything I did, as though she believed me to be untrustworthy and felt she had to maintain near-unblinking eye contact to ensure I obeyed AB. The intensity of her gaze unnerved me.

  It was Josie and Sian who took charge of improving my reading and writing as I grew older. I read children’s books from China, Monkey Subdues the White-Bone Demon and Bright Red Star. Both were about AB, I was told. (‘Mon’ means ‘eldest son’ in Malayalam, the language AB spoke in Kerala, and AB was the eldest son in his family, while ‘key’ meant the key person.) When I was four or five, Bala bought me a diary and instructed that it must be written in every day; I think perhaps it was intended to record my childhood for posterity, given the importance of Project Prem.

  It was another tool with which to monitor me. Sian wrote it for me for the first couple of years, after which I took responsibility, always overseen by a comrade to ensure I didn’t write anything off-message. It recorded every minute detail of my life: what I ate, how many times I went to the toilet, whether my shits were loose or hard. As I so rarely left the house, it did not always document what I did all day, which was essentially to sit at home and learn about Comrade Bala. But, as a devout follower, I would record all of AB’s movements – where he went when he went Outside, what time he left the house, what he wore – and all the anniversaries of his great victories against the British Fascist State. Generously, he gave me a lock of his hair a few times, which I gravely pasted into the book.

  My lessons were all focused around AB. I learned he came to Britain in 1963 and that the CC was set up in 1967, when he and Chanda became engaged; the other comrades had joined in dribs and drabs over the following decade. In August 1971, AB had scored a victory over the BFS when he avoided an assassination attempt in a London taxi; the BFS had sent a death ray to kill him via the meter, scheduled to hit when he leaned forward to pay – but, dashing their plans, AB’s fellow passenger had paid the fare, so the ray intended for AB’s head had hit AB’s chest instead. You could still see the mark, a red blemish the size of a coin that looked rather like a large boil. I found the whole story petrifying – as if there wasn’t enough to fear Outside!

  I was also told the story of how Sian moved from being a Suspicious Doubtist to Bala’s most devoted follower. Although it seemed impossible to imagine, she had once questioned AB’s claims and requested proof. On 1 February 1976, when the Collective had lived at another address, Bala had fought a most heroic battle with the upstairs neighbours: fascist agents who were rowdy and always causing trouble for AB, just as the BFS had asked them to. After a night of raucous parties, Bala had brandished a meat cleaver at them. One of his targets had his hand upon the banister; Bala brought the blade down, attempting to sever his hand from the wrist, but the agent pulled his hand away just in time. Such was the force of the blow that the cleaver embedded itself in the banister.

  Bala spent nearly two months in jail, framed by the fascist state for his political activities in battling with its agents. For Sian, it was the day she ‘woke up’ about the true nature of the fascist state in Britain. Imprisoning an innocent man for his political activities was something she had previously thought happened only in Third World countries. After that, when AB told her, ‘Don’t ask for proof, just have faith, believe in me, focus on me,’ she did as directed.

  That wasn’t the only time the BFS unfairly imprisoned Bala. In 1974 he was admitted to St Albans Mental Hospital for two days, I believe for fighting with the police. He used to boast about it, gloating, ‘They thought I was mad!’ But it had all been part of AB’s master plan: he wanted the experience of being incarcerated so that when he ruled the world, he would know all about the institutions of the fascist state from the inside. Then, in 1978, he was jailed for assaulting a policeman. He wore all of these experiences as badges of honour; they were evidence of both the persecution he faced at the hands of the BFS and his own valiant nature.

  I also studied world history. AB’s birthday was 16 July, making his conception day 16 October, and all great world events therefore happened around these two dates, because AB was the centre of everything. Whether it was the launch of Apollo 11 on 16 July 1969, taking Neil Armstrong to the Moon, or the test of the first atomic bomb on 16 July 1945 in the arid deserts of New Mexico, I was taught that everything was linked to AB. AB himself had been born in 1940, but of course his spirit had always been around.

  Perhaps most importantly of all, I learned about Synchronizations: that events Outside were directly influenced by Bala and related to the goings-on within the CC. AB would frequently use his power over the natural world, which could be exercised by written or spoken word or thought, in retaliation for any manner of offences. I had to write out long lists of them all: ‘This earthquake happened when the landlord called to ask us for our rent’, ‘Malaysian Prime Minister Abdul Razak died when AB said, “To hell with Razak!”’, ‘The Challenger space shuttle exploded when comrades went against AB’.

  This last one really affected me when I learned of it – because I had been alive, three years old, when it had happened in 1986. All seven crew members had died in the disaster. It was Challenge-R, AB said – R short for Ara – and we comrades had been challenging him, vYing with him; thus the shape of the smoke being formed into a Y when the shuttle had exploded. I listened in horror as he drew the connections: this was proof.

  It was sickening to think our going against AB had resulted in seven people’s deaths. As I listened to the lesson, an acrid taste swelled uncomfortably in my mouth and I simply could not swallow it down. I felt as though something was staining me, deep inside.

  Guilt.

  For those deaths were on my head. Their blood was on my hands.

  I took a very deep breath. I knew there was only one way to avoid such future devastation.

  I must do better. I must be a better person.

  I resolved to follow AB even more devoutly than before. But, this time, it was not to save my own skin from his beatings, but to protect all others from his wrath.

  4

  ‘Warm – it – up – a – bit-bit,’ crooned Comrade Aisha in a singsong voice, moving her spoon, laden with ice cream, back and forth in time with the ditty. I loved it when she did this and opened my mouth wide, eyes smiling, already knowing what was coming next.

  Smoothly, she popped the spoon into my mouth and the cold ice cream melted sweetly on to my hot tongue. Though, aged five, I was a little old to be fed, this was a secret routine Aisha and I had shared over the years, and I wouldn’t have stopped it for the world.

  If I had to pick a favourite comrade, Aisha was probably it. She was the eldest of the women, though four years younger than AB himself, in her early forties. Malaysian, she had short dark straight hair that hung like curtains around her face and heavy-rimmed glasses. Unusually, she didn’t treat me as a little adult, but as a child, and I savoured the difference. Comrades Sian and Josie had never dealt with children before being appointed to work on Project Prem, whereas Aisha had lots of brothers and sisters, so she had more experience with youngsters. I think that was why, every now and then, she would treat me to some childish fun, seeming to know I yearned for it. I thought of her as a lucky mascot or
a guardian angel.

  In a way, though, as sweet as it was to share such scenes with Aisha, it always made her betrayal, when it inevitably came, that much harder to bear. I innocently commented to her one day that I liked the word ‘Israel’ better than the word ‘Palestine’. I was making no political comment – I was five – I just enjoyed the hard hiss of the ‘Is’ and the smooth roll of the ‘rael’ as the word unravelled on my tongue.

  I think Aisha mentioned the comment to Sian, who had instructed all comrades to share details of all I did, so of course it got through to Bala. He slapped me for being reactionary, then dragged me across the living room by my legs, from one side of the room to the other, my body seared by the dark-blue carpet with red flowers every step of the way. The stinging carpet burns served as a reminder that no one could be trusted.

  Nonetheless, with only nine people populating my own little planet within the Collective, the comrades were the only people from whom I could learn. Comrade Oh – a small Malaysian woman of Chinese descent – was a role model of sorts, although not in the way Comrade Bala would have liked. She was a very capable individual, who often made decisions (such as whether to buy a new product in a shop) on her own initiative, without consulting Bala first. It seemed very daring. Whereas many of the comrades appeared rudderless without his direction, Oh could hold her own. She and Josie clashed all the time – Oh’s strong personality made her rather blunt – and it was usually Oh who felt the sharp end of Bala’s stick in retribution for the pair not working well together. There was supposed to be harmony within AB’s CC Family (Pilot Unit).

  I saw very little of Comrade Cindy, who was the Collective’s most recent recruit, having been with them less than ten years. Occasionally she’d take a shift sleeping by my side, but she was out most of the time at work and seemed tired when she came home. Quiet in character, she also appeared deeply unhappy, though I did not know the reason why.

  Then there was Leanne. Oh, Leanne. Because she worked, she wasn’t around to report on me so much, which meant I felt friendlier towards her than the others. Yet unlike Cindy, who also worked but was often downcast, Leanne always managed to be pleasant, no matter how exhausted she was. She used to cut my hair – a severe crop, fit for a boy – and though I only really saw her at the weekends, when I did she would smile and be a bit cheeky.

  Best of all was when she took the Saturday night shift sleeping beside me. The atmosphere was totally different to when Sian or Josie was on duty. Sometimes, Leanne would even whisper to me as we lay side by side, telling me stories about what had happened at work.

  Strangely, unlike AB’s every report about Outside, Leanne’s stories never featured any fascist agents. She talked about her colleagues or an accident that had happened on the train. I loved those Saturday nights. She wouldn’t cuddle me, of course, while her words weaved wondrous worlds for me, but if I was very lucky – and Leanne was feeling very rebellious – she would sometimes pat me on my leg, just once.

  It was heaven.

  She had the power to make other things fun too. I was given a pink bicycle with stabilizers and a wicker basket – then told, naturally, that it was only to be ridden inside. But Leanne cleared the hallway for me, popped a torch in the front basket and turned off all the lights. It was so exciting! I loved powering the pedals, seeing the beam of light flashing wildly on the walls, feeling empowered and thrilled as the movement took me … I spent almost all my time sitting down, so to wheel about on that bike felt like flying, even if the stunted length of the hallway didn’t give me much room to manoeuvre. I couldn’t help it: I giggled as I rode.

  Sian and Josie soon put an end to that particular game. Stupidly, I enthused to Sian about Leanne’s brilliant ideas, because I wanted Sian to be more like Leanne. Sacrilege. Leanne was promptly reported; we both were, for forming an anti-party clique. After that, Leanne didn’t tell me stories so much any more … but she did still tell me stories.

  There was something about Leanne that didn’t quite fit with the rest of the group. Perhaps it was because she went Outside every day and was tainted by the old world – that was certainly what AB would have said.

  It seemed the old world’s influence was powerful. For on 23 April 1988, when I was five, Leanne suddenly made an unexpected announcement while we were all milling together in the living room that evening (I believe Cindy may have been at work).

  ‘I’m going,’ she said abruptly.

  She meant it: she wanted to leave AB’s CC.

  I was shocked to my core. Only one person had ever left the Collective: Denise (now nicknamed Bad Dennis by the group), who’d been thrown out in 1984 for going against AB; at least, that’s what the comrades said had happened. Such was the severity of her transgression, I’d been told Bad Dennis had died.

  ‘Sit down,’ AB spat in disgust when Leanne voiced what she wanted. When she didn’t immediately obey him, he pushed her roughly into a chair.

  But she got up out of it and began walking across the room.

  ‘Hold her down!’ he ordered sharply.

  And like puppets on strings, some of the other comrades moved into action. There was a certainty to their movements, borne of strength in numbers. Like a pack of wolves, they grabbed Leanne and pinned her to the ground.

  AB swiftly straddled Leanne as the others held her down for him. She struggled, but it was hopeless. As hard as he possibly could, AB punched Leanne’s face with both his hands, over and over again.

  I watched from the sidelines, trying to conceal my true feelings of horror and dismay.

  ‘The fascists have got inside her!’ AB declared in excitement. He was never one to back down from a fight with the BFS.

  The other women held her more firmly at his words. If the fascists were inside them, I guess they’d have wanted the comrades to do the same.

  Even as I watched, my eyes on stalks of unblinking terror, Leanne’s pretty face, normally so full of light, began to turn black, the skin around her eyes shaded by the constant strike of Bala’s blows. I felt sick, but I couldn’t show it. I couldn’t cry out, I couldn’t help her: I could do nothing but watch.

  It was the most chilling thing I had ever seen. Leanne was slammed to the ground while AB gloried in the punishment. The sound of his fist against her face; her wounded cries; the other comrades’ hot, quick breaths … I found I couldn’t bear it. A warm stream of urine trickled down my leg as I stood there, frightened as a rabbit by what I was seeing, my mind racing just as fast as my heart.

  I knew, in my head, that this was for Leanne’s own good. Why, then, was every atom in my body screaming that this was wrong?

  I thought it must be because I was bad that I couldn’t see the light. There was something wrong with me – there must be, when everyone else I knew believed this action to be correct. I had been told time and again that AB’s practical love was a sign of his goodness: something beautiful to behold.

  But try as I might, as I watched Leanne’s face becoming bloody and bruised beneath AB’s fists, to me it looked nothing but ugly.

  ‘Even if it doesn’t appear right to you, it is right,’ the comrades always murmured. ‘AB knows everything. Just have faith, Comrade Prem. There will come a time when you will understand why it is right.’

  What is wrong with me? I worried. I should love AB more purely than anyone; I had been born into the Collective. But from an early age all I could remember was disliking him. As a very small child, before I knew better, I had once even said aloud, ‘I don’t like Comrade Bala.’ I’d been punished, of course.

  Why, I thought, all this time later, can I still not bring myself to worship him with all my heart?

  I just had to be patient, I promised myself. I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to watch any more. One day I would learn.

  5

  I sang our revolutionary songs in praise of Bala even louder after that. It wasn’t hard to remember the need for devotion as, for weeks afterwards, Leanne’s face boasted bruises that warne
d of the dangers of going against AB. So violent had the beating been that she was forced to take several weeks off work. In my diary, AB’s ‘heroic struggle’ against her was faithfully recorded. He talked of it often, proudly: ‘Remember the time Leanne ran into my fist?’

  We sang songs for AB every morning in the Collective: ‘AB’s Got the Whole World in His Hands’, ‘Shit on Britannia’ and ‘Death to England’, ‘Integrate with AB’s Eternal Spirit’. We sang songs about destroying the old world and building the new world, songs about how ‘uniquely resolute’ AB was, songs in praise of AB’s India. I did not get the chance to listen to any other music at that time, so in some ways it was fun.

  I tried my hardest, too, to concentrate in Discussions. This was held morning and night, for hours at a time; Leanne and Cindy had to participate after work even if they were dead on their feet.

  ‘Discussions’ was a bit of a misnomer: it was a daily monologue from AB. We all stood in a circle (I was permitted, as a child, to sit) and kept our eyes glued to his face while he talked. If anyone looked down or was even caught blinking, he would shout at them or slap them. The women were often tired, as all the comrades kept to a punishing schedule of chores, and on occasion one of them would nod off where she stood as AB’s monotonous voice droned on and on. After a few seconds, she’d jerk upright, disorientated, desperately hoping he hadn’t noticed – but, at times, it was AB’s stinging palm itself that had startled her awake.

  There was no structure to the talks. AB discussed himself, current affairs, his plans for the new world. What I remember most clearly, however, and what happened most often, were his personal attacks on the women. He would denounce them repeatedly, for he believed they needed to tear up all sense of self and annihilate their personalities. He would denigrate their past experiences, mock their former joys, castigate them for the very things that had previously made them them.