This Broken Land Read online

  Gran stands sharply and turns away from me, like she suddenly can’t bear to look at me. “I’ve watched you brainwashed by NuTru for fourteen years. I helped you with your homework and I didn’t say a word at the propaganda as you wrote about the toxic masculinity of the white male or how paedophilia was a legitimate sexual orientation. I didn’t correct you as you learned that all the evils in society were perpetuated by capitalism and Christianity and that Islam was the greatest civilisation in the world. I let you believe that there is no absolute morality and what is right is decided by what makes us happy.”

  “Gran…..?” I reach out for her but this time she bats me away.

  “Leave me be Elsie. I let them destroy your mind with their evil and I’m so sorry.”

  “Evil?” I hate that word. I remember Ms. Peebles scrawling it on the board when I was seven and writing the only evil is sitting in judgement of others. Neil Fraser asked whether it was evil to murder someone, and Ms. Peebles made a funny face, like she was sucking on lemons, and said, we can’t sit in judgement of someone’s actions. If someone has become a murderer, then he probably lacks privilege, which is why we must redistribute privilege as surely as we redistribute wealth. By force if necessary. But we must always be kind. Except if someone was a homophobe, racist or bigot. They were the worst crimes of all and Christians encompassed all three.

  “Gran, if my mother was a Christian then she wasn’t fit to raise me. There’s a reason the government passed that law. I know history Gran, I know how they refused to acknowledge Gay marriage or Polygamy. They went berserk at the Muslims for marrying nine-year-olds, even when nine became the legal age of consent. I read about their campaigns to ruin perfectly legal relationships. And what about paedophilia? Or Same-Sibling marriage? They didn’t like them either! All those poor people having to hide their love behind closed doors like it was something shameful! They were a bunch of bigots! I’m damn glad I’m not one!”

  In twenty years, Gran has never hit me, not once, so when she slaps me it’s a massive shock and I gasp.

  “Your mother was ten times the woman you are! You know nothing about the history of this country, just what they drummed into you in school. We live in a sick, godless society and its getting sicker by the day. Susanna and Baraq wept for this nation, and I weep for you and ignorant children like you.”

  Gran sweeps away from me, stomps up the stairs like she’s crushing ants, and slams her bedroom door.

  Then there’s silence. Gran just assaulted me. That’s illegal. She’s also helping people defy our treaty with the BSI; the repercussions of that could be horrific.

  My Gran, my quiet, don’t-make-a-fuss-dear Gran is a radical.

  I flop back on the sofa and start to sob. How could she defend homophobes and bigots? People fought like tigers for proper civil rights in this country. There’s nothing good about a belief that takes away the rights of whole chunks of society.

  My phone gives a little jump and the lights come on so suddenly I screw up my face. Looks like the electricity’s back. Rubbing my eyes I reach for my phone. I have to tell someone about Gran. I remember all that training at university about how to recognise unacceptable beliefs and what to do about it. Gran needs to talk to someone, a psychiatrist maybe. Could I get her help without explaining what she’s done?

  My mum was a Christian. I can’t quite accept that. It’s like finding out my family were Nazis.

  A fat tear escapes my eye, followed by another one. Do I even know Gran at all? What do I do?

  I’ve never been properly angry before, not when I feel I genuinely want to smash something with my hands. Missy used to get angry. She would go outside and kick the plants and I would watch her, swallowing down any upset deep into my stomach, reminding myself of my promise to Gran, that I would keep any angry feelings closed away in case they were the sort of feelings that might upset someone else.

  In sudden fury I grab the curtains and wrench them from the curtain rail, the whole thing comes out of the plaster, smashing the Japanese antique vase Missy’s parents gave Gran for her fiftieth birthday years ago. The one with the stylised pictures of the waves on it.

  I watch as it shatters to pieces and the pieces land on the floor in a bundle of curtain. The brass curtain rail lands heavily across my face and I yelp and fall backwards, already aware of the bruise forming over my eye. My anger dissipates a little as I sit amongst the broken pieces of a valuable vase, my eye throbbing. Gran’ll be devastated.

  I rub my face, dazed from the blow and I frown. Something silver is poking out from beneath a piece of the vase, a chain I think. It must have been inside it.

  Interested, I creep forwards and pull the chain out of the shattered china. It’s a locket; I’ve never seen it before. It looks old and tarnished. There was something else in the vase too, something thick and papery, I shift a large chunk of what was the base of the vase and stare down at a small book with a tatty, leather cover.

  For a moment I forget about the locket and stare in horror at the book. Even without opening it I know it’s a bible. It’s Hate Speech. It’s illegal.

  Why the Hell is something that could lead to prison hidden in a vase in Gran’s sitting room?

  ~

  ~ Three ~

  Josh

  I detest Sex-Ed. I don’t know whether the rest of the class feel the same, but from the instant I step into the big, comfortable, casually-furnished room and take my place on one of the squashy chairs, I can feel my heart thump harder than it ever does anywhere else.

  Ms. Chalmers has pitch-black hair piled up on top of her head, showing a skinny neck and long, dangly earrings that brush her shoulders. I affect my usual position, with as much as my face covered by my hands as possible.

  There’s a new girl in class today. Sorry, a new student. Just because she seems to look female doesn’t mean she is. Gender is a spectrum, a rainbow.

  She still looks like a girl though, a girl with shiny, deep brown eyes that look as though they’ve been crying a great deal recently.

  “For the benefit of the new member of our class, River Lamont, we’ll recap some of the main points of sexual health.” Ms. Chalmers perches on the edge of her desk, long legs swinging, and addresses the class with the sort of voice one might use to speak with five-year-olds. Nobody in this room is under sixteen.

  River. I wonder if that’s her name or if they made her choose a non gender-specific name when she arrived? I hate the name Skye. I chose it at random from the list they offered. I will always, always be Joshua. Mum chose my name. I whisper it to myself at night. Nobody will ever take it away.

  “Now, sex is as important to our body as any other sort of exercise.” Ms. Chalmers begins her speech the way she often does. All the Sex-Ed teachers say the same thing. I suppose if we hear it enough, we’ll start to believe it.

  “Sex is good for your mind and body, but it’s your responsibility to stay safe, so just like it’s important to wear good trainers to run, it’s important to make sure you’re been tested for STDs every month, that you’re up to date with your HPV and HIV vaccines and that you use birth control if necessary.” She mumbles birth control the way my Auntie Em used to mumble sex. Like she’s ashamed of the word.

  But I worked out a long time ago that it’s not condoms or the pill that upset Ms. Chalmers, it’s the fact that females still get pregnant and males still impregnate them. Whether we identify as men, women or something in between, biology doesn’t. It spoils her doctrine that gender is worthless and we can choose to be male or female just like we choose whether to eat cake or ice-cream.

  Ms. Chalmers sweeps her long, patterned shawl up over her skinny arms and steers River to a chair.

  “So, since you’re new River dear, why don’t you tell us your experiences so far.”

  River’s skin turns crimson. “Um…..I, I’m not sure what you mean?”

  “Well, just like in PE I need to know what sort of level you’re at, for when we put you together wit
h partners or in small groups for the practical exercises.”

  River looks totally horrified. She looks like I feel, only I’ve learned to hide my disgust. Disgust offends people, even if it’s never voiced. Disgust is intolerance unspoken. I remember that slogan.

  “Practical exercises….?” She echoes.

  Ms. Chalmers nods and her earrings rattle. “So where are you, roughly speaking?”

  “Um…..I don’t quite….” River blushes even more and her brown eyes widen. I think she might have dark hair, though it’s difficult to tell with as shaved head.

  “River dear, how many sexual partners have you had? How experienced are you? Masturbation? Oral? Anal? Threesomes? Bondage? You don’t have to go into too many details. I just need to know what you still need to learn.”

  Now River looks even more repulsed. “Nothing.” She says in a strong voice. “I haven’t had sex at all.”

  Ms. Chalmers gazes at River over the top of the narrow spectacles she wears. “You – you’re remedial then? A complete novice?” Ms. Chalmers shakes her head in horror. “How old are you dear?”

  “Eighteen.”

  So River is eleven years younger than me. Ugh, that’s an awful thought, I’ve been here for twenty years. Twenty years of my life being reshaped into an acceptable British citizen.

  “You’re eighteen and utterly inexperienced? Dear oh dear. We’ll have to put you in a special programme I think. Mr. Scott is excellent and bringing students up to speed. I assume you’re at least familiar with basic pornography?”

  Porn, like banking, cannabis farming and football, generates a vast amount of revenue. We’re meant to watch some every night. I hate it. I close my eyes through the whole thing and because it’s dark in the cinema room and half the others have their hands down their pants, nobody notices me. My little act of defiance.

  River’s eyes narrow. “I don’t watch pornography.” She says. Saying, I don’t watch pornography in this room is like saying, I don’t breathe oxygen. The government recommends soft porn from the age of consent upwards, earlier even since it’s apparently good to educate children in case they choose to begin a relationship with an adult. Once a child is nine, they’re expected to show a healthy interest. If mum’s still alive somewhere, she’ll be repulsed at that. The age of consent used to be sixteen, years and years ago, and mum always thought that was too young. They lowered it to twelve, then to nine. I remember the campaigns. #givechildrenthechoice and #kidschoice were everywhere. It was a few months before Paedophilia was legally recognised as a legitimate sexual orientation.

  On the bright side, incidences of child pornography are at a hundred-year low. Making anything over nine legal will have that effect.

  Inside I groan. Am I wrong to be so cynical of a government doing its best to offer people unrestrained freedom?

  “Well dear,” Ms. Chalmers takes out her tablet at types something in. “We can soon bring you up to date there too.”

  “I don’t want to watch pornography.” River says quietly. “I think it’s revolting.”

  The whole class stares at River in shock. Not in horror that someone could be so disparaging of popular entertainment, but they stare with what I think might be respect. Nobody has ever dared admit this to Ms. Chalmers before. Nobody wants to be labelled ineducable. Nobody wants to condemn himself to another twenty years here. Diversity of thought is absolutely unacceptable.

  Ms. Chalmers turns pink and removes her glasses.

  “Do you have some sort of….problem with sex?”

  River shrugs, she’s quite thin I think, beneath her shapeless uniform. A lot of us here are fat. The menu is full of cheap sugars which is why we have a plethora of vitamin tablets every morning. There’s no way what we eat provides us with all our nutritional needs otherwise.

  “I think sex is something special and should be saved for marriage.”

  I haven’t heard anyone admit to that belief for a long time. Ms. Chalmers’ pink face is becoming puce. I don’t think they’ll forcibly take her virginity. They did that once and they faced a lawsuit, even we have some rights over our own bodies. But Ms. Chalmers won’t rest until River agrees to join in Sex-Ed of her own volition. Between Ms. Chalmers and Mr. Scott they’ll probably find a way to convince her she wants to change what she believes.

  I mean, that’s what we’re all here for in the first place, to learn to think the way the government thinks we should think. They call it freedom. I have another word for it entirely.

  “Well dear,” Ms. Chalmers gives River a frosty smile where her red lipstick creeps up the little wrinkles around her mouth like blood. “I understand. It’s hard to let go of those antiquated beliefs. I’ll put you down for extra sessions with one of the psychologists. See if we can’t set you free from some of this shame.” She tuts under her breath. “It’s always the parents’ fault. Probably religious. They have no right doing this sort of damage.”

  “My mother is Diana Lamont.” River says without hesitation. Ms. Chalmers’ face sort of collapses into itself, like her skull has stopped supporting the flesh.

  “Diana Lamont? The Diana Lamont?”

  River nods and holds her head erect. “I have no idea who my father is and neither does my mother. The only parent I’ve ever known is her and she taught me to sleep around like a tart from the minute I turned nine. I’m eighteen! I made my own decision to believe that sex isn’t a recreational sport! She sent me here because she didn’t like that belief, but it’s mine to hold!”

  Wow. Diana Lamont is the Minister for Mental Health and is currently running for leader of the New Truth Democratic party, which means she could be Prime Minister by next week. She was one of the founders of NuTru; she led a ten-year campaign against the Conservative party citing their belief that the family unit mattered as out-of-touch in the modern world. Society is family. That was her motto. She wrote a book about how bad families hurt children and that the answer wasn’t in building better families, but in demolishing the concept of a nuclear family entirely. Not everyone has a family, she used to say in her intense, Irish lilt, but everyone belongs to society. Society must be our family, we must love society more than any parent.

  The one thing Diana Lamont wouldn’t have taught her daughter was to save sex for marriage. She was notorious for sleeping around. Said it was her sport, like tennis. She actually said that.

  We have complete access to News sites here. Celebrities, politicians, TV programmes, they keep us immersed in popular culture, we drown in semi-naked pictures of reality stars and footballers.

  Ms. Chalmers stares at River, still thrown by the girl’s attitude. “I’m terribly sorry my dear.” Her voice becomes softer. “However the damage to your mind has been done, whoever has poisoned you, we can heal it. That’s all we want to do. It isn’t fair that a healthy young person misses out on one of the greatest pleasures of all. That’s why we put so much emphasis on sex in schools, so everyone can get the most out of their bodies. I’ll make you an emergency appointment with Geoff Tarporley this afternoon.” Ms. Chalmers reaches out and squeezes River’s arm. “We can help you dear.”

  I hope River doesn’t say anything else. It’s bad enough showing evidence of what’s known as warped thinking, but if we persist in defending those thoughts, we get upgraded to mental illness and that means drugs.

  There was a time, mum used to say, when homosexuality and paedophilia were both considered mental disorders. One became legal, then normal, then celebrated, the other shifted in definition as nine became the age of sexual consent, then it became legalised after a vicious campaign that convinced everyone it was cruel to withhold sexual pleasure from children. #letkidslovetoo was one of the hashtags.

  But when did believing in God become warped thinking? It’s not like believing in gods is wrong, in fact, every week we attend Awakening Your Spirituality sessions where we explore other faiths. We look at Islam, at Buddhism, at Wicca, at Paganism and the New Age. Christianity isn’t mentioned, alth
ough it’s not banned any more than belonging to the ENP is banned. Very few people admit to being in the English National Party and very few people admit to being Christians, both are considered intolerant, divisive organisations and in both cases, members are shunned by mainstream society. They’re not tortured or imprisoned. They just lose their jobs, reputations and children instead. Oh, how society has progressed.

  “Nobody has poisoned me!” River snaps. “I made a decision and my mother hates it. She thinks a few years here will change me, well it won’t! I’m entitled to my beliefs! Isn’t that what you people are always spouting? That everyone is allowed to believe what they want? Where do you get off deciding what beliefs are warped thinking and what aren’t?”

  River marches to the door, but she doesn’t quite reach the corridor.

  “River Lamont! You do not have the right to leave this room!” Ms. Chalmers’ voice becomes sharper. Nobody is allowed to flout her authority, not here.

  River half turns. “I have the right not to join in with your perverted lesson!”

  “Then you may sit out.” She points to a chair close to the window.

  “I don’t want to have to watch.”

  “Why? Do you disapprove?” I catch my breath. Admitting to disapproval is one step from admitting to being a hater.

  “Of course I disapprove! Treating sex like a game is just wrong!”

  She said it. She actually said something is wrong. Like she believes that right and wrong exist.

  Miss Chalmers is fast losing patience. “So...so you believe everyone who enjoys their sex lives is...wrong? River, you need to think about what you’re saying my dear. Believing that what others do is wrong is a symptom of something much more serious than a little warped thinking. It’s the doorway to hatred and prejudice, and this government has spent decades fighting to eradicate those things. We must never, ever let ourselves believe that we are right and others are wrong.”