The year I turned eight, Toby Knight was elected to parliament in a shock by-election result. Apparently, before I was born, he’d been an actor in TV shows I’d never heard of, and then, when the acting roles started to dry up, he started a whole new career Saying The Unsayable on social media. He supported the death penalty. He wanted to ban all immigration. He believed that if you didn’t love this country you didn’t deserve citizenship of it. Some people said he was an extremist. Some said he was a future Prime Minister. Some said he was a joke. I know all this now, but I don’t remember any of it. Why would I? What I remember from that year is us moving from the old flat where Dad and I had lived with Mum into our new house where I had a big bedroom and a garden to play in. And Mischa’s roller disco birthday party where she wore sequin hot pants and concussed herself. And most of all I remember brand-new baby Billie, with her black curls and her dark eyes that looked at me like she knew all my secrets and found them fascinating.
I do remember how upset Claudia was when he was elected though. Before the election she’d strapped tiny Billie to her front and travelled to support the candidate who stood against him. She didn’t belong to a political party herself. She just knew someone like Toby Knight had no place in parliament, she said.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘I don’t want my baby growing up in the world that man wants to create,’ Claudia said. ‘I want her to grow up in a world where she’s safe and valued and so is everyone else.’
This got my attention. I doted on Billie and couldn’t bear the thought of anything that might harm her.
‘He’s going to be a backbench MP,’ Dad said. ‘He’s not going to have any actual power, Claud. They thought he’d get them some good press for once because he’s famous and he’s well connected in the media, but even half his own party hate him and what he stands for. He’ll soon get fed up with it anyway and be off to do something more lucrative. He’ll be gone by the next election. Guaranteed.’
The year I was twelve, I remember the skateboard I got for Christmas and the grazes on my knees and elbows from practising flips and tricks Danny tried to teach me. I remember Dad and Claudia and me taking Billie to her first day of pre-school in a little gingham dress that was too big for her and those patent shoes with the buckles and ankle socks, and she honestly looked cuter than anyone’s kid sister has ever looked before or since. And every day when we asked her what she did there she’d say, ‘I can’t remember,’ or ‘Stuff,’ and it would drive Claudia mad. But Dad just laughed and said, ‘A girl’s gotta have her secrets, Claud. What happens in nursery stays in nursery, right, B?’
That was the year of the stadium bombings. Toby Knight became Prime Minister, elected not by the public but by his own party, after the previous Prime Minister resigned in disgrace and political chaos reigned. An unprecedented rise to power, the TV news said. But these were unprecedented times. As Home Secretary he’d shown real leadership in the wake of the stadium bombings, his supporters said. It had proved his point about immigration, he claimed. When was this country going to wake up to the fact that it was allowing its enemies to be welcomed with open arms?
Dad was angry. Claudia was upset. I was confused.
‘Why do people even like him?’ I asked.
Claudia thought about this. ‘I want to tell you it’s because they’re stupid or evil,’ she said. ‘And some of them probably are. But it’s more complicated than that.’
‘Is it though?’ Dad said.
‘He’s very good at convincing people that they’ve lost something,’ Claudia said. ‘People want to believe he can take them back to how things were in the past. It feels safer there.’
‘Yeah, an imaginary past where everything was perfect,’ Dad muttered.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Claudia said. ‘Makes it more powerful if anything.’
It didn’t matter that the lost past was imaginary. Things being imaginary doesn’t make you care about them less. I understand that now.
‘So people think he’ll give them back all the lost things?’ I said, vaguely imagining them all jumbled up in a heap that smelt of feet like the Lost Property cupboard at school. ‘That’s why they like him?’
‘Some really believe he will,’ Claudia said. ‘Or hope he will. I think secretly most know he can’t, but they don’t care.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he tells them they’re right to be angry about the lost things. And he’ll give them someone to blame. Someone to punish.’
‘Who?’ I said, uneasy.
Claudia shrugged. ‘Others. Outsiders. “Them”. There’s always a Them.’
‘But who are they?’
Claudia smiled bleakly. ‘Whoever he tells us they are.’
She was right, of course. Toby Knight brought in Community Surveillance, so that people were rewarded for reporting on ‘suspicious activity’ in their communities. Everyone had to have ID cards. Teachers, doctors, social workers were punished if they didn’t report on people they thought might not have the right to be in the country. Anyone whose parents or grandparents had been born in another country could be stripped of their citizenship if they committed a crime. ‘That’s just the start,’ Claudia said.
Finally, the law that banned immigration and began the mass deportations was passed.
Europe imposed sanctions.
Scotland declared independence.
The economy crashed and prices soared.
There were riots.
Toby Knight gave himself new emergency powers to deal with the growing unrest, the ‘threat to the decent people of this country’.
And then—
Then it was the summer after my fifteenth birthday, the day Claudia had found the letter waiting for her on the doormat, and everything was about to change.
The golden sunshine of my birthday had been the start of a heatwave and the summer weeks had stretched long and hot. Not lazy and golden, though. The summer had been uncomfortably hot, parched and tense. Lawns and parks crisped to hay. Train tracks buckled and tarmac melted. Motorway verges blazed. There were wildfires on the moors that no one could put out.
The curfews were relaxed, then tightened, then relaxed again, as the official Terrorist Threat Level rose, fell, rose again. No one really knew why. There were stories in the media about terror plots, attacks on schools, famous landmarks, football matches that had supposedly been foiled. Dad said it certainly was a coincidence that every single one of these stories all got reported in media owned by Knight’s friends.
‘So none of it’s true?’ I asked.
‘I’m not saying there aren’t terrorist plots,’ Dad said. ‘There always have been, my whole life. But put it this way: it suits Toby Knight if the public want him to have greater powers to protect them from terror attacks.’
On and on the weeks stretched, hotter and hotter, tighter and tighter until they felt like they would snap.
My room was at the top of the house in what had been the loft. I loved it, but in winter it got cold and in summer it got hot and airless.
We sat in the front garden under the tree in the afternoon because the shade fell on the pavement side. We watched the heat shimmer off the road, and sucked ice cubes we’d made out of lemon squash because ice lollies were so expensive. Everything was so expensive. Toby Knight gave a speech saying are we really not prepared to make a few small sacrifices to stand up for what’s right, for the good of our country? Think of the sacrifices previous generations made. We must do the same. They played clips of it on all the news for days.
‘I just want a Cornetto,’ I said. ‘Is it really too much to ask?’
‘I just want to be allowed to be a citizen of my own country,’ Claudia said. ‘Is it really too much to ask?’
She’d had the date through for her interview and couldn’t think about much else. She’d spoken to a lawyer friend who told her she should be fine. Yes, she’d gone on protests, she’d argued against government policies, she’d worked with organizations critical of the government. But she didn’t have a criminal record, hadn’t been involved with any illegal groups. ‘Not illegal yet,’ Claudia said. ‘Give it time.’ I’d hear her pacing downstairs late into the night when the rest of us were in bed.
One day while Claudia and Dad were at work I got the sprinkler out for Billie, and we put on our swimsuits and leapt and cartwheeled through its cooling rainbow drops. Only for half an hour because I knew there was a hosepipe ban and we weren’t really supposed to – but it was bliss.
Two days later we got a visit from two Community Guardians in their black uniforms, telling us we’d been reported by neighbours for wasting water. Were our parents in? When I told them no, they asked for our ID cards and although I wanted to say I didn’t think they could do that, because they weren’t actually police or anything, I fetched them anyway. They checked them, nodded. Just a warning this time, but we’d be fined if it happened again. They left a sticker for us to put up in the window. It said THIS COMMUNITY IS GUARDED and it had Toby Knight’s signature at the bottom. I remembered seeing one in the window at Danny’s but I hadn’t known what it was. I put the sticker straight in the bin. I didn’t tell Dad or Claudia. Claudia was so on edge and tired that she’d snap at the smallest thing.
I wondered which neighbours had reported us. I didn’t like to go in the garden after that. I felt like we were being watched. When I told Mischa she said, ‘It’s literally your own garden, babe. Maybe I’ll come round and sunbathe topless. That’ll give the nosy neighbours something to get excited about.’
On the last day of the holidays it was the day of Claudia’s interview and Mischa and I had promised we’d take Billie to the see the flamingos and toucans at the zoo to distract her, but the roads had all been closed off round Camden and the Tube wasn’t running again because of yet another ‘counter-terrorism operation’.
So the cemetery seemed the next best option as it was free and we could walk there and Billie could run on ahead and do her bird spotting while we chatted.
‘I can’t believe it’s the last day of the summer holidays and you two are making me spend it in a cemetery,’ I said.
‘We love the cemetery,’ Mischa said. ‘Ignore her, Billie. It’s got everything. Angels and ghosts for me. Birds and… nature stuff for B.’
‘Me and Dad saw a firecrest once,’ Billie told her seriously.
‘Cool,’ Mischa said. ‘That’s a dragon, right?’
‘Bird,’ Billie said, as if a dragon in a graveyard was no less likely. ‘And there’s rare moths.’
‘Exactly.’ Mischa put her arm round Billie. ‘Rare. Moths.’
‘What about for me?’ I said. ‘What do I get?’
‘You get us.’ Mischa smiled. ‘What more do you want?’
She knew I didn’t really mind. The cemetery was a grand old Victorian one, with ivy and statues and paths that disappeared into the trees. Mischa liked to go there so I could take pictures of her looking dramatic next to gravestones. It was surprisingly peaceful once you were in there, like another world, still and timeless. You almost forgot the city existed just beyond the walls.
‘Danny’s obviously got better things to do than spend time with us,’ Mischa said. ‘Again.’
‘He’s with his new friends,’ I said, hoping the bitterness in my voice sounded ironic.
It wasn’t. The truth was we had lost Danny that summer. We knew it really, but we weren’t ready to accept it.
‘Summer and Kyle and that lot?’ Mischa said.
‘Of course.’
We sat in silence for a bit, listening to crickets in the long grass. When Danny had first started hanging out with them we’d assumed he’d realize pretty quickly how awful they were and come back to us. It hadn’t worked out like that. He’d joined a Community Guardians youth programme with them. He said they did first aid, boot camps, volunteering, learned about social issues, did online workshops and discussions. ‘Indoctrination,’ Mischa said. Danny laughed. ‘Mischa,’ he said, ‘seriously? You shouldn’t believe all that conspiracy crap. It’s more like the scouts than a cult! And they’ve got us extra help for my mum too.’
He didn’t talk to us about it after that. In fact he didn’t talk to us about anything much because we never saw him except at school and he didn’t hang out with us there any more.
‘I just don’t get it,’ Mischa said. ‘I mean, he must actually like them.’
‘You know Kyle actually boasts about how many people he’s reported on who’ve then been arrested?’
Mischa shook her head. ‘Kyle’s a dick. He always has been, ever since primary school. He’s a bully, basically. Summer’s not like that. She genuinely believes all the Toby Knight stuff. Her dad works for him or something. You know she took Danny to one of his rallies?’
‘A Knight rally? Seriously?’
‘Yep. He posted about it.’
‘Do you think he likes Summer? I mean… likes her?’
I sighed. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
Mischa looked at me sideways. ‘You wouldn’t mind, would you? I mean, you wouldn’t feel jealous?’
Everyone knew that Danny had had a thing for me for a while. Mischa always joked we’d get married one day and she’d be the maid of honour and best man and upstage us all. Danny had always been just a friend to me, but I couldn’t deny that the thought of him with someone else was jarring, especially if that someone was Summer. His excuses not to meet up with us stung. I missed him.
‘You know what he’s like. He’s just friends with everyone. He wants to be liked.’ I still hoped he’d see sense and things would go back to how they were.
Mischa shook her head. ‘Who wants to be liked by them?’
‘I think he just sees the best in people.’
‘There isn’t any best to see in Kyle, even with a microscope.’
Billie came running back down the path towards us.
‘What are you talking about?’ she said.
‘Boring school stuff,’ I said, because Billie loved Danny.
‘Look!’ she said. ‘I found a feather!’
She held it up like a trophy. It was bright blue and when we looked at it more closely we saw it had rainbow light reflecting in it.
‘Wow, B,’ I said. ‘Where did you find that? It looks like it’s come from some magical eagle or something.’
‘It’s from a magpie,’ she said, as though it was obvious.
‘Aren’t they black and white?’
‘Not if you look closely.’
‘Look out for more,’ Mischa said. ‘I could stick some in my hair.’
‘Okay.’
She ran off again.
‘So when will you find out about Claudia?’ Mischa said once Billie was out of earshot.
‘The interview’s this afternoon.’
‘But it’ll be okay, right? I mean, it’s Claudia. They can’t just decide anyone they feel like isn’t a citizen any more.’
‘Dad says they’re just doing it to scare people, so people won’t risk speaking out in case they get detained or deported or whatever. He says they won’t actually do it, though. It’s just Toby Knight trying to silence his opponents because there’s an election next year and he knows he’s going to lose.’
Claudia thought Dad was being complacent. ‘You’re part of that world,’ I’d heard her say to him a couple of nights ago when they didn’t realize I was there. ‘You journalists, you’re too caught up in the day-to-day drama. It’s like a game. You think ultimately everyone plays by the rules. But I’m telling you, Knight’s different. He doesn’t care about the rules. He doesn’t care about the chaos. You can’t see the big picture of what’s really happening. Maybe you don’t even want to.’
There’d been more but I put my earbuds in so I didn’t have to hear it, but even so I’d heard doors being slammed.
I’d never known Dad and Claudia to fight like that. Echoes of other arguments I’d forgotten about, half-heard as I’d lain in bed at the old flat, emerged from the dark. Mum yelling. The crash of objects thrown at walls. The sick unhappy feeling felt familiar as it settled in my stomach again.
‘So your dad definitely thinks he’ll lose the election?’ Mischa said.
‘He’s sure of it.’
‘Good,’ Mischa said. ‘My mum’s threatening to go and live on my grandparents’ farm in Poland if things carry on like this. And I’m telling you right now, that is not happening.’
‘Are you coming?’ Billie called. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘We’re coming,’ Mischa said.
We followed Billie along the path that wound through the trees and stones and bones.
In the dark of the shelter dormitory I carefully take out the blue feather from under my pillow and brush it against my face. In the dark it feels like the touch of a ghost.
Claudia had come back from her interview shellshocked.
‘They knew all this stuff about me,’ she said. ‘ “Evidence”, they called it.’
‘What stuff?’ I said. ‘Evidence of what?’
Claudia was the most law-abiding person I knew. She stuck to the speed limit, she didn’t park on double yellow lines; she once made Mischa and I go to the police station to hand in a £20 note we found on the pavement.
‘I’m black and I’m a woman and I’ve worked bloody hard to get where I am,’ she said when I’d teased her about it once. ‘I’m not giving anyone even the tiniest excuse to take it away from me.’ I felt stupid then, like it was obvious if only I’d thought about it.
‘And they had records of comments I’ve posted on social media, even stuff from years ago. Protests I’ve been on, petitions I’ve signed. They’d gone through my financial records, made notes of when I’d been in debt, or claimed benefits. All my contacts, phone calls I’ve made, location data… Really sinister, intrusive stuff.’
‘Is that even legal?’
‘Yup,’ she said. ‘Emergency Surveillance Powers. Supposedly to stop terrorists or people who are a threat to the state. But in reality to stop anyone you don’t like. The worst thing was they’d got testimonies from colleagues. People I thought liked me. I’d said in a meeting last year I believed it was our duty to treat a patient in need even if they didn’t have the right paperwork. All that got reported back. Like it was a crime.’
Claudia had appealed the decision, but in the meantime she wasn’t allowed to work until she heard whether her appeal was successful. So now she was waiting, stuck at home, going slightly crazy. She’d cooked and frozen batches of soup and chilli, pies and patties, Yorkshire puddings and curries, until the freezer was full. She’d alphabetized everything in the house: books, Dad’s old CDs, records. Dad, trying to lighten the mood, joked that he expected to come home and find the food in the cupboard lined up by sell-by date. He was worried all the tension in the house would affect Billie. But Claudia hadn’t laughed.
‘Glad you think all this is funny,’ she snapped.
‘I don’t, Claud,’ Dad said. ‘You know I don’t.’
I knew he was worried now, but he still thought it would be okay, that the appeal would be successful.
‘How come all this stuff isn’t in the papers?’ I said. ‘Why aren’t you writing about it?’
But Dad had his own problems. His paper was about to be taken over by a businessman who just happened to be an old schoolfriend of Toby Knight.
After the cooking and the cleaning and organizing, Claudia started writing lists. I didn’t know what they were lists of. She filed them in ring-binders.
She talked to Billie about her own mum, who had died before Billie was born, and about her grandparents, who’d come to London from Jamaica way back when. She showed her pictures of them and spent evenings poring over family albums.
Some of Claudia’s friends came round to see how she was. Some didn’t.
‘You certainly find out a lot about people at times like this,’ she said.
I mainly tried to keep out of her way. I felt bad, but it was too easy to say the wrong thing.
One day when I got home from school I found Claudia in the kitchen, restlessly folding ironing while muttering at the radio. I made myself some toast as quickly as I could and tried to escape.
‘Can you tidy up after yourself for once please?’ she snapped as I went to leave. ‘I’ve just cleaned this kitchen. Is it really too much to ask?’
‘Okay, okay,’ I said. ‘I was going to do it after.’
I wiped the crumbs off the side, put the butter back in the fridge. Claudia snapped off the radio. ‘There,’ I said, glaring at her, then noticing how tired she looked. ‘I was going to make tea,’ I lied. ‘Do you want some?’
Claudia looked at me and half-smiled apologetically. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I know I’m not exactly great company right now. It’s just the waiting. I’m not really sleeping. I can’t stop thinking about the appeal and that bloody interview.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ I said.
‘And you’re a legal expert, are you?’ Claudia said, then put her hands over her face for a second. ‘Sorry. Sorry. Ignore me.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s not surprising you’re stressed.’
‘I shouldn’t take it out on you though, Clem.’ She tried to smile. ‘Tell me about normal things. How are you? How’s Mischa? How’s Danny?’
‘Oh, they’re fine.’
‘Yeah? Danny hasn’t been round here in a while. You haven’t fallen out or anything?’
‘He’s busy,’ I said. ‘You know. He has to do a lot for his mum.’
Claudia put the pile of folded ironing into the basket and looked at me.
‘It can be hard when friends move on,’ she said, because annoyingly she always seemed to know what I wasn’t telling her. ‘But it usually means you didn’t have as much in common as you thought.’
‘Who said he’s moved on?’ I snapped. ‘Anyway, I don’t really want to talk about it.’
She held her hands up. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Sorry. It’s not my business. I just want you to know, I know I’m preoccupied at the moment and not in the best mood… but I’m here if you want to talk, okay?’
‘I do know,’ I said, but somehow it came out wrong, like Why would you think I want to talk to you? I didn’t mean it to but somehow it always did. I wished that Claudia didn’t always try so hard to be a Great Parent™ and that I didn’t always end up pushing her away. I knew that I loved her and that she loved me, but in the way that you know a place if you’ve read about it in a book instead of seeing it for yourself. It was a careful, learned sort of love. It was a coat that had to be put on, that sometimes felt so big it swamped me and other times just a bit too tight so that I couldn’t quite move in it properly. It took concentration, from both of us. Sometimes I wondered what would happen if we stopped concentrating.
Billie assumed we loved each other as totally and as effortlessly as she loved both of us. It was Billie who bound us together, from the day she was born. Billie made everything simpler with Claudia and me. We each knew the other would do anything for her.
‘Do you want me to go and get Billie from Sakura’s for you?’ I said, an awkward peace offering.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s fine. I could do with a walk.’
‘Shall I walk with you?’ I said, trying to convince either Claudia or myself that I wasn’t a total bitch.
Claudia smiled. ‘I’d like that.’
She paused. ‘Clem?’
I looked round at her.
‘If anything happens… I mean if the appeal doesn’t work out—’
‘It will.’
‘Okay. But if it doesn’t, and I’m not here… If things get dangerous—’
‘Dangerous?’
‘I’m not saying they will,’ she said. ‘But if they do, I want you and Billie to get out of London. I thought maybe you could go and stay with your grandpa.’
‘With Grandpa?’ I was surprised. Claudia and Grandpa had only met a couple times and not for ages.
‘I was just thinking you’d be safe there.’ The words came out in a tumble, the manic edge of the cooking and list-making returning. ‘It’s just an idea. But we’re a bit lacking in relatives, me and your dad. And it’s such a sleepy little village, isn’t it? And you and he were always so close when you were little. I know he’d take good care of you and he’s a good man. He’d take you both in. He might even appreciate the company now he’s on his own. And Billie would love it, wouldn’t she? You know how she always goes on about wanting to live in the countryside.’
Claudia’s intensity was unnerving.
‘Have you talked to Dad about this?’
She half-smiled again. ‘You know what he’s like. Relentlessly optimistic about everything. He thinks I’m overreacting.’
She paused.
‘You do too,’ she said. ‘I know. Maybe I am. Maybe you could mention it to your grandpa if you speak to him.’
‘Okay,’ I said, but only to make the conversation stop. Claudia was freaking me out. ‘I’ll call him. But I can never get through to him these days and he never gets in touch with me. I haven’t spoken to him for ages.’
Claudia took my hand and squeezed it. ‘Thanks, Clem. I just need to know you’ll both be safe. It means a lot to me to know Billie would have you around. I always wished I had a sister. I’m so happy she has you. She couldn’t have a better sister.’
‘Oh,’ I said.
I turned away, feeling myself go red. I hadn’t expected her to say that. I always felt like deep down Claudia thought I was a bit flaky. She was so organized and determined and good at everything. I was so different from her.
‘Thanks,’ I said at last. ‘But don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.’
‘She’s got too much time to think,’ Dad said when I mentioned what Claudia had said about going to Grandpa’s. ‘You don’t need to worry about it, Clem. Claudia’s anxious, understandably, and she’s got too much time to think at the moment. And she loves you and Billie, and she’s worried about the effect all of this is having on you. But you’re not going to have to go anywhere. This is your home.’
Still, I did call Grandpa anyway. It had been ages since we’d spoken and I missed him. Since Granny died, he never called, never texted me with jokes or random weird facts like he used to, or sent me pictures of Merlin, his dachshund. For a while I’d tried calling him, but he never wanted to talk, not like before. He’d sound vague, make excuses and say he’d call back, but he didn’t. I’d tried not to mind but we’d always been so close when I was a kid, especially after Mum. Now I found I felt almost nervous as the phone rang and rang until eventually the answerphone clicked on. I felt a shock of disorientation; it was Granny’s voice, warm and jokey. Grandpa still hadn’t changed it two years on. I imagined Granny’s voice echoing into the hallway in their empty house like a ghost. How much he must miss her. I found I couldn’t leave a message. I’d call him again soon.