Caroline

Gemma hadn’t enjoyed her trip to Birmingham thus far. She hadn’t enjoyed her time in Walsall lately either, but the jury was out as to whether she’d improved her situation by setting out for Liverpool. But with every miserable step she took, she resolved to see it through. Mike had left, and she had left. That was that. It had always been a temporary situation, their stop in Walsall. Just stopping, she recalled, to charge their stolen van. How had it possibly ended up that they’d stayed for two years?

She’d never lived in Birmingham, but as a Londoner she’d taken against it from an early age. It was a predictable British trait, to plant yourself firmly on the opposite side of a dispute with every other town. Londoners enjoyed taking this down to the borough level, and would hurl insults about particular bus routes across football stadia because their rivals happened to be from two miles away.

This all briefly distracted her from the fact that she was lost. They’d apparently gone off signage in the Midlands, and she couldn’t wander up to a police officer and ask where the train station was. So for the past couple of days she’d been wandering through the outskirts of what she believed was Dudley, but could just as easily have been Wolverhampton, but was most certainly not Birmingham, because she hadn’t walked far enough. Tents, piles of rubbish, collapsed terraced homes, abandoned shops. Street after street, all alike, all blended together. But she knew there was a small train station in Tipton, and from there she could ride a few stops to Birmingham New Street, and they’d surely have trains to Liverpool. All this because they wouldn’t let her charge her van. Two years on from her original mission, and energy had become such a luxury the colony couldn’t spare a watt. Another sign from above that she’d made the wrong decision when she stayed.

In spite of their best efforts to hide it, and her best efforts to avoid finding it, before the end of her second day she’d stumbled across it: Tipton Station. It was right where Richard had said it would be, which meant the rest of his directions were likely reliable. Now she just had to get inside. In her mind, and maybe elsewhere in the country, train stations were low-slung brick affairs with some coffee machines and a narrow place to stand and wait for a train. Nothing fancy, very little in the way of safety. Want to step off the edge and face-plant on the track? Sure, they’re fine with that. Why fence it off? Well, here at Tipton it appeared they’d gotten the message.

Gemma stood across the road from what had to be a ten foot high concrete barrier. Through a couple of window slits she could see the brick of the station, set back a bit from the wall. Perfectly preserved. But directly ahead, between herself and a ride away from here, was the new normal. A few cameras were perched at various points, aimed accordingly to ensure maximum coverage, and a sliding chain-link gate blocked the only entrance. Next to the gate sat a sign, something about a rail card which she couldn’t quite make out with her ageing eyes. She’d just wait, she thought to herself. She’d wait here across the road, until someone happened by who knew how this all worked. How quickly could the gate move? There would be plenty of time for her to slip through behind a paying customer. The British Rail network could absorb one non-paying passenger without collapsing into financial ruin.

“Um.” A meek voice from behind her caused her to jolt. “Miss?”

“Jesus Christ.” Gemma turned around with a start. Are you shitting me? She took a half-step back to fully appreciate the girl stood next to her. It was the Victorian ghost from West Brom. Judging from her appearance up close, she must’ve died quite young. She couldn’t have been more than around 22 years old, and it felt like she was half Gemma’s height. “You hear to take me up, then?”

A puzzled expression crept across her cherubic face. “Take you up, miss?”

“I suppose not, then.” Gemma was still baffled by the girl’s costume. Today’s was another polonaise, this time in a burgundy with ruffles, and again with a matching fascinator clipped to her hair. “Christ, it’s you! From the gigs!”

“Oh,” she whispered with a tinge of embarrassment. “Oh heavens.”

“You stalking me?”

The girl gasped. “No! No, miss, no, I would not. I’m not even meant to speak to connies, really.”

“Oi!” Gemma tapped the girl’s arm. The fabric of her ridiculous get-up felt incredible. “That’s an offensive term, you know. First bloody person I meet and they’re anti-itinerant. Fancy that!”

“Terribly sorry, miss. I didn’t know it was offensive.”

Gemma shook her head. Whatever accent this girl was trying for was not coming off. Some sort of quasi-Cockney, quasi-posh abomination. She’d heard it a hundred times in her past life: some artist, embarrassed they were from the estate, doing a dreadful job of putting one on. “Well, now you know.”

“Fucking connies,” tutted a man in a bowler as he strolled past. “More every day ‘round ‘ere.”

“Oi! Again!” Gemma gestured at the man, who had already put a gap between them. “See, you can’t be like that. That is what I am dealing with every day.”

“What are you doing out here, miss?”

She pointed at the rail station just across the road. “I need to get in there.”

“Miss, you need a ring to get in there. And a valid travelcard.”

“I’ll be okay. I’m going to just pop on through the next time it opens.”

The girl shook her head. “I wouldn’t recommend it, miss.”

“Are you going in there? I’ll show you. I’m fast.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, miss. I drove here.”

“But you can get in there.”

“Yes, miss, I can.”

“Go on then.”

The girl’s stress levels were obvious as she tiptoed across the road with Gemma close behind. Up the few steps, and right up to the gate that stood between them and the railway station. This would be the next challenge, of course: figuring out how to board and then ride a train without any identification or form of payment. But that was for her to figure out later. You had to take these things one step at a time, she figured.

“You sure, miss?”

“Yes, bloody hell, pop it open.”

The girl took the last step and the gate slid open. Before she could even step inside, Gemma sidled past her, the freedom of the rail just inches away. The pain was instant and unbelievable as the gate slammed shut with stunning force. Gemma was sent banging into the concrete. Blood soaked through her sneakers as her mark panicked on the other side of the fence. She panted and tears welled in her eyes as rain poured onto her.

“Oh my gosh,” cried the girl.

Gemma wheezed as her vision darkened. Her cries were lost to the rain, her leg throbbed, the sound of boots faded away. “Please, help.” She closed her eyes and listened to rubber and metal tread across pavement. Of course the only one nearby and they’re an anti-itinerant nutter. ‘Course they are. Her defeat was as total as it was predictable. She just wanted to rest here, flat on the ground, until a robot from the National Health Service arrived to humanely euthanise her, or the police arrived to arrest her. It would be easier this way, she figured. To either die here, or to be returned to her life of conscription. She’d been a good worker, and they could find a place for her. Yes, life at the power plant had been good. She’d see her friends again soon.

Everything went black and silent.

The bumps on the road startled her awake. Gemma pressed her hand against the passenger window in a panic as the car moved slowly past rows of coloured tents.

“What the fuck?”

“You’re awake!” That same voice. Gemma shot a look to the driver, who gave a hesitant smile. Christ, that accent, and that round, fresh face. Was it polonaise, again? ”Sorry, I didn’t want to leave you there. You were out cold.”

“What…” She was still damp, though she seemed to have dried quite a bit. How long had it been? Her foot ached. It seemed to have had a clean bandage freshly applied.

“Sorry, gosh, I’m so sorry. Warned me, they did, you might find this all a bit disorienting, ‘specially with the pain killers. Tried to wake you a few times.”

“Who?” Gemma felt walled off inside her own mind. Dazed, dull. Her eyes drifted in and out of focus. “What?”

“Sorry! The medic. I rang RapiMed, they sorted you right out. Even loaded you in the car for me.”

“RapiMed…” Even in her state, the name stuck out to Gemma: the exorbitant-priced private health service. She’d seen them arrive in two minutes to put a hungover drummer on an IV drip, revive a catatonic executive after some bad coke, or set a broken leg after some junior fell sideways into a swimming pool. Inaccessible even at Gemma’s pre-incarceration income bracket, and indistinguishable from magic to the likes of a conscript. They might as well have cast Heal Wounds.

“I’m Caroline, by the way?” She was glancing quickly between Gemma and the windscreen. The car was navigating a tricky bit of road, a patchwork of makeshift homes and people uninterested in allowing them to pass. It was a live-and-let-live approach: they felt no obligation to make it easy for you to get by, and you felt no obligation to force the car into over-ride and plow through everyone.

“Gemma.” She pressed herself back into the plush leather. “Thank you.”

“Oh it’s my pleasure, miss.”

The car bumped along as Gemma drifted in and out of her medicated haze. She pressed her face pressed against the cool glass, and watched as each rain drop traced its own path down the window. A part of her would sometimes wonder where she was going, or why this stranger had seen fit to pick her up. But most of her was grateful for the rest, and none of her was in any position to argue.

By the time she regained a sense of self, the car was sandwiched between two sets of locking metal gates. She threw her hands against the nearest hard surfaces and sat up straight.

“Awful, isn’t it,” said Caroline. “Can tell it’s an election year, yeah? Everyone’s so worried about security. Council spent all this money on these gates, terrible waste.” Caroline grimaced, then looked out the window at a flat black dome. After a couple of red flashes, the dome illuminated blue and the gate ahead of them slid open. The clouds seemed to part. Sunshine flooded the empty tree-lined street as they rolled forward. “Anyroad, welcome to Moseley.”

“Moseley? Are we in Cornwall? How long was I out?”

“…no, miss, it’s in Birmingham. I promise, we’ve not gone far.”

Gemma’s mind spun out as her pulse quickened. She had no reason to trust this woman, did not ask for her help, and did not know where she’d been taken. And who gave those bloody medics the permission to drug her?

“Look, …” Gemma trailed off.

“Caroline.”

“Caroline, I really need to know where you’re taking me. I’m supposed to be…”

“Just here, we’re here.” She flashed another quick grimace as the car turned up a drive. A massive multi-story brick house stood hiding behind a couple of larch, a garage to one side.

“Christ on a bike,” Gemma muttered to herself. The door to the garage lurched open to allow the car inside, then quickly slammed shut behind them. The weight of the closure shook both the car and Gemma’s nerves.

“Come in, please. It’s all right, I promise!”

Caroline bounded out of the car with a youthful energy Gemma had no chance of matching even before her leg got caught in the fence. In fact, it was only now she wondered whether she could even put weight on it at all. She pushed the button to release the door and gingerly began to lift her foot. She knew something was wrong. Whispers of pain muffled by medication. She set it down anyway, her weight landing on it as she tried to pull herself out of the car seat. And then came the scream.

“Oh my gosh, right.” Caroline flew into a panic.

“May need to stay here for a while,” Gemma deadpanned. She looked over to see Caroline was gone. She was now alone, in a stranger’s car, sealed into that stranger’s garage. Unable to stand, let alone walk. “It’s been, what, two days. Two days on the road and you’ve broken your bloody ankle and been kidnapped by a girl with a fake accent.”

“The passenger door is ajar,” the car replied.

“Christ. I don’t suppose you can drive me to Liverpool.”

“Apologies, I don’t recognise you.”

Gemma sighed and closed her eyes. She was starting to wish the gate at the train station had simply killed her.

Caroline had somehow produced a wheelchair, and soon Gemma had found herself inside the relative safety of this palatial detached home. Being from London the scale of this place was unbelievable – the kind of thing you knew existed in various neighbourhoods around the city, but they were all either ten million pound fortresses with mile high walls and heavy defences, or they’d been torn asunder by dozens of squatters. Gemma preferred the squatters if she had to pick, but at no point in her life had either been an option for her.

But now she laid on a sofa observing this girl, Caroline, who somehow lived in one – though granted it wasn’t in London but in Moseley. Wherever the fuck that was. Gemma had seen no signs of anyone else thus far, but assumed Caroline could not possibly live here alone. She looked around mid-twenties, with bright eyes and short perfectly-trimmed blonde hair, and there was something about the way she was dressed that gave her a very old-world feel. A flowing crimson blouse with a pleated skirt, a belt made of ribbon cinched around her narrow waist, and some kind of choker-esque accessory around her neck that seemed to evoke a ruffled collar. Gemma was at a loss as to whether this was actually in fashion or if Caroline had come up with it herself. Given the affected accent, she assumed it was the latter.

The sitting room they were in seemed to trend toward this same neo-Victorian vibe: high ceilings, ornate wooden cabinets, complicated rugs, and gold floor-to-ceiling drapery across the massive front window. And there was Caroline, sat behind a writing desk, her eyes glazed and her mouth slightly agape. She held a quill in her hand and carefully traced something onto a scrap of paper. A bloody quill. An inkwell sat on the corner of the desk. Sociopathic behaviour. Gemma had to get out of here. But her leg was in shambles, currently propped up on a pile of pillows at the end of the sofa, and she had little clue where she was or what she was doing here.

“Sorry, I’ve been lost in my calligraphy,” Caroline said as she dropped the quill onto the desk. “It’s 4 p.m. That’s when I do my calligraphy practice. How are you? Are you in pain?”

Gemma wasn’t in pain, really. But something held her back from answering, and she chose to stay silent. Caroline smiled through the confusion then disappeared from the room. She quickly returned with a pill.

“Here you go, to be safe. I’ll just leave a couple of these here. Wait an hour for the first, the man said, and then a second if it’s still hurting. You can rest on the sofa as long as you need. The guest room’s upstairs, but we can sort out getting you up there later. We’ve got guest ear muffs and sleep masks, all the lot. I can’t sleep a wink unless I’m blocking out all noise and light, but that’s just me miss, it’s entirely up to yourself of course.”

“Guest room?” Gemma tried to be forceful without seeming ungrateful. It was a high wire act. “It’s very nice, what you’re doing. I do appreciate it, really. I just, don’t bloody know who you are, or where I am, or whether you’re going to tie me to a bed and go at my legs with a hammer. Know what I mean? No offence.”

“Don’t be daft.” Caroline tutted. “I’ve got a few bits to tend to upstairs, then I’ll be down to keep you company, alright?” And before Gemma could reply, Caroline had once again slipped from the room. She heard the creaking of stairs soon after, then footsteps above her. This was her chance. Nobody minding her, or guarding her, depending on whether she thought this was voluntary. She just needed to get up and walk out the front door. She didn’t even need to steal Caroline’s car, not if she didn’t want to anyway. It was a surprising amount of trust being placed in her. Or was it a test? The paranoia thrummed maddeningly. Years of conscription, and the industry before that, had stripped from her the ability to accept a kindness. It was always quid pro quo.

The pain in her ankle didn’t care about any of this. It had inserted itself into the conversation. And more than a departure, or an escape, or a trip to Liverpool, it wanted that little yellow pill on the side table. Soon Gemma had taken it between her fingers. She rolled it between them and stared while the ghost of a grandfather clock signalled the passing of another half-hour.

It passed down her throat without need of water. She’d see this out, Gemma had decided, at least for the night. A guest room sounded like a tantalising prospect after months in that club basement in Walsall and the last couple of nights sleeping outside. A bliss of numbness cascaded through her. The disquieting thoughts of Caroline were pulled beneath, tucked away for later. She closed her eyes and slid the second pill between her lips.

Gemma awoke to find Caroline sat on the ottoman staring at her. Deep down she wanted to leap out of her skin, and she pictured herself barrelling past the odd girl and out into the garden. But her arms, her legs, her eyelids, all felt so heavy. The most she could muster was an otherworldly groan. Caroline’s expression was unnerving, inscrutable, and she was far too close.

“Goodness, you caught me. Sorry, I was worried. Was making sure you was breathing.”

“I’m breathing, I’m breathing.” Her body felt impossible to operate, but her mind had cleared somewhat. “Caroline?”

“That’s me! At your service.” From inscrutable, straight to affable. The girl was cloaked in a red flag.

“Great.” She figured she might as well ask, finally. “What am I doing here?”

Caroline frowned. “Oh my, have you forgotten? You took a pretty bad blow to the head, I do think. Do you remember the train station?”

“Yes, I bloody remember…” She steadied herself. “I remember the train station. I made some bad choices. And now I’m here, I believe because you made some bad choices.”

“Helping people’s never a bad choice, miss.”

“Right.” Christ, Gemma thought. This is a religious thing, isn’t it? Physical violence was an option. At least she knew Caroline had decent health coverage. “Well, you should be careful. You don’t know anything about me.”

Caroline squirmed. “Yes, miss, you’re right of course.”

Gemma managed to push herself up off the sofa and into a seated position. “What…” Pins and needles assailed her arms, and blood rushed to her head. The room spun and she threw herself back against the stiff green upholstery. “Where…”

“Oh! Your things? I collected them, don’t you worry.” Caroline gestured to the corner of the room, just behind the desk. Gemma’s guitar case leaned against the wall.

Gemma snorted as she let herself collapse back onto the sofa, her body both unwilling and unable to cooperate with a quick departure. She pointed at the guitar case and shook her head. “That’s rubbish anyway. Could bin it if I wasn’t so bloody sentimental. Mostly just wood splinters and metal.”

“Oh, no!” Caroline was gutted. Her empathy bordered on psychopathy. “That won’t do, I’m so sorry. You don’t have any clothes? Or another of…”

“What, another guitar?” Gemma cackled. “I’m not hiding anything up my arse, love. What you see is what I’ve got.” She sighed and, through great effort, got to her feet. The pain in her ankle tried to scream, but was suppressed by the medication. She would’ve worried about long-term damage if she bothered to worry about the future at all. Caroline put her hands out in a mild panic, ready for Gemma’s inevitable fall. “I mean I’m homeless, kid.”

“You’re not homeless,” Caroline said. “You’ve got a home here.”

Gemma stared at Caroline and sized her up as best she could. “This is fucking batty,” she groaned. “Why me, kid?”

An intense flash crossed Caroline’s face, another unsettling glimpse. It quickly swapped for a tight smile, and Caroline bounded off down the hallway. Any protest this situation warranted was impossible; the painkillers were a weighted blanket that made every thought work that much harder to escape. Instead she’d go along, a passenger on a dark ride, and just hope it was the gentle kind.

Caroline was all too excited to give a tour of the house, the inside of which was even more surreal than the outside. It was room after room of gaudy, neo-Victorian décor that looked more like a film set than where someone might live. It was, however, an impressively performed tour, with explanations and call-outs that made Gemma assume she’d in fact been kidnapped by an agent of the National Trust. Every room had some fact–the study with its double-reclaimed wood, the den with an armoire that dated back to the Glorious Revolution, the stairwell with a painting of someone called Norman Conquest. The more they toured the more Gemma’s uneasiness built, until they reached the threshold of the door to the garden.

“The garden,” Caroline started, “used to be wild, until about ten years ago. The stone pavers leading back to the…”

“Right, no, let’s stop it here,” Gemma blurted out. “What the hell is this?”

“What?” Caroline looked mortified. “It’s our garden.”

“No, no, all of it. My being here, the tour, the opulence, the Anglo-Saxon bloody credenzas.”

“I’m sorry, miss. It’s weird, isn’t it? I’m being weird. I watched my mum give this tour dozens of times.”

“What?”

“She’s an estate agent. My mum. Mum and dad have been trying to sell the house.” Her eyes were saucers, and her lip seemed to quiver. “Come on, I promise it’s worth it.” Before Gemma could respond Caroline had flung open the double doors and breezed into the garden, which in typical English fashion was an affront to nature. Tiny patches of non-native grass boxed in by concrete, an artificial path running down the middle of the long narrow space, high walls lining both sides and stone pavers leading to a summer house at the very back.

Gemma hobbled down the path after Caroline, who had quite literally run away from the situation. By the time she caught up Caroline was stood in the open doorway, arms spread as wide as her smile.

“Tada!”

The room stunned her into silence. Three walls covered floor to ceiling in shelves, each rammed with compact discs: a chaotic, breathtaking rainbow of preserved history. It was the most beautiful thing she’d seen in years. She crept into the room, moving delicately, keen to not betray how elated she was.

“Do you like it? It’s my mum’s collection. I think it started as her mum’s collection.”

Gemma gave a quiet nod as she ran her finger down one of the shelves, not quite sure what she was looking for, but instead marvelling at the fact that someone, somewhere on this island still had a large collection of real music.

“Mum always says Caroline, we must preserve this, because nobody else will. ‘Specially since the British Library stopped.”

Gemma nodded along, half-listening as she read artists and titles. She could only be impressed with the variety on display. Surely no single person liked all of this music. They all seemed to be in decent enough condition, though were all very old. The last factory pressing CDs like this shut almost a decade ago. The plastic cases were a mix of cracked, scratched, and cloudy, but that was okay. The case took the punishment so the disc within could survive.

“I thought you might, miss, since I saw you playing guitar. Being into music and all. We have a stereo, too. It’s not working. It used to work. Should still, if you could power it. It’s too old to power on, you know, with the new sockets and all.”

Gemma could only nod as the words barely registered. Her mind was still a bit fuzzy from any number of reasons that came together to form this bizarre day. Right now, at least, she was perhaps just overwhelmed.