Dominion (55 page)

‘I was already there when you came,’ Ben said. ‘There’s a lot of people in the Resistance now, we’re everywhere. There’s sympathizers, and activists, in most
of the bigger asylums.’

‘How did you come to be in that job?’

Ben smiled, showing crooked teeth. ‘A few years ago I’d been in trouble up in Glasgow. Fighting the Fascists. They decided I needed a new identity and a new job. I’d got into
trouble when I was a lad, too. So I got a new name and applied to train as a mental health nurse. It’s easy to get into, even these days, the job disnae exactly attract thousands of
applicants. And I can handle myself, that’s important in the job.’

‘So Ben’s not your real name?’

He shook his head. ‘No. Mind, I’ve been Ben Hall for so long I’ve near forgotten my old one.’

‘What sort of trouble did you get into when you were young?’

Ben shrugged. ‘I got put in a Borstal when I was seventeen, I got radicalized in there. Afterwards I was a union organizer in Glasgow, for the Party, trying to get people to stand up for
themselves. A few fights, too, when they sent the Auxies in.’

‘The party – you mean the Communist Party?’

‘That’s right.’ He looked at Frank. ‘We’ve never been frightened of getting our hands dirty.’

‘Killing people, you mean,’ Frank said.

‘Ye cannae make an omelette without breaking eggs.’

Frank thought of Russia, all the prison camps the Germans had discovered. ‘Poor eggs,’ he said.

‘Ye’ve nae idea what life’s like for poor people.’ Ben glowered. ‘Prices going up, wages going down, locked up if you protest or strike. That last strike I
organized, in the shipyards. We marched into Glasgow, a peaceful demonstration, plenty of Labour and non-political people wi’ us, but as soon as we got near the city centre the Auxies came
out with batons, just hitting out at anybody, and when we tried to run they had a crowd of SNP thugs waiting for us in the side-streets. They laid into us with knives and knuckledusters while some
cunt in a kilt stood on some steps playin’ the bloody bagpipes. One of them hit me on the head. I’d’ve been a goner if some of my pals hadnae got me away. That’s when it was
decided I needed a change of identity. They’d had me marked out.’

Frank looked at him. ‘We had a teacher at Strangmans who was a Scottish Nationalist. History teacher, always going on about the English landlords and the Highland clearances.’

‘He wasnae much good then. It was mostly Scottish landowners who cleared the Highlanders out of their crofts for sheep. The SNP.’ His face wrinkled with distaste. ‘There were
some Fascist sympathizers among them that founded the SNP. Everything for the glorious nation. Some romantic-minded left-wingers too, but they got kicked out after 1940. You know, the Nats opposed
conscription in 1939, sayin’ it wis against the Act of Union for Scots to be conscripted into the British army. That was more important to them than fighting the Nazis.’ Ben laughed
bitterly. ‘Whenever a party tells you national identity matters more than anything else in politics, that nationalism can sort out all the other problems, then watch out, because you’re
on a road that can end with fascism. Even if it doesn’t, the idea that nationality’s some sort of magic that can make other problems disappear, it’s like believin’ in
fairies. And of course nationalists always have to have an enemy, the English or the French or the Jews, there always has tae be some other bugger that’s caused all the problems.’

Frank didn’t answer. He was a little scared by Ben’s passion.

‘That Edinburgh school you were at, did you get bullied for being English?’ Ben asked.

‘Not really. Though sometimes they’d shout English – well, and a rude word. But I’m half-Scottish, my dad was Scottish.’

Ben looked at him curiously. ‘How d’yae feel about Scotland?’

Frank shrugged. ‘As you said once, I’m sure there are places just as bad in England. I don’t care about whether people are Scottish or English, all this stupid nationalism. I
agree with you there. But I’m not a Communist either.’

Ben nodded, smiled sadly. ‘Ye’re a good man, Frank, ye’ve nae malice in ye.’

Frank hesitated, then said, ‘You remember you told me it was in my hospital notes that I got my bad hand through an accident at school?’

‘Aye.’

‘Well, it wasn’t an accident.’

‘You mean someone did it deliberately?’ Ben looked shocked, though Frank wouldn’t have thought anything could shock him.

Frank shook his head. His head felt a little odd suddenly. He had said too much.

Frank found it easier talking to David and Geoff. They would reminisce about their time at Oxford. Still trying to find out as much as he could, Frank asked them how they had
come to join the Resistance.

‘For me it was seeing the blacks cleared off their lands in Kenya, to make way for settlers.’ Geoff took his pipe from his mouth, pointed the stem at David. ‘Then I recruited
this chap.’

‘What did you do to help?’ Frank asked.

David looked him in the eye. ‘Passed government secrets on to the Resistance.’

‘Did you get found out because of me?’

‘No. No, that was because of a mistake I made.’

‘And your wife didn’t know?’

‘I couldn’t involve her. She’s a pacifist, you see.’

‘I suppose I am too,’ Frank said. ‘But these days – it can be just an excuse not to get involved, I suppose.’

David frowned. ‘Sarah’s no coward.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean – I meant, I’m the coward. I always have been.’

‘I don’t think so, old chap.’ Geoff looked at Frank squarely. ‘Not after what you tried to do in the hospital.’

Frank changed the subject. He turned to David. ‘Well, if we get away, you and your wife will be reunited.’

‘Yes. Yes, I suppose we will.’ He sighed.

‘It’s odd being here, isn’t it?’ Geoff said. ‘Being on the run makes you feel – isolated.’ He frowned.
I’ve been isolated all my life
,
Frank thought. Yet he felt less alone here than he had anywhere, ever.

On the third day at the Brocks’ house, when he was sitting playing chess with Ben, Natalia, the European woman, knocked at the door and came in. Frank thought she seemed
to be avoiding the men. She hardly spoke to David, she seemed to avoid his eyes. Maybe she didn’t like David, though Frank couldn’t see why. He knew that Natalia was the leader.

She sat down at the table opposite Frank. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’re off tomorrow. We’ve just heard over the radio. We are to drive down to London, there’s a
place for us to stay south of the river until things are ready for us on the south coast.’

‘Great,’ Ben said. ‘I’m fed up sitting roond here. What d’you think of that, Frank?’

‘All right.’ Frank thought,
when will I get a chance to do it, to kill myself?
His heart began to pound as he realized he didn’t want to go through with it now. But he
must. Natalia was looking at him keenly.

‘Do you feel up to travelling, Frank?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you trust us?’ she asked, in her disconcertingly direct way. ‘Do you believe we’re trying to get you out?’

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I do now.’

‘Good. You have to be ready to do just as we tell you.’

‘Because the Germans will be after us?’ He met her look.

‘Yes. But the heat’s died down now. And we’ve got our new identities, a cover story.’

‘They could still catch us.’

‘There’s always a risk. But we’re confident, or we wouldn’t be taking you away from here now.’

Ben said, ‘That’s right.’ He turned to Natalia. ‘He’s talkin’ a lot more now. Quite chatty sometimes, aren’t ye, Frank?’

Natalia looked at Frank. ‘If by any chance we were captured,’ she said seriously, ‘they wouldn’t take us alive. We’ve made plans to make sure of that.’

‘What plans?’

‘We’ve decided to tell you, we think it’s better you know. If we’re taken, we have pills to take. Poison.’

‘What about me?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry.’ Frank thought,
they’re frightened I’d take my pill the first chance I got
. She said, ‘I’d take care of it,
Frank, I promise.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘If it comes. Do you trust me?’

He didn’t answer. He believed Natalia, but he desperately feared she might fail; the whole mission might fail. The forces ranged against them were so strong. He thought of the German
policeman who had visited him in the asylum. Whatever happened, he couldn’t fall into that man’s hands again.

T
HEY LEFT ON THE MORNING OF
Friday, the fifth of December. The weather was still cold and frosty; it felt strange to Frank to be out in the open air
again. The car they had arrived in was brought out of the garage; the previous evening Geoff and Colonel Brock had fixed on new number plates. David was to drive, Natalia sitting beside him in the
front passenger seat, a map on her knees. Colonel Brock and his wife came out to see them off. Frank was about get into the car, Ben’s hand on his arm, when the colonel unexpectedly leaned
forward and shook his hand, very gently. ‘Good luck, old chap,’ he said awkwardly.

A weak sun was starting to melt the frost covering the trees and hedgerows. Geoff had told Frank they planned to take quiet country roads for the first part of the journey, then join the
motorway near Northampton. Frank stared out of the window at the empty countryside. He found himself thinking about what had happened to the Jews. He wasn’t surprised by what the government
had done; he’d always known those in charge were capable of anything now. He remembered there had been a Jewish boy at Strangmans, Golding. There was actually less anti-Semitism at the
Presbyterian school than in other places Frank had been; their religious prejudices were directed at Catholics, not Jews. All the same Golding had stood out as different, not attending assembly or
religious knowledge classes, but otherwise he had always conformed, been good in class and always part of a crowd of boys. He had sometimes shouted ‘Monkey!’ and ‘Spastic!’
after Frank like the others. Frank had asked himself how Golding, an outsider, had been able to belong while he couldn’t. What was it about him? They had gone for him since the first day; it
had been like a snowball that rolled on, getting bigger and bigger, nothing and no-one to stop it. Well, he thought with heavy desperation, it doesn’t matter now.

Following the circuitous route Natalia had traced on the map they passed through a village called Sawley and then came to a fork in the road. To his horror Frank saw a Black Maria turned
sideways to block the entrance of the right-hand turning, the one they were going to take. Two young Auxiliaries in heavy blue greatcoats, rifles slung over their shoulders, stood blocking it,
stamping their boots in the cold. Frank felt everyone in the car tense.

David turned the wheel to take the left-hand turning, but one of the Auxies waved them to stop. He approached the car, slouching across the road, the barrel of his rifle gleaming in the winter
sun. David slowly wound down the window and the Auxie leaned in, nodding to him. He didn’t examine their faces closely, he didn’t seem that interested. His chubby face was red with
cold.

‘Where are you headed for, sir?’

‘Northampton,’ David answered, emphasizing the upper-class drawl in his voice. ‘We’ve come from Sawley. Is there a problem, Constable?’

‘No, sir, only this road’s shut off now. We’re guarding the new residential camp for the Birmingham Jews.’

Frank stared up the closed-off road. It was fringed by trees, their bare branches a skeletal latticework, brown ploughed fields on either side. In the distance he thought he made out a row of
high poles, what might have been wire strung between them.

‘Is it?’ Something in David’s tone made the policeman look at him sharply.

Ben leaned forward. ‘Sae long as we get the Yids out of the towns, eh?’ he said cheerfully. ‘It’s all right, we can take the longer route.’ The constable looked at
David again, then nodded and stepped away. David steered the car left and they drove in silence till they had crested a hill.

Geoff let out a long breath. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry,’ David said. ‘I couldn’t help my tone.’

‘You need tae be able to act in this job, pal,’ Ben spat angrily. ‘Our fucking lives could depend on it.’

That policemen could have asked for our papers, Frank thought, taken us back to his post, and then – ‘I need to wee, I’m desperate,’ he said. ‘Can we
stop?’

‘How desperate?’ Ben asked. ‘Can’t you wait a bit? When we find a cafe or somethin’ ye can go to the cludgie there.’

‘I need to go now. I’m sorry, please—’

‘We should get on,’ Ben replied. ‘I want to get as far away from thae Auxies as possible.’

‘If Frank needs to go, he needs to go,’ Geoff answered irritably. He leaned over and spoke in a whisper to David. Frank caught his words. ‘What if he pisses himself? The
car’ll stink.’

They turned down another lane, high laurel hedges beside the road. David stopped the car beside a little gap, just big enough for someone to squeeze through. Ben got out and held the door open
for Frank. It was strange to be out in the empty, undulating countryside. It made his head swim after his weeks confined in the hospital. He was glad of the winter coat they had given him before
they left the house. He really did need to urinate but he was also thinking, this was a chance to get away. The effects of his morning pill were wearing off, he thought he would be able to run.
There was a brown ploughed field beyond the hedge, the furrows still white with frost, and what looked like a thick wood beyond. He would head there, if he could get in among the trees all he
needed was to find one with a large branch, then use his belt . . .

‘Come on, Frank, wake up,’ Ben said, not unkindly. He pointed at the gap in the hedge. ‘We can just aboot squeeze through there.’

‘I can go on my own.’

Ben hesitated. Natalia had wound her window down. She said with unexpected sharpness, ‘Let him go. Stop treating him like a child.’

Ben frowned, and Frank wondered if he was going to argue. He started walking across the verge, frosty grass crunching under his feet, and bent to get through the gap. Ben didn’t follow.
Little thorny twigs clutched at his clothing, making him wince.