The Hunt (13 page)

I had always been interested in fashion, so upon leaving university I took out a business loan and opened a shop selling women's clothing. I also created a line of designer clothes, and despite working on a small scale, I slowly but surely began building a word of mouth reputation, attracting clientele from all over the country. My business was doing well until 2045, when the government introduced a law obliging women to wear uniforms in public. This inevitably destroyed the fashion industry, and my shop had to close. As a result of my subsequent financial problems, I could not keep up payments on my mortgage - obtained when it was still legal for women to take out mortgages - and my house was repossessed by the bank. I soon found myself homeless, and like so many others in this situation, I gravitated towards Kilburn, which was full of abandoned property.

Choosing an apartment block at random, I found an unlocked room - Apt. 1708 - and decided to stay there. The apartment was empty, and I had brought no belongings with me, so
I started scavenging, taking what I could from abandoned shops and buildings in the area. Of course, a lot of other people were doing the same thing, but when I arrived it was still easy to find good quality furniture. Whenever I came across anything valuable, which happened with remarkable frequency, I would sell it in central London, and use the money to buy food. Cooking without electricity or easy access to water was difficult, and I ended up living mostly on vegetables. I gradually filled up Apt. 1708 with found materials, and before long had it looking like a home. The inhabitants of Kilburn, perhaps disillusioned by the capitalist excesses responsible for their current state of existence, generally treated their fellow scavengers as collaborators rather than competitors, and I never had to worry about somebody walking into 'my' unlocked apartment and stealing 'my' property.

The empty houses I searched often contained clothes and books, and I could never resist taking these, even if I had no personal use for them. My neighbours quickly learned that if they wanted something to wear or something to read, I was the person to ask.

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Mara felt a strange affinity for this woman she'd never met, who shared her passion for books. She put down the letter and opened another bottle of wine. She was getting very drunk. But that was good. Anything to take her mind off the torments currently being inflicted on
Yuke... No, what was she thinking? Yuke was safe at home. Julie! That's who she meant. The light was starting to fade, but just enough remained for her to read the letter's final section.

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I have been living here for more than a decade, regarding my position as more or less permanent. But nothing is permanent in this world. Five days ago, the police, whom I had never so much as glimpsed in Kilburn before, turned up and started clearing out all the 'undesirables'. As I write, I am sitting at a table by the living room window watching them arrest the occupants of a nearby apartment block. These people, many of whom I regard as friends, are being loaded into one of the three police vans parked outside the building. Yesterday, the occupants of other blocks near the one in which I reside met with the same treatment. But I intend to leave before my turn comes. Where I will go, I have no idea. But I always seem to land on my feet, and am not worried. I have discovered a spirit of community here, and I feel confident that this small flame can be fanned into a blaze which will sweep away the misogyny and injustice being foisted on this country's citizens.

I assume the police are clearing us out of Kilburn because a decision has been made to renovate the area. Perhaps this letter will end up lost amidst the debris when the contents of Apt. 1708 are thrown out. Perhaps these buildings will simply be demolished. Or perhaps nothing will be done, and a new generation of homeless will move in. If you are reading this letter, you may be one of these new homeless, in which case I wish you every happiness, and hope you make good use of what I assembled. Kilbu
rn was a little like life to me, I brought nothing to it when I came, and I took nothing away when I left. I suggest you do the same. The only important thing is to love each other.

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Mara was moved by Mary's final sentence, and pleased to find a simple explanation for this Aladdin's Cave of an apartment. But something about the letter's last paragraphs bothered her. Unfortunately, she could no longer think clearly. Her head was spinning from the wine, and she had an urge to vomit. Running into the bathroom, she threw up in the toilet bowl. Night had fallen, and what she needed now was sleep. Carefully making her way into the dark bedroom, she located the bed and groggily removed her clothes. Sleeping naked might create problems should she have to move quickly, but if a Hunter entered the apartment tonight, she'd be helpless anyway. Collapsing onto the bed, her temples throbbing, she pulled up the duvet and closed her eyes.

That night, Mara had a curious dream. She imagined herself climbing out of bed, leaving the building, and returning to the block where she had spent the previous evening. As she crossed the lobby and floated rapidly up the stairs, she was surprised to see Julie moving towards her. The girl drifted silently past. Arriving on the top floor, Mara sought out the apartment in which she'd taken refuge. She entered nervously, feeling somehow out of place, and found two women, both staring straight ahead, sitting by the wall. One of them was middle-aged, with the look of a born survivor, and although Mara had never seen Mary Green, she immediately knew this to be her. Sitting next to Mary was
Yuke. As Mara drew closer, Yuke said, “I become a different person onstage,” and began singing Julie's song about the house on the edge of town.

When the song was over, Mary, still staring into the darkness, said,
“That's so sad.” Her voice lacked any trace of inflection or emotion.

“
Yet I'm not a sad person,” insisted Yuke in a similar monotone.

“
Does the house represent death?” asked Mary.

“
Loss of identity,” responded Yuke. “Loss of individuality. Death is the ultimate loss of individuality.”

Mary nodded, then said,
“Are we in the house now?”

After a long pause,
Yuke replied, “Not yet. Maybe soon.”

Suddenly overwhelmed by the need to assert her presence, Mara shouted,
“Mary, what are you doing here? You should be in your own apartment!”

Upon hearing this, Mary started laughing.
Yuke turned to Mara with an expression of contempt and said, “Her name is Mara. If she tells you it's Mary, she's lying,” adding, in a conspiratorial whisper, “She's full of secrets.” As soon as these words were out of her mouth, a horrendous grimace appeared on Yuke's face. Pointing an accusing finger at Mara, she snarled, “But who the fuck are you?”

Mara woke up screaming. The bedroom was completely dark, and for a moment she believed herself to be in her Caledonian Road apartment. She reached over to turn on the reading light, but her hand connected only with air. When reality flooded back in and the realisation came that she was naked, unable to see anything, and in a place of great danger, her heart began racing. She felt as if she were suffocating. She took a series of long, deep breaths, trying to fight off the panic threatening to overwhelm her. After several minutes
, she managed to calm herself down and eventually fell asleep again, the dream forgotten.

Chapter 9

Sunday March 25th

When Mara awoke the following morning, the sun appeared to have just risen. It was, she guessed, around seven a.m. Only upon sitting up did she
realise how much her head ached. She had a hangover, felt sick, was dehydrated, and desperately needed water. As she climbed out of bed and pulled on her jeans - or, more accurately, Mary Green's jeans - she decided to drink an entire bottle of water immediately. Perhaps she could make the remaining bottle last the rest of the week, along with more judicious use of the wine. She regretted getting drunk, but doing so had at least helped her stop thinking of Julie.

Mara sat on the sofa and sipped the water. Her head was clearer now, and she started rereading Mary Green's letter. She recalled being bothered by something in the final paragraphs, and thought she might be able to work out what it was now her senses were no longer quite so befuddled. The police raid was tragic, and made to seem more so by the matter-of-fact way in which it had been described, but beyond the obvious sadness of Mary's being forced to leave the apartment she'd come to regard as home, Mara still could not find anything that would explain her vague sense of disturbance. She decided to read the letter a third time. Returning to the top of page one, she glanced at the date. And then it struck her like a thunderbolt. She put the letter down and walked around the room, trying to clear her head. She kept tel
ling herself it wasn't possible, even these people couldn't be that insane. But in her heart, she knew it was true. This letter merely confirmed something she and many others had long suspected.

The Hunt had been created in response to the bombing of the Oxford Circus tube station, a terrorist act attributed to an obscure feminist group called Backlash. Kilburn had subsequently been converted into a stadium for the Hunt. The bombing took place on February 16th 2059, a date burned into the collective memory of an entire generation: Mara's contemporaries referred to February 16 the way their grandparents referred to September 11. But Mary's letter was dated February 10th 2059. Why, after ignoring Kilburn for more than a decade, were the police starting to clear derelicts out of the area a week before the bombing took place? The implications were staggering: at the very least, the government must have known about the bombing in advance; most likely they were directly responsible for it. All to
stir up hatred against women, and create an excuse for the Hunt. Mara remembered reading the Backlash Manifesto when it appeared online, and thinking there was something odd about it. With its dated references to 'male chauvinist pigs' and excessively strident tone, it could easily have been a misogynistic parody of feminist thought. Now everything made terrifying sense.

Mara considered the pros and cons of smuggling out the letter. There was no reason for her to be searched when leaving the arena, and even if she was, a piece of paper should be easy to conceal. But the letter didn't prove anything. The whole thing could have been a coincidence. Perhaps the London council had finally decided to renovate Kilburn - renovation had certainly been long overdue - and the government took advantage of this while looking for somewhere to stage the Hunt. There wasn't even any evidence that the letter was genuine. But Mara now knew the truth. She could not prove it, and knowing it would do her little good. But know it she did, and the knowledge struck her as strangely liberating. It was
The Wizard of Oz
in reverse: a curtain had been pulled back revealing that a supposedly benevolent ruler was actually a tyrant with undreamed of powers.

This revelation made Mara feel even more vulnerable than before. She approached the window and scanned the surrounding area. If Hunters were lurking anywhere in the vicinity, she wanted to know about it in time to take evasive action. She dimly heard church bells tolling in those parts of Kilburn situated outside the stadium walls, and wondered what worshippers made of this arena whose high walls formed such a prominent part of the landscape. How could they reconcile belief in a merciful God with the horrors being perpetrated on their doorstep? She wasn't a Christian, and the Hunters were hardly lions, but the Hunt was unquestionably a spectacle of which Nero would have approved.

Mara had been staring out the window for almost half an hour, and was about to take a break when a masculine figure wearing a backpack emerged from the door of the apartment block in which she'd spent Friday night. Mara couldn't identify the Hunter from this distance, but she suspected it was Julie's abductor who had alerted him to the presence of a potential victim in this location. She watched the man carefully as he walked towards the next building. Did he intend searching all six apartment blocks? It seemed likely. If that happened, Mara would be obliged to leave this place of relative safety, and once again take refuge in the already-searched building, at least until the Hunter departed. She kept her eyes glued to the door of the block he'd entered, waiting for him to emerge. When he reappeared almost an hour later, Mara noticed he was holding what she assumed to be a body heat detector: as Claire had suggested, it looked something like a laptop. The Hunter now approached the third apartment block. After this, there would only be one more building to go before he arrived at the block she was in.

Hurriedly pulling on the socks and trainers she'd discovered in Mary's wardrobe, Mara left the apartment, shutting the door behind her. A closed door would make the place look undisturbed should the Hunter come past, and if he assumed it was locked, he might not bother going in to scan for body heat. As she raced down the stairs, Mara thought of how rapidly this Hunter had searched the second building. He'd only taken about an hour, hardly enough time to go through every apartment, though the way he was moving from building to building suggested he was being extremely meticulous. Perhaps by merely approaching an apartment door he could detect anyone hiding in the rooms behind it.