The Hunt (23 page)

Chapter 18

When Mara awoke on Monday morning, she was pleasantly surprised to find that, so far as she could tell, she'd had another dreamless night's sleep. She wondered if Yuke were in some way responsible. A less pleasant surprise awaited her when she tried sitting up in bed, and discovered that the dull throbbing pain she'd felt on Friday had returned. It was less severe than before, but still irritating. Yet she'd been fine over the weekend. Yuke had obviously shared her pain as well as her nightmares. Apparently, their gift worked both ways. Mara wondered if she'd ever caught Yuke's dreams without being aware of it.

Now that she was alone in the apartment, Mara tried returning to her usual morning routine, but all the commonplace actions - making breakfast, checking email, reading a few chapters of a book before starting the day's work - felt curiously abstract. It was as if she were taking part in a kabuki play. She'd attended a kabuki performance at the Barbican once with
Yuke, who'd explained to her how kabuki theatre was created by a woman, Izumo no Okoni, and acted entirely by female performers: that is until the Tokugawa Shogunate passed a law banning women from participating. Since then, all kabuki roles, including female ones, had been enacted exclusively by males. There were so many similar examples of women being erased from history that what was happening in Britain today seemed almost inevitable.

Mara continued thinking about the kabuki as she changed into her uniform, which now reminded her of those elaborately artificial costumes she'd seen onstage. She was intensely conscious of the fact that these clothes represented not her natural self, but rather an externally imposed feminine role assigned her by the state. It was absurd to be concerned about such a seemingly trivial thing, especially given the enormity of what she'd recently endured, but she resented the uniform more than ever.

To her, it was the oppression from which all the other oppressions emanated. She remembered how good she'd felt while putting on her jeans two days ago, and knew this feeling to be imbricated with the freedom of choice such an act implied. Now, as she buttoned the regulation blouse, pulled on the regulation tights, and stepped into the regulation skirt, her mood turned black. She perceived her body as something no longer her own. Every movement she made in the course of donning the uniform had been dictated by the representatives of an ideology she despised, and whom she obeyed solely because she feared punishment. Even the action of moving her hands behind her back so she could zip up the skirt struck her as somehow puppet-like, and summoned a memory of Tyner binding her arms in this position. She wished she could stay home, but she'd made an appointment at the Soho Medical Centre for two-thirty, and the nagging ache in those parts of her body which had suffered abused suggested it was high time she consulted a doctor.

Stepping out the front door, Mara experienced a sense of anxiety. She couldn't help recalling the last time she'd left the apartment, on her way to the Hunt. She didn't want her entire life to be defined by those seven days, but there was no denying she'd been changed. She'd always suspected the world of being a dangerous and terrifying place. Now she knew it to be so. She needed to steel herself just to make one foot move in front of the other and carry her down the road towards St. Pancras. The weather had turned cold again, and the wind blowing around her ankles made Mara even angrier about not being allowed to wear trousers. As she passed through the tube station's turnstile and descended the escalator, she stared enviously at the men in their warm outfits. Why, she wondered, did having penises give them the right to keep their legs covered? The penis must be a truly magical piece of flesh, since it also enabled its owners to vote, to drive, to leave the country. To not be tortured. It occurred to Mara that almost everyone in the station was male. A few women were scattered her and there, but certainly no more than five or six in an area currently containing at least a hundred people. The extent to which females had been discouraged from entering public spaces became more apparent with each passing day. Women comprised half the population, yet increasingly seemed like a minority group. Mara felt nervous as she took a seat on the train, although none of the men surrounding her looked threatening. They were mostly interacting with electronic devices or reading newspapers. Mara realised she didn't have anything to read. Why had she forgotten to bring a book? Did she subconsciously fear someone might rip it apart? She was learning society's lessons well. Perhaps she'd eventually become a model citizen. Her emotions were in a turmoil, lifting her to the heights of ecstasy, then dragging her to the depths of depression. She was overjoyed to have survived the Hunt. And she wished she were dead.

These dark thoughts were still on Mara's mind when she arrived in Soho, where the street priests subjected her to torrents of verbal abuse. She almost responded to the one who shouted, “Slow down, you cunt! You'll get to hell quick enough!” but just managed to stop herself in time: insulting a priest could easily have cost her a finger.

Walking through the doors of the medical centre, Mara noticed Dr. Rodman standing in the reception area, saying goodbye to a patient. He waved at Mara and showed her into his
consulting room immediately. “You look like you're in one piece,” he observed cheerfully as she sat down.

If only you could see what's going on inside,
thought Mara, but she smiled in a friendly fashion. She wasn't currently very impressed by members of Dr. Rodman's profession, but there was no reason to blame him for the activities of his colleagues.

The doctor suggested Mara remove her clothes and lay down on the examination couch. After examining the bruises on her breasts, stomach and legs, he said,
“Turn over please, Miss Gorki.” Mara was touched by the sympathy in his voice. She heard him tut-tutting as he observed the damage caused by Tyner. When the examination had been completed, the doctor made a few notes as Mara put her uniform back on. She noticed him pressing his pen down so heavily that it made jagged gashes in the paper, and suspected this was something he habitually did to avoid thinking about potentially disturbing subjects. When Mara was fully dressed, Dr. Rodman asked how she felt.

“
I'm still very sore, but the pain is easing a little.”

“
You should have come to see me as soon as the Hunt was over. I'll give you a prescription for some cream. I want you to apply it to the wounded areas twice a day for a week. I assume you've been using painkillers.”

Mara couldn't help laughing at this. Little did the doctor know that she had access to a brand of painkiller which was much more effective than any of those available for sale.

As he typed the relevant information into his computer, Dr. Rodman said, “I suggest you get in touch with the...the person who...did these things to you and make him take care of your medical costs. He's legally obliged to do so, and Hunt Administration will give you his contact details.”

“
Frankly, I'd rather not have anything more to do with him.”

The doctor frowned.
“It's possible there will be some scarring on your buttocks. If the scars are still evident six months from now, you may have grounds to sue.”

Mara thanked the doctor and left. Only when she was halfway down the road did she realise she'd forgotten to pay. It didn't matter, of course. She could easily settle the bill when she got home.

Since she had nothing to read on the return journey, Mara decided to visit Charing Cross Road and search for
The Stand
, the second book in a row somebody had prevented her from finishing. She hadn't managed to track down a replacement copy of
The Aging Boy
anywhere, even online, but didn't anticipate any difficulties locating this popular Stephen King novel. She spent half an hour browsing in Henry Pordes' basement section, with its reassuringly musty smell, and soon found not only a good-quality paperback of
The Stand
, but also a three-volume edition of Robert Musil's
The Man Without Qualities
, which she'd been wanting to read for years, and
The SCUM Manifesto
by Valerie Solanas. Leaving the shop, she happily clasped the plastic bag containing her purchases, pleased to discover that books still had the power to give her pleasure, that she was still the same person she'd been before the Hunt.

As she made her way into Leicester Square station, it struck Mara as important she not ride in an empty carriage. She knew it was illogical to think this way, but she desperately wanted to avoid another encounter with those gangs of young men who prowled the tube looking for helpless women to abuse, and a crowd seemed to offer more protection. In the end, the train turned out to be so full that she couldn't even find a seat. Since she didn't like to read standing up, her books
remained in their bag.

Upon returning to St. Pancras, Mara visited the local Superdrug and filled her prescription. The chemist handed her a large jar of something called
Hunex: according to the packaging, it was “ideal for Hunt trauma”. As soon as she arrived home, Mara took off her uniform and went into the bathroom. She hadn't examined her body since Friday, and was appalled by what she now saw. She looked as if she'd been in a car crash. She opened the jar of Hunex, and applied the white cream it contained to her buttocks and back, then to the other sore areas. The cream stung at first, but after a few seconds the throbbing pain she'd been experiencing all day vanished. Mara almost wept with relief. Physically, she now felt fine. But those wounds which were not visible on the surface would be much more difficult to treat. That aspect of 'Hunt trauma' would not be soothed by even the most miraculous cream.

After easing herself into jeans and a jumper, Mara entered her office, sat in front of her computer, and checked to see if there were any more pieces about Julie in the
Daily Male
. She soon discovered an item on page eight, ungrammatically headlined “Parents of Hunt Death Woman Refuses to Accept Verdict.”

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The parents of Julie Weisz, who died on Friday while taking part in a Hunt, have

announced they will not accept the pathologist's verdict that their daughter's death

occurred due to natural causes. The family's lawyer, Aaron Rosenbaum, has issued a

statement demanding that a full investigation be launched into what happened during the

final hours of Miss Weisz's life, and that another postmortem be carried out. Robert

Price, in charge of Miss
Weisz at the time of her death, expressed his shock at the news:

'My heart goes out to Julie's family, but I am an innocent man.
'

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It was only a small piece, but the words 'See editorial on page 12' appeared beneath it. Mara quickly located the editorial, which was almost four times as long as the article.

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The death of a young woman is always a tragedy. But people die every day in car

crashes, in household accidents, and from good old natural causes. According to

accredited forensic pathologist Dr. Frederick Letap, Julie Weisz's death was the result of

heart failure. Case closed? Apparently not. Because Miss
Weisz happened to pass away

while participating in a Hunt. And the
Weisz family, clearly recognising a golden

opportunity, seems determined to milk this cow for all it's worth. Their lawyer, Aaron

Rosenbaum, has demanded that an investigation be launched (at the taxpayers' expense)

and another
postmortem carried out. We have every sympathy for the loss suffered by

these parents, but somebody needs to tell them that autopsies and investigations will not

bring their daughter back. We would never dream of suggesting that individuals with

such venerable British names as
Weisz and Rosenbaum might be salivating at the

thought of financial compensation, but if the family has anything else to gain, we frankly

have trouble seeing what it is.

Inevitably, the actions of the family
Weisz and the firm Rosenbaum will have Marxist-

Feminist busybodies clamouring for a ban on the Hunt. But the Hunt has served this

country well. It was created to remind terrorists that their activities would not be

tolerated, and would have a negative impact on the very communities they claimed to

represent. The fact that not a single terrorist attack has been launched in the UK since the

Hunt's introduction testifies to its success.

Julie Weisz was a victim, yes, but a victim of a weak heart. The real victim here is

Robert Price, the gentleman who had the bad luck to find himself in charge of Miss