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Chapter One – Overspill
Megan opened the balcony door and angled herself towards the street. The clapping had started, she had four and a half minutes. Turning back inside, she bolted the door behind her and wheeled quickly across the flat to the front door. She checked it was on the latch. Then she checked again, and again. It was eating into her precious time but she couldn’t afford to take any risks. Jay hadn’t given her keys and she had to be able to get back inside.
Taking a steadying breath she exited into the wide hallway. It felt vast as she moved towards the lift, but at least there weren’t any security cameras. She pushed her fingers against the call button, ears alert for the sound of a door opening behind her, eyes pinned to the light slowly ticking off each floor as the lift crept upwards. Gripping her wheelrims, she readied herself to bolt back into Jay’s flat if the lift arrived already occupied. Eventually, the doors slid open to reveal a vacant silver oblong. Hands shaking, Megan wheeled herself inside and pressed the button for the roof garden.
*
Jay leant back into the doorway and steadied himself against his churning stomach. He could see most of the length of Bold Street sloping away from him and people milling about. There were one or two people he recognised a little further down the street, but otherwise it looked normal. Too normal for what they were about to do. His legs threatened to buckle beneath him and he pushed his hands against the boarded-up door to keep himself upright. How could he have thought he was brave enough for this? That any of them were? The grief and rage that had carried him along had evaporated like whisps of cloud leaving nothing but a bleak horizon of doubt and fear; fear of the police; fear of his parents if they ever found out about this; fear for his future; doubt about everything. They all had so much to lose. A couple of them worked for The Committee and there were other post-grads too, albeit not on security listed courses like him. But even the retail staff might never work again after this.
Would the journalist show up and was she scared, too? It was a huge risk for her if it was obvious she had been tipped off and hadn’t informed the police. She said she would take a late lunch so she could “just happen” to be in one of the cafés when it kicked off. Now, he hoped more than anything they all would lose their nerve, that they would bail out and he could quietly slip away and go home.
Then the clapping started and it was too late, he no longer had a choice.
*
It felt like an age until the doors opened again. Megan shrugged off her cardigan, rolled it into a tube and jammed it in the door. She couldn’t allow the lift to get called away or risk people re-entering the building before she was back inside Jay’s flat. Scanning her surroundings, her heart sunk, this was her only possible escape route and hiding place, but all it offered was some faded ratan sofas and a few large containers with wind-weathered plants, nothing that would provide any cover. The lift shaft was the only thing that would conceal her from view, and even then not for long. Still, if there was no sign of her ever having been in Jay’s flat then the police would have no reason to look for her, no reason to even suspect she was alive – unless, of course, Jay told them.
*
Jay glanced at the display on the comms tower, it was 14:00. As always, the clapping had started right on cue. People were lining the pavements and the police helicopter was buzzing into view to check everyone was doing their civic duty. It looked like every other Friday afternoon. Then, above the applause, he heard them. It was happening, they were really doing it.
‘These lives matter! These lives matter!’
A group had peeled themselves away from the clapping throng and were marching down the middle of the road. They were punching their fists in the air and unfurling home-made banners adorned with names and pictures as they chanted. Jay looked directly across the street and saw two people he recognised. They caught his eye as they moved towards the middle of the road. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward to join them.
*
Megan prized the lift doors open, bundling her cardigan onto her lap and pressed the button for level four. The doors shuddered but didn’t move, she pushed the button again.
‘Please no,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t let it have broken.’
She pressed it again and then tried the button marked close door. There was a long pause followed by a dull beep. The door remained open and tears of panic flooded her eyes. She jabbed both of the buttons again, stealing herself for the worst, inwardly pleading she had not just made things a million times worse than they already were.
*
‘These lives matter! These lives matter!’
Images of the dead bobbed ahead of him as Jay marched down the street, still too afraid to do any more than silently mouth the words the others chanted. He recognised a lot of the faces on the pictures. There was Cathy, one of the oldest residents, the head shot making her Downs Syndrome unmistakable. She was one of the last generation of Downs babies to be born; all affected foetuses were now terminated. He thought of Cathy, cold, wet, and terrified as the filthy water rose around her, it must have been the worst death. They would have all known they were going to drown and there was no way out with the security barriers in place. Even Cathy must have known that. What had those few last gasps of breath felt like before she went under? And what about Navida, Megan’s roommate? She had been training to be a nurse until a spinal injury had left her in a wheelchair and condemned to a life in Bootle Cares. He wondered what it had been like for her. Had she floated out of her chair with the rising water until she was crushed against the ceiling, her lungs filling with dirty sea water, sewage, and oil? And Pavel, who had always seemed so wise and calm, how had he faced his death? Would it have been more or less terrifying not to be able to see what was happening? He shuddered, sometimes he could imagine it as clearly as if he had been trapped inside with the residents and the water pouring in all around them.
Megan should have been there. If he hadn’t taken her out for Silvie’s funeral she would have died with the rest of them: two sisters gone in less than a fortnight. He swallowed, the pain of losing Silvie rasped in his throat. It was still too raw to be real most days. At the same time, he couldn’t stop thinking about how the death of one sister had kept the other alive. He would have swapped them in a heartbeat if he could. Every time Megan met his gaze it was like a knife in his heart. Neon blue eyes, paper white skin, a shroud of dark red hair: it was like he was looking at Silvie – even though they were physically different in every other way. Silvie was tall, athletic, and strong-featured in contrast to Megan’s oval face and petite frame and, of course, her disability. But still, those eyes, and the way she had looked at him that morning when he had told her about the demo. He wasn’t even sure what it was: fear, concern, shock, but it cut him to the core. He hadn’t waited for her to translate whatever she was thinking into words, he had simply closed the door and walked away. He felt his heart breaking for Silvie every time he looked at Megan – if only it had been the other way round.
‘These lives matter! These lives matter!’
Clearing tears from his throat, he joined the chanting to divert his mind from the fact he was wishing death on the person whose life he was protesting for.
*
Megan pressed her fingers against the button and closed her eyes, had she really done this to herself? The lift shuddered and she held her breath. An age passed and then finally the doors closed and the lift skimmed downwards just like it had done a thousand times before. She didn’t breathe properly again until she was back inside Jay’s flat with the door locked behind her.
Steadying herself, she checked the flat one more time to be absolutely certain she had removed every trace of her existence. Her bag was packed and waiting by the door. If Jay was not back by late afternoon she would assume the worst and get ready to make her escape upwards. She could only hope the police would arrive with sirens blaring or make enough noise getting through the front door to give her time to get to the roof. It was a fragile plan, but she had to do something. Jay clearly hadn’t considered the implications of what he was doing: that they might arrest him and come and search his flat and if they found her there, that would be the end for both of them. Or perhaps he didn’t care anymore? Perhaps nothing mattered to him now that Silvie was dead. She could see the pain in his eyes every time he looked at her and she could only guess what he must be feeling. So she kept out of his way as much as possible, shrinking her presence to invisibility, as if she could squeeze the whole of her existence into the small black holdall she had brought with her the day of Silvie’s funeral, and stash herself out of sight.
*
Jay looked around him. The demo was having quite an impact. Some people were trying to continue clapping as if nothing was happening, but most were staring open-mouthed, hands frozen mid-air. The police helicopter had moved directly overhead and there were sirens approaching. Was everyone as scared as him? Either way, it was working, people were noticing, they couldn’t just pretend this wasn’t happening the way they had with the flood. A surge of pride washed over him, they were doing something important, this meant something, just like their chant proclaimed. He raised his voice a little louder. All of those people mattered, and this rag-tag collective of their friends and relatives were risking everything to make it known.
‘These lives matter! These lives matter!’
The words resonated in his chest. It was amazing they had made it happen at all. Until two weeks ago they had been on nothing more than nodding terms – shamed, rather than allied, by their association. They had only bonded when they were confronted with the horror of the flood. No-one had been informed, so everyone turned up for their weekly visit only to be confronted by a roadblock with water lapping around it. They each stopped in turn, stunned, staring at the water in front of them, imagining what must lie behind. That was when they started talking to each other: shocked, grief-stricken and enraged. People began discretely swapping contact details and one or two went back every day so they could connect with as many of the others as possible. They monitored themselves carefully, passing on the role of contact-person every couple of days and making sure at least one person always left the roadblock as soon as the tenth arrived so that there was never any reason for the police to intervene. The police watched them anyway, apparently oblivious that an illegal organisation was taking shape right in front of the roadblock.
But this was about Silvie, too, not just to say that her life mattered, but because if she was still alive she would have been here and she would have had no doubts about it. Silvie would have done it for Megan, so it was the least he could do. Besides, he promised Silvie he would look after Megan – although whether or not an illegal demo counted as “looking after” was debatable.
‘These lives matter! These lives matter!’
He was committed now, there was no going back.
Overspill – Kay Inckle
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