From the Shadows

Jenna was watching the kittens play. She had rescued Cleo from a dumpster nearly two years ago. Scavenging scraps from a nearby Class C restaurant she had seen two bright shiny eyes glaring out at her from between a loaf of stale but still edible bread and a half eaten apple. She was already risking certain imprisonment by being in the bin so rescuing a kitten was not a big decision. Sammy had joined them just a few weeks ago. Even the cats’ names were punishment worthy, coming as they did from the old world. Cleo was named from a picture she has once seen of a lady with big coloured eyes who she seemed to remember was some sort of Queen and Sammy was named for a half remembered vision of her mother dancing to the crooning voice of a man wearing a white shirt.

Sammy was a boisterous boy and she had to watch him carefully to make sure he did not escape to the outside world. That would be catastrophic. She also had to be careful with noise. His meow was tiny but loud enough to be heard by her next door neighbours. They were friendly enough but no-one could be trusted. Class C made sure of that by offering all sorts of rewards for reporting infringements of the rules. Sammy jumped at her from the top of a box, landing squarely in the middle of her chest.

An involuntary giggle escaped. Jenna started. This was not a sound she was used to hearing or making. It sounded strange, a bit like her rusty knife sounded when she scraped it across the plate accidentally. Still it was a sound she rather liked. She wished she was free to make it more often. Sammy was getting restless. He loved to climb and she was forever lifting him down from the boxes. He also purred really loudly when he was excited or cuddled and she had to be careful not to hold him too often. The walls were paper thin and she worried who could hear.

Sammy jumped and one of the boxes fell with a bump. She looked around guiltily. If anyone heard and reported her it was certain death for her pets and imprisonment and torture for herself. She did not understand the ban on pets. After all the C class ladies all had cats or dogs. It was from their abandoned kittens that forbidden pets like Cleo and Sammy came.

But the fact was that as a Class A citizen she was not allowed to own anything. Her kittens would be seen as a frivolous waste of resources and questions would be asked about how she kept them alive and fed. The strict use of vouchers for food and clothing did not allow for anything beyond the bare necessities.

Sammy had now moved on and was climbing up onto a box that served as her dining table. She hardly remembered her parents. They had been amongst the first to be repatriated when the new order began. She sometimes thought she would not recognise her mother if she passed her in the street. She doubted her mother would recognise her either. She shooed Sammy onto the floor. Something in her subconscious prompted her to maintain certain rituals. One of these was to put her meagre meals onto a plate and use her rusty knife and fork to eat. Every night she would set these out on the box, sit on the floor and say thank you to a God she did not know or one she would not believe in if she did.

The littlest kitten was now stalking the big one. When he bit her ear she let out a strangled meow. Just as well her meow was soft Jenna thought as she smothered another giggle. Where was this all coming from. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed properly and here she was giggling twice in a night. Jenna reluctantly decided it was time to put them away. She felt bad that they spent so much of their lives locked away but the alternative was worse. At least her kittens were warm and fed every day unlike the strays and waifs that wandered the streets.

When she picked up Sammy he started to struggle. His claw caught in the collar of her regulation shirt and as she pulled him away she saw he had also snagged the chain of the silver locket around her neck. She was wearing the regulation shirt which buttoned to the neck but in the privacy of her home she had unbuttoned the top three buttons. Again this was not allowed, she was not allowed to show any skin wherever she was but she often took risks when she was sure no-one could see her. Jenna could feel the little colour she had draining from her face. She might unbutton her shirt but she was careful to always keep the tiny heart shaped locket hidden. It was the very last reminder she had of her mother. She might not clearly remember her mother’s face but she could remember the feel of her hand and the urgency in her voice as she pressed the locket into Jenna’s hand.

“Keep it safe, my darling. Remember that we love you. This will remind you that we were not always poor and helpless. Do not let anyone see it, but wear it hidden.”

So she wore it even though she knew how dangerous it was. She gently disentangled the kittens claw and placed him on the floor. She took the rock hard loaf of bread and from the shelf behind her. This was her week’s rations and she knew by sharing it with her cats her own stomach would grumble with hunger. If she was lucky she might be able to scavenge some scraps from the bin where she found Cleo but she had seen the neighbours son watching her and she had to be careful not to raise suspicions. One never knew who would betray one.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the tiny piece of mirror she kept on the shelf beside her knife and fork. She wasn’t vain but she could not persuade herself to throw it out. Besides she had nothing to be vain about. He hair was lank, her skin pasty and unhealthy looking, stretched tightly across her cheekbones. There was nothing left of the chubby child who had first taken refuge in this room. She thought she was about thirteen then and that meant, if she counted right she was about sixteen or seventeen now. Time meant nothing and in reality she wasn’t alive she was barely existing.

She used the edge of her knife to scrape some hard crumbs from the edge of the loaf and then used some of her precious store of water the soak them to a texture the cats would eat. They, like her, had learned there was nothing better available and if they didn’t want to starve they needed to eat whatever was on offer no matter how unpalatable.

Lunch finished she returned the cats to their hidey hole. She had built an elaborate maize of boxes in one corner of the apartment from cardboard boxes she had scavenged from the street. She’d had to smuggle them in one at a time. The cats were contained but they could move around and when they snuggled together they seemed to draw comfort from each other. Even better, from the door no-one would ever know the maize was there. It was only if anyone ventured inside they would discover her secret. And that would only happen if she was about to be arrested.

Her inside chores finished Jenna knew she had to face her outside world. She no longer felt the need to be out and about but knew she had to look productive. The Class C rulers hated idle hands.

Jenna no longer felt productive. Her protector had abandoned her a month ago saying she was now too old, too bony, too ugly to pleasure him. He wanted the happy fresh face and body of the girl she had been when she first caught his eye. She knew he would already have moved on from her. For awhile, when she had first met him she had prayed she would get pregnant. At least then she would have someone to love her. She thought maybe she was a little in love although now she knew neither of them really knew what that meant. Pregnancy would have been a disaster. If she thought that the cats were badly treated it was nothing compared to the off cast children of the Class C protectors. They were not regarded as human so the fathers, and in some cases the mothers, did not feel they owed them any love or even affection. In most cases they were left on the streets to die or to fend for themselves. A baby would not be as easy to hide as a kitten.

Jenna knew her protector would have taken no responsibility. Her duties had never been adequately compensated and most of what compensation there was was useless. Perfume to please him, but what else was it good for? Dresses and stockings which could only be worn when she was with him. Champagne was nice but it did not fill the hole in her stomach when she was not with him. If she was truthful the only nice things about having a protector was the food she got if he was in the mood for eating and the nice long hot showers. She smelt, he often told her, so she could spend as much time as she wanted under the shower. The shampoos and the soaps were so beautiful she was often tempted to take some with her but what would be the use.

She often thought with nostalgia of her year of being kept. He may have beaten her whenever she displeased him, and she did not always know what she had done. He may have degraded her body at times but there was also times when he was incredibly tender. She thought sometimes he was as much a victim as she was. That did not stop him sending her back to her apartment when he was finished with her and it d did not stop him casting her aside when she was no longer of any use. She wondered if he ever thought about her.

Of course when she visited him she could not wear the locket and she had made a hiding place on the shelf with the plate and knife and fork.

When she was at home she would retrieve it and attach it around her neck again. She remembered the terror she had felt when she was summoned unexpectedly once and she forgot she was wearing it. Luckily she had been able to slip it under the mattress while he was out of the room and find it again before she left. The fright it gave her was a lesson never to do it again.

She was so engrossed in her memories she did not hear the thumping of footsteps on the stairs. When she did become aware of her surroundings again she heard a banging on the door and was relieved to know it was not her door. This was the sound every Class A citizen feared. The footsteps then the rap on the door and then the disappearing. No-one ever returned from the disappearing so it hovered over every one as an unspoken threat.

She heard a murmur of voices, then a shouted warning. Just in case she pulled the fragile chain of the locket and as it broke she flung it into the far corner of the room. Then, the sound that she dreaded. The knock on the door and the sound of hammering as the flimsy lock broke.