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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Katy Morgan-Davies 2018
Cover design by Sarah Whittaker
Katy Morgan-Davies has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
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Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473553651
ISBN 9780593079683
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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For you who have helped me find my wings.
You know who you are.
Although everything in this book is true, and much of it a matter of public record, I have changed some names, physical descriptions and locations so as to protect the anonymity of some of those involved. With Leanne and Cindy, this is a legal requirement given the nature of their evidence in court, but with others it is to respect their privacy, something that was never afforded to me.
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring –
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow – I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone –
And all I lov’d – I lov’d alone.
‘Alone’, Edgar Allan Poe
Cries were emanating from the baby’s crib, but none of those gathered round it moved to comfort. They had eyes only for the single man among them.
With reverence, they stared at him, eyes shining not with happiness but awe. They trembled in his presence, bodies alert, ready to serve him better. Not a word crossed their lips: they waited instead for him to speak.
Still the child cried: disrespectful. Irritated, the man seized the cot and shook it roughly. Silence fell. He opened his mouth to fill the void.
‘This child,’ he began in his commanding voice, looking down into the cot, seeing far into the future, ‘will be my worst enemy.’
I carefully finished shaping the curve of the ‘a’, my three-year-old hand clasped tightly around the pencil, and sat back on the cushion on my chair. These were the first words I had ever written.
Although, secretly, I was pleased with myself, I didn’t glance up at the comrade teaching me for praise: the achievement wasn’t mine, it was thanks to Comrade Bala, and it would be self-love to think otherwise.
Bala was the star of our lives; the only person in the world who could be praised. That was why the comrades were teaching me to write, so I could celebrate him using the written word. I would no more have written my own name – Prem Maopinduzi – on the paper than I would a swear word; the actions were comparable.
Writing was a way of life in our house – people wrote reports and rotas all the time, and comrades often had to write things down rather than saying them aloud, in case fascist agents were listening – so it was a thrill for me to learn, especially because I’d always loved words; I felt as if I’d been born reading. Yet Comrade Josie soon corrected the angle of my letters. My words sloped backwards, which meant I was backwards too. My handwriting had to be just like Bala’s: anything else was a sign of revolt.
Beloved Comrade Bala’s full name was Aravindan Balakrishnan; we also called him AB. He lived with me and six adult comrades – Josie, Sian, Aisha, Leanne, Cindy and Oh – leading our Communist Collective (CC) in south London, which at that time was called the Workers’ Institute of Marxism Leninism Mao Zedong Thought. AB’s wife, Comrade Chanda, and her disabled sister Shobha also shared our home, but as a small child I saw very little of them. Cindy and Leanne were marginal figures in my life too because they went Outside to work, earning Big Units for AB’s CC. The rest of us, me included, spent our time working for AB: our lives were dedicated to his service.
His standing could be gauged in our united deference to him. We stood up when he entered a room; always said ‘hello’ if we passed him in the corridor; offered him the first helping of whatever food was being served. We could not enter his room without knocking and awaiting a response, and were required to face him when in his presence, making continuous, unbroken eye contact as a sign of our respect. Comrade Bala was a very important man. He may have looked rather ordinary – 5 foot 3, black curly hair and brown skin, his dark eyes framed by thick square glasses – but that was an illusion.
Comrade Bala was the future leader of the world.
Presently, he was in a kind of exile, with just us comrades as acolytes, but his was the new world in the making. One day, when his covert leadership became Overt, he would overthrow all governments and assume his rightful role.
Every day I was told how lucky I was to be the first child of AB’s new world. The comrades would exclaim how jealous they were because I had none of the disadvantages of the old world – such as family or friends. Unlike the comrades, I had no parents. I was told that, on 7 January 1983, I had ‘jumped on to Comrade Bala’s hand’, and ever since then experienced the benefits of his sole influence. Although all members of the Collective participated in my ‘controlled development’, it was AB to whom I was promised; AB for whom I had to build a temple inside myself: my self was AB’s. The nature of my upbringing was dubbed Project Prem: a blueprint for how all children would be raised in future.
Yet for all the advantages of my pioneering life – in fact, because of them – I was also in great danger.
‘Comrade Prem!’ I heard time and again, as a comrade hissed or shouted at me in alarm. ‘Don’t look out of the window!’
For if I looked out of the window, someone Outside might see me. The current governments, I was told, would stop at nothing to prevent AB from overthrowing them. The evil British Fascist State (BFS) was obsessed with finding him and preventing his leadership from becoming Overt, and kidnapping and killing me would strike a blow at the heart of AB’s new world. So, in our terraced house on a tree-lined street in suburban south London, we operated in a constant state of war.
I was never allowed to be alone, for my own protection. Comrades accompanied me everywhere, taking turns to lie beside me in bed or stand guard in the bathroom as I went to the toilet. I could not set foot outside the house without a minder, even – or especially – to the back garden, for the neighbours living beside us were the very agents we feared most. What opportunity they had to snatch me! I was told that the Collective had once looked after another child, Eddie, whose destiny was in his name: Ed-DIE. He’d climbed over the wall in the garden, was taken by the ugly dirty white neighbours and killed. If I didn’t want to meet the same fate, I was not to look over the wall or wave or talk to anyone Outside.
‘Under no circumstances should anybody ever come into the house and breach the defences of the Collective.’ This was perhaps the most sacrosanct of AB’s many guidelines for how we should live – and it was taken seriously. The front door was rarely opened; comrades would shout through it instead and tell people to go away. I was warned not to go near the telephone, for fear enemies might send waves through it to harm me. If ever I happened to be close to the phone when a call came in, I was instantly hushed: a child’s voice in the background would alert fascist agents to my presence; the Collective didn’t want anybody to know I was in the house.
From birth, I knew I was something to be hidden. The comrades told me that was because I was so special and precious and lucky … but I didn’t feel lucky.
I felt scared.
It was terrifying, knowing that everyone Outside was an enemy and the only people I could trust were the few comrades in the house. I had nightmares about the fascist agents surrounding us: faceless figures in black suits and hooded masks. When they lifted those masks in my dreams, they had the faces of our next-door neighbours.
Sometimes, those neighbours were shameless in revealing their monitoring of our lives: ‘I haven’t seen him for a while,’ a neighbour once remarked to Comrade Sian of me – believing I was a boy from my masculine clothes and haircut – when to protect me the comrades had kept me indoors for several weeks. As time went on, AB decided the best method of protection would be to let me go out as infrequently as possible: the risk was simply too great.
Shut inside, I felt the enticement of the windows deeply. Though I knew it was dangerous, I was nevertheless drawn towards the natural light that poured through the net curtains. Despite my fear of Outside, I still wanted to see it. I think I had a natural curiosity, but I wasn’t stupid. If I dared draw near to a window – keeping a close eye on whichever comrade was minding me, in case they spotted my transgression – I was always careful to avoid being seen by anyone Outside.
I had opportunity only to sneak peeks. But I was glad I did. To see all the people Outside walking past our house, on their way to destinations I could not imagine, in clothes that seemed so colourful compared to those worn in the house, seemed almost magical. There were Indian people like AB and Chanda, black people, and ugly dirty whites. Despite what I was told, I thought they all seemed nice. It was hard not to like the sight of people laughing and talking as they strolled along.
Laughing was banned in the CC. I was disappointed, because I had a natural sense of humour with a fondness for pranks, but I wasn’t permitted to say silly things, fantasize or giggle. Talking was frowned upon generally: AB said if something was important, write it down and KQ (Keep Quiet). He’d hook a finger to his ear or shape his hands into binoculars to remind me fascist agents were always keeping tabs. Mealtimes were held in silence, ‘no talking when eating’; we’d have to sit like statues round the table instead.
In contrast, Outside seemed … freer, somehow. People threw their heads back and roared with laughter or smiled easily at one another. Standing behind the net curtain, behind the safety of the glass, I felt a peculiar emotion, given all I’d been told.
I felt sad that I wasn’t a part of it.
One day, when I was three, I watched a white family ambling along. They seemed so happy and their joy touched my heart. Unthinkingly, I shared my thoughts aloud: ‘I like ugly dirty whites,’ I announced.
‘WHAT did you say?’ AB’s voice was loud and aggressive, and I felt my stomach clench, as it always did when he roared.
In a flash, he was across the room and beside me. He could move so suddenly; it always took me by surprise. I risked a look up at him and his face was dark, dark like a thundercloud.
Though the danger was Outside – or so I’d been told – I felt suddenly fearful … of him. For his eyes were ringed red and burned like black coals flaming with rage. Before I could speak, before I could move, his hand was upon me, beating his guidance into me with unstoppable force.
I cried out with the pain – but not with surprise. I’d been looking Outside; I’d said I liked ugly dirty whites, whom AB abhorred. My words had been a direct violation of AB’s guidelines, which was the worst thing anyone could do. If ever I liked something he didn’t, it was going against him – whether it was a person or a piece of fruit. (Once, I gagged on a raw persimmon and threw up; Comrade Sian was so horrified at my disrespect for AB’s favourite fruit she fed my vomit back to me, telling me all the while how ungrateful I was.) ‘AB knows everything,’ I was told repeatedly. His opinion was always correct and you couldn’t ever offer an opposing view. ‘Two plus two equals four,’ he would say contentedly, meaning his assessments were as irrefutable as arithmetic.
I cowered under his hands as he beat me black and blue. Though I was only three, I knew my age was no protection. I was no innocent. As Bala told me almost every week, I had fallen from grace when I was eighteen months old: he’d been holding me and I’d wanted to be put down, so I’d wriggled in his arms, flailing, and struck him as I did so. He hit me all over my body in return, to teach me ‘don’t ever show anger towards Bala’.
He wasn’t being cruel, in beating me: he was being kind. It was for my own good. That’s what the comrades told me: AB was saving me through beating me; hands-on medicine to make me well. As a little girl, I thought it necessary. ‘Love is a practical thing,’ AB pronounced – the beatings were a sign of how much he cared; my discoloured bruises marks of love. When he beat me, he called it a Good Struggle, as he battled against my internal negative forces to put me on the rightful path towards the ways of the new world.
Violence dominated my earliest memories – and not just against me. For my fellow comrades also had to follow AB’s guidelines, and they often needed to be taught lessons too. I remember seeing Sian thrown down on to the sofa by the force of his blows; him pulling Cindy towards him so hard that all the buttons pinged off her purple blouse; Oh’s face squashed beneath his big black boot; thick trails of blood trickling from countless noses and ears over the years. The worst, for me, was seeing Comrade Aisha beaten, because she was a tiny woman, only 4 foot 8, and she seemed so defenceless. I remember flinching when Bala hit her, unable to watch.
Though I was told it was necessary, and no one else seemed alarmed, I found the violence terrifying. There would be horrific screaming and shouting and then the beatings would begin. I never intervened – what could I do? I used to hide away, try to make myself as invisible to the Collective as I was to the Outside. Once, one of the cult members intervened when AB was beating Sian, but he just flung her off and beat Sian ten times harder for her interference. After that, no one ever stepped in or spoke up for anyone else. We’d all just stand in a circle and watch.
In truth, the likelihood of a comrade leaping to another’s defence was remote anyway because most of the beatings arose precisely because someone had reported. Everyone kept a hawk’s eye on everyone else in case of any tiny transgression, and if one occurred the comrades would eagerly write down their colleague’s misdemeanour or have a quiet word in AB’s ear; sometimes somebody would haplessly share a secret and the information would go straight back to Bala. I saw a terrible jealousy between the women, a desire to prove that they were AB’s most loyal follower, so each one was always trying to put the others down to get herself higher on his list of favourites.
To my unlearned eyes their behaviour seemed ugly, but AB seemed to think it noble. The truth was that everybody disliked everybody else, and everybody was scared of everybody else, and if ever two people happened to get along it was for the sole purpose of putting down a third. Yet if two comrades ever seemed the least bit friendly towards one another, AB would declare they were forming ‘an anti-party clique’ and abruptly issue punishment for not focusing solely on him. It was a house full of hate.
Whenever AB beat us, he would be frenzied, vile and violent. ‘Twenty-one beats,’ he might spit out, ‘seventeen more to come.’ Yet despite his sadistic pleasure, the understanding within the Collective was that we had pushed this gentle, good man to rage because we had done unspeakable things. The comrades, to my mind, seemed thankful to be hit; Aisha kept murmuring, ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ I only ever remember Oh talking back to him, unexpectedly defending herself against whichever charge had been brought: an absolute no-no because AB was judge, jury and executioner and no mercy would be given. Secretly, very secretly, I admired her for having an independent mind – but she was always crushed in the end.
Any transgression could incur a punishment. Making noise; being drowsy in the morning; praising another comrade if you liked her hair. One of the most difficult things about living in the Collective was that the rules could change instantly, so something that was allowed one day was anathema the next. It made me worried sick; there was no contentment or peace for a moment. If I’d been beaten wearing a particular outfit, I’d try to avoid wearing the same shirt and trousers again; I felt the clothes were cursed and I might be hurt if I wore them.
But despite my superstitious efforts, I was beaten all the time; sometimes with his hands, on other occasions with a ruler or the huge wooden broom that was used to sweep the patio. Every now and then, he even made me beat myself, taking hold of my little hand and forcing it brutally into my face. Yet the most humiliating punishment was when AB took off his slipper and hit me with it; a way of displaying his contempt for me. ‘You’re not worth the dirt on my shoe!’ he would sneer. Or, another favourite: ‘You can’t qualify to eat the shit I dropped as a little kid!’
The beatings were painful – so painful. He’d hit me again and again on the same spot. He often beat me so hard his own hands would bruise. ‘Look how you’ve hurt me!’ he would cry. He would say how much it pained him to hurt somebody he loves.
Occasionally after a beating he would hug me to him and ask – gently now, the consummate teacher – ‘Who causes the rift between us?’
From everything I’d been taught, even at three years old I knew the answer I must give: ‘It’s me. I caused the rift.’
It was always my fault; if I’d been a good person, this would never have happened. That knowledge was awful: it made me hate myself. With no one ever speaking up for me – with everyone I knew only ever agreeing with AB that I was bad – my wickedness was an incontrovertible fact, as much a part of me as my shadow.
Having been battered for saying I liked ugly dirty whites, I picked myself up off the floor gingerly. I was lucky, I reflected, that it was only a beating. For AB could kill us using a single pressure point or his death stare if he wanted. ‘Do as I do if you want to live,’ he would intone. ‘Do what you want if you want to die.’ Frequently, he threatened me: ‘You will pay with your life.’
The power I perhaps feared most of all, however, was spontaneous human combustion (SHC). AB and Comrade Josie used to discuss it a lot: how it had happened to a few people and all that was left of them were a few buttons from their clothes, the rest had vanished without a trace. ‘Wrong ideas can burn you to death!’ promised AB – and I knew it was not hyperbole, for no transgressive thought was safe. I learned AB had the power of thought control, which meant both that he (and his invisible machines located all over the world) could read minds and that he could cause bad things to happen with a single thought.
AB’s lessons were drummed into me daily. Over time, they started to take effect. One afternoon in the mid-1980s, I was permitted a rare trip out to the overgrown garden with Comrade Sian. AB deliberately let our garden become wild so that fascist agents would struggle to spy on us or gain access. On this day, I happened to glance up through the long grass to see that, shockingly, the ugly dirty white woman next door was brazenly waving to me from her window. She, too, rarely went out; she was disabled.
Comrade Sian had also spotted the woman’s gesture. ‘The bloody fascist state is trying to take you away!’ she exclaimed in disgust. ‘Don’t wave to her!’
And I kept my hands by my side. I turned away from the woman in the wheelchair. Like the good soldier I was being trained to be, I obediently followed my leader.
‘Comrade Prem, no!’
Comrade Sian took firm hold of my hands, which had been hopefully reaching for a cuddle, and pushed them roughly away from her. She was a white woman in her mid-thirties with long light-brown hair; I thought her very pretty, but her personality was nowhere near as beautiful as her face. Cold and disciplinarian, she was the person who most frequently reported me to AB, for the least infringement, and I despised her. Yet she was also lying beside me in my bed right now, in my tiny little box room, during the compulsory Collective-wide afternoon nap, and I yearned for some love and kindness. True to form, however, she had rejected me again.
I found the afternoon naps very difficult. Stuck in the house all day, with no opportunity to be active, I had unused energy zinging through my veins and the last thing I wanted or needed was to sleep.
I could have borne those naps if I had been allowed to cuddle the comrades who took turns to sleep beside me. But the comrades and I were banned from hugging or even touching: we had to lie like sculptures next to one another instead. I couldn’t reach out a hand to stroke their hair, nor nuzzle gently into them. To do so would be to betray AB. If I became close to another, I was not focusing on him. So I was reprimanded if ever I said I liked someone else and was instructed to be hostile to them instead, while the comrades were ordered to report me for reaching out to them affectionately.
This included reporting things I’d done in my sleep. Comrade Josie was terribly worried one night when, fast asleep, I put my arms around her. It was such a shameful episode it was never spoken of aloud: Josie’s written report was handed back to me along with AB’s written guidance: ‘Be self-critical! No laughing matter!’, adding that I must destroy my weaker self if I wanted to stay alive. For months afterwards I kept wetting the bed in fear. If I couldn’t even escape punishment for things I did in my sleep, what hope was there?
The comrades, too, would be at fault if they ever responded to my clumsy attempts to make friends. AB declared that any comrade conspiring with me against him would be thrown out of the house. Project Prem, he lectured, was about leaving the old-world encumbrances of friendship behind, to stand alone, the better to serve AB. Part of my training was to be denied any measure of companionship.
So, time and again, my hesitant overtures of friendship ended in failure and betrayal, either shot down by the comrade I was befriending or by another observing our growing closeness. Time and again, I was reassured by all the comrades that if such ‘friendship’ had continued, it would have been bad for me and my future. ‘Don’t be upset,’ they would urge, as my bottom lip wobbled and I fought the need to cry. ‘It’s in your best interests.’
AB, in contrast, was permitted to touch me. Every morning and evening, I stood meekly before him. At the appointed time, he would embrace me, running his fingers slowly up and down my back. Sometimes, he would even give me a ‘big smell’, pursing his lips and pressing them to my cheek. (Later, I learned this was also called a kiss, but AB deemed kissing to be poisonous and never used the word to describe his own actions.)
I found his touch creepy, as though he was putting his stamp on me: you’re mine. Given the amount of beatings I received at his hands, the supposed niceness felt contrived. It never felt like a hug from somebody who cared about me, but more like an exchange: payment for obeying him and being what he wanted me to be. Comrade Bala’s love was always conditional.
I couldn’t make sense of my feelings. Everybody else loved and worshipped him so much; why didn’t I feel the same? I put it down to not knowing enough; to my ‘infantile disorder’, as AB called it, when he blamed my inability to follow him 100 per cent on my being a child.
Nevertheless, as AB was the only person who ever touched me, who pressed a warm hand to my equally warm, honey-coloured skin, some part of me liked his embraces. I was so starved of affection that as a child I was grateful even for Bala’s creepy touch. Desperate for cuddles, at night I would hug my blankets to me, burying my face in them. Sometimes the sheer loneliness of my life would swamp me: a sob would rise up through my throat. Hurriedly, I’d stuff the quilt into my mouth – a friend indeed – and it would muffle my cries so they were not discernible to whoever was lying next to me. I was not allowed to cry in front of others.
I soon learned that inanimate objects were much more trustworthy than people. I used to feel so heartbroken every time a comrade betrayed me that in the end I learned not to put my trust in anybody. I didn’t have much – AB gave me only educational toys; dolls were banned – but I did have some Lego, and I formed a real attachment to a little figure in a white suit, whom I named Maria Franklin. But one day Maria disappeared. Wherever I looked for that Lego figure, it was nowhere to be found.
The same thing happened to other objects to which I became attached. Aged three, I loved to cuddle a particular yellow blanket. But because I liked it, it was taken away. Bala kept it in the top cupboard in his room so I couldn’t have it. He’d show it to me from time to time, and I’d feel so sad because I wanted to hug it, but that was not allowed.
My isolation was perhaps most apparent when I was sick. Illness was a sign of not listening to AB’s guidelines; the view in the Collective was that you were bad if you were poorly, as though the rottenness inside was now on show. So I’d be chastised if I vomited or had a poorly tummy; if I’d been focusing on AB properly, such a thing would never have happened (despite the fact I sometimes found it was because I’d been focusing on AB, anticipating a beating, that my guts had clenched and I’d soiled myself in fear).
‘Think yourself well and not ill,’ AB would instruct. All I had to do was focus on him to get better: every disease was reversible with AB’s help. The rules applied to everyone in the Collective; I would never have been permitted to go to the doctor anyway, because of the need to conceal me from Outside, but AB said ‘NHS means Never Help Self’ and that doctors (DR) were Death Restorationists: all part of the old world.
Sometimes, AB made allowances for the backwards, old-world needs of the comrades and permitted medicine to be taken. He himself never needed it; ‘I never even go to the pharmacist,’ he would boast. More often, however, he would declare that the illness needed to be beaten out of the person.
That was what happened in September 1987, when I was four. I’d been ill for a week, vomiting every morning. Bala was enraged at this continued disobedience and had been showering his ‘practical love’ upon me, but it hadn’t made any difference. I heard him and Comrade Sian discussing me in hushed voices. My stomach turned over again: being beaten by Bala was only one of the punishments given for violating his guidelines, and my mind was churning about what they might do next.
Some of the penalties were more bearable than others. No food was one, but eventually mealtimes would resume and they did not let me starve. The one I feared most was when everybody walked out of the room and closed the door behind them, leaving me alone. I was never alone. I’d been told over and over about the life-threatening consequences of not having a comrade watching over me, so it was petrifying. AB made a point of reminding me of the danger: ‘Go out of the room,’ he’d say to everybody but me, ‘and then the neighbour can come and take her away.’
I was so afraid that something bad would happen to me if I was on my own. I’d run to the door and struggle to get out, wanting – needing – to be reunited with them, but they’d stand on the other side and hold the handle to stop me. The more I cried, the longer they did it. In time, I learned that the best thing to do was pretend I was in agreement. From an early age, I adapted to become quite deceptive, just to survive.
I must never show what I am truly thinking; I must learn to hide my real feelings, as adeptly as the Collective keep me hidden from the world.
But there was no hiding from AB’s mind-control machines. Any thought transgression was soon punished, for example by my becoming ill.
In AB’s view, the worst punishment of all was when he refused to talk to me or see me. Yet I always felt a mixture of rejection and relief when that happened. Some anxiety, too – because I didn’t know what else he might be plotting while he was silent, so the eerie quiet was pregnant with unknown horrors.
That was how I felt on that September day, queasy both with sickness and with fright, listening to AB and Comrade Sian on the other side of the door discuss how best to handle me. Unexpectedly, AB came into the room and said he would call ‘them’ if I didn’t get well immediately.
I didn’t know who ‘them’ was; I think, now, he may have meant an ambulance. But ‘them’, to me, meant fascist agents and I was horrified. It was the worst thing he could have said. When I saw Comrade Sian picking up the phone I hurriedly pasted a fake smile on to my pallid face to stop her calling.
I succeeded in holding them off – but still I didn’t get well. So AB finally decided enough was enough. As I lay weakly on the floor on Sunday 20 September, with the acid tang of vomit still souring my mouth and nose, he dragged me through the house and hurled me into the hallway, near the front door. I lay curled in a ball; I had never seen AB so angry. Drawing back a foot, he booted me viciously in the head, then prepared to stamp on my face, nose-first. I quickly turned my face away; his bare foot trod on my cheek instead.
Yet it wasn’t punishment enough. With a final, frenzied roar, AB seized me, threw open the front door – and threw me Outside.
I felt the shock as though I’d landed in icy waters, even though it was a balmy autumn day. AB slammed the front door in my face and I felt terror rising in me, just as a drowning victim feels her lungs fill with briny sea.
I was Outside. I was alone.
Anything could happen.
Although making noise and crying were both outlawed in the Collective, I screamed as loud as I could. Tears mixed with snot and vomit on my face as I sobbed and begged for mercy. I pounded my little fists on that hard green door, increasingly desperate, casting looks over my shoulder for fear a fascist agent might walk down the tree-lined street beyond the gate. I didn’t know the Outside world; I barely spent time even in the garden. It was as though I’d been stranded on a hostile, unknown planet. And without a comrade to guard me, I knew an enemy agent could kidnap me at any minute. I knew I would die without AB – it was only a matter of time.
Weakly, I banged again on the door, whimpering now in terror and distress. They had to let me back in. Please let me back in …
Finally, like the good man he was, AB proved merciful. After what may have been only a few minutes, the green door opened and I was permitted into the warmth of the new world again. I was grateful to be back, subsumed within the protection of the Collective, so when the comrades next recited AB’s Truths, I joined my voice to theirs, finding relief in the familiar refrain.
‘AB is Nature, Nature is AB.’
For AB had power over all the world: the sun, the moon, the Earth, the stars. He could make a frost sweep a nation; a wildfire burn for days. Earthquakes were engineered by him as retribution for his enemies; explosions could be detonated at will or individuals doomed to death. ‘ARA [Aravindan] is everywhere – Supernature,’ AB explained in my lessons, drawing diagrams which showed him at the centre of all things.
The comrades and I continued to chorus: ‘India is the World, and the World is India.’
AB came from Kerala, in India, so when the time came for it to be Overt, India would be the centre (as, covertly, it already was). ‘Everything originates from AB’s India,’ I was told. ‘If you think it doesn’t, you are mindless.’ AB would become enraged if he ever read lying propaganda that the first man came from Africa or rice sticks from China, or if the British Fascist State (BFS) claimed credit for any innovation. ‘Comrade Bala said how the ugly dirty whites say that they have discovered everything … whereas it is AB’s KERALA that has discovered everything,’ I recorded neatly in my book.
‘AB’s Knowledge is the Truth, and the Truth is AB’s Knowledge,’ the comrades and I went on, our voices melding together until we spoke as one. ‘AB’s CRIS HELP is the Key, and the Key is AB’s CRIS HELP.’
CRIS HELP meant Continued Revolution in Stages and Heavenly Eternal Life Programme: the name of the training AB was giving us to allow us to be part of his new world. The ‘Eternal Life’ was significant; something else I was taught about our leader.
AB was immortal. He had the power of eternal life.
He claimed that if we followed him properly, we too could have extended, even eternal life.
There was a final, fifth Truth – but it was a hidden one, something we had to KQ about. When we reached it in our litany, our voices would always fall away to silence. Nevertheless, our mouths still moved.
‘AB is God, God is AB.’
Somewhat unusually, AB was modest about his divinity, perhaps because of the huge nature of the secret that we lived with a god. Though some of his followers wanted to pray overtly to him, as one might do in a traditional religion, he would dismiss such ideas.
‘You look at me through the eyes of the old,’ he would lecture the comrades. ‘Practice is prayer.’
This meant: carry out his instructions to the letter and never disagree with anything he said.
Perhaps because of AB’s modest attitude, I had confusing, mixed feelings about his holiness. To me he seemed just like everybody else, but with the others all fervently believing, treating him with reverence and faith, I had to go along with it. I don’t understand because I am just a child, I reasoned.
Comrade Sian was his most devout worshipper, completely servile to him. ‘Beloved Comrade Bala is the STAR of our lives! We owe our lives to Comrade Bala’ was the very first thing she taught me when I started my formal education in the Collective. She wrote it in huge Communist-red letters in my book, the colour we reserved for anything special.
I considered her to be rather like the sheepdog of the pack, snapping at the heels of the other women to keep them in line. I suspected her devotion to AB was the reason she was appointed to oversee my training; Comrade Sian was the woman who looked after me the most.
I would rather it had been any other comrade but her. Perhaps it was because they didn’t have direct responsibility for me, but with the others I was a lot more successful at gaining a little leeway here and there – they’d occasionally allow me an unreported giggle if something funny happened or allow me to make a mistake. But Sian took her duty so seriously that the smallest indiscretion would be reported to AB without a first, let alone second chance. It was as though she poured all her energy into a pointed effort never to become close to the child in her charge.
She was often assisted by Comrade Josie, who was almost three years younger than Sian, also white, and wore her brown hair, when long, in a tight bun or a twisted plait. She looked the perfect stern lady; I can still remember the glare of her blue eyes. She used to stare, stare, stare at everything I did, as though she believed me to be untrustworthy and felt she had to maintain near-unblinking eye contact to ensure I obeyed AB. The intensity of her gaze unnerved me.
It was Josie and Sian who took charge of improving my reading and writing as I grew older. I read children’s books from China, Monkey Subdues the White-Bone Demon and Bright Red Star. Both were about AB, I was told. (‘Mon’ means ‘eldest son’ in Malayalam, the language AB spoke in Kerala, and AB was the eldest son in his family, while ‘key’ meant the key person.) When I was four or five, Bala bought me a diary and instructed that it must be written in every day; I think perhaps it was intended to record my childhood for posterity, given the importance of Project Prem.
It was another tool with which to monitor me. Sian wrote it for me for the first couple of years, after which I took responsibility, always overseen by a comrade to ensure I didn’t write anything off-message. It recorded every minute detail of my life: what I ate, how many times I went to the toilet, whether my shits were loose or hard. As I so rarely left the house, it did not always document what I did all day, which was essentially to sit at home and learn about Comrade Bala. But, as a devout follower, I would record all of AB’s movements – where he went when he went Outside, what time he left the house, what he wore – and all the anniversaries of his great victories against the British Fascist State. Generously, he gave me a lock of his hair a few times, which I gravely pasted into the book.
My lessons were all focused around AB. I learned he came to Britain in 1963 and that the CC was set up in 1967, when he and Chanda became engaged; the other comrades had joined in dribs and drabs over the following decade. In August 1971, AB had scored a victory over the BFS when he avoided an assassination attempt in a London taxi; the BFS had sent a death ray to kill him via the meter, scheduled to hit when he leaned forward to pay – but, dashing their plans, AB’s fellow passenger had paid the fare, so the ray intended for AB’s head had hit AB’s chest instead. You could still see the mark, a red blemish the size of a coin that looked rather like a large boil. I found the whole story petrifying – as if there wasn’t enough to fear Outside!
I was also told the story of how Sian moved from being a Suspicious Doubtist to Bala’s most devoted follower. Although it seemed impossible to imagine, she had once questioned AB’s claims and requested proof. On 1 February 1976, when the Collective had lived at another address, Bala had fought a most heroic battle with the upstairs neighbours: fascist agents who were rowdy and always causing trouble for AB, just as the BFS had asked them to. After a night of raucous parties, Bala had brandished a meat cleaver at them. One of his targets had his hand upon the banister; Bala brought the blade down, attempting to sever his hand from the wrist, but the agent pulled his hand away just in time. Such was the force of the blow that the cleaver embedded itself in the banister.
Bala spent nearly two months in jail, framed by the fascist state for his political activities in battling with its agents. For Sian, it was the day she ‘woke up’ about the true nature of the fascist state in Britain. Imprisoning an innocent man for his political activities was something she had previously thought happened only in Third World countries. After that, when AB told her, ‘Don’t ask for proof, just have faith, believe in me, focus on me,’ she did as directed.
That wasn’t the only time the BFS unfairly imprisoned Bala. In 1974 he was admitted to St Albans Mental Hospital for two days, I believe for fighting with the police. He used to boast about it, gloating, ‘They thought I was mad!’ But it had all been part of AB’s master plan: he wanted the experience of being incarcerated so that when he ruled the world, he would know all about the institutions of the fascist state from the inside. Then, in 1978, he was jailed for assaulting a policeman. He wore all of these experiences as badges of honour; they were evidence of both the persecution he faced at the hands of the BFS and his own valiant nature.
I also studied world history. AB’s birthday was 16 July, making his conception day 16 October, and all great world events therefore happened around these two dates, because AB was the centre of everything. Whether it was the launch of Apollo 11 on 16 July 1969, taking Neil Armstrong to the Moon, or the test of the first atomic bomb on 16 July 1945 in the arid deserts of New Mexico, I was taught that everything was linked to AB. AB himself had been born in 1940, but of course his spirit had always been around.
Perhaps most importantly of all, I learned about Synchronizations: that events Outside were directly influenced by Bala and related to the goings-on within the CC. AB would frequently use his power over the natural world, which could be exercised by written or spoken word or thought, in retaliation for any manner of offences. I had to write out long lists of them all: ‘This earthquake happened when the landlord called to ask us for our rent’, ‘Malaysian Prime Minister Abdul Razak died when AB said, “To hell with Razak!”’, ‘The Challenger space shuttle exploded when comrades went against AB’.
This last one really affected me when I learned of it – because I had been alive, three years old, when it had happened in 1986. All seven crew members had died in the disaster. It was Challenge-R, AB said – R short for Ara – and we comrades had been challenging him, vYing with him; thus the shape of the smoke being formed into a Y when the shuttle had exploded. I listened in horror as he drew the connections: this was proof.
It was sickening to think our going against AB had resulted in seven people’s deaths. As I listened to the lesson, an acrid taste swelled uncomfortably in my mouth and I simply could not swallow it down. I felt as though something was staining me, deep inside.
Guilt.
For those deaths were on my head. Their blood was on my hands.
I took a very deep breath. I knew there was only one way to avoid such future devastation.
I must do better. I must be a better person.
I resolved to follow AB even more devoutly than before. But, this time, it was not to save my own skin from his beatings, but to protect all others from his wrath.
‘Warm – it – up – a – bit-bit,’ crooned Comrade Aisha in a singsong voice, moving her spoon, laden with ice cream, back and forth in time with the ditty. I loved it when she did this and opened my mouth wide, eyes smiling, already knowing what was coming next.
Smoothly, she popped the spoon into my mouth and the cold ice cream melted sweetly on to my hot tongue. Though, aged five, I was a little old to be fed, this was a secret routine Aisha and I had shared over the years, and I wouldn’t have stopped it for the world.
If I had to pick a favourite comrade, Aisha was probably it. She was the eldest of the women, though four years younger than AB himself, in her early forties. Malaysian, she had short dark straight hair that hung like curtains around her face and heavy-rimmed glasses. Unusually, she didn’t treat me as a little adult, but as a child, and I savoured the difference. Comrades Sian and Josie had never dealt with children before being appointed to work on Project Prem, whereas Aisha had lots of brothers and sisters, so she had more experience with youngsters. I think that was why, every now and then, she would treat me to some childish fun, seeming to know I yearned for it. I thought of her as a lucky mascot or a guardian angel.
In a way, though, as sweet as it was to share such scenes with Aisha, it always made her betrayal, when it inevitably came, that much harder to bear. I innocently commented to her one day that I liked the word ‘Israel’ better than the word ‘Palestine’. I was making no political comment – I was five – I just enjoyed the hard hiss of the ‘Is’ and the smooth roll of the ‘rael’ as the word unravelled on my tongue.
I think Aisha mentioned the comment to Sian, who had instructed all comrades to share details of all I did, so of course it got through to Bala. He slapped me for being reactionary, then dragged me across the living room by my legs, from one side of the room to the other, my body seared by the dark-blue carpet with red flowers every step of the way. The stinging carpet burns served as a reminder that no one could be trusted.
Nonetheless, with only nine people populating my own little planet within the Collective, the comrades were the only people from whom I could learn. Comrade Oh – a small Malaysian woman of Chinese descent – was a role model of sorts, although not in the way Comrade Bala would have liked. She was a very capable individual, who often made decisions (such as whether to buy a new product in a shop) on her own initiative, without consulting Bala first. It seemed very daring. Whereas many of the comrades appeared rudderless without his direction, Oh could hold her own. She and Josie clashed all the time – Oh’s strong personality made her rather blunt – and it was usually Oh who felt the sharp end of Bala’s stick in retribution for the pair not working well together. There was supposed to be harmony within AB’s CC Family (Pilot Unit).
I saw very little of Comrade Cindy, who was the Collective’s most recent recruit, having been with them less than ten years. Occasionally she’d take a shift sleeping by my side, but she was out most of the time at work and seemed tired when she came home. Quiet in character, she also appeared deeply unhappy, though I did not know the reason why.
Then there was Leanne. Oh, Leanne. Because she worked, she wasn’t around to report on me so much, which meant I felt friendlier towards her than the others. Yet unlike Cindy, who also worked but was often downcast, Leanne always managed to be pleasant, no matter how exhausted she was. She used to cut my hair – a severe crop, fit for a boy – and though I only really saw her at the weekends, when I did she would smile and be a bit cheeky.
Best of all was when she took the Saturday night shift sleeping beside me. The atmosphere was totally different to when Sian or Josie was on duty. Sometimes, Leanne would even whisper to me as we lay side by side, telling me stories about what had happened at work.
Strangely, unlike AB’s every report about Outside, Leanne’s stories never featured any fascist agents. She talked about her colleagues or an accident that had happened on the train. I loved those Saturday nights. She wouldn’t cuddle me, of course, while her words weaved wondrous worlds for me, but if I was very lucky – and Leanne was feeling very rebellious – she would sometimes pat me on my leg, just once.
It was heaven.
She had the power to make other things fun too. I was given a pink bicycle with stabilizers and a wicker basket – then told, naturally, that it was only to be ridden inside. But Leanne cleared the hallway for me, popped a torch in the front basket and turned off all the lights. It was so exciting! I loved powering the pedals, seeing the beam of light flashing wildly on the walls, feeling empowered and thrilled as the movement took me … I spent almost all my time sitting down, so to wheel about on that bike felt like flying, even if the stunted length of the hallway didn’t give me much room to manoeuvre. I couldn’t help it: I giggled as I rode.
Sian and Josie soon put an end to that particular game. Stupidly, I enthused to Sian about Leanne’s brilliant ideas, because I wanted Sian to be more like Leanne. Sacrilege. Leanne was promptly reported; we both were, for forming an anti-party clique. After that, Leanne didn’t tell me stories so much any more … but she did still tell me stories.
There was something about Leanne that didn’t quite fit with the rest of the group. Perhaps it was because she went Outside every day and was tainted by the old world – that was certainly what AB would have said.
It seemed the old world’s influence was powerful. For on 23 April 1988, when I was five, Leanne suddenly made an unexpected announcement while we were all milling together in the living room that evening (I believe Cindy may have been at work).
‘I’m going,’ she said abruptly.
She meant it: she wanted to leave AB’s CC.
I was shocked to my core. Only one person had ever left the Collective: Denise (now nicknamed Bad Dennis by the group), who’d been thrown out in 1984 for going against AB; at least, that’s what the comrades said had happened. Such was the severity of her transgression, I’d been told Bad Dennis had died.
‘Sit down,’ AB spat in disgust when Leanne voiced what she wanted. When she didn’t immediately obey him, he pushed her roughly into a chair.
But she got up out of it and began walking across the room.
‘Hold her down!’ he ordered sharply.
And like puppets on strings, some of the other comrades moved into action. There was a certainty to their movements, borne of strength in numbers. Like a pack of wolves, they grabbed Leanne and pinned her to the ground.