‘Spend them as you will, but spend them wisely,’ advised Edward the government mouthpiece on his daily radio show.
You couldn’t spend points before the age of sixteen but you could lose them if you were a complicated birth. And juvenile crimes would lose both child and parents points, with many a delinquent lost in the jungle never to be seen again.
‘No survivors,’ said Holroyd, the junior Ministry of Cooperation official based in the village, who was on loan from the Ministry of Retirement.
He was mid-twenties, skinny and unkempt with a natural dislike for prolonged eye contact. But his height was his saving grace and helped him get a position for which many would have given their eye-teeth.
Each Ministry vied with the others for position and favour with the political bureau that rubber stamped their decisions or not, and Holroyd was pleased in finding himself a rare sought-after niche where he could still choose a career path in not just one but two Ministries.
Mandrake was taking his morning walk along the beach and the sea spray washed over his feet. Everyone had their routine to keep fit and away from the few remaining hospitals.
‘Who were they?’ he asked.
Bodies were being carried out of the small overturned ship and placed on the beach away from the crabs. The Ministry men who ferried them wore overalls, and masks to neutralise the smell of death.
‘Retirees on their way to Scotland. The poor sods never got the chance to put their feet up,’ replied Holroyd.
His hair was black apart from a grey streak that ran from his forehead to the crown. Some in the village called him ‘badger’.
Mandrake made a mental note of the ship’s number for Jeremiah, FA892, before it was quickly painted over by the official holding a tin and brush. The mast was further up the beach snapped in two, and the sails like giant bedsheets torn from a washing line, were still flapping in the wind.
‘I’d be on my way if I were you,’ said Holroyd.
Mandrake didn’t argue and walked towards the long path that wound its way up the cliff face. Up above he could see Eliza hanging up the washing and Jeremiah watching through his binoculars. Everybody spied on someone or something. Mandrake carefully held onto the wooden handrail as he ascended and wondered what the next storm would wash up on the beach. It wouldn’t be long before dark clouds whirling with menace approached once more.
Just before he reached the top of the cliff, Mandrake took a left turn at the thorned bush and scrambled up a rocky path to Jeremiah’s back garden. He vaulted over the fence.
‘I remember when you and Bastian first discovered that shortcut,’ said Jeremiah, smiling.
He was wearing his wellington boots, had just put the garden scarecrow back in its rightful place, and was about to rake the new fertilizer into his allotment.
‘We could never be bothered walking through the village.’
This was the other and much longer route to their home.
‘Whatever happened to you two? You were like peas in a pod at one time.’
‘Life,’ said Mandrake.
He worked four nights a week at the paper recycling plant with the work paid in weekly produce from the church farm and a monthly book of vouchers for the third hand shops. Twelve men worked under lamplight due to a literal translation from Leaflet 9B that no one dared argue against which stated that coffee table and celebrity magazines should never see the light of day again.
‘You want to help me find Bastian?’ asked Jeremiah, rubbing an apple picked off the ground along his sleeve.
He bit into it with his own teeth, no dentures nor crowns. There was just one apple left hanging at the top of the tree, and the trellises of runner beans were smashed, the cabbage patch waterlogged. But the wooden pigsty on the land beside the garden had held together, the fence posts dug in deep, and they could hear the pigs snorting inside.
‘Some other time,’ replied Mandrake.
‘That capsized ship you was looking at; did you see the number?’ asked Jeremiah.
‘FA892.’
Jeremiah reached for a notebook out of his back pocket and took the pencil from behind his ear. He crossed out the last two numbers and rewrote them.
‘They saw me looking and blocked the view, but I still got most of it,’ he said.
‘Why would they do that?’ asked Mandrake.
‘They don’t want us knowing what’s going on, of course.’
‘Retirement?’ asked Mandrake. ‘I think it’s pretty harmless, Dad.’
‘Freya’s Anchor, that’s the name of the ship. Never had anything to do with taking old-timers to the homes.’
Scotland was full of nursing homes and the staff, like the residents, were given every comfort and luxury or so the story went, for if you ever saw them visit they were tight-lipped. All they would say was, ‘Wait and see, you’ll be amazed,’ or words to that effect.
‘A supply ship then,’ said Mandrake.
Jeremiah shook his head, ‘With retirees on board? You know they never come back.’
He rubbed his lower back.
‘You deserve a rest, Dad, and stop worrying. They’ll look after you in Scotland.’
Jeremiah looked out to sea, dark were on the horizon and perhaps another storm was heading inland.
‘You’re right, Mandrake. Guess I’m just scared of change and dying.’
‘That’s unavoidable, but you’ve got another good twenty years left.’
‘I just wish you and Bastian could visit.’
‘It’s discouraged, Dad, you know that.’
According to the Ministry of Retirement, it was better to end contact and get on with your own life, and those determined to visit were never heard of again, relocated to the other side of the country as a lesson to others. Though some citizens
