With Two Eyes: New Reform Quartet, #3

By Jim Lowe

Join Nadie on a journey of truth and self-discovery as she uncovers a terrible secret that threatens to change the world as we know it. In a world where corrupt politics, social media influencers, hackers, and old money all vie for control, Nadie finds herself treated as a freak show. But as she doggedly pursues the truth, she unknowingly changes the world one step at a time.

This gripping series is a wild ride through a dystopian world viewed through a darkly satirical lens. The plot lines are neatly tied up with a jet-black bow, making for an unforgettable reading experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JRSL PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Mar 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201756772

Jim Lowe

Jim Lowe was a bookseller for a UK retail chain for forty years but has now taken early retirement. He loves books and the creative arts. He is married to Cath and has two grown-up daughters, Beck and Katie. Jim is an active - some might say, an over-enthusiastic - member of his local community in the Worcester area and runs Facebook groups for musicians and writers of all backgrounds and levels of experience. He has also worked closely as a volunteer for BBC Introducing as a filmmaker, and his niche YouTube channel for local artists has had over 300,000 views. He has lived and worked in many locations in England including, Ashbourne, Braintree, Burton-Upon-Trent, Bury St Edmunds, Chelmsford, Derby - where he was born and remains a lifelong Rams fan - Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Tewkesbury and Worcester, where he has lived for more than twenty years.

Book preview

2.WHERE DID I GO WRONG?

Nadie’s head was spinning like the Medicine Bowl dropped onto the concrete floor - memories and thoughts were whirring noisily from one side of her head to another. After hours of walking through the forest of Spruce, Ash and Birch, she had hoped that some thought of peace would emerge, but the battle within her mind continued onward. She tried to concentrate on the delicious fragrances of leaves and soil, and she even hoped the hunger pains that were growing within her would make her subconscious mind take over and make sense of it all for her - but still nothing.

The first hours amid the trees seemed quiet, but as her ears became accustomed to this, the noise of the forest came alive with rustling leaves, birdcalls and the scurrying of creatures in every direction. Nightfall was coming, it was too late to turn back, but she had no intention of returning home, as no answers had been forthcoming. She gathered wood and lit a fire and cooked a rabbit she had caught - she was unafraid in this environment - it was a home from home. She’d explored these forests for most of her seventy years on Earth, and still, she hadn’t discovered everything it had to offer.

She drifted off into a fitful sleep as she dreamed of the Medicine Bowl whirling a little more quickly on the imaginary concrete floor. Her head was obsessed with searching for an answer from within her relationship with Thomas.

When she met him, her life was going nowhere, she went from bar to bar to satiate her alcohol addiction, and though she never quite sunk into prostitution to satisfy her habit, she flirted with it. If a man bought her drinks for the evening, it was likely that they would end up having sex - even if she excused herself that she never actually set out to do this. The truth was that by the time she had drunk her fill, she was in no state to refuse and many of the following mornings she wouldn’t remember much from the night before anyway.

It was on one of these evenings that she met the charismatic Thomas Beagrie. She knew she had slept with him but couldn’t recall the details - but instead of leaving the next morning, he just kind of stuck around. She found his demeanour of utter loneliness and despair attractive as it reflected her fragile state entirely. From the humblest of meetings, she had found the love of her life - or had he found her?

She shook off this thought as she awoke early next morning - he wasn’t going to be forgiven that easily. Nadie searched her past for clues that she should have noticed much earlier, before so many years of her wasted life had elapsed.

She headed to a nearby stream to wash, she took off her moccasins and knee-high leggings and let the cold-water rinse around her legs and through her toes. Her thoughts were racing even faster as the early morning sun brought slight warmth to ward off the chill dawn breeze. She straightened her long dress made from supple tanned hide, and she tightened the belt around her thin waist. Her hands ran over the elaborate beadwork on her dress - Thomas had helped her do that - something no other man would have even thought of, it was as much a gesture of his obsession with craftsmanship as it was an expression of the love for her.

He had changed the pathway of her life on that fateful night.

They had been drinking all day and night when he told her of all the ways that booze had ruined him, and irrevocably altered the course of his life. He spoke of how he’d lost everything. She remembered that. But anything else must have drained away in the alcoholic haze. Perhaps he had told her a part of the truth back then, but was she listening?

The answer to that probably wallowed in the maudlin competitiveness of drunk talk where her selfish, drunken self, took up the baton to speak about her problems, the misery of her self-destructiveness through drink. How she came across her poison at just twelve and

how she could consume so much without being sick it made her a legend with the trouble-making older boys.

From then, it was sex, theft and violence, but it was her complete lack of remorse and respect for the elders - and the bad influence she was having on the younger children - that finally led to her banishment from her home and her people.

How could she recall whether he had hinted at the truth twenty-five years ago, when she could barely remember a conversation the night before in those bad old days?

Amid the indulgent misery of their conversation - or maybe it was a series of monologues - they decided that they would give up the booze.

When the hangovers of the following mornings came, talk of giving up alcohol would normally be a joke, but not this time. Instead of trading current updates on their headaches and toilet routines, they simultaneously raised the subject of, were you being serious last night, y’know, about giving up...the booze? Betcha wasn't, eh? It was Nadie who came up with the plan. They would walk through the forests, far away from any drink, and they would keep walking until they were free of the spirits and their attendant demons. It sounded so easy.

Thomas decided in an instant - he pulled himself up, held out his hand, and they started on their chosen path without hesitation.

A few hours in and they were both struggling to cope both mentally and physically with this folly. To Nadie’s surprise, Thomas was struggling more than she and she was suffering the shakes and withdrawal cramps. He was sweating profusely, frequently complaining about his splitting headaches. He was trembling, and his legs gave way beneath him repeatedly on their journey deep into the trees.

Nadie had a thirst that she could not quench, and with an affirmation of the abandonment of this sobriety project from Thomas, she would surely have turned back, but he was determined to carry on.

For more than a week, they continued on this journey. Nadie would do the hunting as Thomas was squeamish about the blood and couldn’t watch her skinning the animals. Her thoughts returned momentarily to the present-day problem - and yet he could kill a man and disfigure his dead body beyond recognition, eh?

Back and forth, round and round that circling, metal grinding Medicine Bowl kept spinning on the concrete floor of her mind.

She remembered clearly his skills in building the traps. She’d talk through the design, and even without tools, he found a way to construct them to a standard she had rarely seen - even in her childhood with the experienced trappers.

Eventually, they began to recover - the fresh air and clean water from the streams restored them. Thomas seemed amazed at how well he felt and stressed to her that, he felt like he was a new man and that he always wanted to be with her, and wanted to leave the old world behind and spend the rest of his time on Earth with her.

That was the Thomas she loved, and she devoted her love, and precious time to him.

She recalled the hope in finding a small plot of barren land miles away from the nearest village and Thomas using his savings to buy tools and him chopping down trees with an almost religious fervour to build them a small cabin and a workshop.

Much later, they needed another small building to sell their crafts and furniture. Nadie started with the traditional arts of the Woodlands Cree - she felt hypocritical in this pursuit, but it was the only thing that she knew how to do. She carved wood, put beadwork on the clothes of local teenagers and after she trapped a porcupine, she used the quills with natural dyes to decorate the traditional clothes she had made and sold them to the few knowing tourists.

They were well off the beaten path, but outsiders could find them by word of mouth from the villagers, and even among the locals, they gained regular customers and even collectors from the wealthier clientele, who sought him out for the handmade furniture that was Thomas’s speciality.

HER ONLY SIGNIFICANT visit away from her homeland was when she travelled to Seattle with Thomas. She had never even visited a city before never mind America, but an American tourist and collector had commissioned Thomas to make a suite of furniture for an extraordinary amount of money, it was work, to last a whole winter, and he would deliver it in the spring.

That was many years ago, but she remembered having her photograph taken for the first time for her passport. The drive on that old truck took two days to make it there if you took into account an overnight stopover. It was the nearest thing to a holiday that they had had together, but she remembered clinging to Thomas the whole time they were in Seattle as she felt she could lose her mind in the endless rush of people that became a blur to her. The recall of the city held no positive memories for her. The only moment of pleasure or more accurately exhilaration was Thomas letting her drive the truck. She had never gained a license to drive, but she used to practice with him when they headed out to collect raw materials off the beaten track, and she grew reasonably confident at handling this - even with a trailer attached. Thomas’s motivations for letting her drive down the highway for hours weren’t clear. He had said to her - that he trusted her, and it was good practice. Nadie thought that it was more likely that he was tired, and he probably wilted under her constant worrying chatter about the Seattle crime stories, and this was a way to take her mind off it.

When they eventually made it home, she told Thomas that she didn’t want to do that again, no matter how much money they would make or how much she enjoyed being behind the wheel.

Apart from trading, they kept themselves to themselves. They had no TV or radio - Nadie thought everything about their output was false and the presenters and actors were fakers. Thomas didn’t want the outside world intruding on their newfound peace and harmony.

She made clothes for Thomas by adapting the traditional designs to suit an outsider, and he loved to use her quills and dyes to put his mark on them.

The continuous sound of the profoundly irritating Medicine Bowl rattling around her brain sped up into its final frenzy of motion before it comes to rest. She desperately wanted to put an imaginary foot on it to halt the sound forever, but it continued to spit out words as if each revolution didn’t have the time to construct a complete narrative of thought: wisdom, the past, love, Thomas, Joseph, respect, nature, the Creator, bravery, honesty.

The rattling grew in intensity but still those words emitted like hot steel sparks: humility, truth, walk, walk, the longest walk, journey into the unknown, revelation, redemption, family, harmony, use faith to find the answer, and then the Medicine Bowl finally came to rest upon the concrete: balance.

She saw the shape of an eagle in the clouds, and her mind had taken one last glimpse of the bowl before she recovered from her trance. The yellow section of the East was the only part that was in focus. She heard a wolf howl in the distance and her heart told her that Thomas was dead. She had let him die alone.

The air in the forest seemed becalmed for a moment, and the beasts were quiet. She gathered up her thoughts in this stillness, I have punished him more with my absence than I ever could have inflicted upon him by being there at his side.

She sobbed.

Her instincts informed her that now was the time to return. She had to deal with his dead body - there were arrangements to be made.

She began her long walk back to her beloved cabin. Her mind was quiet, and she reflected upon the sparks she had imagined and knew her future actions were within them. It was a matter of faith. She had to atone for her past to find peace before her death. Otherwise, she would die unresolved like Thomas. She imagined his last thoughts as he lay dying. He had confessed to the murder, but he had not been forgiven. He probably didn’t think that was fair, but what he had done was far from fair.

The long walk home continued as she pondered this and her subsequent actions.

AS SHE SETTLED DOWN to another night of sleep in the forest next to her blazing fire, her mind still considered why she couldn’t forgive him. She wrestled with the question, but she knew an answer would come.

As Nadie slept, she instinctively knew that these were visions that appeared before her and not dreams.

In the distance, she saw the land swell as if it were pregnant and then burst to let loose a swarm of giant black birds into the sky until they blotted out the sun. The flocks of birds were pulled back into the earth leaving an abyss where they were dragged down into the soil.

She peered over the edge into the infinite blackness, and an amplified echo of Thomas’s dying breaths entranced her and encouraged her to join him. She was compelled to jump to her death. She had no fear of death. She took a stride, but the blackness was solid, and as she lifted her moccasins the Earth was restored underneath her, but she could see that it would take a million steps to reset the land. But she innately understood that every single step she would take would bring healing to the corrupted ground.

She walked over a patch of dreamland for hours until a section recovered under her trail. In the very far distance, she saw the figure of a young white boy coming under attack from a few stray black birds. She had to save him, but however quickly she walked, she made only small progress toward him - but he became her sole focus.

The disorientation of the vision made her progress in a circular and winding motion. Clearing the blackness from the edges of the abyss as her feet crossed the ground.

The boy was now at the centre of the void, and still, the sound of Thomas’s dying breaths were rattling all around her. A withered hand that she knew was Thomas’s, reached out and wrapped itself around the neck of the boy under siege from the birds.

Without shame, his voice whispered to Nadie. Forgive me.

After a few hours, she awoke in the night, and her eyes opened and fixed on the fire red tree embers without flame surrounded by the charred ground. She covered the dying fire and bathed in the freshwater stream ahead of her trek home and then to make plans to cross an ocean.

3.WINDIGO

You can’t just sit there sulking, Bob. There comes a time when you have to man-up. I could understand it more, if you were close to your Mother, but let’s face it – you weren’t.’ Adam Blint tried to catch Bob’s eyes, but Bob was evasive. Bob cleaned his gold-rimmed spectacles. He put them back on – and said nothing. In truth, he didn’t know how he felt about the death of his Mother. Other people, non-family people – friends, supporters and colleagues demonstrated a huge outpouring of grief for the towering figure of Lady Repton. Eulogies were coming in from across the globe. But nobody has any interest in how I was coping. Bob thought.

Adam continued to collect the debts, ‘We are not going to sit idly by and suffer a negative return on our investments in you. We’ve had your back – protected you – we had our reasons – you know that.’ Bob stared out of the window over the gardens that his Father loved, and then after his death, his Mother loved them only for that reason. He couldn’t understand how she could still have loved him after everything he had done. If it was a strange relationship that occurs in the relationships of the aristocracy, then perhaps his judgment of people was utterly skewed. While Bob’s thoughts were floating away, Adam refused to give up – after all, failure to complete a task was not an option. He hoped he wouldn’t have to resort to violence. ‘Your mother made some abysmal decisions at the end, which means you need our financial backing now, in addition to the personal support and protection we have given you.’ If Bob heard him, he didn’t show it.

Adam said, ‘I can’t believe she didn’t donate ten per cent of her inheritance to the New Reform party. Then she would have only paid a further fifteen per cent in Death Duties to the official government coffers.’ He laughed, sarcastically, ‘But the silly bitch had to refuse, and so now fifty per cent of everything has to go to the Treasury. She’s left you in dire financial straits. You do get that don’t you, Bob?’

Bob examined his fingernails for a few moments, and he had the vision of Adam biting lumps out of the rotting flesh of his dead giant of a Mother. Of course, she wouldn’t give money to the New Reform machine, she fought them all her lives – and they effectively killed her beloved husband. He chose not to give this robotic man, in his sharp suit, the satisfaction of reaching him. He’s not going to get away with that – but he’s right – I am running out of options. He thought. Bob continued to absent-mindedly examine his fingernails. I feel so empty. I guessed that I would feel nothing, but emptiness and loneliness might be a parallel set of emotions, but whereas with boredom, I knew who I was, but now, I feel so lost. He gave in to an overwhelming desire to sulk. He pouted, he didn’t care anymore if it looked pathetic or unseemly, or even unmanly – it felt exactly right. He understood for the first time what it meant to wallow in it, he never expected it to feel this good.

Adam droned on, as far as Bob was concerned, ‘I’m sure we can come up with a solution to your problems. A way of making things work out for you, as well as for Head Office. What do you say, Bob?’

Bob thought, I’m going to have to play their little games. I just don’t care anymore. He looked up in the general direction of Adam, but not catching his eyes. Bob thought, ok, let’s play the first little game – I’ll give him three seconds before he gives me the look.’ He looked directly at Adam Blint, this emissary from his protectors, and now his paymasters. Bob nodded and thought, one, two, three...

Adam flashed his bright white teeth, and the eyes switched on a headlight stare on full beam, and said, ‘Finally – you have just made your dreams come true.’

Bob smiled weakly and thought, what dreams?

4.H. OFFER FORUM

Bob Repton still wore his uniform, his artistic statement to the world while hiding in plain sight. His black hair trimmed short most weeks at his favourite barbers and those gold round glasses, and the black leather trench coat that was on him - come rain or shine.

The simplicity of his style hid a complex man and mind beneath.

His formidable mother, Lady Repton had passed away after finding breast cancer one intractable opponent too many. He was now a Lord, an achievement of birth that he wasn’t particularly proud of, but it could come in useful - it had to be useful, or he would drown in a sea of debt.

The Repton’s over the years had been a family name associated with philanthropies and a distinct leaning to the left. The family was particularly well known for the early founders of the Suffragettes and had funded and led - albeit discreetly - activities of militant feminism and associated direct action groups.

Bob didn’t care for politics - he was an artist. He knew that he was a great artist and had made performance art that was known the world over - but very few knew that he was the artistic genius behind it all. He had shown extraordinary self-control in not proclaiming to the world about his aesthetic leadership of the ODC.

Young, disaffected kids committed suicide all the time, and nobody batted an eyelid - so why not utilise this sacrifice into a performance and give it reason. The reason chosen - of protesting about the Workfare Not Welfare reforms didn’t bother Bob in the slightest, but it made the suicidal kids feel like the martyrs they truly aspired to be - so it was an easy sell. Even though they wanted effectively, the same outcome, Bob’s methods were repugnant to his mother - with the slaughter of more than a hundred youngsters, including the pop star Joel Castro and the Jihari creator Pauli Gardner.

Lady Repton had to bring down Bob’s organisation before the authorities could - to protect her only son and the family name. She never forgave him for the carnage he unleashed. Leading figures in the investigative team knew all about Bob’s involvement - but he was protected.

From his private school and university days, he had always been a key recruitment target for groups across the political divide. His boredom pulled those used to fawning attention - to him. None of them knew how to appeal to him. He appeared very much to the right although his family was famously from the left. He was a self-confessed bohemian but kept his inner thoughts well hidden. He did join art and literature groups, but he was very choosy on which ones.

He loved the beat poets and authors, especially the late fifties, but he wasn’t impressed with the counterculture of the late sixties appropriating some of its leading figures. From that period, he was fascinated by Warhol and the Factory - he became a collector and an obsessive fan. He was less of a music fan - he liked the classical works of Wagner (His Father used to play it to him in their Secret Room) and Stravinsky, but the music he sought out emerged from a more contemporary era. Fifties Jazz, the Velvet Underground, anything inspired by Aleister Crowley, Graham Bond, Led Zeppelin, even early Bowie appealed to him. Later periods, and as a result of his exposure to the music at his de facto place of work, the Indie Club, he acquired a taste for the creations of Ian Curtis.

The one organisation that did recruit the future Lord Repton was the H. Offer Forum known to its members as Head Office.

They appeared to be a far-right group in the way they talked and dressed, but they were ideologically promiscuous. They had a network of powerful and influential people strategically placed across the globe, and they brought about political change - not sudden and knee-jerk change but subtle, strategic and joined-up long-term change.

Dictators and tyrants were dissuaded when a request came in from their regimes as they were impatient people and couldn’t be trusted - anyway, it didn’t create the right image. Sometimes they worked with opposition groups in highly volatile regions even if they were left leaning as long as there were opportunities for business in a newly formed and stable state.

They described themselves to Bob as fixers and solution providers and that he should try them out and see for himself the extent of their political reach.

Bob used the services of H. OFFER as a fallback plan should anything go awry with his work with the ODC.

The core of the group’s belief system was long-term planning. If they had a mantra it was those three words - long-term planning - and even though it was a conflict of interest for New Reform, they protected their highly powerful enemy in Bob, as they had plans that could converge all of their interests.

5.TEA DANCES

Wexworth House, the family home of the Reptons through the centuries was closed to the public for renovations. At first, it was closed out of respect for the death of Lady Repton, but that was six months ago, and although re-opening it would bring some much-needed revenue into the estate, Bob didn’t want to have the masses tramping about his home.

Today he had to contend with a different kind of disturbance, as men in suits, whispering into microphones were examining the house in minute detail ahead of Prime Minister Banner’s visit.

Melissa Banner could have had Lord Repton visit her at Downing Street or Chequers, but she didn’t want the press to be onto this story too quickly, and she wanted to be sure she could work with Lord Repton.

Her entourage was kept to a minimum, the Security Detail and the person who put her in power - Adam Blint one of the top table committee at H. Offer.

Class and power were not going to the barrier between them, Bob had spent his whole life as part of the aristocratic elite and quickly suggested that they leave all the PM and Lord nonsense behind, and Melissa was happy to do so. Melissa at forty-two was one of a new breed of younger PMs in modern times. She was an ordinary, auburn-haired woman with only her flinty grey-blue eyes suggesting that she wouldn’t suffer fools gladly. She had dressed informally for the meeting in a turquoise dress and matching low-heeled shoes.

Bob took this as a sign that she wanted to negotiate in a friendly manner if possible.

She said, ‘So, Bob - Adam has advised me on your background but assures me that we could work well together despite your, shall we say, understandable enmity toward my party.’

‘I have no grudge at all against you personally, after all, I don’t think you even had a cabinet position at the time of my father’s death, but that doesn’t mean I have any particular desire to be of service to you.’

‘Be that as it may, I have a job offer for you, one that you are uniquely qualified for.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Department of Media and Culture.’