The New Reform Quartet: New Reform Quartet

By Jim Lowe

Discover the gripping tale of Tatum, a strong-willed woman determined to seek revenge after losing her friends in a terrorist attack. Explore a dystopian world filled with corrupt politics, powerful social media influencers, and a clash between old money and faith. With satirical storytelling, join Tatum on a journey of self-discovery as she navigates the complex forces tearing the world apart. Get ready to be on the edge of your seat with "The New Reform Quartet" - the must-read series for fans of dystopian and literary fiction. Start your journey today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: JRSL PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Jun 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215252369

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

New Reform

Book One of the New Reform Quartet

By

Jim Lowe

Published in 2022 by JRSL Publications

www.jimlowewriting.com

Copyright © Jim Lowe 2022

The moral right of the author has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

An Introduction to the New Reform Quartet

Iwas seventeen years old, and it was a Wednesday. The exact date was 6 th of December 1978. I had an overwhelming desire to write poetry - which was odd for me, as I didn’t read poetry, and whenever I had to study it at school, I never cared for it - I didn’t get it.

I spent a lot of time alone after being thrown out of the house by my mother’s live-in partner - the latest one – at sixteen. He was a member of a gang in my hometown, and he was well known for his violence. I annoyed him by being there, I was in the way. In the run-up to my unceremonious eviction, the leader of his band of brothers had been stabbed to death by his own daughter.

Fortunately for me, I had a job, and I found a landlady who would turn a blind eye to my age. She let me rent a one-room bedsit from her. At least I wasn’t homeless – though it was just as well, because nobody came looking for me. I was angry and brooding. I tried keeping a diary, but I wasn’t disciplined enough to keep it going. The entries were hard-edged and made of concrete and steel, no doubt in part because I was working as an apprentice at an industrial pipe-makers.

On that Wednesday, and for the next two days, I turned these diary entries into my first epic poem. Of course, it was terrible (all amateur poets use this disclaimer), but I was on a natural high while I was writing it. I couldn’t sleep because of all these incredible ideas I had. My obsession with writing poetry continued for the next four years – until the news of my father’s suicide in January of 1983. This coincided with the ending of a three-year relationship - entirely my fault – at the same time. As you can probably guess, I was not easy to know. I was obsessive, I drank heavily, gambled and had strong opinions on everything. My saving grace was that I was equally obsessed with working hard, and luckily for me, this hadn’t gone unnoticed.

By now, I had gone from an apprentice draughtsman - until I was made redundant, to a job with a national retailer on a Railway Station Bookstall and then into a High Street store - what luxury - uniforms and shop central heating! By day, I was working full-time in the store, with great staff and my future wife – and at night, I worked in a bar. It wasn’t unusual for my nights to end at 2 am, and my working days to start at 6:30 am. But I never missed a shift.

When my Area Manager - a man I envisioned working in a golden tower – heard of my father’s death, and then that I lived alone, he arranged – unbeknownst to me – for the manager of another store to take me in with his family for a month, under the guise of giving me management training. On the last night, he told me the truth. He liked me and my work and didn’t want to see my life ruined by this event. The kindness of these men, who were virtually strangers to me, completely upended my views on male relationships, and made me realise what my own father hadn’t been able to give me, and what a good father - a good man - could be.

I returned to my bedsit. I gave up drinking for five months but continued writing what turned out to be my last book of poetry. It was a searing look at myself and my relationship with my father, but still with a strong sense of masculinity - toxic or otherwise. It ended with my father as a fighter pilot, high on octane fuel, dropping bombs on his family, while I watched on from an empty field as he aimed the plane at me. He missed, crashed and burned, leaving his wreckage all around me.

I had a choice - I could be a part of this wreckage and use this as an excuse for any bad behaviour I set my mind to in the future. Or, I could take the pain and grief from this wreckage and rebuild my life.

On Sunday 18th September 1983, I wrote the final chapter of my fourth book of poetry. The final chapter was a sea-shanty in my mind, but later, when I revisited it, I recognised it as a mantra:

The lifeline lives

On scalded hands

Repairing the damage

With material from the wreckage.

And that was it. Not another word of creative writing from me until June 2014 - thirty-one years later.

After reading a book by the singer-songwriter Roy Harper where he deconstructed his songs and explored their meanings. I thought - for the first time in years - of my own ancient poetry books. As I opened them, I was struck by the fact that I barely recognised that angry young man, now. I was a happy family man, whereas this guy was raging at the world. But when I read the last book, it was clear to me that it was a textbook case of someone writing through their grieving process.

I never considered myself one of those people that had a book in them. Something like that would take far too long. But as I was writing again, a novel began to emerge. At first, it was based on events from my life (as most first novels are) – but as other characters appeared and evolved, I got more and more excited. I knew my own life too well. But I didn’t know these people at all. Over time, I shrunk my own life story almost to nothing, to give room for these new characters to take over.

Still, I found the more I wrote, the more patterns emerged. Over time, these developed into four distinct themes – four windows – through which I viewed and shaped the series. From the outset, I was writing fiction, so I didn’t have to be scientifically accurate, I chose not to over-research, but instead to take my own skewed understanding of the things I had been taught. The first rotten window frame I retrieved was Johari’s Window. I put it up against the concrete wall, where the original brickwork had crumbled away and tried to remember. There were four windows into how we are perceived. The first was the public version of the character. The second was how that person was viewed by others - of which they were unaware - an empty room. The third was the private, innermost and intimate thoughts of the person of which nobody else knew - the secrets we keep. And the fourth and final window was that of the unknown, where we only find out what we are truly capable of when placed into extraordinary circumstances.

I pulled out another window frame, the glass smashed, though some of the original paintwork remained. This was from one of the most precious periods of my working life, and that was about inspirational leaders - archetypal Good Kings, Warriors, Great Mothers and Medicine Women (where I fitted the most).

The third battered frame was the Conscious Competence learning model. In the first window, you’re bad, and you don’t know it. Moving through the second window, you’re still bad, but you’re becoming aware of it, and you begin to work on your flaws. By the time of the third window you are good, but you are still mindful that you are working hard at it. When you reach the fourth window, your excellence is a habit, and you just do it - you are not even aware of it anymore.

The final frame was the most personal. I analysed my own father’s disappearance from view and the stages it took. At first, he was present – in my early years, an active participant in the family unit. In the second stage, when he was drinking heavily but still at home; he was detached but still a presence. By the time I viewed him through the third window, he was absent. He had left home, and he had left me behind. By the fourth window he was lost - he had taken his own life and threw it away.

With these four windows in place, I kept rearranging them, putting different ones on top of each other, or turning them around until something appeared in the gaps.

I love big ideas – big concepts – but I also love gripping, pacy plots, I wanted these books to be action thrillers, so I have plotted them tightly – and by the end of book four, I promise you, I’ve tied up the significant plot strands and character arcs. I haven’t left anything dangling to encourage another book in the series – after all, a quintet into a quartet just does not go. And so, I hand you over to my characters – who took over this book in the first place and are itching to do so now. The film is about to start, the Art Director is summoning the next set of transitions, and I’m beginning to dissolve.

This is the last you’ll hear from me.

HEATHER AND TREVOR settled back into each other on the sofa, they had flicked around the channels on the TV, and Heather had picked out a new box set she fancied watching. She said, ‘Let’s watch this - it looks like it’s up our street.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘The New Reform Quartet.’

‘Sounds a bit posh. Are you sure? What’s it about?’

‘It says it’s an action thriller, one of those alternate-history things. It’s got a dystopian vibe to it.’

‘Any zombies.’

‘No, babe.’

Trevor laughed, ‘Tell you what, if the warnings are good then we’ll watch it.’

The screen announcer said, ‘The following programme contains violence, bad language, drug use...’

Trevor said, ‘Sounds promising.’

‘Scenes of a sexual nature and flashing images.’

‘Woohoo! Full house.’

Heather dug him in the ribs, ‘Let the credits roll babe, I’m going to get some ice-cream, do you want some?’

‘Yeah, go on then.’

Heather went to the kitchen, grabbed a couple of tubs of ice cream from the freezer, then picked out a couple of clean-ish spoons from the drawer. She wandered back to the living room and flopped back down next to Trevor. ‘Did I miss anything, Babe?’

‘They had this eerie, or maybe it was a dreamy piece of music for about a minute.’

‘Who was it by?’

‘Becky Rose - 1:42 am - have you heard of her?’

‘Can’t say I have, babe. Anything else?’

‘Not much. The music changed to some jazz music, and it showed a weirdly dressed woman wandering down some deserted city streets.’

‘You of all people are criticising her dress sense.’

Trevor was just about to continue the joke when Heather put a finger to her lips, ‘Quiet now, babe. I want to watch this.’

1: ORANGE LADY

Tatum strolled through the quiet streets of the Square Mile on a crisp, autumnal Saturday. Visibility won’t be an issue today, she thought.

In Arlington, she would have attracted attention dressed as she was. But here, in fashionable London, such eccentric orange clothing on a wiry, middle-aged lady would just be a new bourgeois style. The Shoreditch Look or Camden Kitsch. 

Not that Arlington – the hometown she didn’t overly care for - was without its wealthy districts. It was a financial hub for the North West, but it was besieged by run-down housing estates on all sides, with all the architectural missteps of Brutalist designs from the sixties to the nineties well represented. The fashionistas saved their conspicuous style for the capital, on the well-advised grounds of personal safety.

Arlington formed the political fault lines for the country’s extremists. Even those who lived there, who didn’t choose a side, were loud in their opinions. The Militant Middle, the national press called them.

She had stitched up the outfit herself, after rifling through materials on the local market stalls. It was a simple trouser suit, but she had given the trousers a flourish with some outsized flares. She had to give off an impression of eccentricity if she were to go about her business unhindered.

The colour choice was the clincher. It gave the impression to passers-by that she was likely to be a mad cat lady, or some other strange woman, best left to her own devices. She put an immense amount of care into the tints and tones of her textile creation.

She had her orange-tinted sunglasses - the one item that might feasibly be seen as cool – and she carried a large holdall, also home-made, and considerably stronger and more secure than it looked.

Two weeks earlier, she had been working as a cleaner at the unkempt and unloved office tower opposite the mAD Tower. Access would not be an issue. She’d often thought of her late Ma as she wandered around the low-rent offices, efficiently cleaning each one with its drab kaleidoscopic decor of orange and brown. Her family home, like everybody else’s, was decorated like this until the tsunami of black ash and chrome swept them into the history books. This tower never made the transition to the modern world, its designs reaching the mid-seventies before freezing in the headlights of the future.

She took the lift to the thirty-ninth floor. In the sparkling skyscraper opposite, Martin Whitehead’s office was on floor thirty-seven. But she’d done her homework. The older building had lower ceilings - every inch made a crucial difference.

Her earpiece buzzed with the sound of voices running checks on the various feeds. A live stream of the room itself lit up her phone. Since the disastrous Saudi mission, she’d developed a phobia of technology, but she needed a burner for today. She looked forward to disposing of it at the very first opportunity.

If Jack could extract a clear-cut confession, either from Whitehead or his right-hand man, Tony Spicer, she would have no need to intervene today.

She noted the arrival of the scheduled road works and a small group of Traffic Wardens and WPCs. A navy-blue van had appeared for them to shelter in when the time arrived. Jack had been insistent. He didn’t want to risk any innocent bystanders being hurt or killed. Not like last time.

She liked his plan, though it was a little bit ornate for her tastes. Still, she did everything in her power to indulge him. He was giving his life for this.

She had promised to ensure his family’s security and get them into a safe house, should the situation dictate that it was necessary. Tatum had given him her word. It was the least she could do.

He was a first timer - a one and only timer, she thought, darkly - on this mission - an enthusiastic amateur. She, on the other hand, was a professional - and professionals made contingency plans.

She waited for some cloud cover, and slowly pushed at the window that tilted outward. She was careful. A flash of reflective sunlight might draw an eye toward her, leaving her exposed.

She unpacked her high-velocity sniper rifle and slipped into her well-rehearsed routine. There would always be new causes and missions to fight for, but this, for her, could be the closing chapter.

She was ready.

Her burner vibrated. It, too, was an orange flip phone that felt like a sleek clamshell in her hand. She thought of all the secretions that would form an invisible slick across the surface, all the particles that would betray her. The phone touched her hands, fingers and ears, and her breath rested upon the screen and hid away in the microphone. She wondered if a high-intensity fire would eradicate every last trace of her from this traitorous technology. She looked forward to watching the burner burn.

There was only one person who had her number. ‘Hi, Kate.’

‘Is everything in place?’

‘Yes, the girls have sealed the road off. We’re just waiting for Jack to arrive. For the show to begin.’

‘The nearest Senior Officer on duty will take at least ten minutes to reach you. Other patrols could reach the scene sooner, but they would just secure the area.’

A few hundred yards away, she watched Jack’s car pull into an empty street. She watched him leave his old family saloon and smiled as she saw the car indicator lights flash twice. He’d locked the car behind him - as though it mattered if it was stolen.

‘He’s here,’ she said, softly.

‘Good. Remember to use the route I gave you. It has the least CCTV coverage.’ She paused. ‘Good luck.’

Tatum had tried to keep Kate out of this. But she should have known she would find out - and, she admitted to herself, it was helpful to have her expertise and support.

She put the phone away and fixed her gaze onto the room opposite. Her target, if events didn’t quite turn out to plan.

MARTIN WHITEHEAD PICKED up off his imposing desk the only old thing in his office. He traced his fingers over the vintage leather and played with the frayed stitching, then over the faded gold embossed letters: General E. Whitehead. He smiled as he undid the buckle, as he could never understand why it was designed with three slots when obviously only one was required. He opened the binocular case and looped the strap over his head. He put the inside of the case to his nose – he could still smell the pipe tobacco.

Martin paced across the room and looked out of his window. The day was bright, and all was right with his world. He swept the London skyline with his binoculars until he came to the run-down and deserted office block across the way. Today it only heightened his sense of achievement, as he compared it with satisfaction to his glittering palace. His pride and joy.

The old block was the interruption in its otherwise uninterrupted view of the City. It had the nickname of the Burnt Match among the financial folk. On the dark side of the building, invisible from mAD, the top third of the skyscraper had been derelict for years, thanks to a fire in the mid-seventies. Decades of legal wrangling had meant it was a mausoleum housing dead businesses.

Martin was drawn to that old block more than ever today. Maybe he was feeling more emotional than usual. Recognition at last, he thought. And not just for him. Tony, too, was being recognised – his lifelong friend. He loved him more than a brother.

He had never sought the limelight, though sometimes it found him. He had been a good employer: mAD was named Company of The Year time and again thanks to the flexible and innovative bonus and rewards systems for his team. He loved his Creatives, and they loved him.

Something caught his attention from the Burnt Match in his binoculars. He paused and looked a little more closely.

Tatum caught the unmistakeable flash of sunlight from a lens. She bowed her head slightly so that the top of her beret covered her face a little - but not enough that she couldn’t still see Martin Whitehead’s office. The lens reflected on and off for a few seconds, and then it stopped.

He smiled at his reflection, tapping thoughtfully on the bulletproof glass before pushing his fingers through his thick black hair as he wondered who he might dine with that evening - to celebrate.

Opposite, unseen, Tatum stood, still, in her calm, meditative state. She was invisible, dressed to blend into the backdrop of faded orange walls and soiled tan carpets.

2: 1978: THE PUNK AND THE DRESSMAKER

Mrs O’Neill was sitting , knitting and watching TV in her living room, while the usual Saturday afternoon pandemonium broke out in the kitchen/diner of her six-bedroomed home. The vista of the front drive was littered with car parts, and half fixed motorcycles. At the side of the large, Victorian end-terraced house, were two transit vans. The house backed onto the abandoned Arlington Auto Plant , a casualty of the early seventies decline.

The boys were letting off a little steam before they headed into Arlington for some drinking and partying. Since the football season had finished, they’d been restless, bored at the absence of any excitement in their lives.

‘It sounds like it might be getting a little rowdy in there,’ she shouted, trying to attract the attention of her husband, Donald, who was in his study going over his ledgers. He had been oblivious to the commotion.

Tatum, aged fourteen, was arguing with her younger brother Gabriel, who was twelve but already bigger than her – and she was tall – while two of her older brothers Patrick and David, continued to goad Gabriel on.

Gabriel and Tatum were grappling; Tatum pushed him back, made a little room and tried to knee Gabriel in the stomach. David, like a boxing coach at the side of the ring, shouted, ‘Come on Gabriel, you can’t let a girl win,’ just as he landed a sharp punch to her rib cage, and the thin, sandy-haired girl went down.

‘That’s more like it,’ Patrick yelled. ‘Now finish her – go on, never let them get back up.’

Gabriel hesitated for a second and Tatum launched herself at him with a roar, the two of them crashing into the standing Patrick and David, leaving the four of them in a writhing heap on the floor.

David laughed. ‘I told you, didn’t I? See what happens when you don’t do as your brothers tell you.’

The door opened with a crack. In their Da’s icy, imposing presence, the laughter stopped immediately. The boys got up quickly, Tatum more slowly and with a sullen look toward her Da.

Donald The Don O’Neill was a businessman – at least as far as his wife was concerned. She knew that’s what she should tell the authorities, should it ever become necessary to do so. In fact, he was an arms dealer, though a fair proportion of his profits were made from money lending to the poor and desperate in and around Arlington. His sons provided expert help in extracting money from, or dispatching non-payers. Rival organisations knew he had links with the Ulster Freedom Fighters in Belfast – a fact which made him a big shark in a small pool.

‘What’s going on?’

His friends knew Patrick as Killer, even at the tender age of eighteen, but that moniker was not mentioned in the family home out of respect for his Ma. He was a shaven-headed, muscle-bound young man, but even he was afraid of his Da. He nodded toward Gabriel to answer.

Gabriel stood to attention. ‘Tatum wouldn’t make the tea.’

‘Make the tea,’ Donald said, without looking at the girl, who stormed off to the kitchen.

Donald said, ‘Where’s Andrew?’

‘Cleaning his motorbike – he’s legal now.’

Donald looked Gabriel in the eyes until he flinched and turned away.

Tatum looked back through the kitchen, into the large but sparsely furnished dining area. Patrick was briefing Gabriel on tactics to defeat her next time. The more she strained to hear his instructions, the louder the kettle rumbled and whooshed. She noted his movements, which she interpreted as a feint to her right, followed by moves to attack her on the left.

He thinks I’m weaker on that side, she thought. She resolved to practice for as long as it took until she could punch and kick as well with her left as she could with her right.

As the kettle piped down, she heard Patrick say, ‘Of course, in a real-life situation, you would put them down, any means necessary, to make sure they couldn’t get back up. If that means you break a fucking arm or leg, then so be it.’

Tatum was aware that her Da was still coldly assessing her and she felt the need to make haste in finishing the tea. She poured the kettle into a huge teapot that acted as a physical workout for her right arm as she lifted it and poured enough tea for seven.

LATER, SHE AND HER Ma sat talking, making clothes. It had become something of a Saturday night tradition. She was already in her pyjamas, deathly pale, with the family’s trademark sandy hair and sharp features. ‘I don’t know how you put up with them, Ma,’ she said, softly.

‘Now, now, they are good providers. I’m proud of my boys and your Da. It’s not easy providing for a family of seven, I can tell you.’

‘Well, I’m not going to live like this.’

‘No dear, I don’t suppose you will.’ She sat quietly for a moment, before changing the subject. ‘What are you making?’

‘I’m doing some punk outfits for my mates and me. I’m getting paid for it.’

‘Is that the loud music you play in your room? One of these days I swear you’ll come crashing through the ceiling, jumping around to that silly Car Crash song.’

‘Ma! It’s not Car Crash, it’s Carcass.’

‘Well, it sounds like a car crash. Do you have to play it so loud?’

Tatum didn’t answer, concentrating on a few critical stitches. ‘Ma? Why did I have to be called Tatum?’

‘Tatum is a film star name, and you were my little star.’

‘But it’s so American. I hear the other kids at school – taking the piss when they think I’m not around – Tay-term, makes you squirm. It doesn’t fit who I am.’

‘That’s just kids being silly – you shouldn’t let words hurt you.’

Tatum chose to ignore this piece of advice.

Her Ma tried to catch Tatum’s eyes, but Tatum was determined not to show any weakness, so she kept her gaze fixed on her garment until the subject moved on.

Her Ma surrendered, ‘What would you have chosen if you could, when you were my babe in arms?’

‘Something anarchic - like Siouxie - then I could have been a Red Indian Punk.’

‘I never question your Da, but I had to fight my corner to name you Tatum. He went into a right grump about it, but as you were just a girl, he let me. Eventually.’

‘What did Da want to call me?’

‘Gracie.’

‘But that’s your name!’

‘I think he thought it showed his love and respect for me. Not that he’d ever admit that.’

‘So, would I have been called Junior or something?’

‘Don’t be silly dear! I’d still be Ma, and you would have been my Grace.’

Tatum was struggling a little with the sewing. The trouble with Punk outfits, she had discovered, was all the slippery fabrics.

‘It might be an idea to baste it, before cutting,’ her Ma said, softly. ‘Then use some French seams for the sewing. You won’t get those nasty fraying edges, and it’s a beautiful stitch.’

She leant over to examine Tatum’s work, ‘Do you need any help?’

Tatum started to giggle.

‘What is it, child?’ Mrs O’Neill broke out into a warm smile.

‘My Ma wants to help me make clothes for punks. You are so sweet.’

‘I’ll tell you something sweetheart: I’d make anything with you; I look forward to our quiet Saturday evenings together more than anything else.’

3: BULLET POINTS

At her run-down comprehensive school, in the undeveloped area of Arlington, Tatum struggled with her schoolwork. The other kids bore the brunt of her frustration.

However, her home-schooling gave her skills that even the toughest boys hadn’t learned yet, as she pummelled and wrestled all-comers. She didn’t have a weight or much of a height advantage over the kids that she had perceived had slighted her, but she was wiry to the point of being made out of industrial cable. Even when a blow was landed on her, she would laugh and offer her congratulations, before landing sharp blows and wrapping her arms and legs around her opponent, slowly suffocating them until they submitted, defeated and exhausted.

She once broke the arm of a much-feared bully. Her parents were summoned to the school, as she faced expulsion, but on seeing Donald O’Neill and his four boys, the Headmaster relented and let her off with a final warning. The Headmaster discreetly put Tatum into the C Stream, which didn’t officially exist, with the other kids who were just about given up on.

Tatum, though, learned another valuable lesson: she could win as many fights as she wanted, just as long as she didn’t inflict any visible and lasting harm. Her Da had made it clear: he had far more important business to conduct than going to school to bail her out.

In the C Stream, Tatum grew like a vibrant weed in waste ground. There was one teacher assigned to get them through most lessons (or just about). Mr Hood was motivated by a salary and a quiet life and was more than happy to let the class run riot while he read his collection of thrillers. The only time he stepped in to intervene was when one of the pupils threatened to walk out. It was his one rule, and the rest of the class could get away with almost anything, as long as they didn’t cross that red line.

Mr Hood was still only in his late twenties but had long since given up on a career in teaching. He had a thick moustache, and his eyes peered out from his long, lank black greasy hair, like a light from a cinema screen before the drab velvet curtains had been fully withdrawn.

Mr Hood justified his role: he always made an effort to begin every lesson in the traditional method. He introduced every subject, trying to make it as interesting as possible, and occasionally he made it as far as fifteen minutes into the lesson before the disruption would begin. He would offer a half-hearted appeal for quiet, before returning to his books.

Tatum, for her part, felt a burning sense of injustice with the education system she had been exposed to, and ridiculed by. She absolutely knew that she had intelligence - this was obvious because most of her so-called peers were so stupid.

Ok - they could do all sorts of tricks with reading and writing that she couldn’t do. They could look at pages without using their fingers, and she was sure they were cheating when they turned the pages quickly.

Tatum fought the words on the page like she fought the children in the school, and it was just as exhausting, if not so exhilarating. Her white-knuckled fingers pressed down on every word on the page as if it were an insect that would fly away if she didn’t pin it down by its wings.

She believed that the system was designed for speed and nothing to do with education, as she could understand the writing if only, they gave her the time.

Mr Hood was not particularly thrilled to have been given his first permanent teaching assignment in a class that contained the infamous Tatum O’Neill, the most disruptive and violent pupil in the school. The first few weeks were a time of establishing a new leader for the class, and it soon became clear that it wouldn’t be him.

Once the battles were fought, with frightening ferocity on Tatum’s part, she soon became the Head Girl of the Damned and the Doomed.

Mr Hood began his lessons, in the vain hope of reaching the class, as usual. On one occasion he was introducing Physics when he heard a loud, ‘Sssh!’

Tatum blazed over a look to her bedraggled classmates as a final warning, and although the kids were tough, they still didn’t invite beatings willingly. Tatum said, ‘I will hear this, even if I have to come back to it after I’ve given someone a good kicking. Now shut the fuck up.’

Mr Hood knew he should challenge Tatum’s swearing at least, but he sensed a rare opportunity to teach, so he continued to try and explain velocity and gravity.

Tatum didn’t need to raise a hand to ask, ‘And how does that affect a bullet?’

Mr Hood wiped the blackboard clean, the first time since the beginning of the school year many months before, and he drew a large circle, representing the Earth. He put a white chalk dot at the centre, with arrows pointing inward at the dot, like spokes in a bicycle wheel and he explained how the centre was pulling everything back into it.

Tatum was paying close attention to Mr Hood, but also to the slightest of transgressions from her fellow students.

He continued to draw a matchstick figure of a man, on the surface of his chalked Earth and gave the man a gun that fired dotted lines that curved around, until the bullet lines came to rest on the Earth’s surface, represented by the edge of the chalk circle.

He wanted to continue, but Tatum halted him. He watched, as she copied into her notebook, slowly but carefully the drawing he had made.

Mr Hood mulled over what had happened and began to work guns and bullets into as many lessons as possible. The required reading for English became his favourite thriller novels, especially those containing snipers and spies. Mathematics provided the geometry of the marksman, Religious Education included the quiet mind of the skilled assassin, and even Geography touched on terrain, and how the weather conditions could impact on the trajectory of a bullet.

4: JIGSAW PIECES

The last thing she expected from school was an education.

Mr Hood gave her time to make her notes, and she became fascinated by time and how she could slow it down to suit her, if only she were left the fuck alone.

Tatum embraced her perceived slowness as her own personal super-power. In her room, she practised moving as slowly as she could, and then trying to remain as still as possible.

Being the only girl in this dystopian band of brothers she found it none too difficult to fade away from the family view, but soon she perfected the art of disappearing completely.

She held a motionless position in a room for long enough that the awareness of her presence dwindled to next-to-nothing. Then she would watch. Patterns formed; her Ma when not doing her chores would be the constant in the room, knitting, fixing the men’s clothes, and watching soaps, while her Da and her sons, came and went.

Sometimes she would believe that her stillness endowed her with a cloak of invisibility, especially when conversations took place that didn’t take her proximity into account.

She became engrossed in the operational prowess of her cold-hearted Da, as he ordered his sons to check the condition of hundreds of weapons.

He was thorough, and he trained the boys accordingly. He carried out monthly inventories against his handwritten ledger, seemingly concerned with preventing his boys making a little extra money on the side. Every box of bullets, every scope, bag or attachment had to be located and inspected, before being stored, meticulously in the basement.

Tatum won the trust of her Da when she broke her silent vigil once, to beg him to let her help with the weaponry. She soon became adept at dismantling and reassembling them, and her thoroughness and enthusiasm for maintaining them was the closest the Da and daughter ever came to bond.

Tatum had always been trained to say - if ever anyone should ask - that the family were in the double-glazing business. They even had a van in the driveway with a large red logo on a white background, which read: O’Neill’s Premium Glazing Company.

Not that Tatum could remember any of the family ever discussing double-glazing and that particular van seemed to be used as a run-around. There was a larger, blue transit van, fitted out with wooden benches as if it were a band’s touring bus, which was used for the real business.

Her Da regularly pulled out a second ledger for frequent discussions with Killer, in particular. They didn’t seem to care, or notice, when Tatum was there - they thought she was insignificant and not too bright, anyway – and they discussed business in a heavily coded way, especially when talking about their lucrative side-line of money lending.

She eventually learnt the codes they were using. At first, when they were talking, she wondered if she were being checked for her reaction, or discretion, when they spoke of taking their caps off, adjusting the throttle, pressure testing them, taking the heads off or getting the family round the table.

With the repetition of these phrases, she concluded that these were levels of torture, death and even punishment of the household, after the fact. Some people were denoted with a derogatory characterisation - Jew Boy, Arse Wipe, The Brickie, The Brief, and many more - suggested that this was a thriving enterprise, with many clients on the books.

Apparently, many people paid back the money on time, as Killer would proudly produce a large block of cash, and his Da would check it off, carefully transcribing each transaction in his ledger. He made extensive notes on the quality of the business with each client, in case they should want to become repeat customers.

Killer relished these meetings with his Da, and Tatum would sometimes find him remembering her presence as he leered at her while confirming to his Da, ‘So, once I head off the Brief, then I will get the family more involved in the business shortfall.’

Tatum’s home was brown. Every room was brown. The posters of Siouxie and the Banshees, and a collage of gun photos, stolen from the magazines that were scattered on tables, big and small, in the living room, only relieved Tatum’s room, from the relentless browns.

In her room, she had the time, and lack of interruptions, to laboriously pin down and read every word about the guns. She revelled in the specifications, the mechanisms of the guns she had seen at home, and the high-end rifles that she might never see. These, she chose for her wall, so she could dream of the day when she could own one of them.

Tatum began to consider many of the things that she found confusing.

At school, everybody called her Irish, because of her name and her accent, but she felt more British than any of them.

On rare occasions, a school friend would invite her over to her place, but there was never a flag to be seen, neither English nor British.

With the family business, Tatum couldn’t ask anyone round. If she could have, though, she might have given them a lesson in patriotism, for her parents and her brothers showed off their national pride with enthusiasm. In every room against the brown backdrop, there would be St George Crosses and Union Jacks. Even the crockery would be adorned with symbols of this so-called great land.

Killer’s room was a little different. His walls were filled with Nazi flags and collectables. Ma had, naturally, expressed some concern but was swiftly overruled by Da. ‘It’s what his new associates are into, and we have a lot of business coming in from them. That’s why I allow them to see him here; it builds trust.’

Tatum knew they had been talking about things other than rifles recently. Now it was C4, Semtex and detonators to help in the troubles.

Tatum absorbed information in her home education. First, it was the magazines, and then she moved onto the technical manuals. By osmosis, she began to understand the world around her through TV, dominated by football, the news and history documentaries. The football brought her a passing interest in Arlington FC, England and Northern Ireland. The news, with its political segments, however, brought her confusion and a growing identity crisis.

Not only was there her Irish or English conundrum but also the English, Nazi and German problem. Wasn’t there the war thing where Germany was the evil enemy? Aren’t the English and Irish in perpetual conflict across the sea?

She played with this problem, over and over, in her mind, until she had a political epiphany. Like restless hands fidgeting with the Rubik’s Cube she accidentally lined up the colours of all the faces, and she realised her conflict wasn’t with the races: it was with the genders.

She looked at the puzzle from all sides; Margaret Thatcher becoming Prime Minister was a clue but not the obvious answer. She didn’t like Thatcher the Milk Snatcher, but her Da and Killer did. ‘She would strike fear into their enemies across the water,’ they said, as if they knew something that maybe others didn’t about this middle-class grocer’s daughter.

At first, she was struck by the thought that a woman could strike fear into their enemies.

Her mind reeled at night with Carcass, her earworm providing her sleepless soundtrack. She imagined war across the Irish Sea between fighting men – and then- she imagined fighting women. They never mentioned women in historical battles at school – or maybe she wasn’t listening if they did. Then she dreamed of fighting for something – anything - and then she thought about her future if she didn’t fight but just accepted this path selected for her by her Da.

Her revelations made her feel such a blind fool, as she recalled, but never investigated, all the little bumps her Ma had suffered.

She also made the connection between the comments she used about her own bruises. Her default remark, aside from, ‘It’s none of your fucking business,’ was that she was just, ‘playing with her big brothers,’ but now she began to see that differently. For the first time, she looked into her future and couldn’t see anything different appearing for her, other than simply getting older.

In her room, she examined every bruise, mark and cut while she considered her options. She was too young to just run away, and the consequences even worried her. She needed protection, and she shouldn’t plan to only run away, she should plan her escape.

5: DEAD PORK

Tatum had to plan carefully on how she would leave the family home when she finally turned sixteen. She didn’t want to break her Ma’s heart, being the only girl, the only female company she had. But she was bored with the regular physical battles with her brothers. Gabriel was becoming bigger and stronger, but Tatum was using her ability to slow her mind down at times of extreme stress, to avoid his blows and his flailing attempts to grapple her. She wished she could cut loose and break something; a leg or an ankle (and she knew she could) but putting a family member out of action would only disrupt her plans. She needed to avoid lockdowns.

In a confined space, sometimes it wasn’t possible for her to avoid being tangled up with him, especially when a brother would assist Gabriel by catching her and throwing her into his arms. She would wriggle furiously, trying to break free of his thick muscly arms, and then she would feel his hard dick bulging from inside of his trousers as he pretended to be just messing with her, and calling out, ‘Do you submit?’ Tatum would always say, ‘Yes,’ not out of pain but out of unconscious disgust.

Tatum was tough, but she didn’t understand sex. She knew abstractly what it was supposed to be for, but this wasn’t called sex, it was called horseplay, so it couldn’t be connected.

What she desired was a gun, not a man, and for that, she needed to become closer to her Da.

She worked hard at honing her shooting accuracy. At first, it was hours with air rifles, the ones her brothers now discarded as toys, using all the techniques she had read about slowing the mind and taking the shot. Under her Da’s supervision, she impressed him with the real thing, the high calibre rifles. He claimed she was a natural, which didn’t do justice to the dedication that Tatum had put into the reading and the patience in her shooting.

AFTER MUCH PRODDING, her Da finally relented and took Tatum along to one of his Blue Van Days, code for an arms deal. This wasn’t a third-party deal, but one with the High Command within the Protestant cause. The O’Neill family drove for about an hour to an isolated farm in the lush northern English countryside. Killer did the driving with his Da alongside him. Tatum and Gabriel sat on one bench, in the back of the Transit van, facing David and Andrew, over four large crates of rifles.

The boys were excited and on edge throughout the journey, noisily trying to show their lack of apprehension. When they arrived at the farm, they set the area up with targets and sorted out the selected demonstration rifles and machine guns, ready for their visitor.

Commander Greagan finally arrived; climbing out of the gleaming black van, joined by another man. Tatum quickly noticed this Commander was horrifically disfigured. Her Da saw Tatum’s reaction and leaned into her and whispered, ‘The IRA did that. It was a miracle that he survived the blast.’

Her Da greeted him, and the man with him, Aiden. The boys stood to attention, and even Killer seemed unusually respectful.

The demonstrations began with the boys eagerly firing hundreds of machine gun rounds. Aiden inspected the Heckler & Koch, perched on its stand, he then lay on the ground and took a shot, and then another, and one more. He stood up and announced, ‘It’s out.’

This was the first time that Tatum had ever seen concern drain her Da’s face, ‘It’s not, I assure you.’

‘Aiden’s my top man. If he says it’s out, it’s out.’

Commander Greagan, looked at the puzzled faces of the boys, ‘Unless you have someone who can prove my man wrong?’

Donald looked at his boys and saw a mixture of shame and dread in their eyes, whereas Tatum seemed implacable, if she knew of the reputation of this man, nicknamed ‘Melt,’ she would surely show more fear.

‘My girl, Tatum, she could demonstrate that it’s yer man’s fault, not the gun’s.’

Aiden reacted furiously, ‘What the fuck? Are you trying to fuck with me?’

The commander raised a hand, ‘And what if she doesn’t?’

‘I’ll forego my cut, twenty grand, but if she makes it, in her own time, because she doesn’t rush the shot like yer man, then we complete the deal.’

‘Done. Now let’s see what the girlie’s made of.’

Tatum threw back her shoulders and jutted her chin out and a sense of overwhelming pride surged through her. This was her moment of acceptance by her Da. She tried to hide her excitement and nodded to the gathering and moved to the rifle. She stripped it down and reassembled it quickly. She took out a dust cloth to every part, including the stand and the telescopic sight.

She lay down, allowing the centre of the Earth to fix her dead weight of a body to the ground. She examined the breeze coming and going across her face, like waves lapping at the shore. She focused on her target, trying to rid herself of all extraneous distractions until only the centre of the target commanded her attention. Slowly her finger made itself comfortable on the trigger, while her shoulder prepared to dance in time with the oncoming recoil.

Melt crept over to Tatum, and he knelt beside her. He followed her gaze to the target, and then he began to slide his hands upwards between her splayed legs.

Killer shouted, ‘What the fuck!’ His Da grabbed his arm.

Tatum froze.

Melt said, ‘Gonna let your boy talk to me like that?’

Donald knew that his business, and maybe his family, could be wiped out, with an inappropriate act of defiance to his Commander. He had the same attitude to indiscipline. He held his hand up, to his boys, preventing any further disobedience.

Melt continued, ‘The brothels make more money than the arms business. Did you know that Donald?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yer girlie here, she’s feisty, a bit on the scrawny side mind, but some of the customers like ‘em like that.’

She desperately wanted to escape his grasp or maybe jump up and rip the head of this fucker – but this was a situation that demanded that she couldn’t do that. He continued to rub and squeeze her leg and then she was horrified at the thought that she might actually be seen to encourage him if she didn’t resist.

‘Of course, being one of our own and not one of the Fenian whores, she might be groomed to run a place, if she proved herself.’

Melt stared out from his twisted visage, judging Donald, testing his reaction.

Donald replied, ‘Come on boss, she’s not even ripe yet.’

Tatum felt his hands go all the way to the top of her jeans; she was in turmoil as he rubbed his fingers into her clothing. Her instinct was to jump up and attack him, right now and fuck the consequences, but the training and the reading kicked in her self-belief, the stillness was her power – it could be her weapon of choice.

She would be Dead Pork.

Even as his hand cupped the cheek of her arse, she went back into herself, back to the centre of the target. If she missed, he would have won ultimately, he would have copped a feel, as the girls in her class would have said – not that any boy had dared to cop a feel of Tatum before, and be twenty thousand pounds richer. What would hurt him more than anything was if she took the fucking shot.

The urge to rush was almost overwhelming, as each second of his groping seemed to last for elongated minutes, but she resisted, and waited, until she came to the complete moment of stillness, a oneness with the target. An imaginary white veil put everything except the bull’s-eye into soft focus, and she let the bullet fly into the dead centre.

The boys let out an involuntary gasp and suppressed cries of ‘Yes!’

Commander Greagan stood up and fired a dismissive look at Aiden.

As he went back over to Donald, he said to Tatum, without looking at her, and maybe it was more for Donald’s benefit, ‘Good girl, just teasing you there.’

Tatum jumped up and strode toward the men. Commander Greagan heard her move and turned to see Tatum staring at him defiantly.

He returned her gaze, willing her to back down, but Tatum refused.

She slowly raised her arms, mimicking the holding of a rifle. Her head moved forwards as if she were sizing him up in the gun’s sights and then she jerked her head back as if she had sent an imaginary bullet into his forehead.

The O’Neill family looked on in horror, as even then Melt refused to move or make any acknowledgement of this blatant act of defiance. Tatum still stared straight into his malevolent green eyes, which blazed out of his face of misshapen lumps of melted fat.

Finally, Tatum withdrew her gaze only to blaze them at her family, she raged at them. ‘Thanks for all your help out there, boys - at least, I now know that I can never rely on you fucking bunch of wimps!’

She didn’t want them to see that she was upset, so she marched off back to the transit van with the sound of Commander Greagan’s burst of loud, mocking laughter. ‘From the mouths of babes!’

Tatum sat on the bench, with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. ‘I had a rifle, I should have killed the bastard,’ she muttered, below her breath.

6: THE CHOSEN ONE

Her sixteenth birthday was approaching, and she knew what she wanted as a present and who she wanted it from. Most of her birthdays had passed by unnoticed, except for a little token, and a small birthday cake from her Ma. She knew she had a case for something special. She had earned it, and her Da may just consider it a good business proposition, to keep his asset on board. She had become the demonstrator of choice for the sniper rifles.

Tatum went in to see him, in his makeshift study. He sat at his bureau, payment in lieu of a debt that couldn’t be satisfied with cash, and he had his Ledgers out.

He didn’t look up; he carried on as if she wasn’t there. Tatum had cultivated her invisibility, so she didn’t make a fuss, even with teenage gestures and shrugs. He wasn’t going to speak, and Tatum had never before engaged her Da in small talk, so it didn’t occur to her to start now.

‘Da, I want to have my own rifle for my birthday.’

‘When’s your birthday?’

‘Next week.’

‘How old will you be?’

‘Sixteen.’

He looked over his ledger, again, tapped on a calculator, and then wrote in a few numbers. He called out, ‘Patrick!’

Tatum heard footsteps from the room above and the sounds of boots running down the stairs. Killer came in and approximately, stood to attention.

His Da still remained engrossed in his work, ‘Patrick, take your sister to the armoury. Let her select a rifle of her own choice, anything she wants.’

Killer knew better than to ask a question, especially if it involved questioning his Da’s judgment.

Donald O’Neill added to his order, ‘And she can have the accessories and bags, to go with it.’

‘Yes, Da.’

Killer left, and Tatum followed him to the large kitchen, with its brown tiled floor. He gestured to help him move the breakfast table that could cater for a dozen guests. He then removed the pale brown Persian rug, raised the trap door, switched the basement light on and descended the ladder. Tatum followed him without waiting to be asked.

Tatum loved the smell of oil and grease and perused the shelves until she found the rifle, she had wanted all along. She selected the rifle case, stands and telescopic sights, she even picked up a cleaning kit and a box of a hundred bullets, as she knew she may never have another chance to return to select something she may have forgotten.

She didn’t wait for her birthday to arrive. She took her rifle to her room, examined every millimetre of it, and even kept it alongside her in her bed with her that night, just in case her Da changed his mind, or that this was all a joke and they would take it back off her.

Over the next few days, she thought obsessively about how she could escape her home and take her beloved rifle with her. She reasoned that they would be cautious about tracking her down if they deduced that she could defend herself with lethal force.

TATUM’S EDUCATION AND academic abilities had shown an improvement because of Mr Hood’s capitulation to Tatum’s insistence that every possible lesson centred its learning’s on gun-related activity.

Mr Hood’s inconceivable success didn’t go unnoticed, and he was soon transferred out of this Cell Block, and into a class with children who voluntarily wanted to learn, and who were wary of crossing swords with a man who could tame Tatum.

Within thirty minutes of Mr Brown, fresh out of Oxford, taking over the C Stream, normal service was resumed. Fights erupted, and Tatum walked out, never to return - not even for the exams that might just have qualified her for some tedious employment.

This latest development meant that she could now stay up all night and sleep all day. Her nocturnal assignment added detail to her plans as she constructed her alternative future. Her Da’s routine for weekday evenings was straightforward and thankfully predictable. He watched TV with her Ma, while having cups of tea early on and a whiskey or two as a nightcap. He paid close attention the to the national news and even closer attention to the local, Arlington News, before going to bed.

Her Ma finished washing any dishes that were lying around before dutifully following her husband to bed around 11 pm. The boys could still, do as they please as long as they were quiet, as they feared their Da’s wrath if they woke him in the early hours.

Tatum noticed that her Da’s mood turned increasingly icy if there was an arms deal approaching, at which point he developed a stare that felt as if he could see into her soul. After a deal had been completed, she noticed an almost imperceptible thaw, as if the latest deal had proved the trustworthiness of his children once more.

Tatum practised an implacable visage, which would hide all her feelings to combat the growing dread that her Da would see through her and know her plans.

Night after night she watched, making detailed notes in her mind. She began to develop her memory skills.