Comply or Die Read online

  Comply or Die

  A Dark Tides Thriller

  Tony Hutchinson

  Cheshire Cat Books Ltd

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Friday 13th December 2013

  I love Fridays.

  No lessons after 2.30pm, two-and-a-half hours in the town before catching the bus home.

  My time.

  Nobody at home knows I have those two-and-a-half hours.

  My time.

  CF. College Friday.

  My time.

  College is great; when I walk through those gates I can be whoever I want to be, talk to who I want, but like all 18-year-old girls, I love shopping. Well, window-shopping in my case, but hey, we can all dream.

  I’m not allowed to go shopping with my college friends on a Saturday. Not allowed to go anywhere on a Saturday.

  The only time I’m allowed to wear Western dress is when I go to college. Ridiculous. I was born in Seaton St George. I’m British.

  I wear black trousers and white blouses for college, a black jumper in the winter. Whoppee-do. There’s no uniform code, that’s what I have to wear: uniform code according to dad. Somebody should remind him I’m British, but I wouldn’t dare.

  As soon as I get home it’s the same routine... upstairs, changed, traditional dress, Western gear abandoned until I’m next at college.

  I’d love a pair of jeans.

  Love to go shopping with my mates.

  I’m not even supposed to have white friends, but as long as I don’t take them home, don’t go out with them, don’t go around their houses, it’s okay. My parents accept I have to mix with them, for now.

  I’m not allowed any of the things my friends take for granted. They go mental when their parents ask where they’ve been when they’re coming home from clubs at five in the morning. 5am?! You must be joking. The milkman’s started before they’re home. I’m not allowed out after 10, if I’m allowed out at all, and even then only when I’m round one of my cousins.

  I left secondary school with nine GCSE’s and now I’m in my second year of A-levels. The college has better courses than the sixth form at school. I’m interested in philosophy and politics. I had hoped to do them at university.

  ‘Had’ being the operative word. That dream was crushed last week, crushed like a piece of Indian scrub under an elephant’s foot. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve relived the memory of it. What day it was. What time it was.

  Apparently, old people remember where they were when Gazza cried and Diana died. Well I remember where I was at 4.37pm on Friday 6th December 2013 – our kitchen.

  I’ve got a mobile phone, but it’s only so my parents and elder brother can keep in touch with me. Keep in touch? Stalk me more like. It’s like my debit card. My dinner money and pocket money get put into my account but I wouldn’t dare get cash from a machine. They’d demand to know why I needed the money, what I was buying. Drugs? Booze? So I use the card for everything and they check my account every day. Internet banking for them is spying without leaving the house.

  But can you see how manipulative it all is? Aisha’s parents must be very modern – she’s got a phone and a debit card.

  The phone? I’m not allowed to use it in the house. My father gives it to me before I leave for college. He’s at work when I return, so my mother takes it off me and goes through all my messages, photos. Privacy settings? Don’t make me laugh.

  I’m a social amputee outside college, cut off from everything, and don’t even ask about the college holidays. They’re the worst, especially the summer; last year it was eight long weeks of traditional clothes and Bollywood movies. I once asked my white girlfriends, Gori they’re called in Punjabi, have you any idea how long those films last? They’re endless. My friends go bowling, walking in the park or by the sea, cinema, shopping. I’m a cross between a prisoner and a slave. I have to help my mother run around after my father and brother.

  I wish I were a man. I’m a bloody servant to any men who visit, men in one room, women in the other. Can you believe that? In 21st-century Britain?

  That’s why I love College Friday.

  Every night, when I’m in bed, before I go to sleep, I dream of freedom. I can’t imagine what it must be like to make your own choices. Some of my friends smoke. I know it’s bad for you, but I’d love to try. I’d love a drink as well. My brother drinks. So does my father. All Sikh men drink. None of the women do. Not allowed, too shameful. If I could just drink one of their beers, or the whisky my father loves, just to say I tried.

  If I wasn’t talking in my head, I’d look around now, make sure nobody could hear; if I’m being totally honest, I did have a drink, and a smoke, the Tuesday after that Friday.

  The heating broke in college so we all finished early, before lunch. I went round Bethany’s, she’s my bezzie, and had a can of lager and a cigarette. God, how do people smoke? It was disgusting, made me really dizzy. The lager was bitter and horrible but it was the fact I’d tried them, made my own decision that I didn’t like them, that was the difference for me. Mind you, I’ve never chewed so much gum on the bus home.

  I did get out once. It was amazing; at least it was at first.

  Me and Bethany got invited to a party at a doctor’s house. His daughter goes to college with us. She’s Asian. My dad let me go, obviously because I was mixing with a doctor, but the GP is nothing like my dad and of course the three of us girls went out.

  I wore some of Bethany’s clothes. We’re the same size. Size 8. She knew I’d be in a Sari. The only person at the doctor’s to be wearing one; even his wife wore trousers and a jumper. I borrowed a short tartan skirt, more like a belt, and black leggings. I got to wear make-up. Bethany put that on for me. I wouldn’t know where to start.

  I was terrified that I’d bump into my brother, but the girls talked me into taking the risk. Luckily I didn’t see him or any of his friends.

  The night didn’t end well even though I was only drinking coke. I went all woozy and my legs wouldn’t work. I’ve no idea why, but I was better after a lie down, although my head was banging for ages. I was okay the next day.

  I was a bit panicky going home, but everything was sorted. The doctor dropped me off, told my parents I’d been very polite, had been no bother.


  You see I can’t do anything that might damage the precious family honour, the family Izzat. Girls carry the family honour. My brother will eventually have to marry a nice girl from India, but before that he can go out with English girls – “white trash” my mother calls them. He can go to pubs, clubs. Me? No chance. He could probably still go out with white girls after he’s married the nice girl from India, as long as he keeps up appearances. Me? You must be joking.

  He goes to university, but guess what? He still lives at home. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Do you seriously think he’s going to move out? Who are you kidding? My mother, sister and me do everything for him. When he marries, his wife will do everything for him. Why would he move out?

  Equal opportunities. No discrimination. Don’t make me laugh.

  Sons and daughters: same womb, different rules.

  But going back to last Friday. The argument was massive, the biggest one we’ve ever had. We really went at it. I came home from college and straight upstairs to get changed. At 4.37pm (I feel my life will forever be determined by that moment, by those three numbers) my mother showed me a photograph of the man I am to marry. She deliberately told me on a Friday. All weekend to threaten me not to tell anybody when I went back to college.

  I screamed at her: “I don’t want to get married. I’m not some backward girl from an Indian village.”

  She slapped me across the face, screamed at me in Punjabi. I’m bilingual. I have to be. My mother can’t speak a word of English. She doesn’t have to. She doesn’t know anyone white. All the years over here and she’s never tried to integrate with anybody. Multi-culturalism? Not in my world.

  My mother came from the Punjab to marry my father. It’s somebody from her village who I have to marry. He’s 31. He was 13 when I was promised to him. I was a baby. Apart from him being ugly, and I mean Quasimodo ugly, I don’t want to get married. My parents want the wedding to take place next year. I want to finish college, go to university, and get a good job. My mother doesn’t believe in education. Not for girls anyway. She says I know everything I need to know... how to wash, iron, clean, and make perfectly rounded Roti. What more could I need? Err hello – how about a life?

  My father was born here. I wonder what it would have been like if he’d married someone from the UK, not necessarily white, but someone born here, like me, like my sister, who’s 15 now.

  We were making lentils last Sunday, mother and me. She was chopping fresh coriander. I was still in shock, still sulking. I asked her who would marry my sister, said no doubt it was already arranged. She started screaming at me, brandishing the knife in her hand. She called me a whore.

  My mother, who came from a village outside Jalandhar, goes on about Izzat much more than my dad does.

  We’re going to India next year. We go every three years. My mother wants to build a house there, a big house. You see plenty of them when you visit, all built by people living in England, all of them screaming “Hey, look at me, look how well I’m doing”.

  It’s all about showing off. They have models on the roof, bigger than TV aerials. I’ve seen model planes on them. What’s that all about?

  We’re Jats, you know, the top caste. Don’t let people tell you it’s irrelevant. My mother would go ballistic if I married someone from a lower caste. She constantly reminds people of our ranking down at the Gurdwara.

  My brother’s car registration number even ends in JAT; my mother bought it for her prodigal son.

  It’s about skin tone as well. I’m fairly light skinned. Chamars, the lowest caste, the lowest of the low who pick the shit up off the street in India according to my mother, are invariably dark skinned – a bad sign as far as my mother’s concerned.

  Next time you’re out in an Asian area, keep an eye out for different skin tones, and check out how many JAT number plates you can spot.

  I was looking forward to seeing my maternal grandparents next year. They have a farm – another thing my mother brags about – but now I’m worried that when I’m out there, my parents will force me to marry. You hear it happening to girls.

  My friends at college said I should just say no to the marriage… yeah right, like it was that easy. They have no idea. Even saying no brings shame, Behsti, on the family. My friends have freedoms and choices I can only dream about.

  They say if I’m out there and something bad happens, I should go the British Embassy. How? They have no idea how big the country is, and everybody would be out looking for me. Not just family, but the whole community.

  They say I should run away and hide in the UK. I told my friends about the bounty hunters. They didn’t believe me. Why would they? Who would believe that parents pay members of our community to hunt us down here in the UK? Read the papers, I tell them.

  Everybody just open your eyes. Look around. It’s not unusual for South Asian girls to be taken out of school, taken to India and Pakistan, forced to marry. It happened to Shazia down our street. She was left in Pakistan until she was pregnant. Came back with a kid. She was 16 when she came back. She was out there for over a year; only 14 when she went out. None of the authorities looked for her. She married a bloke who was 32. None of the authorities batted an eyelid when she turned up with a four-month-old baby. No one asked how old she was when it was conceived. All terrified of being called a racist so they look the other way. Racist? If I was white, they’d call it child abuse but I’m not, so they call it “cultural”.

  One girl was only 13 when she married. Thirteen! Married a man in his late 20s. Some of these girls are five. Yes, you heard me, five years old when they go out and get engaged. Some white people have an idea what goes on, but most haven’t got a clue. As I said, those who have an idea don’t want to get involved; hiding behind an “it’s what they do” attitude. Think what would happen if white girls were taken out of school and married off... child protection and all that. Not us. We have to get on with it because “it’s what they do”.

  I met Sukhvinder this afternoon. Sukhi to his friends. He’s gorgeous. Drop dead. He’s told me he loves me. His parents are dead. Killed in a car smash when he was 16. They were from the Punjab and they’re Chamar. He lives in a rented flat. He’s 22. I told him I love him, too. I think I do. He knows about my marriage. He says I should run away with him. Really? Where would we go?

  He wants to hold my hand in town, but I always tell him no. Someone might see us. He wants to kiss, to kiss in public. I want to but I wouldn’t dare.

  Sukhi has a car so perhaps we could run but they would never stop hunting us down.

  It’s not like what Walter Cannon, that American physiologist I read about, said in the 1920s: fight or flight. We can try the flight, but we’d have no chance of winning the fight. I’ve come up with another phrase if I don’t run: comply or die.

  You probably think that sounds a bit over-dramatic. Check out the Internet. See how many honour killings there are.

  Some people – politicians, women’s groups, lawyers – don’t like the ‘honour crime’ label. There’s no honour in violence, no honour in murder, they say. Of course there’s not, but they miss the point. What drives the violence is the honour code; how women are supposed to behave. They’d be better challenging the behaviour than arguing about what it should be called.

  When we’re told we have to marry, we have few choices. You heard me right the first time... run, comply or die. You don’t believe me? As I said, read the papers.

  Shopping was great this afternoon, walking around with Sukhi. I was just like the white girls at college. Well, for those two-and-a-half hours anyway. I didn’t buy anything, any clothes or make-up. What would be the point? I’d never get to wear the clothes and, as I’ve already told you, I don’t know how to put on make-up. Besides, taking things like that into the house would only lead to one thing.

  My mother would go mental if I went home with a pair of jeans. Sukhi says if we were together, he would buy me jeans. I don’t know how. He’d have to get a proper job first. H
e’s got one here, part-time, but he’d have to give that up.

  He walked me to the bus stop. It was cold and getting dark. As my bus came he bent down and kissed me on the lips. I forgot where I was. I stood on my tiptoes, put my hands around the back of his neck, pulled him into me, and pushed my tongue into his mouth. It was incredible but almost immediately I pushed him away.

  Insanity. Absolute insanity. I had just snogged Sukhi at the bus stop!!

  I giggled as I got on the bus and waved goodbye. I was grinning, blushing, giddy. It was true – I was floating on air. I dropped into the seat behind the driver.

  Then I saw him standing under a lamp post staring at me. I locked my eyes on the floor. Shit shit shit!

  My mum’s brother. Uncle Gurmej.

  He had followed my mother to the UK. One arranged marriage, in this case my mother’s, and loads of family members end up coming. Control immigration? Dream on.

  I took my phone out of my bag. My hands were shaking as I tapped out a text to Sukhi. If he wanted to run away with me, it had to be today. I would never be let out of the house again. Next week college finished for Christmas, but I wouldn’t be there. They’d lock me in my room, keep me off college.

  Then India and the wedding fast-forwarded.

  I had to get home fast, had to pack. I didn’t have much. Take a few clothes, a couple of photographs, one or two books, kiss my little sister one more time, get away before my dad came back, get away before my uncle got there and told them what he’d seen.