Opus Veda

Kasia recalled those dreams where she found herself undressed in public. Where no matter how hard she tried, she could never cover herself. And the jeering audience grew.

Walking to Ali Hogarth's house felt the same, and for once Imany's presence failed to help. The dreadlocked woman, swinging into each step as she stormed the avenue, stuck out even more than Kasia. Gigantic cars rested in every driveway - slumbering predators threatening to wake up and roar. Heavy curtains shrouded the windows of each house, capable of fluttering open any moment to reveal the eye of an alert neighbour.

They reached their destination. A smooth driveway snaked through the garden, a meadow of lawns and uneven beds of wildflowers, planted to look untouched by humans and beautiful for it. The car by the double garage was curiously modest: a faintly silver Volvo estate. Success, posing as humility.

Ali's house followed suit; traditional, lavish, but effortless. Free of the gaudy hues and peacock bling shown off by belligerent influencers. This woman knew how to wear wealth correctly.

They stepped into a columned porch wider than their own homes. Sermon made everyone wait as he checked the address. Imany grunted and folder her arms. Kasia checked the building's facade warily.

"Kurwa… how many of our neighbours could fit in this house?"

"At least 3 tonight," Imany nudged Sermon away and confronted the door, "let's do this. Don't freak her out and don't rush anything. Calm, with purpose."

She rang the buzzer. A bell thudded through whatever cavern awaited.

A dog growled through the letterbox. Imany fell back and tutted. The first inconvenience.

The door creaked ajar. A shadowy glimpse of Ali Hogarth appeared into its gap, immediately defensive.

"And you are?"

"Hi… we're sorry to bother you…" Imany leant sideways to address her, "we're residents of yours."

A golden terrier scurried out and started chewing Imany's shoe. She tried to laugh it off and shook her leg. Ali whistled for it stop. An awkward minute was waisted until it obeyed and returned inside. The door's gap narrowed.

"From where are you residents?"

"Kendi."

"May I ask how you found my address!?"

"We can talk about that inside, look…" Imany opened her palms, "we don't wanna make trouble but you know why we're here. We'll be quick. I'm sure you're busy."

"And I'm sure you don't think you do want to cause trouble. You are aware you can't turn up to someone's house uninvited and expect a reception, no matter how important you believe your problem to be."

"We really won't take long -"

"Do you know how many residents I have to work for?"

"Lots I'm sure."

"And that's why I employ staff for -"

"I already tried that," Imany held her hand against the door, pushing the gap wider, "believe me Ms Hogarth, I do not want to be here. If your staff had replied I wouldn't be. I get you don't want us here but this conversation must be had. If you won't let us in, call the police. Meanwhile we'll be standing right here."

The silhouette behind the door went still. Imany had played an obnoxious tactic. If Ali didn't let them in soon, the neighbours might see unsightly figures loitering within her territory. They wouldn't bring it up, but they would comment on it privately.

The door opened. Ali stood regal in full view; an optical illusion of Nordic and Latina beauty, built healthily, superior to the frivolous war between grossly fat and deadly thin. She sighed gently.

"I am not comfortable with you three in my house, but my staff should have contacted you. If you leave, I will personally ensure they call you first thing tomorrow. If you really insist, then fine, come in, and we can maybe have a quick chat."

Layered behind native passive aggression Ali's offer was clear: do not insist. Imany pinched her chin, looked away, and nodded.

"We'll come in."

Jason tapped the steering wheel. Traffic clamoured from afar, fainter here than back home. Alone with his thoughts, his predicament became clearer. An old union ally had lent him the cab with the agreement that, should anything go wrong, Jason would be going under the bus alone. This jolly needed to go quick. He had asked Imany how long he could wait until leaving. All she had said before marching off was 'until sunrise'.

A fist slammed his window. He launched against his seat.

"Excuse me!? Hello!?" a demanding voice fogged the glass. Jason collected himself and wound the window down. A young woman leant forward, the kind pretty on other occasions, but drunk and lairy in that English fashion, with one drooping eyelid and a frown chewing between dense makeup. Her breath smelt of wine and sick. Jason edged away.

"I'm sorry love. Cab's still chargin'-"

"Yes. Can me and my friend please get to South Kensington-" she tugged the passenger handle, realised it was locked, and looked at Jason aghast.

"No love, I'm chargin' up. Wouldn't make it down the road-"

"Riiight... get another taxi to collect us then?"

He swore through his teeth and gripped the steering wheel, "you'll need to use the app on your phone love."

She staggered sideways. Her awake eye widened.

"Excuse me I'm not sure I appreciate the way you're talking to me? My friend here – excuse me are you listening to me? My friend here is sick!? She needs to get home!?"

A buckshot of spittle clipped Jason in the face, making him flinch. He leant through the window. A second girl squatted in the road, rubbing her temples, baying with such a forceful moan Jason wondered if she was disabled. He wanted to cry.

"Look. I'm sorry. I can't help either of you right now. Will you please do one!?"

"Oh my god where do they find you lot?" the standing girl staggered towards him again, "I can barely understand you not all of us speak Creole. I'm trying to tell you: My. Friend. Needs. Help. She. Is. Sick!"

The house had morphed into guest mode, warming the hallway in lofi lighting and displaying a guest menu on a digital lectern. Ali had snapped her fingers at it, powering the building down and leaving it dark and mute.

Kasia stayed in the front room, engulfed by curved stairs and sitting on a seat she couldn't name, at Imany orders.

Benched by the team captain. Even Sermon had been dropped further indoors. Kasia assumed Imany's plan was to pressure Ali with two out of sight wild cards. There was nothing else for Kasia to do except pick at her nails. She felt useless, the spare part who foolishly thought she could help a revolution. The dog watched her from its bed with two baleful eyes, growling whenever Kasia looked near it.

A whistle lured it away. She heard Sermon chuckling.

"Uhm, hi..."

She bolted up. A doll waved through the stair rails. Holding it was a girl in pyjamas, peering at Kasia inquisitively. Kasia lifted a hesitant hand and waved back.

"H-hey! Hey sweetie, how are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you," the girl spoke clearer English than Eva did, despite appearing half the age, "why are you wearing clothes like that? Are you here to burgle us?"

"No no! My friend is speaking to your mother, we'll leave soon and it will all be fine… Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. You already asked me that."

"Oh yes..." Kasia rubbed her neck, "uh... can you keep a secret for me?"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The girl swayed a little and nodded.

"I feel really shy being here… it's my first time in this part of London and I'm not used to it. In fact that's why I wore this," she flipped her hoodie up and zipped it over her face, "to hide from all the scary posh people!"

The girl grinned, "you look like a terrorist! Are you!?"

"Absolutely not!" Kasia narrowed her eyes, "are you?"

"No way! Never in a million years!"

"What about her?" Kasia pointed at the doll, "does she have a name?"

The girl stepped downstairs and waved the doll's hand again.

"They're called Liza. They're 4. I'm 6 though."

Kasia knew the brand well. A neutral doll for children to build an identity with using collectible, exclusive accessories, all made ethically and detached from technology. Triple the price for it. A thing, like so much queer culture, absorbed by the affluent classes and watered down into an inoffensive, mainstream consumer trend.

Kasia squatted to the girl's level and shook the dolls hand.

"Are they your favourite?"

"Yes. But Monty keeps trying to chew them," the girl pouted at the empty dog's bed.

"Oh dear. Are you and Liza not fans of Monty?"

She shook her head and looked down, "he's Tiffany's. They're both spiteful."

"Who's Tiffany?"

"My sister."

Kasia snorted, "your sister's called Tiffany Hogarth? Where I live she'd get her arse kicked for that name. And her dog nicked..."

The girl's eyes glinted, "would I get my arse kicked!?"

"Perhaps…" Kasia made a show of deep thought, "what is your name?"

"Opal!"

"I am not calling you that!" she choked with laughter, "what on earth is an Opal!?"

"I don't know!" the child fell into laughter too, jumping up and down and pulling Kasia's sleeve. Before Kasia knew it she had forgotten the task at hand, distracted instead by entertaining her new acquaintance.

Screens projected over a wooden desk the colour of black coffee. Ali flicked them away and sauntered to her chair. Imany studied the cabinet spreading along the feature wall, lined with curios from a lifetime of world travel. The Qing porcelain, glazed in sugary pink and painted with classical characters, caught her interest.

"It's called famille rose," Ali smiled softly at the display, "those scenes are from a book that was scandalous for its day, though not by our standards. It was called... 'Plum in the Golden Vase'."

"I know, I read it," Imany's head craned as she admired the scenes on each vase, "I was one of the last students out of SOAS, before fascists shut it down and took another thing away from us."

"You're very fortunate! I would have loved to have spent three years in a place like that. Many would like to see it return."

Imany turned around. A chair awaited, opposite her host and divided by the giant desk. She lowered into it, shivering when she realised the leather was genuine.

"You said you'd be brief," said Ali, "I hope that was honest."

"I hope so too. I don't feel right here."

"So then?"

"We were attacked by a gang. Two of us died. You thought it was a good opportunity to milk us a bit harder. We can't afford it, and we aren't paying it."

Ali kept still, but Imany caught her nostrils flaring.

"I'm afraid that's not an option. You are by law obligated to pay service charge for -"

"Then the law will make criminals of us against our will. I'm telling you we can't pay it. "

"If it's difficult for some of you I'm sorry, but money can always be made from somewhere," she squinted, "£3000 a month was it? A day's work. Hardly enough to put someone on the street."

"Final straws and camel's backs Ms Hogarth. And for what? Squeezing a little more profit?"

"For keeping well maintained properties for satisfied customers."

"Your customers are the shareholders. We are the product. You're no different from any other business - if you can extract more from us and get away with it you will. And don't you dare tell me you'll roll the charge back one day, you won't fool me with that."

"If you'd checked the maintenance expenditure - which we send to everyone each year by the way - you'll see there's no profit in it. It's going up to fix significant damage, incurred in a fight I'm not sure was needed -"

"We fought to save lives! If we hadn't pushed that gang back so much more would have been lost. And! Our service charge covers building and contents insurance, both of which include malicious damage."

"I assure you from experience paying the premium won't be any cheaper, not to mention the loss of no claim. That's if you all agree to claim - you will need a majority vote to pass - and the enquiry alone will have the insurers put their fee up."

"Then it isn't really insuring anything is it!? What is the point in paying for something we daren't use!? More bureaucracy to create more pointless office jobs and send more money where it isn't deserved."

Ali blew through lips and shrugged, insulting Imany.

"Cancel the uplift Ms Hogarth. You could also cancel that insurance - since we basically can't use it - and save money that way. You'll save dozens of us from homelessness, and you'll honour the family who were murdered for saying no to sex trafficking. What I would give to be in your position and offer as much..."

Silence. She could see Ali's mind wriggling about for a counterargument.

Imany started to consider violence. Her nails dug into the chair, clawing gashes in it.

All she needed was for Ali to say the wrong thing.

"What about you? She? He? Or you bringing back Enbiecore?" Kasia was playing with the doll. Opal had flopped into the chaise lounge beside her.

"I'm a girl. Are you?"

"Yes. I never wanted switch, but I have a friends who wished they could. I think there wouldn't be so many fights about changing gender if it wasn't only really rich people who could afford it."

Opal rocked from side to side, considering her new friend, "can't you afford it?"

"I don't need to, do I!"

"Are you economically disadvantaged?"

Kasia eyed the girl, "I suppose that's a way of putting it yea..."

Opal jumped away and hopped to a cabinet by the front door. Kasia watched with a confused look as she rummaged through it. In the distance, Sermon made more stupid noises, cajoling the apparently pleased dog.

"Look! You can have... this one!" the girl pulled a £1000 note out of a clipped roll and handed it over. Kasia rubbed her thumb over the face of a forgotten king. She gasped and covered her mouth.

"Is this for me!?"

"Yes!" she grabbed Kasia's leg and beamed, "now you can ask the doctor for a willy!"

"You rascal! How much of a willy do you think I can get with a grand!?" she wriggled her little finger and made a pitiful face, "a teeny-tiny one like this?"

They laughed hard enough that Kasia felt her eyes water. But something caught her eye and chilled her. Through the banister rails overhead, a phone recorded.

Diplomacy was a step away from failure. Imany inched off her seat, poising to reach over the desk and yank Ali across it. Ali huffed and shook her head.

"Do you think I just sit here in this room and watch profit come in? Do you know how much tax I pay compared to an oligarch? How much of my tax money builds hospitals compared to yours I wonder?"

"Build hospitals!?" Imany looked around her, "most of us can't even afford hospital care! Or is there an insurance for that too!?"

"It's never a case of trying to work harder with you people is it!" Ali seethed with contempt, "always exaggerating, as if people elsewhere have it better!? Typical English worker. Complaining all day how you deserve so much more yet the only thing that works is your mouth."

"What do we even have to work for!?"

"You'd be dead on the street with cholera at the age of 40 if people like me weren't pulling the weight!"

"So we get seven decades of misery and isolation instead of four!?"

"Misery is a frame of mind."

Both women stopped, both recognising the argument was too heated to go anywhere. Ali stopped herself shaking with a long exhale.

A frame of mind... Imany stood up. It was time. She moved around the table. With each step her landlords face turned from confusion, to shock, to fear. How quickly she could control this woman, contorting her body every wrong damned way till Ali's fingers typed whatever message Imany wanted.

And then she saw the girls. Two of them, blonde and pretty, grinning from a printed photo on Ali's desk. Of all this office's priceless artifacts, the one Ali kept close was this tacky frame. Ali's eyes flicked to the photo, and then up to her aggressor. The fear on her face became earnest. Her eyes became moist.

Imany had assumed Ali would only think of Ali - a girlboss leaning in to a culture of selfish main characters. Now she realised two girls had been hidden away, unguarded and vulnerable. To see their mother brutalised would scar them. To show mercy would inflict worse wounds on hundreds back home.

The choice was violence or retreat. Imany had to choose now.

"I want to know who you are."

"She can't tell you stupid! Her friends are doing business with mummy!"

"Shut up Opal. You. Tell me what you're doing here and where my mother is or I will call the police."

Kasia kicked herself. Why hadn't she asked the girl where her sister was? Tiffany stepped downstairs, filming Kasia as if she'd caught a rare animal. Kasia swallowed, caught in a bad act and knowing a painful truth: if Imany turned violent, there could be no footage left behind.

She had to get that phone.

"Tiffany. I'm here to keep an eye on you two. Your mother's having an important discussion about housing."

"I want to speak to her. Now."

"No. You can't," Kasia barred her from passing, "and where is your father?"

"If you knew my mother you'd have the answer already. I want you to leave."

Kasia's heart sank. She turned to the younger girl.

"Opal, I really appreciated getting to meet you. Please go into your room okay?"

Opal toddled upstairs, waving a sad goodbye from the landing with a plaintive look.

Kasia faced Tiffany down.

"You need to give me that phone."

"No. I'm calling the police now, so you'd better think about going back to whatever slum you crawled out of."

Kasia frowned, "what do you mean by that?"

"Don't think I can't tell. You're here to burgle us. You can't hide that accent from me. Or that smell."

The girl tapped 999 on her phone. For a moment Kasia was still. Poverty, precarity, shame, it all flashed through her mind. She saw Eva's hardships, and Tiffany's privileged self-assurance.

She grabbed her, palming the girls mouth and locking her arm. But she couldn't reach the phone. Growing desperate, she wrapped around the girl's neck to choke her.

The phone landed in Kasia's hand. In a blur of motion she took it offline and deleted the video.

"Kash? Kash! What the hell are you doin'!?"

Sermon ran into them, barging Kasia away and coddling the terrified child. Kasia stumbled over as the terrier yowled at her.

A hand lifted her up by the shoulder. When she came to, she was outside. Imany strode forward, eyes wide and brooding with malice. Sermon and Kasia pushed over each other to follow and, in full panic, ran for the getaway car.