Chapter 62:

Three days before the cage

I returned from university in June with a second-class degree, no job and two suitcases full of ordinary male clothes.

Chapter Two

James should have known he was in trouble when Ashley started smiling.

Not her normal smile.

This was the smile she got when she’d already decided something was going to happen and was simply waiting for everyone else to catch up.

James stood in the middle of their apartment living room with his arms folded.

“I still think this is a terrible idea.”

Ashley sat cross-legged on the couch.

“You’ve said that seventeen times.”

“Because it’s a terrible idea.”

“You need a job.”

“I know.”

I felt my face turn pink. My feelings about Josh had changed.

The approval did not come immediately.

There were meetings, written requests and legal formalities. One document had to be corrected, and another required approval from the education board.

Whenever the process became difficult, Mrs. Patwardhan helped Mother understand the next step. She spoke to the school management, explained Aaradhya's successful temporary term and made sure the application was not treated as an ordinary uniform request.

After several difficult weeks, the board accepted the arrangement.

This story is set in Ireland during the War of Independence, 1919-1921.

The Players.

An Cailleach, approximately Old Hag in English, is a term found in both Irish and and Scots Gaelic. It carries connotations of divinity or magic.

Volunteers, the name used by Irish national insurrectionists engaged in the War of Independence. After independence, these formed part of the basis for the new National Army which still has the letters IV (Irish Volunteers) on formal uniform buttons.

RIC, Royal Irish Constabulary, an armed police force responsible for crime and internal security. Recruited locally, it was heavily infiltrated by the Volunteers and many members left the organization during the war.

Black & Tans and Auxiliaries. These were paramilitary police recruited in England to support the RIC, notorious for indiscipline, terrorism and extra-judicial killings.

CHAPTER 64
We sat for a while enjoying the views, comfortable as a family, until Clara spoke up again.

“I got given a pressie before I came over, one for you all”

Maz gestured ‘go on’, and Clara chuckled.

Society is a huge live role playing game where we have to learn the rules as we play, right?

How can something be so wrong, when it feels so right?

That was the single most important thought that ran through Aisha’s mind as she fastened her padded bra behind her, before she took the pair of silky dark tights out of their packet and slowly stretched them one leg at a time over her hairless legs, until the control top held her abdomen and her backside tightly. As she took her plain white blouse and knee-length blue pencil skirt from its hanger, Aisha mused on how the clothes were a far cry from the hijabs and abaya her mother and sisters wore.

Chapter 6