I suppose I should be terrified, after all this is probably it. The end of my life has just begun. But actually I’m just rather impressed at their nerve. They’re just going to lift me right from my classroom in broad daylight. I wonder what I’ve done. Probably something disgusting with a child to make sure there’s no possibility of any public sympathy.

 

There are two of them. The first is a man of about fifty in a suit, not an expensive looking Maurice Sedwell suit this time. Definitely M&S or Top Shop or something. The second is a woman of perhaps thirty. She’s a bit plain looking, but she makes an impression in her smart skirt suit, heels, and even tight fitting gloves. She’s obviously not expected to chase down and subdue fleeing criminals in that outfit. I wonder if the chain between my thighs will allow me to kick the man in the nuts and then outrun his partner. Her shoes have higher heels than mine. I might make it.

 

“Doctor Melstrom?” asks the man. “I am Detective Inspector Reeves and this is Detective Sergeant Doone. I’m very sorry to intrude on you like this but we would very much appreciate a few moments of your time.”

 

“Oh, polite,” I reply. “I wasn’t expecting polite. Since they’ve sent the police I assume I’ve done something bad. Am I allowed to know what?”

 

“Oh you haven’t done anything wrong Doctor Melstrom,” says the woman in an exotic and sultry sounding voice with a slight Scottish accent that seems at odds with her plain, straight hair and lack of make-up. “We’re not here to accuse you or arrest you or anything like that. Please relax and be assured that you are not in any sort of trouble. We were hoping you could help us with an enquiry we are undertaking, and that’s all.”

 

“So you’re not here to cart me off in chains?”

 

“Not at all.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Could I just confirm that we are speaking to Doctor Jemima Melstrom who worked at the Atomic Weapons Establishment about three and a half years ago?” asks the man.

 

“Well if I did work there then I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Official secrets and all that.”

 

“I’ll take that as a yes then. DS Doone, could you tell Doctor Melstrom why we’re here please?”

 

“Two days ago we were called to the Atomic Weapons Establishment by the duty security officer. A video file recording from a security camera that was made three and a half years ago had just been brought to his attention. The file shows a serious sexual assault, perhaps even a rape, being committed by a member of staff on the premises. The identity of the assailant is clearly visible in the video. During the assault the assailant received a small wound. Records at the local hospital show he was treated for a similar wound on the night in question and he still has a small scar from it. Two days after the video was recorded, the laboratory that was the scene of the assault was destroyed by an explosion. We believe the assailant did this in order to destroy any forensic evidence that might have existed. The video does not clearly show the identity of the victim, she can only be seen from behind, but a search of staff records shows that at the time there was only one woman who could have been in the location, and if I might say so, you do have very distinctive hair Doctor Melstrom.”

 

“We’ve got him Doctor Mestrom,” takes over the inspector. “But the thing is, with modern computer graphics, videos can be faked, and so while the courts do accept them as evidence they are only attributed the same level of credibility as a witness testimony. The camera can lie, just as people can lie. With the extra circumstantial evidence, and the fact that he promptly had you sacked as well, we have enough to charge him, but he might still wriggle off the hook in court. What we need to make it watertight is a statement from someone else who was involved. So do you see why we’ve come to see you?”

 

“You won’t have to testify in court,” says the sergeant in her soothing voice. “If, without having seen the video, you could tell two police officers what it shows, then that would go a long way to proving its authenticity. We’re on your side Doctor Melstrom. We want him to pay for what he’s done to you.”

 

“The…”

 

“It’s okay. Take your time Doctor Melstrom.”

 

“The… The man in the video is Hugo Masterssen. I would think your video would show him grabbing a woman from behind and forcing her face down onto a desk. It would show him holding her down and wrenching her left arm up behind her shoulders. It would show him pulling up her skirt and ripping her panties down. And then it would show him trying to force his disgusting cock into her. She can feel it poking her, trying to find her opening. And then she can feel it against her lips, pushing at them, trying to force its way inside. And all the time my free arm is flailing around on the desk. My hand finds something. It feels hard. I manage to kick him in the ankle and he stumbles enough to let me wriggle myself onto my side. I can see his face leering down at me and I can see the hatred in it. I strike out at it with my hand and the thing I’ve picked up. It’s a computer mouse. I hit him on the forehead so hard the mouse shatters apart. He reels back and loses his grip on my other arm. I jump up and stamp on his foot with my heel. He shouts out and I run for the door. I don’t know what the video will show after that.”  

 

I can hear the inspector asking his sergeant if she heard all that clearly, but it seems like I’m not in the room anymore. It’s strange how I was so calm about the thought of being carted off to be tortured and forced to work for the powers of evil, but yet re-living that night from my past has broken me into tiny pieces. Somebody, I think it’s Joan brings me a cup of tea and the smartly dressed sergeant sits and holds my hands for a while.

 

I’m too shaken up to ride Mable but the threat of Armageddon if I’m not back in my home and in my hood in time overcomes my lingering suspicions, and I accept the offer of a lift in a police car, complete with flashing blue lights and a woo-woo siren. The car scythes through the traffic almost as fast as Mable, who’s also hitched a lift and is in the boot. And it’s as we weave through the lines of stationary cars that I work out what’s going on. The video is of course a fake. I know how the security worked at AWE. There was a lot of it and it was all directed towards keeping undesirables out. Once inside it was a secretive and clandestine place and the last thing they wanted was things like surveillance cameras recording videos that could then be viewed by the wrong eyes. There was no camera in my lab.

 

‘I’ll send you a sign’ he said. ‘You’ll know it when you see it.’ Well I see it very clearly Mister Man-in-a-Maurice-Sedwell-suit. And I see that you are indeed a man of some considerable power, but as to whose side you’re on… What are the sides anyway?

 

When I get home I find that Rob is here already, and there’s steak and chips ready for me. A little over-ready actually because I’m late. I guess it means I’m going to get apologised to.

 

“You’ll never guess what happened at work today,” he says as we sit for a rushed dinner.

 

“Don’t tell me… Hugo Masterssen got arrested and charged with rape,” I reply matter-of-factly through a mouthful of steak.

 

“Ah, so something else from the supposedly secret place I work that you know all about.”

 

“The police came to see me today. It’s my rape he’s been arrested for.”

 

“It is? I wondered about it after what you said last Sunday. And I realised that all the stuff about work and what you knew about it was pretty trivial really. I sulked about that and ignored the important thing. That you were raped. I’m so sorry Jem.”

 

“It’s okay, your steak is making up for it.”

 

“But what I don’t get is they’ve apparently arrested Masterssen based on CCTV footage. But there is no CCTV inside work.”

 

“Yeah, funny that.”

 

“There’s something else that’s funny too. There’s a letter here from Corrective Restraint. It says your request to attend a doctor’s appointment on Monday has been approved and you’re allowed to leave the college campus unhooded without penalty. Are you all right?”

 

“Doctor’s appointment on Monday eh? Okay. And yes, I’m fine.”

 

“Is there anything you want to tell me Jem?”

 

“Not in front of a spying collar there isn’t, but I might be able to do a five minute condensed version when it comes off in twelve minutes’ time. Eat up husband, it’s lovely steak.”

 

 

oOo

 

 

When I get to work on Monday morning I’m not surprised to find that the mysterious Mr Shank is waiting for me in Mrs Riley’s office. What is surprising is that Mrs Riley herself has volunteered to take my class so that I can talk to him. And now I know just how much she fancies him, she wouldn’t do that for just anyone.

 

“Doctor Melstrom, good morning,” he says as he stands up when I enter Mrs Riley’s office. “I hope you had a pleasant weekend.”

 

“Pleasant weekends are something of a distant memory for me now,” I reply suspiciously. “But good morning to you too. Different suit I see. Still Maurice Sedwell?”

 

“No, actually this is a Davies & Son. And I apologise for forgetting about how difficult things must be for you right now.”

 

“Davies & Son? I’m obviously not very up on men’s fashion. And as for things being difficult for me, I’m wondering if they’re about to get better or worse.”

 

“Well let’s find out shall we? I said I’d send you a sign. Did you get it?”

 

“Oh yes, I got it.”

 

“Good. And so have I earned the right to ask for an extension on your temporary assumption that I might be one of the good guys?”

 

“You want me to assume that you’re a good guy because you fabricated evidence in order to get a man arrested?”

 

“Well, to put it bluntly, yes.”

 

“I particularly like that the police think he blew up the lab to destroy evidence.”

 

“Yes. I can’t take any credit for that bit I’m afraid. They came up with that all on their own.”

 

“If I assume that you’re a good guy, then how do I know the bad guys are not listening in on my collar, like you did?”

 

“We have a little software device in the Corrective Restraint IT system. No one is listening.”

 

“I have to take that on trust I suppose.”

 

“I’m afraid you will, but I think I might have earned a little trust.”

 

“Okay, what do you want? What is this deal you talked about?”

 

“I’d like you to come with me on a little trip across town this morning. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

 

“Ah, the doctor’s appointment.”

 

“Indeed.”

 

“Do I have a choice?”

 

“Of course you have choice Doctor Melstrom. I’m one of the good guys remember? If I was a baddie I would just have had you abducted. I’m asking you, not compelling you.”

 

“And if I refuse?”

 

“Then I’ll have to think of some way to persuade you to change your mind.”

 

“That sounds a bit like a threat.”

 

“I don’t want to threaten you Doctor Melstrom, but it really would be much simpler if you just agreed to come along. I promise to bring you back here this afternoon.”

 

“Who is this person you want me to meet?”

 

“I’d rather not say. But he’d really like to speak with you.”

 

“He? He, and not They? One man eh? Okay well I guess I owe you something for dealing with Masterssen. I’ll come to meet your mysterious stranger. You are aware of my strict daily timetable? I’m not getting shafted by Corrective Restraint for not being home in time. You had better not keep me out late.”

 

“I’ll get you back in plenty of time.”

 

“Okay then. Should I say something like ‘take me to your leader’ now?”

 

“If you like.”

 

“No wait. One condition.”

 

“A new condition?”

 

“Yes, I’ll come with you, but only if you accept one of Mrs Riley’s dinner invitations.”

 

“You drive a hard bargain Doctor Melstrom.”

 

“Deal?”

 

“Deal. I’ll tell her on the way out if you like.”

 

Leaving a delighted Mrs Riley in charge of my class, we go out to the mysterious Mr Shank’s car, a black Jaguar complete with chauffer, and I wonder what the fuck I’m doing as we head out of the college campus and into the busy streets of London. Except that they don’t seem quite so busy and snarled up when your car slides down the bus lanes and through the ‘taxis only’ rat runs. We’re heading into town, through Hammersmith and Kensington, along the edge of Hyde Park, down Constitution Hill and along The Mall. I guess were making for Westminster. The shady corridors of power, MI5 on some such. We pass Horse Guards Parade and then turn through a manned security barrier into an underground car park. I feel like I’m deep behind enemy lines. This is where the government hangs out.

 

The car pulls up next to some doors and we get out. Mr Shank leads me through the doors and into a lift. It goes down. We’re already underground and it’s going down? Then along a corridor to another lift with a security guard. He checks Mr Shank’s ID and then allows us into the lift, upwards this time. After the lift there is a less utilitarian feel to the place. Carpets cover the floors and paintings hang on the walls. It looks old, with high ceilings and elaborate plaster cornicing. Like my house. Eventually we come to an office, wood panelled and leathery and occupied by one man in a suit.

 

“Is he in?” asks Mr Shank.

 

“Yes Mr Shank. He’s expecting you. Please go right on in.”

 

I’m shown through a door at the side of the office into another similar one. It’s wood panelled and leathery too. And sitting behind a desk is the Devil’s own representative on earth himself, the prime fucking minister.

 

 

oOo

 

 

I feel like James Bond being led into the villain’s lair. And here the uber-villain himself is going to gloat and lecture me about his grand plans to take over the world before sending me off to be killed in some overly complicated death trap. Except that I don’t have James Bond’s escape skills. I look around to see if there is a way out. There’s a window with small panes of glass and through them I can see that I’m upstairs, probably second floor, above a street. There are no cars but on the other side I see a wall of people in hi-vis bibs and cameras on tripods. They’re all facing the building I’m in. Suddenly I know exactly where I am. Downing Street, probably even number fucking 10. And now I realise just how completely fucked I am.

 

I look at the window and wonder if it would break if I threw myself against it. The fall down into the street and hopefully being skewered on the iron railings below would be a quick way to end it and stop them getting at what’s inside my head, and it would make an interesting incident for the press and photographers opposite. Perhaps I could even shout something subversive like ‘votes for women’ on the way down. But of course it’s a stupid notion. This is the prime minister’s house and that window is probably bullet proof, bomb proof, drone proof and everything else proof. It’s certainly going to be Jemima Melstrom proof.

 

I look around the room to see if there is some other option for ending all this quickly. I can feel my panic and fear subsiding. I’m dead now, so no point in worrying about anything. The only thing that matters is to make sure it happens before they can use those I love to drag from me what I know. The prime minister is sitting behind a large desk. He doesn’t look as big as he does on the telly, in fact he looks a weedy little runt. I wonder if I could take him. There’s a big Union Jack pen in a holder on the desk. I could dive across and poke his eyes out with it. Come on Jemima, do it. You always wanted to change the world, well here’s your chance. Perhaps I could get his head between my legs and garrotte him with my thigh chain. Anatomically impossible of course, but a nice, ironic touch for the press. They’re all camped outside waiting for a story. It would be rude not to oblige.

 

“Good morning Mr Shank,” says the prime minister in his horrible, smooth politician’s voice. “And this must be Doctor Melstrom, who I have heard so much about. Welcome to Number Ten.”

 

I don’t answer. What the fuck am I supposed to say? ‘Thanks for inviting me’ doesn’t seem very appropriate. I look across at Mr Shank who is sitting himself down in a comfy looking chair.

 

“That assumption I was making about you Mr Shank, it’s getting very hard to keep it going.”

 

“Please Doctor Melstrom, hear what the man has to say and then decide.”

 

I note the way Mr Shank refers to the prime minister as ‘the man’. It seems a belittling way to talk about the leader of the country. I wonder just who is the boss here. Who really holds the power?

 

“Please Doctor Melstrom,” says ‘the man’, gesturing towards a chair in front of his desk. “Won’t you take a seat?”

 

I hesitate. Am I going to try to kill him, or just listen to him? Despite the fact that I am effectively dead, the instinct of self-preservation is a strong one. It’s holding me back. I should go for him, perhaps I could get him on the floor and stab him with my heels. They’re not particularly high or pointy, but if I got him in the eye…  But it’s a lot easier to sit down and wait for a better opportunity, even though I doubt there’ll be one. Eventually self-preservation, perhaps we should call it cowardice wins and I sit down.

 

“Do you know the story of Frankenstein Doctor Melstrom?”

 

“Frankenstein? Yes, I know it.”

 

“Then you’ll know it is the story of a man who was filled with only good intentions, but nonetheless created a monster. And the monster ran out of control and did untold harm. I am sure that you think me to be the monster Doctor Melstrom, but in truth I am just its creator.

 

When I first started in politics and was running my first campaign, we used to travel around the country a lot by train. The PR mob said using trains would look good and show me to be a man of the people and all that. And of course there was always an entourage and a load of press and hangers-on with me, and so any train coach we were in tended to be rather full. One day I observed a woman get onto the train. She came into the coach we were in, but there were no empty seats for her. And she couldn’t walk through to the next coach because we had the isle cluttered up with cameras while I did a ‘travelling with the normal people’ piece for the telly news. So she had to stand. My staff had of course all been briefed to be on their best, polite behaviour at all times to minimise any possibility of any unpleasantness or rudeness being captured by a camera and spread everywhere, and one of them, a young man, stood up and offered the woman his seat. A simple act of old-fashioned manners, but yet the woman did not seem to approve. She looked at him stonily, and I heard her say ‘No thanks. I can stand as well as you can.’ And so he sat down again and an uncomfortable, silent stand-off set in between them until we cleared the cameras out of the isle and she walked through to the next coach.

 

And this little scene had a profound effect on me because it seemed to encapsulate something that had gone very wrong in our society. It showed me that while the rise of feminism and equality for women had achieved great things and had opened the way for women to do so much more and lead greatly enriched lives, it had also extracted a heavy price in that we had lost something that made life beautiful and had enriched human existence for centuries. We had lost the idea that men and women could be different.

 

If we went back in time to ‘the old days’’ and re-ran our little train scene, what would we see? Our man would offer our lady a seat and how would she react? Would she see it as strange, uncomfortable, embarrassing, patronising? Would she think he was hitting on her, or was going to try to feel her bottom or steal her purse as she sat down? Would the encounter have ended in a cold and unpleasant stand-off in the way our modern-day scene ended? Or would she have seen it as quite the normal and proper thing? And could she then accept the gentleman’s offer and take her seat with a friendly smile. Both people have gained something here. The lady not only gains a seat, but she also gains a feeling of satisfaction that she has been treated with the kindness, politeness and respect that she deserves. And the man gains something too. He gains the satisfaction of knowing he has done a good turn, he has acted chivalrously, he has won a smile, and as he stands he can proudly enjoy the respect and admiration of others on the train who have witnessed his behaviour. A boring trip on a train is made a little brighter for everyone.

 

But we had lost all that. And why?

 

The thing is that if we are to enjoy this kind of politeness and chivalry then we have to accept that one party is less able to stand on the train than the other. We have to accept that the party giving the chivalry is in some way stronger or more capable than the party receiving it. If we can’t accept that then it doesn’t work.

 

That was what I wanted to bring back Doctor Melstrom. I wanted to revive the lost world that deep down I think most of us want. I wanted women to once again be ladies and to turn men back into gentlemen. But of course in the politically correct world of feminist equality it had become intolerable to even mention that men and women were in any way different. We had to be the same. Identical. And you’ve just got to look at us to see that that’s just not true. We are different and we go against everything we are when we try to supress that. We are different and we complement each other, and that makes the human race more than just the sum of its two sexes. To revive the lost world I had to roll back the march of feminism. To heal our society, to bring back chivalry and manners, I had to roll back the march of feminism. To make us all happier, women included, I believed I had to roll back the march of feminism.

 

But like the good Doctor Frankenstein what I actually did was create a monster. I uncorked a bottle which was filled with misogyny, jealousy, chauvinism and bigotry, and it all flowed out and became the monster. It took on a life of its own and, well you yourself are only too familiar with the results Doctor Melstrom.”

 

 

“It’s a nice speech Prime Minister. So why not take responsibility for this monster you’ve created? I believe resignation is the customary course of action for politicians who have fucked everything up. Although in your case resignation sounds a bit mild. Perhaps you should be locked up in hood for a year or two. Then you’ll really know what a monster you’ve created.”

 

“A good point Doctor Melstrom. And indeed I have considered resigning. But what do you think will happen if I confess all, and resign? The monster will still be here. It won’t die just because I walk away or fall on my sword. It is a thing now. It has become self-aware and it will act to defend itself. It will continue to supress anything it feels might be a threat to it. And you know what that will mean. I can’t just walk away. I created this monster, and now I must kill it. And for that, I need a weapon. If you’ll forgive me for invoking more gothic horror metaphors, I need a silver bullet. I need you Doctor Melstrom.”

 

“Me? A silver bullet? I don’t think so.”

 

“You are aware of what your invention would mean to the world? Mankind is addicted to oil. We are poisoning our planet with it and squabbling over it as it becomes scarce. And we seem helpless to stop ourselves. We can all see the problem but the addiction is just too strong. Imagine what it would mean to break that addiction. Imagine the world that could follow. Imagine peace where there has been war for decades. Imagine all the benefits to all mankind and indeed the natural world too. And then imagine that the giver of this great gift is a woman, a woman who has succeeded where all the men have failed. Where would that leave the monster? Where would that leave the notion that women are inferior to men? Where would that leave the idea that the only thing women can contribute to the world is their babies? Where would that leave those who say a woman should be kept imprisoned in the home and chained to the kitchen sink, sometimes quite literally? Every time we try to oppress women, the argument would be made that a woman had just saved the world. You might not kill the monster on your own Doctor Melstrom, but you might weaken it enough that I could finish it off.”

 

“And so you want me to build the machine to save the world, so you can parade me about as a beacon of women’s true worth, so you can show how wrong you were, and then fix everything. Is that it?”

 

“Something like that Doctor Melstrom.”

 

“Or you want me to build you a machine that will bring you and your cronies more wealth and power than anyone has ever had, and then I can wake up, briefly, at the bottom of a lake somewhere. Is that really what we’re talking about here?”

 

“Doctor Melstrom, if I could interrupt here for a moment,” says Mr Shank. “Hypothetically speaking, how long do you think it would take you to build another prototype reactor?”

 

“I don’t know. It’s not some secret formula I can write on a napkin you know. I don’t even know for sure that I could do it at all. I destroyed all the documentation and I’d have to rely on my memory. I don’t know how good that is. And it wasn’t just me, there was a machinist who made most of the stuff, I’d need him and some others too.”

 

“Yes, your machinist, Angus MacDonald. Mr MacDonald is currently working on his father’s sheep farm in Orkney. Would he come back?”

 

“I don’t know. Depends on how bitter and twisted he is at being thrown out with the rest of the trash.”

 

“Well we can but ask. But if you had everyone and everything you needed, would it take you, six months? A year?”

 

“Something like that I guess.”

 

“And so if we were to give you some sort of facility and leave you alone to work, you could perhaps keep an eye on us and see the battle against the monster begin. And when you’re satisfied there really is a battle then you could choose to join it. Or, if you don’t see a battle, or indeed if you think that the wrong side is winning, then you could just pull the plug and wipe away what you’d done. You were very effective at covering your tracks the last time, I’m sure you could do it again.”

 

“Except that you’d spy on me and have my work anyway.”

 

“You could have your own security arrangements to keep us out and your secret in until the time is right.”

 

“You don’t trust me Doctor Melstrom,” picks up the prime minister, “and I can’t say I blame you. I need to earn your trust and I propose to do that by commencing this battle against the monster. And you’ll see it fight back, and it will be bloody. It has recruited a lot of people and many of them are fanatics. Ideologies don’t roll over and die easily, no matter how twisted and corrupted they have become. But you won’t have to contribute anything until you’re convinced. And consider this. If I was, as you probably still think I am, an evil tyrant, then why would I try to make a deal with you? An evil tyrant would just ship you off to somewhere secure and torture what you know out of you. I’m not doing that. And consider what will happen if you do nothing. There are people all over the world working on this reactor idea. As far as we know, no one except you has made it work. But somebody else will figure it out, or stumble onto it, and what will that mean for you when it happens? How will you feel to see everything you could have been evaporate, and the monster take over and win because you did not join the fight? I believe that Mr Shank here won your trust, at least enough to convince you to come here today, with a little demonstration of good intent. And so would you permit me to do likewise?”

 

The prime minister nods to Mr Shank who gets up and opens a side door into the office. Waiting in what looks like an anteroom are two men in suits. He gestures to the men and they step into the office, taking up sentry-like positions against one wall. The prime minister taps the intercom on his desk.

 

“Bernard, is the home secretary here?”

 

“Yes, Prime Minister. He’s been waiting for a while now. Shall I send him in?”

 

“Yes please Bernard.”

 

The main door to the office opens and in walks Sir Humphrey Grey, the home secretary and the architect of much of what has happened to women in recent years. He is the man who set up the Moral Regeneration Unit, the militaristic pseudo-police force that has persecuted and imprisoned anyone who stands in the way of the subjugation of women. He is the man who openly brags that he keeps his wife locked in a cage and only lets her out when she is hooded. He is the man who championed Corrective Restraint and is responsible for the thing I have to shut myself away inside every night.  He is public enemy number two, or possibly number one if what I’ve just listened to is true. He looks around the room and I see his distaste for the presence of Mr Shank. I see even more distaste, disgust even at the presence of me. Since I’ve never met him I have to assume that it is just my gender that bothers him. He doesn’t seem to acknowledge the two men in suits.

 

“Morning PM,” he says and my skin crawls at the sight and sound of him. “Bernard says you’ve got a panic on. But I’m addressing The House in half an hour so you’ll have to be quick.”

 

“Over to you now I think, Mr Shank,” says the prime minister calmly.

 

Mr Shank gestures to the two suits and they move from their sentry positions and confront the home secretary.

 

“Sir Humphrey Grey,” begins one of them, “I am Detective Superintendent Wallace of the Metropolitan Police Service. This is Detective Inspector Gibbs. I am arresting you on suspicion of the False Imprisonment, Assault and Grievous Bodily Harm of your wife, Madeline Grey. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence, if you do not mention when questioned, something which you will later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

 

“What! What the fuck is this? Get your fucking hands off me!”

 

“Please come with us quietly, Sir.”

 

“This is your fucking doing isn’t it Shank! I knew it. I knew I should have shut you down. You won’t make it stick though. I’ll have you, you fucking whore lover…”

 

The shouting home secretary is ushered forcibly from the room and calm returns. I can’t quite believe what I‘ve just seen.

 

“Was that for real?” I ask suspiciously.

 

“It’ll be on the news tonight, and you’ll see it in the papers tomorrow. Will that make it real enough for you Doctor Melstrom?” asks Mr Shank.

 

“And so it begins,” says the prime minister with a sigh. “I just poked the monster in the eye. It’s going to get angry now. There’s a war coming Doctor Melstrom, and you will have to decide which side you’re on, because you won’t have the luxury of being neutral. To do nothing will be to side with the monster.”

 

 

oOo

 

 

It’s not often that you can drive round Hyde Park Corner unimpeded by traffic lights and indeed traffic, but tonight it seems my luck is in. The lights are green and the road is briefly empty. With a childish smile I slip the Lancia down into second and floor it, creating that delightful roar and even a hint of a screech from the tyres. The Lancia’s back end slips out slightly, but I catch it with a hint of opposite lock. We drift sideways a little but I’ve judged it perfectly and we slip between the traffic islands right in the centre of the lane. I might not be world class at parking, but I sure can drive. And tonight I can enjoy myself without feeling liking an environmental vandal because I’ve just had a very expensive electric conversion done. The motor and battery live under the bonnet and have been specially selected to match the weight of the original petrol engine. They drive through the original clutch and gearbox, and the motor is computer controlled to precisely mimic the torque and power curves of the two litre, fuel injected air polluter that was there before. It even pretends to stall if I pull away without enough revs. Also under the bonnet is a big sound system which blares out the sampled noise of my own actual engine, recorded before it was consigned to gather dust at the back of my garage. There are also speakers under the car to mimic the exhaust noise, and I could even have had an optional steam generator to push clouds of pseudo-smoke out of the back, but I stopped short of that. It’s all very fake, but I have to admit it is very convincing and something I just had to do because it’s getting so hard to find anywhere that sells petrol these days. It seems like nobody wants it anymore.

 

It’s a heavenly summer evening, I have the top down, the wind in my ridiculously overlarge hair and a handsome man looking very James Bond-like, wearing a swish dinner suit in the passenger seat beside me, although he’s looking rather alarmed by my driving. We negotiate a few more junctions without troubling my insurers and swing into Piccadilly Circus, with all its neon signs and bright lights. Lit up, like the rest of this city, and indeed much of the world, by the thing that I invented and that bears my name, the Melstrom Bubble Reactor. It seems like I did get to change the world after all.

 

I told the prime minister it would take a year to build a prototype, but we fired it up after only five months. It turned out my memory was rather better than I had assumed. And then we quietly sat on it while the seemingly unstoppable march towards total female subjugation was first pulled to a halt and then slowly, very slowly turned around. The prime minister was as good as his word. He regularly spoke with me about how it was going, which laws he was changing, which agencies were being shut down, and which legal guidelines were being amended. But the one thing I asked him not to change was ironically the thing that had driven me out to protest and got me arrested in the first place. The dress code. And that was because through everything that happened to me, the biggest thing I learned is that equality is not the way for men and women to get along. As Susannah Black said, ‘equal’ means ‘just the same’, and women are absolutely, definitely not just the same as men. It was stupid to try to make us such and of course it was never going to work. But how could we celebrate our differences without it turning into discrimination? How could we give women equal opportunities, yet not belittle us if we choose not to take them? How could we be equal, yet different? And it seemed like the way we dress was a possible key to defining us as women, as ladies even, to re-awakening chivalry, politeness and the idea of ‘the fairer sex’, but without making us inferior or subservient. It is after all rather difficult to not feel like a lady when you’re wearing a beautiful dress and killer heels, and if it encourages a man to change your flat tyre or carry your shopping bags for you, then who is subservient to who? Some might say I had no right to play god in such a way and impose my own little fetish on all the women in the land, but I was saving the world. Did that not earn me a little god-like privilege?

 

And then we had the grand unveiling. The bubble reactor was shown to the world and its inventor was, shock-horror, a woman! A rather beautiful woman too, with big red hair, a curvy body and sexy legs, who wore posh dresses and high-heeled shoes. The media went mad for me, especially when they found that I was the previously briefly famous ‘hooded bride’. And I played my part. I strutted around and showed that a woman could be every bit as good as, if not better than a man, even in his own game of science and engineering, and I shot to pieces the argument that women were only second class humans. But I showed that I could be a woman too, and I could do girly stuff with style, and I said I was retiring from science to take on the more challenging job of having a family. As it turned out, I retired from science and became a celebrity, despite my best efforts to fade away. I was Time Magazine’s ‘Most Influential Woman in the World’ for three years running and I got two Nobel prizes, first for physics, and then another, for peace. The monster was defeated, but its dress code survived and remains to this day. No one seems that keen to get rid of it. Now you don’t have to be brave and confident to doll yourself up and head out along the street because everyone else is doing the same. And as for hoods, and collars, and chastity belts, well I still wear mine sometimes, but only in the privacy of my own home, and it’s my husband, or occasionally Sarah, rather than the state that decides when I’m eligible for parole. And I did keep every one of my promises about a certain living room floor.

 

So tonight we’re off to a show-biz premiere in Leicester Square. I think it’s the thirty-second Star Wars film and perhaps the fifth reboot, but I’ve lost count. They all seem the same to me, but Rob’s a fan and he wanted to go. Poor Rob. He’s been through a lot because of me. I torpedoed his entire career and he’s had to exist in my shadow ever since. But then he is chief exec of the foundation we created to distribute the bubble reactor design to the world, so he’s not done that badly. We roll up at the end of the red carpet and I slide elegantly out of the car. I warn the valet that his balls will be ripped off if anything happens to the Lancia, and then strut my stuff for the paparazzi. They lap it up like they always do, but then it’s hard not to be the centre of attention when you’re wearing a genuine Shahado dress. I had this one specially modified with a split in the otherwise deadly tight skirt so that I can still drive the car, but it still has the long, elegant and tapering lines of a hobble skirt. This is a dress that makes you feel like a lady. Elegant, shapely, decadent, refined, fashionable. All of those and of course incredibly sexy too. You just can’t imagine yourself as anything less than one hundred percent woman in a dress like this. And if anyone is still foolhardy enough to indulge the notion that men and women might be anywhere near equal, well the sight of me in this dress would show that idea for the folly it is. Men and women equal? What a stupid notion. Why did it take us so long to figure it out? Men and women might be many things, but we are never, ever equal.