Thomson - Divided Kingdom

Praise for Divided Kingdom

Wonderful and full of wonders a uniquely disturbing tale for our time Literary Review

The ideas behind Thomsons novel buzz with originality, sparking contemporary connections and recalling Brave New World and even Gullivers Travels Observer

Relentlessly compelling and enormously impressive With the sheer silkiness of Thomsons prose and his delicate and subtle understanding of our emotional lives and what happens when they are ruptured or blocked the commonplace is rendered strange, evocative and sensuous Daily Telegraph

A masterclass in the art of narrative Boyd Tonkin, Independent Books of the Year

Thomson is probably the best writer of my generation Amanda Craig

Thomson creates a portrait of Britain that is seductively detailed, disorientating, sometimes funny and often horrifying he is a master at creating an atmosphere of alienation and suspicion Sunday Telegraph

With Divided Kingdom Thomson extends the reach of his matchlessly strange imagination to create a tightly-knit, deftly-designed political fable and a richly ingenious satire on the arbitrary classifications that often fix our identity Independent

Arresting compelling Thomsons most striking talents as a writer are his extraordinarily vivid descriptions and his often hallucinatory imagination He is one of the supplest and most imaginative of British novelists LA Weekly

It would be cruel to deprive anyone of the imaginative pleasures, surprise and suspense that [] Divided Kingdom offers. Thomsons new world is utterly menacing and intensely satisfying Newsday

Divided Kingdom is Thomsons best yet; it might be, in fact, his Brave New WorldSalon

A worthy successor to such iconic nightmares as 1984 and A Clockwork OrangeSeattle Times

Gripping genre-defying thrilling, insightful, eloquent, moving, wonderful The Tampa Tribune

Thomson is a true master He creates a glittering palate of characters with extraordinary insight into the bizarre psychology that makes us all unique or makes us all the same depending on how you see the world San Francisco Chronicle

RUPERT THOMSON is the author of eight highly acclaimed novels, of which Air and Fire and The Insult were shortlisted for the Writers Guild Fiction Prize and the Guardian Fiction Prize respectively. His most recent novel, Death of a Murderer, was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Novel Award. His memoir This Partys Got to Stop was published in 2010.

Fiction

Dreams of Leaving

The Five Gates of Hell

Air and Fire

The Insult

Soft

The Book of Revelation

Death of a Murderer

Non-fiction

This Partys Got to Stop

RUPERT THOMSON

First published 2005

Copyright 2005 by Rupert Thomson

This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

The moral right of the author has been asserted

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

eISBN: 978-1-4088-3313-1

www.dividedkingdom.co.uk

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To darling Eva, with a love that knows no boundaries

It was as if a curtain had fallen,
hiding everything I had ever known.

-Jean Rhys

There were men in my room, and it was bright, too bright, and I was being lifted out of bed. I didnt struggle or cry out; I didnt make a sound. The uniforms they wore felt cold, as if they had just been taken from the fridge.

I was told to wait on the road outside our house. Rain drifted past the street lamp, rain so fine that I could hardly feel it. I watched as a soldier fastened a strip of cloth around my upper arm. My shadow bent where it fell across the kerbstone, like a piece of cardboard folded in two places.

They put me in the back of a lorry, along with people of every age, all of whom wore armbands, none of whom I recognised. No one spoke, or even moved. I remember no violence, only the silence and the constant, weightless rain.

From where I was standing, by the tailgate, I could see my parents. They hadnt had time to dress properly. My father wore pyjamas, a suit jacket and a pair of slippers, and his face had lines and creases on it, as though sleep had crushed him in its fist. My mothers feet were bare.

My mothers feet

And her blonde hair flattened slightly on one side where it had rested against the pillow. She was calling my name in a high, strained voice, and reaching out to me, her fingers clutching at the air. Embarrassed, I turned away, pretending I didnt know her. I smiled apologetically at the people all around me.

Im sorry, I said.

Thats how my memory begins.

No, not my memory. My life.

When dawn came, I was standing on a railway platform. The sky had clouded over, a swirl of white and grey above the rooftops, and there were puddles everywhere. A goods train rumbled through the station without stopping, its trucks heaped with coils of barbed wire. I was handed tea in a plastic cup and a slice of bread that was thinly spread with margarine. Now it had got light, I could see that the cloth band round my upper arm was red. I didnt feel homesick, only cold and tired, and I seemed to understand that I shouldnt think too deeply, as someone who swims in a river might stay close to the bank for fear of treacherous currents.

That same day, after a journey of many hours, we arrived at a large, dilapidated house in the country. There were only eight of us left by then, all boys. Thorpe Hall crouched in a depression in the land, a kind of shallow, marshy bowl, and the property was surrounded by woods, the massed oaks and chestnuts flecked with silver birches, like a head of hair beginning to turn grey. A moat encircled the house on three sides, the surface of the water cloaked in slime, the banks fenced off by reeds. Ancient, stately fish glided through the stagnant depths, the gold of their scales spotted and stained, as if with ink. The lack of elevation and the narrow lead-paned windows gave the house a prying yet shortsighted look. I had the feeling it was aware of me. If I ever ran away, it would somehow know that I had gone.

By the end of my first week our numbers had swollen to more than seventy, the oldest boy being fourteen, the youngest five. In charge of us were two grown-ups, Mr Reek and Miss Groves, and they issued us with grey blazers, each of which had a scarlet peacock stitched on to the breast pocket. I counted eighteen bedrooms altogether, but conditions were cramped and primitive, and some boys, myself included, had to sleep on horsehair pallets in the upstairs corridors.