The Marriage Act(19)
There was a solution, he’d said amongst the tears and upset, and that was to upgrade to a Smart Marriage. Its benefits included better healthcare on NHS+. But first they would need to divorce. That arrangement would only remain for twenty-four hours before their application was approved and they could Upmarry.
Maisy, true to form, had made an event out of it, inviting their friends to the house and hiring a celebrant to officiate in the garden under an arch made of white roses. However, the only invitees who’d failed to attend their rewedding on the day itself had been the groom and his best man, Mitchell.
Maisy had been beside herself with worry, convinced that something terrible had happened, but Corrine hadn’t been so sure. ‘Tell me you took out the twenty-four-hour marriage gap insurance to protect yourself,’ she had asked Maisy.
‘I don’t need to,’ her friend had replied. ‘I mean, it’s Derek. What’s he going to do? Change his mind?’
But that’s just what he’d done, which Maisy had learned soon after in a lengthy text message. He’d explained that after witnessing both his parents die of cancer-related illnesses in his youth, he could not watch his wife succumb to the same fate, even though her death was far from a certainty. He’d completed his confessional by informing her that, hours after their divorce, he had spent the morning at the Guildhall Register Office marrying his secretary. Mitchell had been his best man. ‘I have to think about myself if you don’t make it,’ Derek had written. ‘If you pass away within the first six months of our remarriage, I’ll have to repay all your treatment costs. I don’t have the money.’
The law, which favoured couples over singletons, ensured Derek and his new wife could begin their new life together in his old home and Maisy was forcibly evicted by bailiffs soon after.
‘I want her to stay with us until she gets back on her feet,’ Corrine had told Mitchell. She was still furious with him for keeping Derek’s secret. He’d laughed at her request.
‘Like hell she is,’ he’d replied.
‘Mitchell, you owe her. There’s plenty of room in the summerhouse. You won’t even know she’s here. She’s our friend.’
‘No, she’s your friend. Derek is my friend.’
‘So if it was the other way around and I refused to let him stay, what would you say?’
‘I wouldn’t ask because I wouldn’t want him here either. Positivity breeds positivity and vice versa. And I don’t have room in my life or my business for anything that drains it.’
Meanwhile, Maisy’s distress at the break-up of her relationship swiftly shifted to anger and determination. She was going to defeat the disease and prove to Derek what a huge mistake he’d made. But her bitterness also extended to many of their mutual friends who, fearing divorce was contagious, abandoned her. Her messages went unanswered, her social media unfollowed. Corrine was the exception, meeting with Maisy regularly despite Mitchell’s reservations. But, gradually, Maisy’s increasing dependence on alcohol to numb her emotional pain made her cutting and mean-spirited. Even after her successful cancer battle, she was in no mood to celebrate.
Almost two years had passed since a drunken Maisy had last hurled abuse at Corrine and demanded that she be left alone. Corrine had initially respected her wishes before she could stand it no longer and turned up unannounced on Maisy’s doorstep. She’d found the one-bedroom Old Town apartment empty, an eviction notice pinned to the door. Soon after, Maisy’s phone was out of service and Corrine’s emails had bounced back undelivered. Corrine had found herself blaming Derek and the Marriage Act in equal measure.
Her friend wasn’t the only person with a grudge against the world. Corrine was becoming increasingly frustrated at an unjust system that failed people like Maisy. When Corrine looked beyond the Government propaganda, she discovered thousands of others had also been forced to abandon their old lives because they either enjoyed being single or didn’t want to upgrade to a Smart Marriage. Corrine could no longer, in good conscience, stand idly by without trying to help.
She donated money from her own bank account to charities dedicated to single-parent families. She ordered extra products on her shopping lists to donate to food banks and she joined a group of volunteers cleaning up litter and removing graffiti from areas in Old Northampton. And she kept it all far from the prying eyes of her increasingly estranged husband. Trying to explain to him her desire to help others would be as pointless as trying to teach a pig trigonometry.
But none of that ever quite felt like enough until she read about Freedom for All. It began as a faction opposed to the injustice of a divided society and aimed to capitalize on a growing swell of those negatively affected by the Act. In a few short years it had spiralled to become the Government’s biggest opposition party and threat to their tenure. So, as Corrine’s family were preoccupied with their own lives, she volunteered as a fundraiser. It was after befriending Yan, a woman of a similar age and social standing to Corrine, that she first learned of under-the-radar FFA splinter groups. They took direct action against their targets and, if Corrine was going to make a real difference, she understood that she’d need to dirty her hands. Which was how she had ended up with an unconscious boy in the back of her car and the blood of an injured MP on her hands.
The alarm on her watch sounded again. She zipped up her hoodie, climbed into her car and drove to an area of greenery on the other side of town. From there, she walked quickly along the paths, turning back on herself to ensure she wasn’t being followed. Then she made her way across the border into Old Northampton, this disparity between rich and poor immediate.