II
Not a cent
My first problem was getting to the registry. If I walked down the Main Shacks Road in my current nude state I would be in jail before we even started on tax paying.
Kit agreed to let me use the small white sheet that had once been on my bed; fortunately I had dumped it on Kit's bed before the bailiffs had come. We fashioned that into a sarong-cum-loin cloth. To cover my breasts Kit worked quickly, ripped a sleeve off her long shirt, and tied it round my chest to cover my nipples. We picked up our ID cards from under the carpet piece, and ran to the registry.
At the Shacks Registry Office, one of the few permanent buildings in the Shacks, there was a queue. The authorities had agreed to build a registry office especially for the Shacks - until then an unofficial district that had sprung up on the seaside - because of the workload the Shacks provided, with taxes, enslavements, births and deaths quite common here. Kit and I joined the queue, just on time. They shut the gates after us; anyone who did not make it now would be prosecuted for tax avoidance, the maximum penalty for which was enslavement. We showed our ID cards to an official at the door, who checked our names off on a list. The police would now go after anyone not ticked off on that list.
The registry office was a small building, so the business of these mass tax collections was done out in the forecourt. Desks were laid out for each letter of the alphabet. There was also a desk with a queue of fully clothed men, giving an official one lira each - the poll tax for men being five times less than for women, enabling much more social mobility for men. The rest of the yard was women, mostly thin and tanned and some as scantily and desperately dressed as I was. I felt a pang of embarrassment at my state, but that was replaced by the fear that I would be facing debtor's jail. It really was generous of Kit to allow me to use the fabric, as it would only be seized as debt repayment. I gave Kit a hug and went to join the 'C' queue.
"I'll see you soon," she comforted.
Eventually I found myself at the front of the 'C' queue. There was an official at a desk with a list of names. Many other officials were rushing round in the background. The Shacks Registry Office would be the busiest in the city today, as paying tax like this was only a resort for those who didn't have a bank account that the state could take money out of automatically. Nobody in the Shacks had a bank account.
"Name?" the official grunted.
"Holly Cable."
"ID?" I gave him my ID card. He looked up. "Five lira please, Miss Cable."
This was it.
"Er," I stammered, "I don't have it..." I winced in fear. The official merely looked up, in annoyance at his time being wasted.
"What money do you have on you, Miss Cable?" he said irritably.
"Nothing," I said with a dry throat, "not a cent."
"Well, Miss Cable, I must remind you that failure to pay full poll tax on demand in cash results in the tax being doubled to ten lira automatically before any other action is taken."
"Yes sir."
"Okay," the official said, waving his hand to some guards. "You are being arrested for failure to pay poll tax on demand." Two guards now stood beside me. "These gentlemen will take you to see the evaluator on duty today; if your debt to the state can not be salvaged from amongst your possessions, you will be sent to debtor's jail. Do you understand?"
I nodded my head. My throat was too dry to speak, and I was barely containing the tears that were welling up in the corner of my eyes. One of the guards grabbed my wrists behind my back and cuffed them with tie wrap handcuffs. Some of the girls in the queues around me were now staring intently. The guards powerfully grabbed an arm each and escorted me into the registry office.
I was sat down on a bench in the waiting room of the office. Three other girls, as skimpily dressed as I was, were already sat on the bench, like me handcuffed. I waited nervously. Clearly there were two evaluators working today; one girl was escorted into one office and the other into another office. From this last office, a girl – a typical Shacks girl who was no older than 17, tanned and skinny with scrawny blonde hair – was unceremoniously ushered out, crying. She was totally nude. Clearly the clothes she had been wearing had been enough to pay off her debt. She would now have to try to get home or procure some clothes from the market outside very quickly using presumably the only thing she would now own and be able to pay with, her body. If the police, who were now crawling the streets for tax evaders, were to pick her up, she would find herself back in trouble.
"We'll give you a ten-minute head start," she was told on the way out.
"Holly Cable!" a guard shouted from the other office. I struggled to stand up and walked over to the door. Once there I was pushed inside and the door was closed behind me.
Inside a state official sat at a desk with papers and a box on it. There were also three guards and an evaluator, identifiable by his white coat, who stood leaning on the desk.
"Holly Cable; owes ten lira," the guard behind me announced to the room. The official at the desk looked up at me. He had being given my ID card and was writing my details on a form.
"Start with the clothes, Ted," the official said to the evaluator, sounding bored and flustered.
