Another Man Behind Another Mask – the Story of Gordon Deitrich
"Strength Through Unity, Unity Through Faith". Yes that's the motto they used. One which like so many others of similarity before it has been consigned to the history books. That wasn't it though, the full motto. There was a secret line that no-one ever spoke off but everyone knew; "Death Through Disobedience".
They came for me. I knew they would but I cannot say that I was prepared. She was seeking shelter and being fond of the girl I naturally provided it for her. They told me it was because of her that I was arrested but because of me that I'd be killed.
The woman I speak of is Evey Hammond. I thought that would get your attention and it did didn't it? You were wondering how long I would go on before Ms Hammond's name was introduced. I mentioned that I was always fond of the young woman, this is true. Indeed had I been of heterosexual tastes perhaps I would have fallen in love with her. That however is a story for another page for this is merely an introduction to the story, the true story which is to follow.
After I was arrested I was questioned, locked up, tortured, broken, stripped of my clothes, my dignity and in the end, the will to carry on living. Yet here I am now, writing all these many years later. My name is Gordon Deitrich and I survived. This is my story.
I was born on the 25th of September 1971 in London. My father and mother owned a publishing company and we, my parents, my sister Imelda and I lived very comfortably in a house in one of the suburbs. Which one is not important, it remains in existence to this day, but I will never go back. I had a happy childhood and went to a good school. My parents would take Imelda and myself for holidays in the country and once a year, during the school summer holidays we would go to the south of France. In 1992, I graduated from Cambridge University with First Class Honours. Then I went on to live my dream.
Growing up as the son of a publisher, naturally the house was full of books. I read widely from an early age and was fascinated by the different worlds that one could travel to, simply by turning the pages of a book. My parents were also interested in film, and took Imelda and me to the cinema when we were children. As I grew older I would spend my pocket money on trips to the cinema, going two or three times a week. However more than my love of books, more than my love of the cinema, was my love of television. Television sets were growing in popularity when I was a child, by the time I was a teenager in the eighties, almost every household had a set. I loved that the programmes were made to entertain the public in the comfort of their own homes. Television brought actors and actresses and singers and sportsmen into the sitting rooms of ordinary people. I knew from an early age that what I really wanted to do with my life was work in television.
After leaving Cambridge I was lucky to find a job with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), still the proud flagship of British television. I took on different jobs at the BBC, all of them behind the scenes for the first five years. Then one day when were filming an episode of a comedy sketch show, one of the actors telephoned the studio saying that he was going to America to film a movie with one of the great stars of the day. You will notice that I do not mention either of these actors' names. They, like the London suburb I grew up in are unimportant now. But the thing to know is that they existed, these people were alive then, they walked, they talked, they breathed, they lived. They lived in a time almost unknown to many people now.
I fear I digress from the story that I set out to tell. After the actor telephoned to tell the BBC that we were no longer good enough for him, we immediately set out looking for a replacement. We had little luck and when we realised that time was running out and that the series needed to be completed, the director asked if I would be willing to stand in, just until a permanent replacement was found. Having always harboured the ambition to appear on television I immediately agreed and we began filming again.
It turned out that the chemistry between me and the actor I was working opposite worked extremely well. After the second week of filming, ideas for trying to find another actor to take the part I had were thrown out and I was asked to sign a contract to commit myself to the show for the long-term. It was this contract that signed me up to spending every working day from that one to this in television.
I will be forever grateful to the director for going out a limb and taking the risk to use a complete unknown in an already successful television programme. He launched my career which survives even now and took me through the dark days of Adam Sutler's tyrannical Norsefire so-called government. It did more than this however, by allowing me to take the opportunity to take to the stage; the director led me, however much indirectly, to meet my beloved Andrew.
I first met Andrew Thomson on the set of a period costume drama. He was playing the lead role in the series and I was filming a comedy sketch show in the studio next door. During breaks in filming, we would often go into other studios to stand at the side, watching the rehearsals or the filming of other programmes made by the same company. The director had called "cut" and Andrew and his female co-star stopped the argument that their characters were having, I had been so entranced by Andrew that I hadn't even noticed that they had stopped acting. I simply continued to stare in his direction. He looked over in my direction and we met each others gaze – it was love at first sight. He was tall with raven hair and piercing blue eyes. His beauty is something that will remain imprinted in my memory as long as I shall live.
We shared a love for books, the cinema, art, good music, fine food and wine. He had a gorgeous sense of humour and a delicious laugh. We went to the cinema for our first date and it was something we continued to do at least once every week until it was banned by Sutler in 2009. I loved him completely and he loved me too. We shared everything, hopes, fears, worries, successes, failures, a home, a bed, and our lives.
Being gay wasn't anything I ever thought about. I was lucky to have been part of one of the most liberal periods in history that was the nineteen nineties and the first eight years of the twenty-first century. Sexuality was never as important an issue as it had been before. Today, thanks to the government we are fortunate to have; we see a return to those days where one is free to express one's sexuality in whatever way one chooses. However in the dark days of the Norsefire government the slightest hint of homosexuality, of "abnormality" was enough to warrant arrest, imprisonment, torture and death. Something I had the horror of witnessing first hand twice.
In 2005, the Labour government of the day passed legislation which allowed homosexual couples to have the same rights as heterosexual married couples. Andrew and I were in the studios at the BBC when the news broke out that the law had been passed. The next day at one of our trips to the cinema, Andrew asked me to marry him and I immediately accepted. It was not because we had ever particularly expressed a desire to get married, but more because we could – it was our right.
After being together for nearly eight glorious years, Andrew and I were married in a civil ceremony on the 8th of April 2006. It was simple affair, attended only by close family and friends. However that night we had an enormous party to celebrate not only our union but of the love of people everywhere. We invited everyone we knew and almost everyone came and we had a party that is still remembered.
Andrew and I became more and more successful in our professional careers. We set up our own production company on our first anniversary, which specialised in the making of intelligent drama series and comedy. It was at this time that we moved to a house in Bloomsbury which had been built in the Georgian era. We chose this house for the sheer romance of it, filling it with furniture and books from the period. As we had a shared love of art, we also filled it with beautiful works of art. The paintings and sculptures we purchased did not necessarily have to be expensive; it only had to be of considerable enough beauty to capture the attention of Andrew and myself.
We had only ever imagined a happy and peaceful future together. We never thought for a moment what was coming right around the corner. Andrew and I had been opposed to the war in Iraq which had begun in 2003. We continued to show opposition when the war moved in to Iran and then Syria. We shared the horror of most of the world's population of the behaviour of the United States of America. However despite firm anti-war beliefs, we remained confident in the government and the opposition of the day. We paid little attention to a firebrand politician named Adam Sutler who had left the Conservative Party to form his own ultra right-wing party. This action was something that every one of us who did so will regret for ever.
The wars in the Middle East and elsewhere were noticeably getting out of hand, however in 2009 when the rapidly failing Labour government called a General Election I never imagined that by the end of the year we would have a one party dictatorship state. I could not believe that so many people would fall for the lies that Adam Sutler was feeding the public in the run-up to the election. He was promising a new life for Britain, peace, stability, prosperity. So quickly did people forget the lessons that we had been forced to learn after the Second World War. These were the same promises made by Hitler and just as people had fallen for them in Germany in the 1930s, the people of Britain fell for them when they were made by Adam Sutler in 2009.
I watched on television in my office the defeated Prime Minister Gordon Brown leave Downing Street for the last time. His face blank with shock masked the truth that he knew in himself that the country was never going to be the same again. He turned once to look at the black front door of Number Ten and I saw the brief nod he gave it before his head fell, his wife letting go of her two sons to put a comforting hand on his shoulder and the knowing look they gave one another, both knowing that it was all over.
After the landslide victory in the election, the Norsefire government wasted no time in turning Britain into a fascist state where anyone with a slight opposition to Sutler and his men were seen as enemies of the state and must be dealt with severely. Sutler preached to us that he would save Britain by leading us forward in the way of God, according to Christian laws. Non-Christians were the first to go. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs were the first to be deported or sent to the camps. Then they came for the Jews and then the Catholics. Britain was to be a Christian nation but there was clearly only room for one type of Christianity – Sutler's ideal of Christianity.
It did not end with the persecution of different religious faiths. Anyone who was seen to be a threat to Sutler's utopia was arrested. Trade unionists, left wing politicians and activists, advocators of human rights, satirists, blacks, the disabled, homosexuals… one after another anyone who was deemed a threat or as abnormal by Sutler were rounded up, arrested and sent to various camps. Some were tortured, some had to endure horrific "medical" experimentations, and others – the lucky ones – were simply killed straight away.
They arrested Andrew in 2010. He was not arrested for being a homosexual, but because he refused to sign a contract which would only allow him to make television programmes which were approved by the government. He told them he advocated free speech and that it was every human being's right to make a stand for what they believed in. He was arrested the day they closed down BBC Television Centre. I have never discovered what happened to my dearest love. I know not whether he was tortured with chains or fire or water or subjected to injections of chemicals and poisons. I never found out how much he was made to suffer, how much pain he endured or if he was allowed a quick, painless death. I will never know and in truth never want to as I know that it would be too painful to bear. All I know is that he went to work one morning and never returned.
The pain I felt was almost overwhelming. I did not eat, sleep or even leave my bed for three days. I cried until my eyes stung, until my throat was raw, until no more tears came. I eventually fell asleep out of absolute exhaustion after the three days of being able to do nothing but cry because of the overwhelming sadness of losing my most beautiful and beloved Andrew. I woke on the fourth day with a new found strength. Andrew spoke to me in a dream. He told me that I must go on and live my life for him. He told me that I must be seen to follow government orders, but always give the impression of having my own agenda.
I did so, not because I particularly wanted to, but because I knew that it is what Andrew wished. It was difficult, I had to repress who I was, I had to change myself completely to make myself fit in to this disgusting world that Sutler was making us live. I made government approved television programmes, although I did my best to be as close to the bone as I could possibly be without losing my job. I began to take female company, though never having sex with them; I had to be seen to enjoy having a sexy young woman on my arm. If I did not accusations of homosexuality would be raised and once this happened then one stood no chance of ever convincing the authorities otherwise. The last woman I was ever with I revealed my secret to. Her name was Evey Hammond. She trusted me enough to come to me for help when she most needed it and so returned her faith in me by showing faith in her. She expressed sympathy and for the first time since I had made the decision to repress who I really was, I regretted the decision. I realised that I had forgotten who I was despite my attempts to keep my old life alive by keeping homo-erotic prints in a secret room in the cellar of my Bloomsbury home.
These prints were kept alongside many objects banned by the government that I had managed to secretly amass over the years. The objects mostly included items that had been loved by Andrew and I in happier times. I had books, films, paintings, sculptures, recordings of operas and ballets and one of my most treasured possessions, the one which led to my arrest and almost to my death, a fourteenth century Qur'an. These objects meant more to me that I could ever fully describe; they kept my sanity over the black years of the Sutler government that I spent alone.
I had acquired my treasured items through various means, mainly stealing them or doing a deal with some black market trader or another. For some reason being in television meant that I had the opportunity to rub shoulders with others who did not quite toe the line. It was through chance meetings with people like this that I was able to get my Qur'an and my other most treasured object – the painting of God Save the Queen.
Andrew and I had been great fans of satire, in the days before the "Reclamation" before the great satirists were arrested; we never missed television programmes which poked fun at the world of politics and the media. We were lucky to have the chance to meet many of them thanks to our being in television ourselves. We were subscribers to the satirical magazine "Private Eye" and in my cellar along with my other contraband objects I kept our entire collection of magazines including the last ever edition which was published the day before its editor, writers and other staff were arrested.
Somehow I managed to keep going and avoid making enough trouble so that I kept my job at the new BTN. I despised it, coming to work everyday to do the work of the Norsefire government, but each time I though about throwing in the towel I would hear Andrew's voice in my head telling me not to be so bloody ridiculous. I also remembered my cellar full of outlawed objects and would have to paint on my smile and get on with things.
It was so immensely difficult, I had not only lost my Andrew, but my sister Imelda too. In the days before the Reclamation, she had married an up and coming politician. He was a Conservative MP and although I had my reservations about his political alignment, Imelda was deeply in love with him and he loved her too. My sister was happy so objecting to his politics did not seem important. However it was all too soon that he joined the Norsefire party and became a completely different person. Imelda's life was transformed; she was no longer a bright, confident woman with a sparkling career in business management. She became a subservient housewife at the mercy of a violent husband. One day after another violent attack by her husband she decided that no life at all was better than the one she had and drowned herself in the Thames. There was a cover-up of course, it could not be allowed to reach the public ears that the wife of a prominent Norsefire party member had committed suicide. I was forced to swear that I would never again speak of my sister. Choking with grief and rage I did so but I will never stop asking myself if it would not have been better to refuse and to take the step she had done.
Evey Hammond came to work for the BTN about a year and a half before the destruction of the Sutler government. She was supposed to be working for Patricia Harris, but I seemed to "borrow" her rather a lot. She was young, beautiful and desperate to move quickly up the career ladder. She had lots of potential and so I did I had always done when it came to young and beautiful women who had potential, I invited her to my house. I would make her dinner, open several bottles of wine and offer her a better job. It gave me a reputation for being a womaniser which made me a laugh sometimes because nothing could be further from the truth. The junior PAs called me a variety of nicknames the favourite being "Daddy Deitrich", that never bothered me, but one more than one occasion I heard myself being referred to as an old pervert and I wanted so desperately to rectify this by telling the truth. I couldn't of course so I had to continue on with dignified silence.
Evey did not arrive the night I had invited her. I worried a little, as I always did when someone I was expecting did not arrive, that she might have been stopped by Norsefire Fingermen, but then Evey was not the first woman not to come to my home when invited. I assumed that she had simply decided that having sex with her boss was not the way she wanted to get a foot on the career ladder. Not that sex was ever on the agenda anyway, but it was always assumed it was going to happen by the women I invited.
I did not know then that she had met the man who would change all of our lives, especially hers and mine. She came to my office at Jordan Tower the following morning to apologise for not keeping our arrangement but I waved it off. I joked with her, told her that I had never been stood up by a more attractive woman. She looked worried. I told her that after the blowing up of the Old Bailey, home was the safest place to be of a night. Not that being on the streets after curfew was at all safe before. We all knew that after the fifth of November it would be much worse.
That was the day that the man who is now regarded as the saviour of Britain appeared on our television screens. He told us that we had to make a stand against the Sutler government. We had to come together to fight the repression, to begin a revolution so that we could have a future. For the first time since the Norsefire party was elected I began to feel that perhaps there was a chance that the future did hold some light. That I wouldn't have to live the rest of my life pretending to be someone I was not. I believed him and when he asked for the people for this country to stand with him the next year to begin that revolution, I made a promise to myself that I would be there. I would be there for him, for myself, for my sister and for Andrew.
I did not see Evey again for months after that day when Jordan Tower was taken over and forced to broadcast something that was not government lies. I knew then that she knew the masked man and that wherever she was she was with him. I wished for her safety every day. I never expected that she would come to my door one night, desperate for shelter and protection.
She told me her whole story and I returned her faith in me by showing that I had faith in her. She was the first person to see me for who I really am since Andrew was taken from me. She barely batted an eyelid except to blink away sympathetic tears. I loved her, like I loved my sister, like I would have loved a daughter if I had ever had the opportunity to have one. I allowed her to go down into the cellar to spend time amongst my treasures. When I returned from a day's working we would watch films and listen to operas. We would spend long periods looking at pieces of art and discussing their beauty.
I knew that she was always worried about what would happen if the police discovered that I was allowing a wanted person to live in my house. I continually reassured her that she would be the least of my problems if the police were ever to raid my home. This was certainly to be the case.
One afternoon I came home and found Evey in the cellar reading her way through my collection of Private Eyes. She told me that she knew that some of the articles were funny but didn't understand why. I sat down with her and explained some stories and who the people in the articles were and what their jobs had been. She told me it was like being told about life in another world. I explained more about satire and found some recordings of satirical television programmes and we watched them. Halfway through one of the episodes of a programme called Bremner Bird and Fortune, Evey stopped laughing. I asked why and she told me that she was angry, more than that she was disgusted that Sutler had outlawed the making fun of the government and people in positions of power. She asked what would have happened to the satirists and when I told her she turned a deathly pale colour and looked away from the television screen. She couldn't face looking at the three men on the screen who seemed so full of life, but were now dead.
It was then that I decided that I had had enough of kowtowing to the bloody government and came up with and idea for a sketch for my chat show. Sketches were strictly banned as was most comedy but I didn't care anymore. The government had taken too much from me and seeing the lovely young woman before me being constantly terrified that I knew I had to do something.
Looking back I suppose I should have given a second thought before allowing the Two Adam Sutlers sketch on Deitrich's Half Hour, but at the time I was consumed with a feeling of such elation of finally being able to stand up against Sutler. I didn't ever imagine that it would lead to me being arrested. Although even if I did have the opportunity to go back to that time, I would never change what happened. Not even the pain.
I was not asleep when they came for me. My subconscious was pushing its way to the front of my mind, forcing to consider the consequences of my sketch. I was trying to convince myself that nothing more than having to give a public apology would be my penalty, when I heard them burst open the front door. I heard them raiding the sitting room and the kitchen and knew that I had to protect Evey. I went into the room where she was sleeping was told her to hide. She had only just managed to slip out of bed and take refuge under it before I felt the end of a rifle connecting with my face. Before I even had time to think about what was happening I felt truncheon strike repeatedly against my head. I could feel the blood begin to pour from my face and head. I tried to cry out but was unable to. I was knocked to the floor and for a second I looked directly into Evey's eyes, willing her to survive. It was useless to struggle as my hands were bound behind my back and useless to resist as they covered my head with the awful black bag. I tried, but could do nothing but let out a strangled scream. I felt myself being dragged out of the room, my feet dragged across the carpet. What happened after that I cannot tell you as my next memory is of a terrible headache and opening my eyes to find myself in a tiny grey prison cell.
What happened over the next weeks was so horrific that I can barely bring myself to write about it. I know however that I must because I need everyone who reads this to be able to understand what other human beings are capable of. At first I was questioned repeatedly so that they could find out why I, a respectable television producer and presenter, would feel the need to launch such a scathing attack on the government. I said nothing; throughout endless hours of relentless questioning I said nothing.
After three days they told me that that had found my "dirty secrets". I knew they would and in a way I suppose I was prepared. I was told repeatedly how disgusting I was, how homosexuality was the work of the devil and that alone deserved death, but being a religious sympathiser served to make me worse.
It was then that the torture began. I was hung up on chains from the ceiling until my shoulders were dislocated. My legs were crushed by men standing on them in heavy jackboots. Hoses spraying ice cold then boiling hot water at alternate intervals were pointed at me. I had burning torches put next to my skin so that it burned and blistered and was forced to hold live wires as an electric current was increased. Everyday I was taken from my dismal cell to face more torture. At first I felt consumed with a mixture of anger, pain, sadness, loss and coldness. As the days passed these feelings gradually subsided. The pain went first, it was strange to know that I should have been in immense pain constantly, but the feeling gradually subsided. The anger left next, I wish it had stayed, but it slipped away and I didn't care anymore. I was left with the awful feelings of sadness and loss and the terrible cold. Eventually all I was left with was the cold; I was completely alone on the hard floor of the little concrete cell without any feeling whatsoever apart from the cold.
It did take several weeks for all my inner feelings to completely leave, but only one incident to bring them flooding back. I was dragged out of my cell as usual and taken to a fairly large square room. It was all white, the wall and the floor covering were white and there was no furniture. I immediately disliked the room – it made me feel even colder than my cell did. Three Fingermen came in and started with their same old taunts about my sexuality. This didn't bother me as much as the feeling of knowing that this was not all they were going to do. If they had only wanted to taunt me they would have simply come to my cell. I couldn't think of any sort of torture that would require a pristine white room. I would soon find out.
One of the Fingermen told me to take off the revolting orange overall that I'd been forced to wear after being made to watch them burn my clothes. I was so totally exhausted the whole situation that I didn't even have the energy to protest. The Fingermen believed that by making me do this they were humiliating me. They were wrong, I had already been humiliated enough and now my brain simply refused to care. I stood naked before the three men; the taunts began again, the words just washing over my head, not sinking in at all. I thought that if this was another form of torture then it wasn't a very successful one. However the real torture was to begin moments later.
The door to the white room opened and two more Fingermen came in, dragging a woman behind them. She couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty. Evey's age I thought. A dull ache in my chest began to arise when I thought of Evey, I hoped that wherever she was she was healthy and happy and going on with her life. I willed her to be, just as I had always imagined Andrew to will me to be. I looked carefully at the woman who was now standing opposite me. She was of average height and had brown hair and greenish-blue eyes and a look on her face that was almost defiant. She reminded me of Imelda and Evey and Andrew all at the same time.
The Fingermen who had brought her into the room stood at either side of her. I knew what was going to happen and it took all my energy to stop myself from trying to run, I did not want to see this. But that was it – that was the torture. They ripped off the woman's overall and molested her. Two of the other three Fingermen joined in while the other stood behind me, forcing me to watch. I concentrated solely on her eyes, not wanting to see anything else. I saw fear, pain, anger and hatred in those eyes. Once or twice I looked at her whole face, despite what was happening to her, she never once allowed her look of defiance to leave. She didn't cry out or even try to fight them off. She, like I, was simply too tired to even bother to try, but she would never allow anyone to know she was tired, she allowed everyone to think that she was still fighting. However I knew that she was so tired that nothing bothered her anymore. I tried to look away when one of the Fingermen raped her, but the one behind me forced me to look in her direction. Once again I looked only at her eyes.
Watching the young woman, who probably only a few weeks before was vibrant, full of life and bursting with youthful excitement, brutalised in such a horrific manner was torturous enough so I was not prepared for what came next.
"Right lads," said the Fingerman who had raped the woman. "The fun continues, now it's the queer's turn."
The final part of that day's torture was to be forced to have sex with the woman. I tried to refuse but all it got me was a crack over the head with a Fingerman's truncheon. I looked at the woman and she looked back at me. I knew in that moment that although she had never before met me, she knew me for who I was. She was no longer afraid and knew that what was going to happen no longer mattered as she was fully prepared to meet her death. What was this compared to that?
The first and only time I ever had sex with a woman was the most horrific experience of my life. I would have gladly been chained to the ceiling or burned with flaming torches. All the way through I continued to look into the woman's eyes. They somehow gave me strength and a strange sort of comfort. When it was over, the Fingermen began hurling cruel and degrading abuses at her and me. I turned to look at her and our eyes met. Hers told me that it would be over soon and to stay strong and she didn't hate me. I hope that mines told her not to be afraid and that the next world was waiting for us and we would be there soon.
As two Fingermen took hold of her to drag her, presumably back to her cell, she reached out and arm and grabbed my hand in hers and held it tightly.
"Don't let them get you," she shouted as the Fingermen tried to pull her away. "Stay strong, don't let them get you. Let them do whatever they want but be who you've always been and they won't be able to get you."
The Fingermen told her to shut up, called her a bitch, a whore, a slut. But she continued to grip my hand and call to me.
"Remember that you are beautiful and unique and no-one can take that from you," she shouted. "This will be over soon; we'll be somewhere safe with the ones we love. The end will probably be soon so I want to be the last person to tell you, even though I don't know you, I love you."
"I love you too," I called to her. The words provided so much comfort I cannot fully put how much into words. I meant those words. I did not know her and would never have the chance to get to know her but in the brief time in the white room I had come to love her as much as I loved my parents, my sister, Evey and Andrew.
"Remember who you…" she was not allowed to finish her sentence. A Fingerman had drawn a gun from his belt and shot her. A single shot to the head ended the life of a beautiful and special young woman. Her blood covered the white walls and the floor. It covered the Fingermen and it covered me. I would have been shocked, disgusted, but I knew that she was now free, she was in that other place we had spoken off, she was happy now. I was only glad that the last words she heard in the terrible world she left was me telling her I loved her.
I was taken back to my cell and was again locked up. I sat down on the cold grey concrete floor, still naked, still covered in blood. I had witnessed someone being murdered before my eyes and yet I felt an odd feeling of elation. I would honour the memory of the woman and I would never forget who I was and I would never let them get me. They could torture me and kill me, but they would never get me. I knew then that the next time someone opened the door to my cell, I would never return to it.
I was correct in this assumption, but not in the way I had anticipated. When the cell door did open the next time, I expected Fingermen to come in to take me to some secluded spot so that they could shoot me. I was prepared for it, I was ready to die and I was no longer afraid. I stood up ready for them to take me. However when the door was opened no-one came in. I was momentarily confused and then walked over to the door and pushed it so that it opened wider. I pushed it again so that it was fully open and walked over to the doorframe and looked out into a dark but deserted corridor. I went out into it and look around. On the wall next to the door a folded piece of paper was stuck on by sellotape. I looked more closely at it and saw it had my name on it. I reached out and took it off the wall, turned it over and began to read.
Mr Deitrich,
You have little time to waste, follow this corridor as far as it will go, turn left and the door in front of you will take you to freedom. You will find all you need there.
I must ask you not to contact Ms Hammond before the Fifth. Please do not look for an explanation but follow my words. Keep yourself out of the eyes of anyone who will recognise you. I would say that is everyone in this country, but I fear that like others who have endured what you have, you will look different to what you did before. Remember this difference is only on the outside. In your head and in your heart you are who you have always been remember this as it will get you through the days that follow.
After the Fifth go to Evey as soon as possible, give her this letter as explanation of why you have not contacted her before, she will understand. Having said that I know she will feel confused and more than a little hurt but it will soon pass as I know she loves you. You must be strong for her and she will be strong for you. You must go on together and create a new world, one where you will both feel safe living.
I know that it is extremely presumptuous of me to expect you to follow the words of someone who you do not know nor will never meet, but I believe you will do as I ask as like you, I wish to see a better world and you like I care deeply for Evey.
Yours in solidarity
Vive la Revolution
V
Before I knew what I was doing I was walking down the corridor, turning left and walking out of the door. Everything I needed was there, just as V has promised, clothes, money and the keys to my Bloomsbury house. I was though I had slipped into a dream world. I couldn't believe this was happening to me. I was alive and I was getting out of the hell I'd been forced to endure of the last… I didn't know how long, time had become meaningless to me. I only hoped that it was now somewhere near the Fifth as I was desperate to see Evey, she was all I had left. Evey – she was alive then, thank God. Thank God.
I was more than a little frightened as I put the keys into the lock of my house. I didn't want to go in and be faced with ruins after it had been raided by the police. I was surprised, the hall looked as it did the last time I had seen it. I wandered through, the sitting room, the dining room, the kitchen; all were as I'd left them. It was all very odd. I didn't particularly want to go down to the cellar, I couldn't bear to see it empty and void of everything I had fought so hard to keep. I knew that those objects would have been responsible for my death, should have been responsible for my death, but they were mine and I loved them. But I had to see it so as I had done so many times before I went into the wine cellar and twisted the "bottle" of 1971 Claret and allowed myself into the secret room. It was almost as it had been before. The Qur'an was in its glass case, the prints were displayed as before, all the books, films, music, object d'art was in their rightful places. The only thing missing was "God Save The Queen", having finally been destroyed I supposed. There was a note on top of the glass case where the Qur'an lived. I picked it up, it was another letter from V.
Mr Deitrich,
I trust you have made it home safely. I took the liberty of restoring your treasure trove to its original state; I did not feel it was right to allow you to return to see it as it was when you left. I have managed to salvage almost all of your wonderful treasures, but alas I was not able to retrieve your marvellous painting entitled "God Save The Queen", Sutler ordered it to be burned as soon as it was found.
I wish you the best of luck in your life and I make only one request. Please take care of Evey, out of all the treasures in the world, the human beings are the most important and she is one of the most important of all.
You, Evey and this country will be granted Spes Altera Vitae, make good use of it.
In solidarity and friendship,
V
I sat down amongst my beloved objects, still clutching the letter in my hand and began to cry. I stayed as such for what seemed like hours, simply letting all of my bottled up emotions finally into the open. I made a promise to myself and to V that I would look after Evey to the best of my ability for as long as I lived.
After I left the cellar I took a shower, the first time since before my arrest. The water stung but I stayed there under the water, allowing it to wash away all of the pain and the fear and the anger and the hatred, not to mention the blood and the filth. After the shower I went into my bedroom, it too was as it had always been. On the bedside table was a book, Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Grey", it was one of mine and Andrew's favourites. I picked up the book and lay down on the bed. I will never forget the feeling of after months of enduring a hard concrete floor, being able to sink into the soft sheets on the soft mattress, it was heaven.
I lay on the bed for an age, thinking all the while, about Andrew and Imelda and Evey and V and what the world would be like after the Fifth. I remembered my promise that I would be there in Parliament Square to stand in solidarity with him and that I certainly would. I got up off the bed and went to stand in front of the mirror, it was the first time I'd looked in one since the last time I was at home. I was shocked at first by the sight that greeted me. If I had been shown a picture I would have disputed the fact it was me at all. I was thin and my skin was grey from never having seen natural light for so long. My body was decorated with scars and burns and my face was terribly disfigured as a result of months of torture. I didn't care. For the first time in months I heard Andrew's voice in my head, he told me that he didn't care what I looked like, he would always love me and I was still beautiful. I remembered the words of the woman in the white room; I was beautiful and unique and no-one could take that away. I knew I would always find comfort in these words.
I slept naked that night for the first time since before I lost Andrew. It wasn't a decision I had deliberately set out to make, but it felt right and I knew that Andrew's spirit was there with me.
I spend most of the six weeks leading up to the Fifth in the cellar. I watched almost all of the films and recorded television programmes as I could. I also listened to as many pieces of music and recorded programmes from the radio as I could. I only left the house in order to buy food. I was terrified I would be recognised when I went out for the first time, but with my extraordinary weight loss and my "new" face, no-one recognised me at all.
On the evening of the fourth of November I opened a box that had been left in my cellar. It was a cloak and mask, identical to those worn by V. Pinned to the cloak was a note telling me where I would find Evey on the Fifth. I put on the mask and cloak and left my house, heading towards Parliament Square. It seemed the whole of London, indeed the whole of Britain was doing likewise.
I stood in Parliament Square will people all around me. They were everywhere, in Victoria Street, Whitehall and Westminster Bridge as well as the Square. We stood awaiting the hands of the Westminster Clock to point to midnight, signalling the beginning of the Fifth. As it drew nearer and nearer a panic began to well up inside of me, what if the plan didn't work? But the feeling soon subsided, of course it would work, and tomorrow, tomorrow we would go out to create a new world.
As the clock struck midnight, the music began and seconds later the fireworks did too. The former home of what was once the Mother of All Parliaments went up in a series of perfect explosions and vibrant flames. We took off our masks and cloaks and stood at the dawn of a new age, undaunted and unafraid.
As soon as it was over, I turned a looked around me. It did not take long to find her; she was standing on the roof of a Whitehall building with a man who I recognised as Chief Inspector Eric Finch. I pushed my way through the celebrating crowd towards the building. The heavy black door was open and I went inside and found the lift that would take me to the roof, to Evey.
I stepped out on to the roof and watched her. She was even more beautiful than I remember her, even with her short, shaven hair. Finch saw me first; he turned around and looked at me. I knew from the expression on his face that he couldn't quite believe who he was looking at. When Evey turned around, at the time I did not expect the reaction that I got, though in hindsight I suppose I should have. She took one look at me and crumpled to the ground.
Finch and I agreed that we should take her inside and we took her to what Finch told me was the Shadow Gallery. It had been V's home and now belonged to Evey. I cannot say I was shocked to learn that V was dead, but it saddened me none the less. I instantly loved the Shadow Gallery and knew then why V had taken so much care in trying to restore my cellar.
When Evey awoke I was greeted with the same response that V had warned me. It was to be expected – I was alive, why hadn't I come to her before? I gave her V's letter and we talked and cried and resolved to carry out his wishes to create a new world.
And that we did. We were not alone; we had the help of Eric Finch, his colleague Dominic Stone, and soon after the rest of the police force. We were also helped by every single person who had been out on the streets of London the night Evey and V had changed the world. It was amazing to witness the rebuilding of a country.
The BTN was immediately scrapped and the old system of multi-channels was reintroduced. One of the best days of my life was when I walked into the new BBC television centre as the Director General. In my job I witnessed first hand many things which still make me feel proud. The day Eric Finch launched the new police force as Chief Constable with Deputy Chief Constable Dominic Stone at his side. The day the Odeon cinema in Leicester Square was reopened, showing old classics, including Evey and V's favourite; "The Count of Monte Cristo". The first new films to be shot being premiered at the Odeon before going on release in newly opened cinemas across the country. The making and showing of a dramatised version of "The Picture of Dorian Grey" on the BBC. The days that the first newly built mosques and synagogues and prayer centres and Catholic churches were opened. The day the first new government was elected and the black female Prime Minister took office, and appointed two homosexual men and a disabled woman to her Cabinet.
So many good days and I was alive to witness them. On the day, incidentally the 8th of April, when the government passed the law allowing same-sex marriages to be once again legal, I drank a silent toast to Andrew. How wonderful that this historical law had been passed on our anniversary.
I am still here at the BBC, where I started off so many years before. As I am getting older I increasingly leave more work to my Assistant Director, a certain Miss Evey Hammond, but I resolve to work here, keeping a hand in everything until the day comes that I finally get to be reunited with Andrew.
So there you have my story. If I have shocked or upset you in any part of this I want you to know I am pleased. If I have done so then I have succeeded and you now know what the cruelness of mankind can be. But I hope that you have also discovered the kindness of mankind too and the ability to love no matter who someone is and what the circumstances are. I hope that you will now go about your lives trying to spread a bit more love because although I will never personally meet every one of you who happens to read this, I know that I will have at least tried to spread some human compassion – some love to you all.
In solidarity and friendship and with deepest love,
Gordon Deitrich.
"Spes Altera Vitae" means Another Hope of Life
This story is for my very best friend who has to put up with being the first person to read my stories and my constant moaning about how awful my writing is! It is also for all the ladies and gents on the IMDb and on Live Journal who make my life that bit more fun!x