It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks, like everything else, were striking. Not that anybody noticed. Hilda Smith, her chin nuzzled into her breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the doors of Oceania Legal Services Plc. She was just in time for the Two Minutes Hate.

Hilda lined up with her uniformed colleagues in the firm’s conference room, decorated with Board-approved slogans ‘Consumer is Core’, ‘Outcomes are Regulations’. A fruity voice from the TwitterScreen – the all-seeing system through which Party members revealed their every move and opinion – was reciting a promise that the national deficit would be brought under control by 2027.

Hilda set her features to the expression of quiet optimism it was wise to assume within range of the TwitterScreen and gazed through the window.

Outside, the world looked cold. As from every vantage point, her view of the city skyline was dominated by the skyscrapers housing the bodies known as Regulators which administered every facet of business and social life. Most sinister was the glass pyramid that accommodated the all-powerful super regulator, the Life Servitude Board (LSB), soaring 93 storeys into the air, its only ornamentation a gargantuan banner reading ‘Big Board is Watching You’.

* * *

The Two Minutes Hate had begun. On the screen flashed an image of Bingham, the Enemy of the People. Hilda joined in the jeering at the detested pre-revolutionary slogan ‘The Rule of Law’. There were hisses among the audience. A sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. The image faded, to be replaced by a benign portrait of the chair of the LSB. The assembly began to chant in delirious relief, ‘BB! BB! BB!’

As the hate dispersed, Hilda caught the eye of a senior figure dressed in the open-necked checked shirt that denoted a member of the Inner Party. She knew him only by his official rank. He gave a wry sympathetic smile, as if sharing a secret – could it be that The Ombudsman, too, was a rebel?

At the sound of the back-to-work siren Hilda took her place in her cubicle. Her TwitterScreen announced that in recognition of the contribution legal service workers like her had made to the economy, caseload quotas were henceforth doubled.

She hurriedly composed a message of humble thanks to the Board and scanned the heap of Portal matters piling up on her desk. It was the usual case mix: PI claims, a few road traffic accidents, death penalty appeals and employer liabilities, all awaiting processing through the Portal.

One of the death penalty appeals made her frown: owing to a software issue in the Ministry’s Swift and Sure case management system, her customer had been hanged before his appeal had been processed. From experience, she knew this would create difficulties in getting the Board to cough up the 49p legal aid settlement. Wearily, she picked up the phone to the shared service centre and after an interminable wait a mechanical voice asked which case required attention. ‘It’s about my client, Comrade Perkins,’ she said without thinking.

‘Your what?’ the voice hissed. Hilda froze. The phone crashed from her fingers. She had used the C word, a thoughtcrime for which the only penalty was liquidation. She waited numbly as the clump of iron-shod boots heralded the approach of the Compliance Police.

* * *

She did not know where she was. Presumably in a cell within the Regulator. A familiar figure loomed at her side: The Ombudsman, still with his kindly smile. ‘Are you going to strike me off?’ Hilda groaned.

‘Yes, we are going to strike you off. But that is not enough. First, you must be cured. You must win the victory over yourself.’ He made a gesture. ‘What do you call that individual who just walked through the door?’

‘A client,’ Hilda said firmly, clinging to some long-distant memory of her training.

‘And if the LSB says it is a consumer?’

‘A client,’ she gasped.

‘Room 101,’ the Ombudsman snapped.

Hilda was strapped to a chair. Before her she saw a cage filled with writhing, whining beings – litigants in person, she realised with horror. The cage was nearer; it was closing in. A blind panic took hold and she suddenly understood what she had to say.

* * *

In the Chestnut Tree cafe the TwitterScreen babbled on with news that the target for reducing the national deficit had been brought forward to 2029. Hilda accepted another gin and bathed in the news of victories over Ambulancechasia. Gin-scented tears ran down the side of her nose. But it was all right. She had won the victory over herself.

She loved Big Board.