Love and Fallout (11 page)

‘Pippa, this stuff is so out of date. I thought your generation had got beyond beauty contests.'

She runs a hand through her hair, the way her father does when he's wound up. ‘No one's being exploited. We're doing it out of personal choice.'

Dom crosses one boot over the other. ‘Sounds sad.'

‘The prize is two thousand pounds,' she says, ignoring him. ‘And they make a one thousand pound donation to a charity.'

‘Oh well, that's all right then,' I say, ‘if they dress it up like that.'

‘See, I told you she'd be like this,' Pippa says to her dad.

‘You could nominate Easy Green,' says Pete, which I imagine is his way of lightening the atmosphere.

‘So you think this is all right? Having your daughter parading around in her knickers.'

‘I won't be wearing knickers,' says Pippa, aghast. Dom laughs loudly. She tells him to shut up. I remind her that no one in this house tells another person to shut up. She says oh yes, that's right, sorry she was forgetting and asks me again why it was they were never allowed to play Monopoly. I close down that particular discussion before we go completely off topic.

‘Pip, there are people fighting for university places. Students are out on the streets trying to protect their right to an education. Why do you want to waste your time with this nonsense? Just think about it, that's all I ask…'

‘There's nothing to think about. It's no big deal.'

‘If it's what she wants,' says Pete, ‘I don't see the harm. We all do silly things when we're young.'

‘It's not silly. Oh.' She rises from the beanbag, but with difficulty because beanbags aren't designed for decisive action. ‘For some reason I thought someone might be, God, I don't know, pleased for me or something.'

‘I can't say I'm hugely excited about my daughter parading around in her pants, no.'

‘Well everyone's just seen yours,' she says, straightening up.

‘That was different.'

‘How?'

‘I wasn't doing it for me…'

‘Well I'm not either. I'm doing it for charity.' I give her a sceptical look and her brown eyes become fierce. ‘You know how expensive fees are, you were the one who wanted me to go on the marches, remember?'

‘This isn't the answer is it!' I knew she wasn't joining the women's society but I didn't expect this. ‘If you're going to use that argument you might as well take up pole dancing, that probably pays a few quid.' She picks up her glass and heads towards the door. I try to calm my voice. ‘Pip, you may think this is all a bit of fun, but there'll be people making money out of it. Making money out of
you
. You're a beautiful girl, of course you are, but you don't have to prance up and down to prove it. You don't have to feed the machine.'

‘
What
machine
? There is no machine!' she says flinging an arm up so the silver bangles on her wrist jangle and her wine sloshes. ‘I'm sorry you haven't got a daughter who wants to sit in a field all day eating mungbeans and going on about global warming… I'm sorry I'm not kicking about in charity shop clothes getting neurotic about other people's heating bills or whatever it is you do…'

‘Pippa!'

‘…but that's not me, okay. And it never will be. I'm not like you.'

She makes her exit.

Dom shakes his head. ‘She's mad.'

I have the urge to run upstairs, to suggest that walk in Fosset wood so we can talk things over and make our peace. But even as I'm thinking this I also want to shake her by the shoulders because for the life of me I can't understand her. A beauty pageant? And what was that about mungbeans? It's her first year at university, she's young, she wants to fit in, but even so, a beauty pageant? Is her need to be accepted really that strong? I remember nineteen – the muddle of it – and I remember what it was like wanting to belong, only the gang I wanted to belong to had a very different agenda.

8

Singing Lessons

By three o'clock, at least twenty-five of us were gathered around the fire waiting for the meeting to start. Our numbers had been temporarily bolstered by members from Ruby gate, our nearest neighbours, who were camped half a mile away. Rori and I sat side by side on milk crates while Barbel, wearing a poncho made from a blanket, walked around the ragged circle handing out
Common Good
, the newsletter. Everyone accepted it keenly, even the couple with their arms slung around each other who seemed too deep in conversation to notice. I shared my copy with Rori and together we turned through the photocopied patchwork of handwritten articles, cartoons and announcements, pausing at the centre pages where a letter from a woman in prison had been reprinted.
Dear Womyn, missing you all like mad
, it began. ‘She's incredibly up-beat,' remarked Rori, ‘considering.' It was impossible to imagine being that woman writing letters from a prison cell.

My first day had passed enjoyably in Rori's company. After helping Jean unpack the shopping, we'd peeled potatoes together – well, me and Jean had done most of the peeling while Rori told stories about the month she'd spent hitchhiking in Andalucia. Since cooking in the dark was hopeless, the women usually prepared the vegetables by daylight and left them in pots of water ready for the evening meal.

My eye fell on another patch from the newsletter –
Defending yourself in court?
it asked.
Confused by the rules? Come and join in skills-sharing workshop with other
♀
at Main Gate.
It was interesting to see what they did with that gender symbol. I was in the middle of an article about Gore-Tex, a wonder fabric which could both repel rain and let moisture escape, wondering if I could fit my fat sleeping bag inside a Gore-Tex sack, as suggested, when Jean raised her voice above the general chatter.

‘Shall we begin?' The women hushed and Jean regarded the gathering over her half-moon specs. ‘Wonderful to see so many here.'

It might have been the opening of a WI meeting, but despite the fact that many of the women were indeed drinking tea, there were no twin-sets or pearls on display. Instead the general look was one of utilitarianism – waterproofs, hiking socks, thick-soled boots, army surplus ensembles and the occasional flash of rainbow wool.

‘Would any new women like to introduce themselves?' said Jean, casting around. Rori gave me a playful nudge and Angela, sitting cross-legged on a roll of carpet, glanced over. I got up in a half-stand to give my name. A few heads nodded in my direction.

‘First of all,' said Jean, ‘housekeeping. We do need to keep on top of the chores I'm afraid because it seems we're facing pressure from LAWE.' Jeers all around.

‘Newbury residents' group,' explained Rori. ‘Locals Against Women's Encampment'

‘Or League of Absolute Wankers,' Sam added, pulling on her bootlaces.

Jean continued. ‘I realise we're all grown-ups, but we do need to be diligent about litter collection and attending to the shit pit.' It was odd to hear the phrase on her lips. I thought fretfully of the peeing incident and Angela wheeling past with her barrow.

‘In addition, let's be mindful about gifts. I know we've had this discussion before, but this collective must be about sharing rather than collecting.' I looked again to Rori.

‘One of the women was stockpiling stuff we'd been given,' she said. ‘Thermal socks, new sleeping bags. There was a scene.'

Jean ran through a few other points concerning camp life before getting on to what she called ‘the meat of the meeting': the upcoming blockade. Conversations began about which groups could be approached for support, and someone suggested the Reading University Women's Society, when Sam, still tugging her bootlaces, spoke up.

‘Blockading only gets us so far. The gravel trucks make it inside. They're late, but they get in. We need to up the ante. Everyone's used to seeing women sitting in the road, singing. Nothing's changed,' she said. ‘We need to make a statement.'

‘How?' came another voice.

‘I've got an idea,' said a woman in a red hat. She looked around the group meaningfully. ‘We should dress up as pigs.'

‘Satire?' asked a young woman behind me. ‘Like in
Animal Farm
?'

‘No, PIGS. Police.'

A whoop of laughter. ‘Brilliant!'

More voices broke in. ‘Where are we supposed to get the uniforms?'

‘We can't wear uniforms, we'll be as bad as they are.'

‘But it's subversion.'

Everyone was talking together. Rori balanced a cigarette paper on her palm and with pinched fingers began sowing a seam of loose tobacco along its centre, taking care to protect the paper from the wind.

‘What are the trucks for?' I asked.

‘Building work on the silos. We blockade to stop them getting through.' Manipulating the tobacco into a neat roll, she skimmed her tongue over the paper's gummed edge, sealed the tube and then, tearing a small square from her Rizla packet, rolled and inserted a filter. Finally, she dipped a twig into the fire, lit her cigarette and inhaled. It was an operation of fluid beauty. She offered me the tin.

‘It's all right thanks,' I said, reaching for my new pouch of Golden Virginia. ‘Got my own.'

As the debate about costumes intensified, I made my first shaky attempt at a cigarette while Sam's strong voice rose up.

‘Listen, this camp has been established for over a year, right? We've got to push forward. Surprise is our best weapon.'

‘We shouldn't use language from the male lexicon,' someone declared. A discussion started up about gender-neutral language, but Sam wasn't distracted for long. ‘We've got to remember why we're here.'

‘What about the diggers? This is common land, or at least it was,' came another voice.

‘Are they sending in diggers?' I asked Rori. I still didn't know what a silo was.

‘No, she means the Diggers, you know, like the Levellers.'

‘Oh, right.'

I glanced back at Angela. She had such a pale, serious face. Under the hood of her parka, she reminded me of a daguerreotype I'd seen in a history O-level book, a little girl wearing a bonnet and looking out with an old woman's stare.

I'd overfilled my cigarette paper and couldn't get control of it, and had just decided to extract a fat lump of tobacco when a gust of wind got up and blew everything away, leaving me with an empty hand. I made a disbelieving face. Rori giggled. Angela's eye landed on me briefly.

The red-hatted woman was speaking again. ‘But we could make authority look at itself. Think about it: pictures in the papers, photos of police dragging away other police.'

Sam cut in. ‘Stunts are well and good but I came here to do something.' There was silence, only the fire and a bird
disturbing the trees. And then she said, ‘It's time we cut the fence.'

It was as if she'd suggested setting someone alight. A chorus started up immediately, but Sam wasn't swayed and only raised her voice louder, ‘Look at the ANC. They could only use non-violence for so long.'

‘We're not the ANC, their human rights are being violated.'

‘So are ours. The first human right is to live, isn't it?'

‘Cutting the fence is an act of violence,' said a middle-aged woman in a snood arranged so that only her face was visible, like a nun's from her wimple.

‘They're planning to put ninety-six nuclear missiles in there in a year's time and we're worried about cutting holes in some wire meshing. This is mad.' Sam shook her head, confounded.

‘We're non-violent witnesses,' said the snood lady.

Everyone was talking over each other. The only one looking settled was Di, who sat knitting, the firelight playing on her round face.

Sam raised her voice. ‘This is a resistance camp, we're involved in a struggle.'

‘Shouldn't Jean do something?' I said to Rori as the voices grew louder still.

‘She's not the chairwoman, there's no hierarchy.'

‘Cutting the fence is a criminal act,' repeated the lady in the snood.

‘I'm not going back to Holloway,' said a small woman, her black eyes darting fretfully around. ‘I can't go there again.'

‘You don't have to, Petra,' said her neighbour, a big woman in an even bigger cardigan.

‘You don't know what it's like,' Petra looked tearful. The woman wrapped an arm around her. I'd lit a new cigarette but it kept going out before I'd had a chance to inhale. Anyway I was taking in more smoke from the fire because somehow I'd managed to sit in the wrong place again. ‘It's horrible,' said Petra before disappearing back into the woman's armpit, like a mouse into a woolly hole.