Love and Fallout (12 page)

Angela raised her hand. ‘Shall we return to Monday's action?' she said, in her call a spade a spade accent.

A sort of calm descended and for a moment there was only the crackling of the fire. Angela produced a pencil and notebook.

‘We'll need to be in place by 7am. According to information they're expecting a mass delivery of building supplies, so our presence will be holding back its safe passage.' All eyes were on her. ‘As ever, we can't predict police response, and whoever volunteers for blockading may also be risking arrest.'

‘They make you wee on the floor if you can't hold it in,' came Petra's voice from the big woman's armpit. Angela ignored her.

‘Can we have a show of hands from volunteers?'

My cigarette had gone out for a third time but I didn't bother trying to relight it: I wasn't attending to anything apart from the word ‘arrest' clanking with a cold echo in my head.

Sam's hand was in the air. Beside me, Rori raised her arm. Angela began the count. She came to me and paused. This was my chance: this was when I had to stop thinking about Tony and our fantasy semi-detached, dog-walking life together and start acting for the future. Plus I wanted to prove to Rori I had backbone; that, above all else, was suddenly vital. I forced away the thought of prison and raised my hand. Angela counted me in.

Darkness had crept up behind our backs and the tea-making ritual was repeated. Some of the women from Ruby gate stayed for a cup while others trailed homewards towards their own bent teapots and muddy firesides.

‘At least this one didn't end in a row,' said Rori, yawning and raising her arms to the sky. As Sam stoked the fire, a wild flame leapt up and we whooped.

‘Hey, it's Saturday night,' said the girl behind me as if she'd just remembered, which she probably had. I'd almost forgotten myself.

‘They'll be having their disco at the base,' said Sam.

‘They have a disco in there?' I asked, unable to imagine it.

‘Oh yeah. You see the taxis going in, girls from Newbury all tarted up,' said Sam, poking the fire. ‘Fraternisers.'

‘They're young, they don't know any better,' said Jean.

‘They should. Pathetic isn't it, we're out here trying to save their stupid arses, and they're in there rolling over for the military.' Sam pulled her jumper over her knees for warmth. ‘Never mind. We can have our own party. Let's have a song, girls.' She began in her loud voice and a few other women followed. The words had been fashioned to the tune of da-do-ron-ron:

Sitting in the White House with his Stetson on

They call him Ron with the Neutron Bomb

Barbel crossed the mud to fetch her guitar. Impromptu group singing would normally have made me want to leave a room, but there was no room to leave, and anyway, I was here to become a new person. We sang several verses and it wasn't too bad because the song was upbeat, not the slow sort where someone wanted to do a solo with their eyes shut. After a slug from the circulating whisky, Rori broke off from singing and whispered, ‘You know, I haven't had any action for nearly three months, which is positively sobering.'

I took my turn on the bottle. It was like taking a sip from the fire, but it made me forget my freezing earlobes at least.

‘You said you did a protest at the main gate last week.' I passed the whisky on, my throat stripped bare.

She threw her head back in delight. ‘I mean the
other
sort of action,' she said under her breath.

‘Oh, I see.' Whatever face I was pulling made her smile and clutch my arm.

‘You're not shocked are you?'

‘Course not.'

The women had reached the chorus of the song again,
The neutron bomb, Ron, the neutron bomb
.

‘Did you have a boyfriend back in… where was it?'

‘Stevenage.'

Tony, Tony, Tony. My heart lurched despite myself. I thought of how he'd squeeze me to his side as we walked. I thought of the night in
The Volunteer when he'd told me he loved me. How I'd made him say it again the next day to be sure.

‘We broke up.'

‘Because you were coming here? That happens.' She played with one of the silver peace earrings. ‘They're afraid their girlfriends are going to turn into raving feminists.'

‘It was before I decided to come.'

‘I see. Is that why you came, broken heart – join the Foreign Legion?'

‘No, not exactly.'

‘Sorry, that was crass. Forgive me?'

She had a way of concentrating her attention on you, making you feel as if you were the most important person in the world. I shrugged, befuddled. ‘I thought I should, you know… I wanted to do something meaningful,' I said. ‘There was nothing for me at home anyway. It was very…' I couldn't think of the word.

‘Limiting?'

‘Yes, that's it.'

‘I know what you mean.'

How? People like her didn't come from new towns made of concrete, they entertained, they had debates about foreign policy, they knew the plots to operas.

The nearly full moon was encircled by a fuzzy white halo.
The women had moved on to a satirical song about being funded by the KGB and burning toast.

Rori nodded. ‘We
are
doing something meaningful.' I smiled at her. ‘So what was he like, this boyfriend of yours?' I told her a little about Tony and then we talked about relationships, though it was only Rori who spoke in the plural.

‘It's so nice to have a girls' chat,' she said confidentially. ‘I miss that.'

I warmed at her remark and yet puzzled over it. Wasn't the entire camp full of girls? ‘But you and Angela are good friends?' I said, digging for clues; I'd seen the two of them talking before the meeting began but couldn't tell how deep their friendship went.

‘Oh, I love her to bits but she's not exactly one for gossip and frolic,' said Rori. That much I'd guessed. ‘So, you're over Tony?'

‘Yes, I was a bit cut up… but it's fine now.'

I thought back to the wretched state of not belonging to the world, Mum and Dad moving around me as if they were behind glass. Rori fixed her attention on the fire.

‘Things were bad for me for a while in my second year at university. Too much Sylvia Plath I expect,' said Rori. ‘I didn't know how bad until a friend phoned my parents and they took me away.'

‘Where to?'

‘Nice country house for the posh nut jobs.'

Her way of speaking was so unselfconscious and direct. I didn't know what to say.

‘Oh, don't worry, I wasn't in long, got myself out as quickly as I could. Worked out what they were looking for. Insight is key. Poor insight shows you have a lack of understanding about your condition – and you must acknowledge you have a condition, not merely a human condition like everyone else, but whatever condition it is they decide upon.' She said there was something called group therapy where the residents sat in circles and discussed their families. ‘It's a bore, isn't it, listening to other people's mental distress. There've been a few evenings here where it all gets unpacked, childhood trauma and abusive uncles and God knows what.' She stopped abruptly and reached a hand to my arm, ‘Don't listen to me. It can be dreary here sometimes but so can anywhere, and mostly it's wonderful. What everyone is doing is wonderful. And it's so liberating – you'll see – like being a child again, an outlaw, living in the woods, playing, fending for yourself.'

She made it sound like
Swallows & Amazons
and I tried to recast the primitive settlement in her light. I wanted to know more, but Angela had risen from her carpet roll to join us. We shifted around to make room and conversation turned to the blockade. I told her I was looking forward to it, which wasn't quite true, and she nodded, offering me a slight smile.

‘What's on your pin?' I asked, indicating the green and white button attached to her parka.

She glanced down. ‘
Pax Christi
. I represented them at university.'

‘Angela was working on a Masters in Political Science,' said Rori, looping her scarf once more around her swan neck.

As she talked it was clear that Angela knew her ideological onions. Her sentences flowed together without ums or pauses, as if she'd written them down first. Listening to her reminded me of the time I'd seen Tony use the microfiche in his college library, that swoosh through swathes of information before the close-up seizure.

The bottle was coming our way. Rori took another swig, but Angela, who was talking about the glorification of the military, passed and the bottle was handed to me.

‘What's disturbing,' she said, ‘is the unquestioning acceptance of militarism and its promotion as a civilised and civilising force. War is bloody.' I took my sip, re-experiencing the sour-dry heat. ‘The image of Margaret Thatcher riding on a tank draped with a union jack lends it a false credibility. After a while we become desensitised.'

Rori agreed. ‘Living here, exposed to the elements, it sharpens you up,' she told me.

Militarism, said Angela, helped to give credence to a mode of thinking which took it for granted that whole nations should exist in fear of one another. She talked on in the firelight.
Fetishising
.
Atavistic.
Proliferation
. ‘Ultimately, arms-selling is about power and profit,' she said. The determination in her pale face was impressive. What would it be like to be as clever as Angela, to live in a building of so many rooms filled with fascinating things and with plenty of space for storage? I lived in a two-up two-down but was hoping to extend.

Barbel played her guitar, fingers skipping along the fretboard. I didn't know any of the words, but when the song changed and slowed, I swayed left and right, picking up the general idea.

With our lovely feathers we shall fly

A dozen voices swelled around the fireside. Di gave me one of her smiles, then closed her eyes and continued knitting. I opened my mouth and, still cringing a bit despite myself, began to sing.

9

Green Woman Blues

Summer has arrived early and our clackety fan rotates in one corner of the office. We have to leave it on a low setting or the noise hampers phone conversations and paper is sent drifting and swishing to the floor. While Frieda takes a call, I sort through a box file of old invoices, having already re-taped its spine to keep it functional for another year. No one could accuse us of squandering money on overheads and we have the office to prove it: my desk, Frieda's jammed up beside it, a loo plumbed into an ex-store cupboard, a photocopier from ebay, and an ancient, elephant-grey filing cabinet on top of which piles of manila are balanced. One Sunday afternoon I'll have to confront them but for now I let them grow imperceptibly like mushrooms. Our kettle and mugs sit on a side table which gets pushed into the alcove beside the front door when we have meetings.

‘Did you get back to Mr Naslund?' I ask, when Frieda is finished on the phone. We used to have a volunteer called Graham, a retired heating engineer who came in once a week to help with calls, but he met a widow in his creative writing class and they bought a bungalow together in Herne Bay. Now we deal with all enquiries ourselves and the red voicemail light is constantly flashing.

Frieda swivels her chair to reach the message book. As she does so, she catches some folders and also my eye. It could be my imagination, but she appears to be resisting a smile.

‘Mr Naslund, Mr Naslund…' she repeats, leafing through.

‘It's the hair, isn't it?'

She looks up with bewildered innocence. ‘What?'

‘You're good Frieda, but you're not that good.' She trained as an actress and still goes to the occasional audition between working here part-time.

‘I need to get used to it, that's all,' she says, giving in to the smile.

‘Me too.' I put a hand to my still-vibrantly-red hair. ‘Hope it don't scare the kids.' My afternoon workshop is with a primary school in Huntingdon.

Three days have passed since the broadcast and I'm glad of the distraction of work because life on the home front has deteriorated further. Following the Miss Student Body revelation, Pippa went upstairs and packed her bag for the return to university. Before Pete drove her to the station she called me into the kitchen and said she thought it was better if we didn't speak for a while. No walk in the bluebell woods. No difficult but necessary conversation, hard truths spoken in the knowledge that we are mother and daughter and nothing should come between us. Only a perfunctory goodbye and an exit. My text messages have gone unanswered.

While I finish with the invoices, Frieda rings Mr Naslund's landlord about installing a water meter, something he's been reluctant to undertake. She manages to get him on side swiftly with her blend of charm and enthusiasm.