Love and Fallout (13 page)

‘Think that deserves a cup of tea,' she says, and I put in a request for PG Tips. In the two years we've been working together I've tried every fruit and flower combination imaginable but can't be won over to goji berry or hibiscus flower. Frieda is relentless in her pursuit of the new, whether it's tea or music or people, and as she fills the kettle she tells me about her latest man, a thirty-year-old sound designer. She likes the fact he's younger because he doesn't want to be tied down.
Tied down.
I wonder if that's what me and Pete are.

While I gather oversize polystyrene cut-outs for the workshop, we discuss any last bits that need doing before the council meeting next week. This one is crucial; our funding renewal hangs in the balance.

‘Actually, there's something I've been meaning to speak to you about,' she says, setting down the mugs.

‘Fire away.' I'm easing Mervyn the raindrop out from behind the filing cabinet where he's wedged himself. A grotty splodge discolours his nose so I pull paper towels from the dispenser and try to clean him down, stopping when I catch sight of Frieda's changed expression, intent and a little apprehensive.

‘What is it?'

And as I sit with Mervyn on my lap, she tells me about a touring production of
Me and My Girl
.

‘It was such a long shot, I didn't even bother mentioning the audition.'

We're on opposite sides of her desk, but I'm near enough to Frieda that I can see the tension in her eyes. ‘Rehearsals start in a month. I'm sorry, I wanted to give you more time.'

‘Don't be silly,' I put Mervyn aside and walk around the desk to hug her. In my head a tangle of new worries begin to flash their silvery bodies.

*

Pete and I are sitting opposite one another. For homework we were asked to spend at least an hour with each other, somewhere out of the house, somewhere we wouldn't be distracted by everyday problems. Go for a walk. Hold hands. Look at each other, said Valeria. Get yourselves in the dating zone. But after the week we've had, we're barely in the speaking zone, never mind the dating zone.

There's a white-bricked pub five minutes from Valeria's house and we've formed the unofficial habit of calling in for a quick drink before the counselling session because, although we don't admit it, the drink steadies us for the hour ahead. This evening, aware we haven't done our homework, we've allowed an extra half hour in the beer garden. I've been telling Pete about Frieda, which isn't strictly within the rules, since we're not supposed to discuss work, but it hasn't been an average day. He listens while a lad collects glasses around us.

‘What if it's a sign?'

‘A sign of what?'

He takes a sip from his bitter and leans back, fingertips resting on the table. ‘You've achieved a lot, far more than most small charities. What if it's time to wind things up?'

I'm unsure whether he means this or if he's merely taking a position, adopting a counter-argument to test my commitment. This is a habit from the classroom.

‘You know what Valeria said about finding more time for each other,' he says.

‘She didn't tell me to give up work.'

‘I'm not saying that.'

The conversation goes around in a circle for a few minutes and ends with silence. He turns over a discarded cigarette box with his middle finger: if he hadn't packed in smoking five years ago, this would be the point at which he'd have lit up and inhaled deeply.

His phone trills one short note and he smiles at a text message before tapping a reply. ‘Pip' he says.

‘Is she all right?' What I mean is, What does she say?

‘She's fine.'

He doesn't offer anything else. He doesn't read the message out. The unwelcome thought occurs that he might be glad to have it for himself, he might be warmed by a little moment of triumph, the knowledge that he is the good father and I the bungling mother. But the thought is ugly and I push it away.

The late sun turns the pub roof bronze and he puts on his sunglasses. I follow the direction of his gaze to a young couple seated beside a pram. They're leaning into each other, his hand resting on her knee, her arm around his waist, catching some time together while the baby sleeps.

‘Do you ever wish we'd had another?' he says.

I know he misses Pip. The week after she left for university I found him sitting on the edge of her bed, turning over the lumpy bear Mum knitted when she was born. I nearly reach out to take his hand, to rub my thumb over the wedding ring. But the moment passes. Before I can speak he supplies his own answer in a flat voice. ‘You wouldn't have had time for more children.'

‘Pete? We made those decisions years ago.'

‘No, we didn't,' he says, still looking at the couple.

There are speckles of grey coming through his beard. I can't remember what he looks like without it now – he grew it on a whim when we were camping in Brittany, a holiday beard he decided not to shave off. The beard suited him, finished him. I remember putting my arms around him and calling him bear, and he was The Bear for the first few weeks of our return. He'd roar at the kids and chase them around the house.

‘I don't understand you,' I say, which is the truth.

He shrugs. The young couple angle their chairs into the remaining sunlight. It's nearly seven.

‘We ought to go,' I say, getting up.

During the walk to Valeria's house, I reel back in my mind: when Dom was two or three we could have had another baby, but it would have been a stretch; Pete was working full-time and I was in a fundraising job. There must have been conversations but I can't remember them now. Did we let them fade into the background of our day-to-day until they faded out completely? Was he still having that conversation in his head all along? Perhaps we didn't make a decision then, not in definite terms. But surely that's the way of life, decisions that are not conscious, because often it's the accidents that link A to B rather than the plotted lines. A girl collapsing at a crowded gig. A lad with a car. A hospital waiting room. And then there are the chain reactions; I picture those hands circling the military base on a December afternoon, rippling and flying high into the freezing air, one current pulsing through a multitude. If I close my eyes, I can still feel that current pulsing down the years.

10

Women!

I yawned, sending a breath cloud into the freezing air. At half-past six on the morning of the Action we were gathered a quarter of a mile away from Amber gate. Our intention was to keep the blockade a surprise.

Jean, dressed in a Barbour and battered green cords, moved sociably around the visiting protestors in the smudgy light, sipping from the cup of her
Thermos. The university students had turned up as promised, carrying a ‘Reading Says No to Cruise' banner, and a few of them were chatting with a group of older women, some of whom wore lipstick and carried handbags. They had a banner too, ‘Grannies Against the Bomb', beautifully stitched in appliqué on a linen background. Another small troupe, many of whom wore tie-dye, had brought an enormous papier mache puppet robed in a multi-coloured gown, her yellow wool hair streaming. They swirled the puppet on a stick so it looked as if she were dancing above the crowd. Even more compelling than the puppet women were the ones gathered near the side of the road, all of whom were dressed – trousers, coats, jumpers, scarves – in orange. They sang as they waited. Something Eastern. From where I stood, stamping against the cold, I could also see Rori swinging a loud hailer and talking with Angela. They were probably exchanging opinions about international policies and arms treaties and civil defence budgets. I couldn't yet follow all their conversations but the list in my exercise book was growing.

Things discovered/ yet to find out

Diggers – mid 15
th
Century. Rebels. Dug common land.

Silo – garage for nuclear missile.

Atavistic – (ask Jean)

Speak – a talk.

Sellafield – nuclear reprocessing plant. Was called Windscale.

Eco-feminists – women in woods??

Jus ad bellum – Justice before war
.

My stomach gurgled. If I'd been spending a large proportion of time grappling with the concept of non-violent direct action, I'd been spending an equally large proportion grappling with my digestive system. Mum never bothered with pulses, and in their assorted beady shapes I'd always considered them more suitable for nursery school collages than hot dinners. Vegetables didn't interest me much either. But now these ingredients featured in every meal and thanks to a diet of unidentifiable stews and bubbling gruels, my guts were protesting. Greenham Gripe, Sam called it. I'd learned how much a person could value something once it was taken away. We all felt it about the right to live in a nuclear-free Britain, but privately I also felt it about bacon sandwiches.

At least if my stomach was restless I knew where to go – a dug-out ditch behind the trees, covered and re-dug at regular intervals. Despite the lack of official organisation, I'd come to understand how the camp worked. I'd taken my turn to collect firewood, and walked to the stand pipe carrying a canister of water which I'd dutifully filled and lugged back, proud as a hunter dragging a wild boar slain in the forest. It was only later that I realised the wheelbarrow was there to make life easier. Angela had pointed it out. After a somewhat chilly start, she'd warmed up a bit, but I got the feeling she didn't suffer fools, and I also sensed she wanted to protect her friendship with Rori. I looked over to where they stood talking. She seemed more animated than usual, but I could tell it was serious conversation rather than fun.

Me and Rori, we were the laughers, the chatterers, the intimates. In the short time since I'd arrived we'd fallen into a dizzy friendship, staying up late at the fireside, adopting voices to make each other laugh, exchanging confidences. I mused over what I knew about her. Born Aurora Constance Fleming in 1960, the year Brezhnev became president and Sylvia Pankhurst died, she'd grown up in Chelsea and attended a private boarding school from which she'd been expelled – something to do with smoking pot. Her older brother worked in the city. Her younger brother was at Winchester. As a child she'd wanted to be a naturalist and spent hours clambering about in rock pools whenever the family visited their holiday home on the north Cornwall coast. Her mother, Jocasta, loved parties and couldn't abide people with petty opinions and no politics.

Jean arrived at my elbow with her
Thermos. ‘Of course, one always hopes for more, but this will do very well, don't you think?'

I agreed. There must have been eighty or ninety of us altogether. Jean raised her arm in signal, and presently Rori stood before us, projecting her clear vowels, hardly needing the loud hailer. She thanked everyone for getting up so early, especially the students – they cheered themselves – and reminded everyone to register, to maintain a peaceful spirit and to support each other. She said the blockade was a celebration because we were life-loving women, and this action was a sign of our power. ‘And I hope you're in good voice because we'll be handing out song sheets. Some of you may not have been involved with direct action before so I'll let Angela explain more.' She smiled that wide cat smile and struck the air Lech Walesa-style so the pom-pom wobbled on her pink hat. ‘Remember, arms are for linking!' I would have been ready to face an army with her, we all would. We cheered.

Then Angela stepped forwards and sobered us up.

‘Our aim today is to disrupt entrance to the base by personnel and vehicle. Anyone who doesn't wish to sit down can add support by standing at the verge or acting as a legal observer, noting down anything we may need to refer to later.'

Like what? Did she mean in court? The griping sensation returned whenever I thought about prison cells.

‘Women formed into small affinity groups make a large decentralised action easier to co-ordinate and service,' she continued, reminding me of the legal contracts we used to type up at work. ‘The object is to create bonds of support so we take mutual responsibility for one other.'

Under Angela's direction, we began to form groups. Barbel grabbed my hand, and I turned, searching for Rori, but too late, another four women had joined us. Rosy-cheeked and warmly dressed, they looked ready for a long post-Sunday lunch walk. We exchanged greetings and promised to look after each other

Angela reminded us that Amber gate enjoyed reasonable relations with the police and asked that no one taunt them or the military. After she'd finished, the gathering was noticeably more subdued. Even the puppet had stopped dancing. But Rori revved things up again with the song I'd heard already, the one about the spirit being old and strong like a mountain. Barbel grinned at me. ‘And so we're ready,' she said, pinning back a strand of plaited hair. This was it, my first action. With the mist lifting, we took up the song and began to walk.

As we neared Amber gate and our songs died away they were replaced by the faint but unmistakable sound of chanting –
We say no!
We say no!
– which grew louder as we rounded the curve of the road. There outside the open gate a small horde of women were on the ground, blockading, arms linked, leaning against each other in a tangle. When they saw us a voice went up over the chanting. ‘Women!' came the cry, followed by that strange Red Indian whooping.