Love and Fallout (20 page)

Rori was struggling to squeeze a dollop of pink liquid soap into her palm. Vi got up, removed the unit from the wall and shook it. I'd tried to plug the sink with a paper hand towel so I could mix the hot and cold water, which turned a cloudy grey within seconds of contact with my fingers.

‘What do you girls do up there all day then?' asked Vi, reattaching the dispenser.

‘We talk around the fire,' I said. ‘We plan actions.'

‘Actions?' Vi repeated, rubbing a spot on the sink.

‘Come and find out,' said Rori, soaping the J-cloth around her neck and shoulders. ‘You'd be very welcome.'

Vi laughed. ‘Me? You wouldn't catch me sleeping out all weathers under a plastic sheet. Central heating and fluffy slippers, that's me. Still, good for you girls, that's what I say. Two fingers up to Maggie Thatcher. Bet she wouldn't want bombs on her doorstep.'

‘What's that little splodge?' asked Rori leaning towards my waist.

I'd followed Rori's lead and stripped down to my bra, but unlike her I was holding my shirt to my chest to protect my modesty.

‘That? It's my birthmark.'

‘Is it! A birthmark.' She touched the tear of brown pigment. ‘It looks like a skittle,' she declared. ‘A little skittle. How sweet. I always wanted a birthmark.'

‘Did you?'

‘Yes, it marks you out, makes you special. Don't you think so, Vi?'

Vi glanced vaguely towards the birthmark, then up to my chest, only partially covered by the shirt.

‘God didn't short change you, did he love?' she said, whooping with laughter.

My face warmed. Rori giggled, ‘It's not fair is it,' she said. ‘I think she's had my share.' Rori had neat patties for breasts, the sort that fitted nicely into t-shirts. Mine had a life of their own, sliding sideways when I lay down, flouncing about when I ran. I never wore a bikini or low-cut tops, and even when I wore T-shirts, builders gawped and yelled out, so that I'd instinctively cross the road for my own safety, like a water buffalo evading lions.

Rori had her head upside down in the sink and was trying to lather the Timotei.

‘You'll never get anywhere like that,' said Vi. After another rattle in the cupboard she returned with a plastic jug. ‘Here,' she filled it up and poured water over Rori's hair. ‘Aren't you a curly top?' she said, working the shampoo into a foamy cornet.

‘It's my grandmother, she has the curls in our family,' said Rori from upside down.

‘
Grandmother
,' repeated Vi, with a wink to me in the mirror. ‘Bet she's not best pleased with you sleeping rough?'

‘I'm not sure she knows. She's gone ga-ga to tell you the truth.'

‘Oh, me and my mouth,' said Vi, sounding anything but upset.

‘That's all right. But I don't think she'd mind. Her mother was a suffragette.'

‘Was she?' Vi stopped lathering. ‘Chained herself to railings and all that?'

‘I believe so.'

‘Not just the curls run in the family then,' said Vi, refilling the jug.

Thankfully no one had come in so we were making progress.

‘You next?' said Vi, lifting the jug in offering.

‘I'll do Tessa's,' said Rori, towelling her hair, ‘we don't want to disturb you.'

Rori massaged in gentle circles, sweeping shampoo from my neck with the flat of her hand.

With clean hair, I got out of my jeans and wrapped a towel around my waist. It was like getting changed at the beach.

‘Honest to goodness,' said Vi. ‘What would your mums say if they could see you?'

‘Mine would have a heart attack,' I said, which was somewhere near the truth.

When the door went, Rori was buttoning her shirt and I had my leg stretched up to try and get my foot in the basin. The woman who entered was upright, well dressed, with a triangular rain scarf protecting her hair. She quickly took in the scene about her before entering a cubicle. We continued to dress as the tinkle of her urine flow became an energetic stream, finished off with a little pft before the flush. But though we made room at the taps, she didn't acknowledge us, even when I smiled at her in the mirror. On the way out she stopped at Vi's chair. ‘I don't think the council would be pleased to hear that vagrants are abusing the facilities,' she said in a cream of Berkshire accent.

‘They're not vagrants,' said Vi indignantly.

The woman gave us a backwards glance before leaving. Vi tutted. ‘Snooty madam.'

We tucked in more layers.

‘Vi, would you like one of these?' Rori said, removing a flyer from her rucksack.

‘What's all this?' said Vi, scanning the leaflet.

‘It's going to be huge,' I said. Like the other women at Amber gate, I'd been writing letters to form a chain: the letters were supposed to go out to ten women you knew, and those women were supposed to pass on ten more letters to women they knew. I didn't like to say that I couldn't think of enough women to send mine to. Maggie's mum would have liked one, but then again, if I could persuade Maggie to come to the demonstration she wouldn't want her mum there too. In the end I sat around writing the letters so it looked like I was involved, but they secretly ended up in the fire.

‘We're planning to link up around the whole base,' I said, drying in between my toes before putting on clean socks. ‘There might even be women coming from Europe.'

‘Sunday,' said Vi. ‘I'll be doing the dinner on Sunday. But good luck to you.'

She tucked the leaflet in her pocket. Rori tried to offer her a pound note for her kindness but Vi told her to keep it. ‘Put it towards your camp,' she said. ‘Or buy yourself a flannel.' We heard her laughter ringing behind us as we re-entered the street.

17

Brandy

It had rained while we'd been getting washed and the pavement was drying out in petals of damp. I was anxious to return Angela's bike but Rori waved her hand. ‘Plenty of time for that. Let's have a drink.'

To get to the pub we needed to cross the market square, which meant passing two women who stood behind a table draped with a banner: LAWE Abiding Citizens.

‘Keep Newbury clean. Peace women off our common,' repeated one of them into a hand-held microphone, the sort favoured by election candidates.

‘It's her,' said Rori, pointing me towards the tweedy outfit and triangular rain scarf.

‘Greenham women a drain on ratepayers.'

Our experience with Keith the swimming pool manager had emboldened me, so I followed Rori towards the trestle table, determined to be the first to speak this time. Anyway this woman was the same as anyone else, I'd heard her peeing in a public toilet. She lowered the microphone and stared us down spaghetti Western style, her face stern and powdered.

‘This is victimisation,' I said. The woman fixed her eyes on me. ‘What you're doing is inciting hatred,' I continued.

‘No. This is an exercise of democratic speech,' she replied. ‘You'll find we have public support on our side.' Her companion nodded but remained mute.

An old man with a Tesco's bag shuffled over to see what the fuss was about. He had the look of someone who lived on tinned soup.

‘Sir, if you'd care to sign our petition, we're doing our best to protect the town,' said the woman. Before she could say anything else, Rori cut in.

‘Did you know the airbase is built on common land?' she asked him.

‘I remember a time before the War when you could walk all over, yes,' he said.

‘Well, we want the land to be returned rightfully to the people who own it,' said Rori, checking her coat for a leaflet.

‘Each missile costs twenty-five million pounds,' I put in. That was a fact I'd double-checked.

‘Is that so?' said the man. There were two gullies down his cheeks as if his face had been folded and unfolded again. When I told him my Hiroshima statistic he shook his head. ‘Terrible.'

‘Meanwhile three million are unemployed,' said Rori.

‘And think about how little money pensioners have to live on,' I added.

‘This is it,' he said, warming to our theme, ‘this is it.'

Impatient now, the woman from LAWE drew herself up like crown prosecution.

‘Earlier today I witnessed these women stripped half-naked, washing themselves in the public lavatories,' she said, pausing for emphasis. ‘Imagine it.' The old man averted his eyes, too abashed to imagine it. ‘Public facilities. Think how one feels when confronted with such behaviour.'

‘No, well, that's not on,' he muttered. She held the clipboard before him.

Rori slapped an anti-nuclear leaflet on the table and we walked away.

Most of the pubs didn't welcome Peace Women, but the landlord of
The Feathers was an exception, and he'd even been known to drop by the camp in his Land Rover with a donation box. My usual drink was Bacardi and Coke, but Rori ordered brandy and soda in bulb-like glasses and we sat on barstools, sipping in the mellow light.

After reliving our experiences with Keith, Vi and the woman from LAWE, we'd been discussing plans for Embrace the Base, and then playing a game called I Have Never, which Rori knew from university. We didn't have money for more than one drink so we were playing with pints of water. There were quite a few things Rori had done that I hadn't. Hitchhiking. Jumping the fence at Glastonbury. Losing her virginity to a clarinet teacher. Nevertheless, the sorts of things I'd done – working for the summer in an ice-cream van, administering a home perm – seemed to delight and amuse her. When I said, ‘I have never had a strip-wash in a public toilet,' we took a gulp of water. It was lovely stowing away under the low pub lights but time was creeping on and I reminded Rori about Angela's bike. She waved her hand. ‘Oh forget about that, I'm having fun.'

On the other side of the bar two men waited to be served. Both had American accents, marking them out as off-duty military, and after some puzzling I recognised one as the tall serviceman I'd seen jogging near Amber gate. He seemed even taller in the low-ceilinged pub. His short blond hair was cut clean off his neck and nearly shaven at the sides. The sleeves of his cream V-neck jumper were pushed up, and underneath there was no shirt, only his chest with a few golden wires poking out. He looked like he should be called Brad, or Todd, or Chip.

I pointed him out to Rori, ‘We saw him the other week near our gate, he'd been running.'

She glanced over. He and his friend had seated themselves on high stools like ours. His skin was paler than it should have been, but no doubt it responded to sunshine: he was the sort of man who should rightfully be finished with a golden sheen.

‘They're all the same to me,' she said.

But he wasn't the same as anyone. I stared. Where did you get jeans to fit when you were that tall? Perhaps he wore American jeans bought from a special shop on the base. He turned his head, directing his brown eyes towards us and I smiled in a reflex, the only natural response to beauty like his, for he was unarguably handsome. His eyes slid past me to Rori, where they lingered, but he didn't smile at either of us.

‘They're not supposed to even acknowledge us,' she said. ‘They're fed all kinds of misinformation, that we're in league with the Russians and God knows what else. They think we wear razorblades sewn into our clothes.'

A couple of local girls, whose dirty looks I'd been trying to ignore, approached the bar, a real blonde and a dyed blonde, their hair combed and sprayed into flicked styles. The real blonde leaned on the bar as if she hardly knew the servicemen were there – the way Maggie might have done when she was pretending not to notice a man but wanted to make sure he noticed her – then she threw her head back and laughed at something her friend said. Whatever the friend had said probably wasn't hilarious, but that wasn't the point, the point was to make the men look up. I recognised that tactic too. The tall American swivelled on his stool and touched the real blonde on the elbow, wanting in on the joke. It was easy, that touch, an easy American gesture made by the sort of man who could catch keys one-handed or flip a cigarette from its packet straight into his mouth. It wouldn't be long before he and his friend would be buying the girls a drink.

The dyed blonde said something to the group and they turned their eyes our way and laughed. Rori finished her brandy, nonplussed. ‘Shall we make tracks?'

I'd wanted to go straight back to camp, but Rori said there were a couple of things she needed to buy, so we agreed to meet at the bikes.

Sam had warned me to be careful of the phone boxes in Newbury, she'd heard they were monitored by the MoD, but I had no other way of reaching home and anyway it was doubtful whether my calls to Stevenage would be of much interest to them. Inside the box I caught my second urine whiff of the day, but at least the coin slots weren't jammed. I rang Maggie first and her mum answered.