Love and Fallout (38 page)

‘She's got to win with that,' cries Maggie.

‘I know!' I yell back, high with pride and excitement.

Gary returns and asks where she learned to juggle. Smiling naturally now, she invites him to have a go. The audience urges him on until he's forced to try. When he does the beanbags fall to the floor with a thump, thump, thump. Pippa takes the mic and gives instructions but Gary's not getting it. After the second attempt he takes the mic back, thanks her again and directs her to the wings. Still feeling the glow of maternal pride I watch the last acts pass before us – a girl limbo dancing under a length of bamboo and another playing a bass recorder. Pippa could definitely walk away with this. Definitely. Suddenly I'm glad we came, glad to be wrong, glad I'll be able to tell Pippa this. And then Gary introduces the final section of the competition and my heart drops like a beanbag.

‘Swimwear?'
I say to Maggie. ‘He's not serious?'

But he is. On they come a few minutes later in a flourish of flesh and assemble side by side to a roar of alcohol-fuelled cheering.

Eve the medical student is first up and she sashays forth in her black bikini and sarong, which she whips away at the end of the runway, pivoting to appreciative whistles. Gary rubs his eyes in mock amazement. ‘What about that ladies and gentlemen.' Eve takes her spot beside him.

Maggie calls Gary something in Anglo Saxon.

My eyes dart back to Pippa who's now wearing an orange one-piece and a pair of heeled sandals.
Run away!
I want to shout. Miss East Anglia is followed by Miss Cambridge who appears in a high-cut yellow costume. And then Gary raises the mic to his lips and calls for my daughter.

The diva music ramps up as she walks the runway wearing an uncertain smile and not much else. At Gary's side she casts her eyes to the crowd, some of whom are yelling out.

‘Looking lovely. How about a twirl for our judges?' Gary's in charge again and he's enjoying it.

Poor Pippa. She smiles and agrees she's having fun, though her body language says otherwise – she's standing stiffly, four strangers giving her marks out of ten. Oh God. Gary consults his clipboard, ready to ask one of his inane questions – if you had to choose, which of the seven dwarfs would you date? – but just as he's starting to speak there's a commotion. Two figures spring on stage. One has a megaphone. She shouts something indistinct which becomes clearer:
Grades for brains not for bodies!
The contestants group together like gazelles.

‘What's happening?' says Maggie. I'm on my feet. Gary doesn't know what to do, and nor does Pippa. The megaphone wielder clutches something, and with a rapid movement she hurls it at Gary, but he dives out of the way and as he does, a cloudburst of blue powder hits Pippa on the side of the head.

Pippa! I'm shouting her name, pushing through the crowd to reach the stage. The bouncers get hold of the two protesters but half a dozen others rush up. They have more bags of powder. ‘Stop!' I shout, and then there's strong light and I'm on the platform with my daughter, who is frightened and half dressed, blue powder spread like a swathe of bruising over her face and shoulders. ‘Leave her alone!' I shout, trying to snatch another of the bags. Pippa is frozen with shock. The crowd are in uproar. Gary's professionalism has slipped and he's swearing.

‘Mum…?' There's horror in Pippa's voice. A bouncer grabs me from behind.

‘I'm her mother!' I shout, trying to wrestle him off. With my arm still locked in his he asks Pippa if it's true, his face an angry orange suntan. She backs away but says it is and he lets me go.

Two fat-necked bouncers are shoving the protesting girls off stage but yet more dive out of the crowd to replace them, skipping around and unfurling a banner which reads ‘Miss-ogony' in luminous letters. The DJ cranks up the music. A girl in a princess costume and heavy boots is running after Gary, attempting to bomb him and despite everything, it's gratifying when she lands a bag of purple flour on his head.

Pippa disappears behind the screens with the other panicked contestants and I follow into the backstage chaos where girls are shrieking and a woman in a Rockshots t-shirt is trying to calm them down. There's a lack of light and the floor is strewn with clothing. Pippa blinks at me from her half-blue face. ‘What are you doing here?' She says it as if I'm the one who's thrown the powder. ‘And what are you wearing?'

Raising a hand to my head I remember the blonde wig and pull it off.

‘It was for '80s night.'

She stares disbelievingly. The dye is smudged against her shoulders and arms and as she wipes her cheek a streak of colour transfers to the back of her hand. A new thought occurs to her. ‘Did you organise this?'

‘What?'

She gestures, ‘Whatever that was… that protest.'

‘No, oh Pip. No. We came to… to support you…'

‘Who's we?' Now she really looks appalled. ‘Is Dad here?'

‘No. No. Me and Maggie.'

‘
Maggie?
You came for a laugh?'

‘No!'

‘What then?' She kicks off the high-heeled sandals and puts a leg into her jeans.

Another girl in a swimming costume is close behind her, squealing to a friend about this being a complete bloody joke and what she's going to do when she finds out who those mingin' feminists are. Pippa grabs a sweatshirt from the floor and pulls it over her head, marking the neck with dye. I want to help but she's scrambling about, unzipping her bag, digging for tissues to wipe her face.

‘The juggling was brilliant, Pip, I haven't seen you juggle for years.' She's worsening the powdery smear as she wipes. ‘Where are the loos, let's get you cleaned up.'

She turns away. ‘I can do it.'

‘Oh, love.'

‘You were right, OK. Is that what you want?' Her voice is controlled desperation. ‘This was a mistake.'

‘No, no. I don't care about being right…'

But she's not listening. A t-shirt flies sideways as she roots in the clutter. I want to tell her I don't care about proving points. I want to comfort her. But she has her back to me.

‘Do you want me to go?' I ask. She doesn't reply. Still holding the scratchy wig like the pelt of some ruined creature, I re-enter the pandemonium.

33

Butterflies

News of Rori's affair with the American circled the camp, repeated in whispers. Some of the Sapphire gate women who'd come to stay at Amber showed me a new respect, because the way they saw it I'd been willing to sacrifice my closest friendship for the sake of my principles. But I didn't want their admiration. If they could have seen my heart turned out like a pocket with all its contents spilled onto the mud, they would have known the truth.

Conversation centred around the forthcoming trial and how we'd deal with it. The women who'd never been arrested sat at the feet of those who had, listening as they recounted stories of court appearances. A woman called Liz said she never stood up when the clerk asked everyone to rise, and they'd stopped threatening her with contempt because it was more trouble for them in the end. She told us the legal process was designed to be official and intimidating but we shouldn't be afraid. She said the term for someone who defends herself in court is Litigant in Person and we didn't have to use solicitors. The tall poet from Barbel's birthday party said she'd be happy to write a poem for anyone who wanted to use it to represent herself, and we thanked her but no one took her up on the offer.

All the time, as the conversation rumbled on around the fire, another stream of talk was going on in my head in a quieter voice; I was telling Rori I missed her, I was telling her I was sorry and I'd make everything all right, if only she'd come back. Over and over again I saw her walking away into the dark.

Mum still didn't know about the trial. When I'd phoned to tell them I wouldn't be home for New Year she'd started agitating, ‘When are you going to stop all this nonsense?' she said, before Dad cut in on the new extension. We still had to report to the police station every day, so I couldn't have gone home even if I'd wanted to. I said why didn't they treat themselves to a nice holiday, and Mum's voice came back on the line saying how could they go and relax in the sun while I was still living at that place. I said I'd be down soon and everything was all right, and asked about the new carpets to try and keep things light, but when Mum said goodbye there was a catch in her voice and I knew she was only a second away from sobs. Poor Mum. She'd be in a terrible mess if I went to prison, even worse than the one I'd be in. I didn't think, even in my most heroic imaginings, that I'd be able to cope with being locked up. If there was an opportunity to escape Holloway, I resolved to take it. I'd agree to be bound over.

New Year's Eve stayed dry but a bitter wind came blasting through the camp, threatening the fire. We sat tight, arm-in-arm, drinking donated sherry from plastic cups, and when Barbel played ‘Down by the Riverside' on her guitar, we swayed side to side as she sang in her Dutch accent, ‘I'm gonna lay down my burden down by the riverside, ain't gonna study war no more', rousing us for the chorus. After that Jean sang the words of ‘Old Lang Syne' in Scots, ‘An thers a han, my trustee feer! An gees a han o thyn! And we'll tak a richt gude-willie-waucht, fir ald lang syn.' I thought about Rori and couldn't swallow down the pain in my throat. It was too dark for anyone to notice, and our eyes were always streaming anyway because of the wind and the smoking fire – only Angela took note. Her eyes danced over my wet face and I turned away.

‘To peace, my lovelies!' sang out Barbel as we hugged and toasted each other. 1983: the year I would turn twenty, the year the missiles were due to arrive. Everyone said we could stop them coming – public opinion was on our side and hadn't the Tories got a big-gun advertising agency to help them win the propaganda war? They were afraid. There was an election coming up.

The weather turned colder and frost hardened the mud into swirls like Christmas cake icing. The ground stayed white all day until it disappeared into the four o'clock dusk. We built the fire up as high as we could, glad of the wood deliveries which came more frequently since news of the Christmas action had broken. Two days before the trial, I was sitting around one of these high fires with Barbel. Mid-afternoon was the worst time of day, the dead hours between two and six before everyone regrouped and dinner was prepared, a bottle opened and the conversation and singing began. I'd been trying to read but couldn't concentrate. Barbel had been re-knitting an old scarf but had given up because even inside her gloves, her fingers were too cold to be nimble. My mind drifted to a time only two weeks before when she and I were sitting around the fire laughing with Rori.

I'd decided to tell Barbel about my decision to be bound over. When all was said and done, I knew Angela was probably right, if I couldn't spend a couple of nights in a police cell without falling to pieces, then the prospect of being locked up properly and receiving a criminal record would definitely be too much. I was about to start this conversation when Jean arrived to ask if I wanted to work on the tapestry for a while. A visit to Jean's tepee was always a good thing; it felt special, like being invited into the staffroom, a chance to sit on one of her cushions and talk about the world. I followed her across the stone-hard ground.

During our conversations in the tepee, I'd learned that Jean was born in India and lived there for twelve years before her parents sent her to boarding school in Sussex where her childhood abruptly ended. Before that she'd enjoyed a barefoot, game-playing life climbing trees and splashing in rivers. Her parents had worked with a group who supported the Indian freedom movement. When we'd all gone to see Gandhi together at the cinema in Reading, Jean had wept.

‘Are the butterflies finished now?' I asked.

Jean passed me the elephant cushion and I sat down. But she hadn't opened the sewing basket yet to unravel the embroidery which she'd been finishing for a local campaign group to auction. I'd helped sew the stems of the poppies, and Jean had carefully worked her needle to make leaves and butterflies. There were only a few finishing touches left around the border.

‘Tessa.' She reached across, laying a hand over mine. Her gloves were navy with elastic around the wrists and leather padding on the insides for extra grip. My gloves were rainbow striped and I wore my fingerless mittens over the top. ‘I'm afraid something terrible has happened,' she said. The elastic on her right glove was pulled tighter than that of her left. ‘Tessa.' She was waiting for me to look at her, and when I did, her face sprang into focus, concerned, serious, the expression of a surgeon breaking bad news. Except that this wasn't a hospital, no one was having an operation, I was here in her tepee. A shadow went through me.

‘Rori has died,' Jean said, fixing her eyes to mine. ‘I'm sorry.'

I'd misheard. No. She'd only been gone five days.

Her blue glove on my striped glove. ‘How? How can she..?'

‘She drowned, Tessa. I don't know the exact details. I read it in the
Times
, only a snippet, but I wanted to tell you before you found out.' Her voice was coming from a long way off.