No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses! (33 page)

We've now decided on a rota of people to go up, because no one can stay up longer than twenty-four hours, so Penny's going up the day after me, and then Marion and a couple of other doughty old girls from up the road. Sheila the Dealer said she wouldn't go up for love or money, and Father Emmanuel said he had a lot of church work to do. What a wimp.

I've got to sleep well tonight, but of course I'm writing this at three in the morning because I'm stricken with panic about it all. However, I can't wriggle out of it now. As long as the papers get a picture, that's all that matters.

Courage
, old girl!

Well! What a night! Although it was a triumph, I still feel a gibbering wreck!

We snuck out at 11 p.m. and there was only one drug dealer around (it being a bit early for drug dealers) and he was very much up for the whole thing. He thanked us for telling him what was going on because if there was going to be a media explosion he wanted to warn all the other drug dealers to steer clear until it was all over.

Somehow Ned and James had managed to get the whole thing rigged up. Ned had shinned up the tree as it got dark, without anyone seeing, and had fixed up a platform up there about the size of my front door. Then he'd let down a rope ladder for me to clamber up. James had to come up after me, pushing me from behind. They'd already got the banner into position, so I didn't actually have to do anything, except
be
there. Then they both went down, and I pulled
the rope ladder up to the top. Frightfully heavy. It was an absolutely freezing night. I was glad I'd brought several extra jerseys, a pair of thick socks and an exceptionally warm, woolly hat with earflaps.

The odd thing was that I'd had no idea that up there the whole thing would move so much. You don't think of trees moving but when you get up as high as I was, there only has be a tiny breeze and the whole thing, even though it looks really sturdy, sways slightly. And the noise of those branches rustling together! There must be a tremendous racket when the leaves are on. Of course it was incredibly scary but terribly exciting at the same time, and James and Ned had very sweetly pitched a tent at the bottom and they were going to sleep there so if I got panicky in the early hours I could yell down and they'd reassure me, but it was all okay. I was slightly nervous of rolling off in the night. But Ned had put planks around the structure so it would have been a bit difficult.

I'd been hoping to get on with some knitting up there – I've only got the arms left to finish – but of course I'd stupidly left it at home, so I had nothing to do but look out over the world below me.

It was so beautiful. As the night's blackness increased, the street lights glowed with their sodium brightness below me and soon I could make out the pattern of the roads. Cars roared by in the distance. Police sirens wailed. And far away I could see, incredibly, the outline of the London Eye and, even further away, the blinking light at the top of Canary Wharf. It was difficult not to be overwhelmed by this treetop
panorama. I felt a wave of love for London, and a sense of belonging and, indeed, for the first time in ages (and Martha would be delighted to hear this) a real sense of wonder. I didn't think I'd be able to sleep at all, because every few minutes something new happened. New noises. New lights, on and off. New stars winking. The moon moving, ever so slightly, through the sky. The birds shifting around. An aeroplane passing. If it hadn't been for the loo arrangements I could happily have stayed up in what I gather is known as ‘The Canopy', for a week.

It was also rather odd being inside a tree that I'd actually painted. I felt I was being intrusive in a way. Like asking a life model out for a date.

With a pang, I suddenly wished Archie could have been with me. He'd have been so up for it, bless him. And I knew he'd be just as touched as me, to see all this stretching out to infinity. And, in a funny way – though it sounds dreadfully sentimental – in a funny way I felt he
was
there with me. I started to cry. Not with misery, not with joy. Just because I was so utterly overcome by the …
everythingness
of everything. I can't put it into words.

I did finally get to sleep, however, and woke early, to see the dawn creeping up over the buildings. An hour or so later, James and Ned crawled out of their tent and started whistling to me.

‘Are you okay?' they shouted.

‘I'm fine,' I shouted back to the two tiny figures far below. ‘It's brilliant up here.'

‘We'll get you down by lunchtime! Just keep your legs crossed for another few hours!'

Luckily, though I'd taken a bottle of water up with me, I'd not had anything to drink for hours before I went up,
and
had also taken an anti-diuretic pill prescribed by my doctor five years ago that I had, very sensibly, kept in my medicine chest.

At eleven the local paper came round to take a picture, and, amazingly, even the
Daily Rant
turned up. That day must have been particularly disaster-free because normally something like this wouldn't make a story in a national paper. But apparently they're doing a big campaign about how local councils don't pay any attention to residents' wishes, so this is a brilliant illustration of it.

Local neighbours had arrived in support, too: mums with children in pushchairs, and their own banners, drug dealers, even the lovely Indian from the corner shop put in an appearance and gave me a wave, and Ned and James handed out cups of tea and home-made cakes to the journalists and cameramen. Even our local MP came along to lend his support – he's a different party to the council of course – and then I had to yell quite a few interviews from my treetop eyrie, and after a while they drifted off.

I remained up there, feeling like a weird tree nymph – a tree nymph who was desperate to go to the loo, I might add – and then at about one o'clock, Penny was ready to take over.

When I got down there was an enormous cheer and everyone wanted to congratulate me, but I was so bursting to go to the loo that I first had to rush to the nearest house and ask if I could use their toilet. After that, I came back out, and I felt like – well, I felt probably rather like Annie Noona must have felt at the height of her career, poor girl.

Several neighbours asked me over for a celebration supper, and I had no idea there were so many lovely people in the street. People I'd never met, people who lived across the road were all coming out of their houses and slapping me on the back, and even the drug dealers were giving me high fives and saying ‘F'real, sister!' Sheila the Dealer gave me a thumbs-up, the height of praise from S the D, and Father Emmanuel insisting on getting on his knees and thanking the Lord that I'd come down safely. Almost felt like joining him in prayer, I have to say.

Alice gave me a special card she'd made with glitter on it, and a drawing of me up the tree – so sweet! – and Brad and Sharmie insisted on asking as many people round as possible for champagne. Even though it was the middle of the day.

A couple of glasses and – because I'd had so little to eat up there – I felt pretty woozy.

‘I must get some proper rest,' I said, as I left the party to go back to my own house. ‘But thank you so so much! Let's hope the papers do something about it tomorrow!'

‘Make sure you sleep like a log!' said James, unable to resist the joke – and everybody groaned.

And I did.

Louis sent me a text saying
I c u star! But knew that already! xL
(Notice there's only one x this time. Hmm.) And there, on one of the inside pages of the
Daily Rant
, was a photograph of me in the tree, with the headline ‘TREE-MENDOUS! OAP IS ECO-WARRIOR!
Pensioner reaches dizzy heights in her bid to support
Rant's
campaign against councils' lack of concern for residents!
'

And underneath it reiterated the fact that the council was going to have a rethink about the whole scheme. And added that several environmental agencies we hadn't been in touch with were up in arms. The upshot seems to be that there's very little chance of the trees being cut down or a hotel being built after all.

As we'd got all that coverage, we decided there was no point in prolonging the protest and hauled Tim, the latest in the tree rota to have been hauled up, back to earth. He, like me, had been enjoying his tree-top experience, and I think was rather put out to find his services were no longer required, but it was difficult for anyone to be grumpy when they saw the enormous amount of coverage we'd got.

‘Weren't we just brilliant?' Penny and I said to each other as we prepared a celebration drinks party for the committee this evening.

‘I love that Inkspots number,' said Penny as I put it on to
encourage us in our work. ‘But I never know – what
is
a Java jive?'

I put all the pictures I'd done of the trees around the room – it was like a mini-exhibition and I must say, though I say it myself, they didn't look at all bad. I must keep at it, though, to complete the cycle.

We'd also asked all the other people who'd helped, which meant there was a huge scrum and the party went on till about midnight. Unfortunately I'd said everyone could bring their children, and the result was that all the kids came, offered to hand round the food, and then disappeared down to the end of the garden, accompanied by Pouncer, with the plates of sausages, smoked salmon sandwiches and crisps, leaving the grown-ups with nothing but olives. Except Alice, of course. She very sweetly handed round the olives and the few remaining quails' eggs.

Still, it was a great evening, and James tapped a glass and said everyone should raise a toast to me and Penny, which was very nice, and Father Emmanuel said we should all say a prayer of thanks, and that anyone who wanted to come to his church on Sundays was always welcome (somehow I doubt God had much to do with it all, but still, we all bowed our heads hypocritically while he droned on) and Ned said we should thank all our supporters who had written letters and gave a special vote of thanks to Harry and Sylvie for the loan of the equipment, and then the councillor (never one to miss an opportunity) banged on a glass even more loudly to get everyone's attention and implied it was all down to
him and that he'd had a word with the leader of the council and in view of the publicity there was no way the plan would go ahead.

It was all a very pleasant orgy of self-congratulation.

Michelle sloped off with Ned and James, and while Brad took Alice home next door to put her to bed – he wants to give me £4,000 for the entire series of paintings when I've finished them! I can't believe it! – Sharmie gave me a hand with the clearing up. I've made a date to take Alice to the circus next week. Tragic – I'm just so desperate for children to do things with! And still harbour such terrible feelings about destroying her dear old granny's chimes.

Penny braved the bottom of the garden to retrieve the plates the children had taken down there, and came back saying that not only had they broken one of my favourites, but they'd obviously had a sausage fight and there were bangers scattered all over the beds.

Felt like such a heroine, I couldn't have cared less. And if the cockroaches have a feast on the sausages, then good luck to them. May their little black tummies burst.

Very odd Skype with Gene who assures me that Christmas is a non-existent festival in New York. They don't hang up stockings, he tells me, and they have, in any case, just celebrated Thanksgiving. I think he was wondering why I hadn't sent him a present.

‘There's no Father Christmas here,' he said, ‘we have Santa Claus. And Mom says we mustn't say Happy Christmas we've got to say Happy Holidays instead. And we had a horrid turkey at Thanksgiving, all slimy.'

Turned out, as Jack told me during the same Skype, that their friends at Thanksgiving insisted on going out into their yard and deep-frying the bird in peanut oil, and serving it with some vile concoction of Campbell's mushroom soup with green beans stewed in it, and crispy fried onions sprinkled on top. Then they had sweet potato puree as a complement, with marshmallows as a nightmarish garnish.

‘Completely inedible,' said Jack. ‘And what are you doing for Christmas, Mum?'

I wanted to say I was hoping to come and stay with them, or that they'd say they were coming back here for a holiday, but because of Jack's question I didn't like to.

‘Oh, I'll probably spend it with Penny – or Marion and Tim, who asked me over for the day, or Sylvie, who said, really sweetly, that I'd be very welcome. So it's not as if I don't have any perches,' I said, casually. Then I screwed up my courage. ‘But I suppose there's no chance …'

‘Oh, we've got no idea about our plans,' said Jack, rather impatiently. ‘Everything's up in the air at the moment. There are lots of options.'

After we'd logged off, I felt very blue. Christmas without the family. It doesn't bear thinking about. Suddenly I wondered what on the earth the point of me actually was.
No doubt everyone has these moods, but when you're my age you can't say, ‘Well, who knows what the future will bring, tra la?' quite so confidently as you used to, because we all know what the future will bring. Oblivion.

Marie! Stop it! You sound like a
Daily Rant
headline! Who was it – Don Marquis? – who wrote ‘there's a dance in the old dame yet toujours gai toujours gai?'

I'm jolly well going to try to get rid of all thoughts of Louis and Archie and Christmas just for tonight and … and … I'll ring Penny and we'll go out and have a yummy supper and a couple of lovely drinks and I'll be right as rain.

And, do you know, I was! Right as rain, that is. There's nothing like wallowing in the Slough of Despond and then getting really irritated and then having supper with a good girlfriend to put a jollier slant on everything. I realise I've got terribly behind with the knitting, too, so I've decided to knit at least three inches a day and that way I'll have finished Gene's jersey by Christmas. And maybe I'll be able to go out to New York in the New Year anyway. Something to look forward to.