Searching for wisdom on short stories, I discovered an article for Esquire that called them “the perfect alternative to staring at your iPhone for an hour before bed” because they come in “bite-sized chunks.” I can’t imagine Chekhov, Atwood, Greene and Carver pumping the air in triumph at this analysis. But it seems reasonable to assume that while for over-worked and over-stressed urban Brits, a novel might seem just too daunting and long-term a project, accommodating a short story on their commuter train home is doable. Flash fiction, a growing feature of online magazines, takes concision a good few steps further, and makes finishing the thing – the difficulty identified by so many inexperienced writers – an achievable goal. As a training exercise in genre, style or form it’s perfect for creative writing class and competitions. But I admit that I’m not terribly interested in brevity for tightness’s sake. I like short stories that feel like novels because they’re just as deeply satisfying, or stirring, or challenging. Because they allow their characters complex inner lives and eschew smartass in favour of soul. Because reading them feels like living. Like a great novel they make a powerful emotional connection.

Some short stories are intellectual games constructed around a startling USP, a variation on the set-up and punchline characterising classic humour. Some rely on clever twists. And I’m not averse to fun, or to the story as crossword puzzle. But I don’t want my stories to feel empty bar the concept. Personally that’s how I feel about magic realism – I just don’t feel enough. And I’m not a fan of author distance, whether from dysfunctional characters or the manipulated reader. Neither do I choose, as a rule, to be taken on a meandering ramble through a consciousness that leaves me wondering where I’ve been and why. Which is not to say that stories must be instantly accessible. I’m certainly open to the intriguing story that yields more second time round.

This may make me sound pretty hard to please, but I want a short story to matter as much as a longer narrative, to linger once finished, offer insights and generate conversation even if that’s internal. And I’m looking for style, hoping for a sentence so acute, so beautiful, original or witty that once is not enough and I want to commit it to memory. (No chance at almost sixty-three).  Some collections I’ve read are monotone, almost like a composer’s variations on a theme, and that’s one way to present stories, but it’s risky. Only for geniuses and/or devoted fans? Limited palettes don’t appeal to everyone and as a reader I enjoy diversity: different styles, voices and moods, different intentions.

My intentions and choices in INSTEAD, my third collection, are different from those that shaped RAVELLED (rampant diversity and transgressing boundaries) and the more contemporary WOKEN, which marked a step-change in my own activism on the page and the streets. I didn’t have an overall plan or linking theme – or at least, I didn’t know I did, until I realised that being an expectant grandma had made a difference. It’s a collection about birth as well as death, about sex and love, betrayal and sacrifice, family. I’ve dedicated it to my grandson, aware that by the time he is able and inclined to read my stories, I may be dead – and that’s an idea I rather like. If I’m still here I may no longer be the person who wrote them – but in my stories my real self will survive. Someone said on Radio Three recently that birth would be a tragedy without death and I’ve reached an age when love means so much more because of loss. But I hope INSTEAD isn’t predominantly sad. I hope, in an age of climate breakdown and fear, that it’s alive.

To pre-order: https://www.suehamptonauthor.co.uk/product/instead/

Chapter Twenty

April 18^th 2019

Lots to tell you, show you and I’d like to see you both. How Skye is. Is it too late to come? x

No. Come. X

   And now they had, together, at 4:48: the start of another day. But before, until Skye’s temperature fell as fast as it had risen, Nick had given her what she wanted just as badly, more. His arm across her chest, his breath on her cheek, his feet joined to hers, the first and longest kiss. And the certainty that he cared now, about what he’d seen and why it had to happen – almost as much as he cared about her and Skye.

   He laid the same arm back across her breasts.

   “What are you thinking about?”

   “Oh, I can’t say. Thoughts aren’t like sentences in books. So much. A muddle of things.” Rob. Waterloo Bridge. An ambulance she thought she might have to call. The moment they came as one. Rob. Waterloo Bridge. The world on fire, the ice melting. Skye.

   “But you’re not sorry?”

   Gem smiled. “No. How can I be? But…”

   “You hope I understand what this means and doesn’t mean. I do.” He stroked her arm. “Today’s job should end by mid-afternoon. I’ll go back to the bridge. And on Saturday, if they’re still holding it and Skye’s bouncing again, we can go, the three of us. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

   Gem nodded. It was.

*

James looked down on the clouds that hid Britain now. It was probably thirty years since he’d done anything so… heedless. Manda used to laugh when his vocabulary relocated to a different age but she wouldn’t laugh at this. A package holiday, long haul: a V-sign to the hippies. She wouldn’t believe it was just a whim, a kind of medication, a bolthole, an ejector seat. She wouldn’t care that he hadn’t felt so guilty since he touched a breast that wasn’t hers that first time after rehearsals ended.

   Maybe this would be his last, frivolous, selfish impulse – or the last to involve a runway anyway. Manda didn’t take fun seriously enough. And it wasn’t as if he was going anywhere at the sharp end of climate change, like the Maldives. He’d seen a photo of people walling round a white-sand shore with rocks against a turquoise sea. Desperation. And someone should be doing something fast; Manda was right about that. Even if it was all a bit alarmist and OTT, it wasn’t worth taking risks with paradise.

   His own break would be cultural, increase his understanding more effectively than a study course. It was what they used to call a getaway without robbing any bank.

   A curvy hostess wondered whether he’d like anything to drink.

   “Whisky please,” said James. “And dry ginger.”

   He might get seriously drunk.

*

Waking up in Leo’s bed, Manda felt guilty, even though the mattress had never felt so perfect, nor her body so warmly and languidly clean. He slept on and she wouldn’t wake him, but she wouldn’t wait either. She was needed on the bridge.

   “You’re cross,” he’d said, on the way back to the flat. “Should it have been you? Did I steal your thunder?”

   As if she hadn’t held him tight at the police station! As if she hadn’t made a fool of herself, blubbing ridiculously, while he was playing it cool in a cell with a story ready for telling! He was teasing but it felt unfair, because he wouldn’t have been rebelling in any shape or form without her. And he’d done the male thing, independent and spontaneous, in spite of what they’d planned – and enjoyed it, apparently, while she lost her mind to a kind of grieving with precious little reason.

   “Of course not,” she’d denied, but he wore that half-smile that meant he knew better.

   His custody sheet said Released subject to further investigation, like a good few hundred others so far. Everyone at the station had been nice, he’d told her more than once. “I thought I might be the one they charged, or kept overnight,” he added. “You were lucky,” she told him, reluctant to believe that police racism was a thing of the past, any more than coal mining or fracking. Aware of her own negativity, she’d asked about his back but apparently an hour on a hard slab of a couch-bed had done him no harm.

   He was sorry she’d been worried and upset, but she could see he didn’t understand why. “It just happened. They needed arrestables and I sat down – like you did.”

   Manda couldn’t justify herself and hadn’t tried, but withheld the love she could have declared to make sense of it all. He looked so peaceful anyone might have guessed he’d spent the previous day on a beach. Or an Eden of a bridge.

   She dressed as quietly as she could, in a long summer dress. He didn’t stir. Her hair needed a whole lot of brushing but she could do that on the tube.

   You were sleeping like a baby, she wrote in the note. I’ve gone ahead but maybe take it easy today, hero. Call me. Xxx

   She’d like to be as careless of her phone as he was of his. It was odd how little communication there was, for days or weeks, between him and Nathan, but when they were together they were so easy, with their shared walk and gestures and the same grin, that she wondered whether she could ever be as close to Libby as Leo was, regardless, to his son. Whether, taking bed out of the equation, she could be as close to Leo himself.

   In the NT bar she’d almost called James – in fact, had tried, although now she couldn’t explain why. It was a faintly disturbing memory. But he hadn’t called back, so she didn’t need to tell him how long it took to find out which police station had housed Leo, and how alone she felt, away from the bridge, in the quiet of that soft red space where no one talked but only tapped away on keyboards. How out of place she felt in the church where she tried to charge her phone and a young, unfamiliar rebel somehow knew she needed a hug, even though it made her cry. How relieved she was to be back on the bridge, encouraged to talk, eat and breathe.

   She’d told Leo but her narrative was the thin, dull one laced with excess emotion while his had detail, characters, a kind of arc. His day, not hers. Well, today might be different.

   She was walking to the tube when a text landed. James.

   Just wondering whether you’ve been arrested yet? I hear the police are going to toughen up so look after yourself. X

   A thumbs-up seemed the obvious and most ambiguous response.

*

Looking at her reflection in the tube window made Libby smile. Anyone would think she’d had sex with Trey – literally rather than imaginatively – instead of just dinner in a Turkish restaurant. A long dinner. She must have talked more over that meal than through weeks plus nights with Marc.

   Hey Mum. I know you’re busy breaking the law but I have a new boyfriend. You won’t approve of him being American but he despises Trump so forgive him. He’s full of admiration for you but otherwise he’s quite normal. x

   Her smile widened again as she pictured her mother’s reactions, sentence by sentence. Her dad would like Trey’s suits, but be unsettled by attitudes he wouldn’t expect. And why was she even thinking like this, after one date?

   Because this must be what love felt like. And somehow she had to deserve him.

   She looked forward to a reply at some point but it didn’t matter much anymore. With Trey beside her she’d be able to listen. She’d feel loose and warm, without the snags and ladders that might unravel things. It was how she felt already, remembering her hand inside his.

   Hey Dad. You can ask about my love life if you like. I promise not to ask about yours. X

   For the first time, she realised she wanted him to be happy – him, Manda and Leo, Bee, everyone. Watching her mouth dance around in the glass, unable to hold any line or shape, she almost laughed.

The next chapter of FOR LIFE will be posted on 7th June at 5:30 UK time.

Chapter Nineteen

April 17^th 2019

Gem’s hand felt the heat of Skye’s forehead. Everything was redder than it should be: her cheeks, her eyes and nose. Whimpering, she put her arms around Gem’s neck.

   “We’ll have a quiet day here, sweetheart,” Gem told her.

   “I like the bridge!”

   “So do I, my love, but we have to take care of you.”

   She could try to stop Nick coming but she didn’t want to. Maybe there’d be a livestream they could watch together. She was reading Skye a story when she heard him at the door and for a moment Skye looked too excited to be ill.

   He kissed Gem’s cheeks and, ignoring a health warning, leaned down to Skye’s too. Gem thought maybe, just so he knew, she should talk to him again, properly – about Birth Strike. In case he was hanging in there for something she couldn’t give.

   They shared what they knew between them: Piccadilly Circus lost, Marble Arch permitted for now, police officers caught on film dancing with rebels on the bridge. Arrests clogging up the system.

   “Go back if you want,” Nick told her. “I can stay with Skye.”

   “Oh, that’s… Thanks, but…”

   “She needs her mother.” Not a might-be father. It wasn’t fair on him. “You go, get some footage, and come back and tell me everything.”

   He hesitated, and made sure the hedgehog got a laugh before he left. Then he kissed her goodbye and Gem followed him into the hall.

   “There’s something I want to tell you,” he said. “You know I love you. You must know.”

   Gem nodded.

   “And Skye, whatever. Mine or Rob’s, why would it make any difference? We could be a family.”

   Gem tried to smile but it didn’t feel whole. “I shouldn’t have had a child. No one should, not now. It isn’t fair to bring kids into a world that’s dying.” Her voice faltered, fracturing.

   He took her hand. “You don’t want any more…”

   “It’s not about wanting.”

   He waited, but she had no more words.

   “Look, never say never. I love you. I know you still love Rob but hey, so do I. And we’re doing this the wrong way round.” It was Gem’s turn, puzzled, to wait. He still held her hand and she didn’t like to tug. “Talking about having kids together when we haven’t even kissed.”

   They must have done that too, after the funeral, but it seemed neither of them remembered. Now Nick kissed her mouth. Not a sex kiss, but warm.

   “Have a good day,” she told him. Like a wife.

   She smiled as he hurried to his van, because she didn’t know anyone with legs as long as his.

*

Today the afternoon sun felt seriously hot. Manda might have to remove her thermal vest in the crypt. With police numbers and raids on the increase, she intended to leave the cooking to someone who couldn’t put their job at risk, and sit on the heart line as an arrestable. But first she watered some of the plants gathered in a garden behind the banner, checking the soil with a finger in case another rebel had thought of it first. Most of them were thriving; a few needed T and C. She rubbed the herbs between her fingers and inhaled: mint, rosemary. There were forget-me-nots, begonias… So much colour and life she could cry. And she needed sunblock as much as sleep.

   Putting down the watering can, she squinted ahead, feeling a stirring around her. Police vans at the end of the bridge. “Could we have any arrestables to the heart line now!” she heard over the loudspeaker. “And legal observers please.”

   Manda made for the front row, where the banner was laid down so that everyone holding it could sit behind. Someone made way for her, a boy-faced young gardener who’d been drumming during the arrests the night before. Shuffling, she made herself as comfortable as her bones allowed.

   On her right, a woman with more muscles as well as flesh pushed a kind of kneeler towards her as cushion, saying someone had left it behind when they came for her. Manda thanked her, wondering whether she looked old as well as scrawny. A young tourist had given up his seat on the tube for her last week…

   She’d lost Leo again, hadn’t seen him since he arrived for late breakfast, and didn’t really expect to spot him now as she turned to look through the crowd. He was probably playing or waiting to go on stage. A number of police officers were advancing in a kind of formation that must be meant to intimidate but she couldn’t believe they’d signed up for this. Behind, someone from the Wellbeing team began a chant, the hushed, religious kind: “Peace, love respect”. The tune, such as it was, defeated Manda, but personally she knew she needed de-escalation. She liked to think her heart was healthy but this… now was the time and there’d never in human history been anything bigger. And she wasn’t scared, just overwhelmed by the truth and its demands.

  The first arrestee of the run walked, and made a peace sign with her free hand. Manda looked back again, and to both sides, in case Leo had gone to the church for a pee and arrived back in time. Because at breakfast they had agreed to sit together on the heart line this afternoon – although admittedly the idea was hers. “We could glue our hands together,” she’d said, “so if they take one, they’ll have to take both.” Leo hadn’t taken that seriously but he’d said he didn’t want her getting arrested without him.

   The young gardener whose name she’d lost gave her a smile as if he knew she was anxious now. She smiled back, grateful. This was the kind of guy Libby needed, not some slick suit with no ideas, never mind ideals.

   She could tell that on the other side of the bridge nearest the National Theatre, more arrests were happening. But with film crews following the departures it was hard, from the ground, to see who’d been taken. Joining in with the chant for Climate Justice Now, she realised she needed water and Leo had their aluminium bottle in his backpack. She asked the gardener, who was just unscrewing the lid on his own when a policeman targeted him. He passed her the bottle and she drank hastily, watching. As he zoned out his final warning with what seemed to be prayer or meditation, she offered the water back but he meant her to keep it, because he wasn’t going to need it for a while. It took four officers to carry him away.

   “WE LOVE YOU!!” shouted Manda, meaning it.

   Now Claire, the sporty woman on her right, was next. Manda sang as loudly as she could beside her. Soon Claire had been lifted too, carried rather awkwardly so that they had to put her down and try again. If only she could contact Leo, he could fill that space. On her left, a girl in sunglasses had already stepped in where the gardener’s water bottle stood glinting. The Wellbeing team passed sun cream round, but the police hadn’t finished yet. Manda pulled out her phone, remembering the legal training advice that it was best not to carry one when arrested because the cops could download the contents. And she didn’t want them looking through her gallery at Rob, Rob, Rob… But if the cops were apple picking, she was the one they left on the tree. Too many bruises, maybe.

   Where are you? No response. If he was on the bridge he’d know where to find her, so what had happened? Had he been tempted into the Diane Arbus exhibition at the Hayward like he’d teased he might be? There was something casual but impulsive about him that made him hard to know completely and she didn’t know how it had happened, this feeling that overcame her sometimes, because she should know better.

   Still her screen was blank. But she wasn’t going anywhere. Having removed a guy in a CHOOSE LOVE T-shirt two places away from Manda, the police seemed to have abandoned her end of the line.

   “Manda.”

   Nick Gorksi, plus camera. She was glad to see him. He said he was taking photos, portraits really, probably black and white, and would she mind?

   “Not right now, Nick.” She produced her phone and scrolled… “You haven’t seen my partner, have you?” She showed him an image from Monday, of Leo on the stage with guitar – and enlarged it as much as she could.

   Nick’s mouth opened. “He was over there.” He pointed towards the theatre side. “He was arrested.”

*

Manda’s boyfriend’s been taken. She’s a mess. She ran down to the vans looking for him and he just smiled and blew her a kiss. I filmed it. Maybe I shouldn’t have, it felt like intruding. x

Gem nearly replied, She must be in love. Instead she wrote, Manda holds on tight. X

I think she’s frustrated too, that it wasn’t her. She’s been trying hard. They say people are being taken as far as Luton and Brighton because cells are full. She’s gone to the NT bar to call the XR action line for news of him. X

It must be tough. X  And Manda wasn’t, not really.

I’m glad it’s not you. I’d be in bits too. X

He said these things. How did she know he meant them, or whether she wanted him to?

Poor Manda. X

Her turn will come. The Met are going to step up the pressure now.

He had a way of talking as if he knew the things he only supposed.

So’s XR. No let up, even once this is over. x

Did you mean what you said about Birth Strike? Xxxx

I think I did.

   He didn’t answer that. Gem pictured his face as he read it, and felt sad. But there was a difference between accepting the truth, with his intellect, as the experts told it, and knowing deep inside where he was wholly and purely himself – in what people always called the heart: the part of him that wanted to be a full-time lover and father and made no room for melting ice, forest fires and cities under water.

   Skye was asleep. Gem pushed back the hair from her forehead as she slept. She felt cooler now. Maybe at the weekend she could take her to Marble Arch, if that was still safe. But she’d rather be on the bridge; she missed it.

   She didn’t suppose Manda would ever want to leave.

Chapter Eighteen

April 16th 2019

Glancing at the church at the south end of the bridge, Gem thought of Manda bedding down in the crypt. She felt guilty about her own good night’s sleep, but grateful for Skye’s and glad to be back. The press had no idea how much people were sacrificing but at least a Canon understood, which touched her somehow. “Such a blessing,” someone had said, “a real gift.”

   “I love the spiritual roots supporting us all,” she’d told Nick on the phone the night before. “The way differences don’t matter. And the hugs.”

   “I can do hugs,” he said. And he could: long ones that strengthened and understood. He’d fit in fine, but she couldn’t push. He had to choose to be there.

   One of the rebels sitting outside the faded old church greeted her with a raised hand, and she waved back. On days without Skye her body seemed so loose and spare and unsettlingly alone. “I can take her to nursery and pick her up too. Leave you free to be rebellious! I’d be there too if I could.” And had she wondered for more than a few seconds whether she knew Angel next-door well enough, after a few months of chat on adjacent doorsteps? Gem reminded herself how easily Skye had accepted the idea. She was independent, strong: a cause for celebration but unsettling in its way, because she was so small and the world so hostile, so terrifying, that without the protective cocoon of their mutual dependence she didn’t know how they’d come through.

   Approaching the banner behind the ROAD CLOSED sign, Gem smiled, returned a peace sign and looked for familiar faces.

   “Hey,” said a bearded guy with NON-VIOLENT printed on his jeans. “Welcome back.”

    Gem asked about arrests since she left.

   “They came in waves and picked people off. It was kind of random. Not sure anyone was charged though.”

   Gem nodded, imagining Manda being carried away, triumphant and defiant, thinking of Rob and his approval. Wondering how many hours people might spend in a police cell, she reminded herself she mustn’t allow time to swell and lose all shape and meaning just because here the living felt so new.

   Someone was watering the plants gathered behind the banner, in front of the bee sculpture with its big, firm wings. And someone in a woolly hat was being interviewed, possibly for TV. Manda! She was shivering and rubbing her hands, her nose a little red, her hair splaying out and whipped by wind across her face. No sign of her new man.

   Gem crossed to the right, alongside the National Theatre, and wished she’d brought a hat herself.

*

Manda was too tired to plan it. But the guy from a channel James had insisted he needed right at the start, complete with satellite dish – when she’d said BBC2 was the only one that didn’t disable her brain cells – was the pushy kind, so she’d better focus. The cold air should have been enough to clarify everything but her body felt stiff and old, like the crypt.

   “So what’s brought you here?” the reporter asked, furry mic thrust her way as if there was some kind of rush. The camera focused on her looked heavy duty.

   “Climate catastrophe,” she said. “An existential crisis according to the Secretary General of the UN.” She could never remember his name. “Governments aren’t listening so it’s a very gentle, non-violent way of waving the shocking truth in their faces. In everyone’s faces.”

   “I’m sure you’re aware that some of our viewers are angry…” He sounded as if he might be angry himself, all of a sudden.

   “Not as angry as they’ll be with our leaders when they realise their kids’ future is at risk and no one’s protecting them. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

Someone next to Manda sat down with a bowl of thick porridge and a tin mug of coffee.

   “So you don’t consider yourself a criminal?”

   Manda’s eyes widened. I’d as soon call Farage a saint, she thought – briefly conscious that Jane Austen went everywhere with a woman like her. No wonder Rob used to tease her…

“I consider myself a grandmother,” she said, surprising herself. Oh yes, apparently she did. She tried to rerun inner footage of Skye’s face, and hear her strong, sudden voice. “That’s reason and justification enough. Have you read the IPCC report? Your viewers have a right to know what it says.”

   “But you’re breaking the law…”

   “The government’s inaction is criminal. They’re guilty of ecocide, along with BP and Shell…” The list was too long to begin. The reporter’s eyes wandered up over her head. Was she boring him?

   “And you’re willing to be arrested?”

   Determined. “Oh yes,” she said, and he lifted the mic, turning away.

   “You’re welcome,” she muttered to his back, and for the first time imagined Libby watching, jumping up from the sofa at the word grandmother. As if she expected her delinquent mother to cut her out of her will and leave every last piece of pre-loved hospice shop furniture to Skye.

   A police liaison officer arrived nearby, greeted by a woman who’d slept better than Manda and hadn’t stirred when she crept and stumbled her way to the loos.

   The channel wouldn’t show it anyway. They’d look for someone younger and prettier, or grungier and less coherent. No blaming and shaming was one of the XR principles and she knew she’d sounded angrier than she should, on two hours’ sleep. It was a good decision by Leo to safeguard his back in his own bed – their bed – but he’d said he was on his way.

   She hadn’t expected to miss him like this. And Rob would have loved him too.

*

Gem smiled up at the guy with the big hair on top of the lorry. Bypassing the porridge, she went round the other side to face the banner low along the chassis. ACT NOW, it said. From behind it, she heard singing, pure and sweet but with a fierce commitment: “I stand for love, even with a broken soul. Even with a heavy heart I stand for love.”

   There was no one on the stage but technicians setting up. The voice came from below. Gem remembered the young woman her age who had locked on underneath. Still there, in her sleeping bag, and attached to what? An axle?

   Wondering what, if the singer peered out, she could ask or say, Gem felt shy, not big enough to bother someone like her, someone brave. She could see from the empty plate and mug beside the banner that she had already been served breakfast. But did she need someone to take her place while she went for a wee, or did she have some kind of nappy? Gem supposed she’d sound like a child if she asked.

    The song ended. A couple of young guys sitting on a grassy sheet playing chess looked up and clapped. In Gem’s head the song continued. Her soul, her heart. Perhaps not quite the tune she’d heard but something kept soaring and she didn’t want it to stop. People were gathering by the steps up to the lorry stage. Someone emerged from a tent, hair in a top knot, and squinted into the light, which looked brighter than it felt. He smiled at Gem.

“Another great day,” he said, and padded off barefoot.

*

A flag with its egg timer logo beat itself in the wind. Stepping up from Oxford Circus tube, James heard the rhythms a moment before he saw the pink boat rising above human waves. The roundabout was occupied and surrounded by onlookers, some of them police. The energy felt young, and he saw as he approached that most of the protestors were exactly that. Plenty of hair around, making his seem thin. Some of it belonged to a slight youth dressed for summer, dancing on the deck as he led a chant: “Extinction!” which was met from below by an emphatic, “Rebellion!”

   James wondered whether his oldest brother Tim would tell him it was like 1969 all over again. Being a stockbroker hadn’t stopped him admitting when drunk that it was his favourite year. And towards the end he’d been drunk a lot.

   Edging through towards the centre he could see that a number of people were lying under the hull with its message TELL THE TRUTH. Glued, presumably. If he were Cressida Dick he’d issue orders to delay the solvent and let them stew. Although to be fair, they must be frozen as well as stiff.

   The boat is where the heat is, Tanya had told him when he messaged to ask if she was filming the protest – mainly to show he’d dealt with her own truth and could be friends of an occasional kind. And once he’d decided to observe what was going on he’d had to be prepared to see her there without taking a hit.

   Closest to the boat, people were sitting in an arc, not all of them hairy. One, balding and mature, might have been a chartered surveyor or a civil servant. There were girls as well as women, younger than Libby. Now the dancing dude led them in singing, “People gonna rise like water, gonna turn this system round. In the words of my great-granddaughter, climate justice now.”

   No sign of Tanya amongst the film crews. James had been standing for a few minutes, glad of his best wool coat and scarf and oddly conscious of the shine of his polished shoes, when the police who’d seemed as neutral as him up to that point began to move in – a dozen of them, twenty. Like defenders marking strikers they attached themselves, one on one, and began to issue what he took to be warnings while the singing continued, the same song again and again but the rhythm stronger. Then a boy with dreadlocks, probably a student, was lifted and carried out, and above the song he heard shouts of “WE LOVE YOU! WE LOVE YOU!” with whoops and cheers.

An older woman, grey and churchy, was escorted off, one blue plastic police glove light on her arm. Next to her, with an officer leaning down to her, sat a pink-haired girl looking so confused he wondered whether she spoke English. People he suspected were legal observers were scribbling on notepads and talking to the arrestees, but did she even understand? Maybe she’d only been curious like him. Either way he watched her taken, loudly assured of the crowd’s love. A tall man in a hooded Parka jacket was next, his body flopping to make the load harder to bear. As four officers carried him away James saw his eyes were closed, his face calm, almost beatific. James had had enough.

   A few more vanloads and they could clear the place, and that was their job, whether or not the tabloids told them to do it. But it was more disturbing than he’d imagined and he didn’t exactly know why.

*

As Libby and Trey left the office for the West End she hoped her elation at being on his team didn’t show. It was a biggish client, a show of faith in her.

   “If we’ve got time shall we stop off at Oxford Circus?”

   She was probably staring now. “Why?”

   “Just to see. Show respect. They’re making a load of arrests.”

   Libby shook her head. “Let’s not.”

   “You’re afraid your mum might be one of them?”

   She nodded. Trey looked at her as if he understood. Could he possibly understand what she didn’t? She nodded.

   “Do you want to have dinner when we finish?” he asked. “You choose where. I think you need to talk to me about your mother.”

Chapter 19 will be posted at 5:30 on Friday 7th June 2019, UK time.

Chapter Seventeen

April 15^th 2019

Waterloo Bridge

Beyond the lorry and its emerging stage, the trees in their central avenue had to be sandbagged against the wind. While Leo helped with the lifting, Manda walked towards the north end, watching the potted plants and chalked artwork erase the blacks and greys. New tents billowed; flags flapped. Banners hung from metal and branches. Below, the Thames flowed on as if nothing had changed. The skyline remained as the tourists expected it. But Waterloo Bridge was a garden growing fast.

   In spite of the ROAD CLOSED sign and police lethargy, both ends had to be securely held. Behind the banner a big drum beat a rhythm through a chant. “What do we want?” someone called. “Climate justice!” Manda joined in. “When do we want it?” “Now!” she yelled. And again, and again.

   After some dancing, Manda offered to relieve one of the guys holding the banner. He thanked her and asked whether there was a skateboard park.

   “Not yet but give them half an hour! It’s like a top hat full of magic spilling out. We’ll have rabbits next.”

   Manda wished she’d been more involved in the strategic planning that left her awestruck. But there would be veg to chop any time now and this brand new community would need feeding. She couldn’t tell whether the police officers close enough to scrutinise were thrown by what had happened on their watch, unfazed or entertained, but they only stood, observing and unthreatening. Unless they had their own even more brilliantly strategic plan…

   Already cameras were busy but she hadn’t spotted Nick Gorski – just hundreds of guys his age, people who might have met Rob, young women who might have been glad to be Gem, all of them here for their future. And what had she done, really, all these years, with the truth? Not enough. Not nearly enough.

*

Gem could smell hot food and realised she hadn’t needed lunch at home before she set off. Crossing the bridge from the north side she smiled at the flowers, the messages, the faces that met hers. Coming to a kind of printing table with wood-cut letters, she chose the strip of cloth that read Conscientious Protector and picked up some safety pins with it.

   “Not so easy to do your own arm,” said someone around her age who apparently didn’t need a coat, just a stripy jumper that might have shrunk in the wash and a denim mini skirt. “Let me.” She introduced herself as Lois and admired Skye, who was watchful but quiet.

   “She’s mesmerised,” said Gem. “It’s beautiful here.”

   She looked up at the lorry stage where a cool guy old enough to be her father was playing guitar rather well.

“You know there’s a family area behind it, right?” Lois checked. “Past Inductions, before Wellbeing.”

   “Great. All this since ten?”

   “Not long after. And you know about the church, for toilets, and time out. Restores my faith in religion – or should that be people?” Lois looked around. “Feels like home.”

   Gem agreed.

   “You’re from the South West?”

   “No, but I used to live in Bristol.”

   Lois explained that most of the people who’d taken the bridge were in affinity groups from Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. “Totnes is punching above its weight. Stroud too. I just met a permaculture guy with the carbon footprint of a mouse. Don’t you love it here already?”

   Gem nodded. Lois swayed her hips to the guitar, which was funkier now. Then she said, “Did you write a Letter to Earth? I’m reading mine later – although I might be crying by the end. See you, Gem. See you, Skye.”

   Skye waved shyly. Lois left for a series of embraces. Gem wished she’d written that letter, joined an affinity group – rather than feeling like a part-timer, constrained too.

   “Don’t beat yourself up,” Nick would tell her. He insisted she was a great mother, but when she’d tried to tell him it would have been better for Skye if she hadn’t been born into this climate emergency, he’d asked her not to say that, not to even believe it. Of course she could argue that it was rationally, objectively true – as well as impossible to think at all when Skye raised her arms in love and trust because they belonged around her. As she was doing now.

   “Mama!”

   Gem unstrapped her, carried her with one arm and began, rather unsteadily, to park the buggy with her free hand, beside a wheelbarrow full of potted herbs.

   Someone reached for the handles and did the rest for her. In wind-tugged, harem pants and a knitted coat of many colours, she might have looked unconventional somewhere else – including Waterloo Bridge on any other morning. Her hair was tied with wool in a wide, heavy kind of pony tail.

   “Gem!”

   “Manda. I wondered if you’d be here.” Skye filling her arms made the question of a hug null and void. But it meant the gap between them felt tangible – until Manda leaned in with a kiss for her left cheek, then the right.

   Gem smiled. “This is Skye,” she said. She’d rehearsed this moment but still had no script.

   “Hello, Skye, gorgeous girl! What do you think of this wonderland?”

   Gem realised that since they had only spoken at the funeral, she had never seen Manda look or sound happy. And maybe this was a kind of wake for everything that was dying too. Skye was watching Manda’s painted beads.

   “Want to touch them, Skye?” She held them out for Skye to reach and feel. “They’re made of recycled paper,” she told Gem.

   “Great.”

   “Beautiful,” said Skye. Her new favourite word.

   “So are you, sweetheart.”

   Surprised by emotion, Manda looked from Gem to the child and wondered how to ask whether she was her grandma. “Gem…” she began.

   “I don’t know whether she’s Rob’s,” Gem told her, too quietly, as the music ended and the seated audience in front of the lorry clapped and cheered enthusiastically.

   “Sorry? I missed that.” Manda pressed because she had to know, didn’t she? Although suddenly she wasn’t certain she needed to…

   Gem raised her voice a little. “I don’t know who the father is. It could be Rob; I wanted that from the start. But there was someone else, someone kind who comforted me, soon after… So I don’t know for sure. I’m sorry.”

   Manda nodded. “I see. But if you want her to be Rob’s, and I do too…” Her voice broke without warning. “Well, if you’re willing to let me get to know her a little, babysit even, if you like… I’d love to. Just as often or occasionally as you like. The offer’s there but don’t see it as any kind of pressure or claim.” Manda was conscious that here, now and unexpectedly, she could be her best self. It was liberating. “It’s wonderful to see you here,” she added, her voice thickening. “Family anyway, all of us, all over the world.”

   “Thank you, Manda.” Gem was moved. It made words inadequate. “Thank you. That’s really… so kind.”

   “I’ll be here for as long as it holds – unless I’m in a police cell of course. And you’ve been listening to my partner, Leo.” Manda had sensed that he was close and turned to find him with his guitar on his back, smiling.

   Gem smiled too. “I enjoyed your set,” she said, because she had, although now it seemed a long way back in the past.

   “Leo, this is Gem,” Manda told him.

   “Ah,” he said. “Lovely to meet you. And this?” He held out a hand to Skye but she hadn’t got the hang of high fives yet, which made her laugh most.

   “Skye,” said Manda and Gem together.

   “Cool,” said Leo. “Like all this, yeah?”

   “Cool!” cried Skye.

   “I think I’ll take her to the children’s area…”

   “Good idea,” said Manda. “I’ll be cooking again so I’ll be easy to find. Don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

   “Sure.”

   Now Skye wanted to walk so Gem led her away by the hand, knowing they were watching. It was news she would have messaged Pru to share. As it was, the person she wanted to call and tell might not be the best audience for the story.

*

Libby hadn’t realised that Trey would be at a meeting until the afternoon. Wearing a new dress she expected him to notice, she hoped the climate protestors wouldn’t delay his arrival even longer. Since coffee time people in the office had been moaning about the disruption, calling it counterproductive and blaming hippies but she’d kept her head down. As her computer screen showed almost two thirty, she heard his voice in reception, crossed her legs and sat up straighter at the screen. Her lipstick still felt fresh.

   Making sure she didn’t turn her head as he spoke to a couple of the others, she waited until he was almost behind her before she looked up and smiled. She was sure he danced at weekends; the energy and grace were in his walk, his body.

   “Libby,” he said. “Any problems?”

   “No, all good,” she told him. “I hope the protest didn’t cause you any. Problems, I mean.”

   “Extinction Rebellion? They’ve brought London to its knees according to the press. The tubes are fine, though. I’m guessing your mother…”

   Libby felt the kind of flush she’d grown out of a decade ago. Who told him that? It wouldn’t surprise her if the video that went viral followed her everywhere and forever. She winced. “Probably, yes. Well, definitely in fact.”

   “Good on her.” Trey smiled, checked his phone and looked back up at Libby, running a hand through his fair curls. “Really. I mean someone’s got to bring government to its senses, right? All power to them. Screw the inconvenience; climate breakdown be a lot more disruptive if the world doesn’t act.”

   She stared and made an assenting sort of noise. Her smile felt unconvincing.

   “You should be proud of your mum. I would be.”

   She made a faint, wordless noise Trey didn’t hear because he was answering a call on his mobile as he headed for his office.

Chapter 18 will be posted on May 31st at 5:30 UK time.

Chapter Sixteen

April 14^th 2019

James realised he might have to invest in an apron.

   “Why don’t you bring Leo to Sunday lunch?” was so easily said, with a kind of bravado that declared maturity, generosity, confidence in his culinary skills as well as his single status. A sign that he was unintimidated by the flamboyance of Manda’s romance or plant-based menu.

   The hardback book he’d bought just before closing the day before was propped open with his phone and glasses case, and spattered with greasy smears. He wished Libby hadn’t declined but then she was probably spending Sunday in bed with this Marc she hadn’t mentioned to Manda. James knew he wasn’t good at secrets after half a bottle of wine, and as Leo didn’t drink and Manda might not be satisfied the Shiraz was vegan, he could be obliged to put away rather more. Especially if they banged on about the International Rebellion that according to the press was intended to wreak chaos in the capital tomorrow.

   Not that he cared the way he would have done, before the sabbatical. Maybe he should spend some of the time that stretched ahead of him on cookery classes.

   The sauce seemed too thin and oily. Perhaps he’d misread something. What would Manda add to thicken it, without lumps? He’d ask Libby but if she wasn’t eating out she took her meals home from M and S. Besides, he wouldn’t want to interrupt anything. And he hoped Manda and Leo… well, they weren’t teenagers, for God’s sake.

   Aware that he was feeling grumpy now, James searched online for ideas and tried ground almonds, hoping the result tasted better than it looked. He wondered whether Leo was a new or reluctant vegan and had allowed Manda to show him that Cowspiracy film he’d successfully refused to watch himself.

   He’d forgotten the salad! And the oranges the recipe claimed went so well with baby spinach!

   “So what?” he challenged aloud. Manda improvised; she called it ‘imagination’ and the secret of her success.

   Was that the doorbell? Were they early and what did that mean? Too much sex had made them hungry? James washed his hands too quickly and splashed his new jeans, anticipating Manda’s smile.

   He opened the door and saw that with his pale, torn jeans, single earring and patchwork sweater, Leo was shabby-cool. Was that a phrase? Manda would think it should be. His greying hair gleamed and his smile was wide.

   “Hey, James. Good to meet you.”

   And had he in fact heard so much about him? He didn’t like to guess at the exact words she’d use. No hug, thank goodness – just a hand to shake that caught him off guard a moment before he took it. Remembering that Leo was a musician, he hoped he wasn’t too good – at that or anything else. But Manda’s face suggested otherwise. Then she kissed both his cheeks and he felt the familiar texture of her hair flung against his skin. She was too warm for the weather.

   Behind them James saw two bikes with helmets over the handlebars. According to Libby, she lived mostly at Leo’s place now.

   “A good clean ride on a Sunday,” Leo said.

   “Relatively clean,” said Manda. “Did you know in London kids’ lungs are actually smaller now, as in shrinking?”

   “That’s pretty shocking,” he admitted. “If it’s true.”

   “Google it,” Manda suggested. “Do your own fact-check.” But he didn’t think she was irritated. She was losing weight, though. Leo took her hand.

   James suggested that they hid the bikes round the side into the back garden, even though their combined value didn’t really warrant such a precaution. Leo grinned but wheeled them both, one on each side. Manda watched him a minute, like a proud mother, then stepped inside.

   “How are you?”

   James wanted to ask her how anyone could answer that question meaningfully, but instead claimed, “Fine,” and echoed it back as revenge.

   “Me? Excited more than anything. You know we’re going to block London tomorrow, bring it to a standstill?”

   Kicking off her Doc Martens, she hadn’t made it further than the hall.

   “So I gather,” he said. “I’m glad I won’t be disrupted.”

   “Tell me a better way of achieving the goals, James. Seriously. Everyone would love to know how to make headlines and force the government to their senses without disrupting poorly paid workers at rush hour.”

   She ran her fingers through hair that had been crushed, and shook it out. It used to be more resilient, and vivid too. The thought made him feel old and rather sad.

   “Of course the well paid workers deserve all they get,” he deduced. There had been a time when she loved the character of this unnecessarily spacious house almost as much as the garden and its tulips.

   “Let’s not make it political,” she suggested brightly. “This is about the survival of humanity and everything else. In which context, a few delays…”

   “Good luck explaining that to Libby.”

   Leo returned in his young dude’s sneakers and shone a smile around. James noticed the way Manda touched him at once: just a quick, light hand on his thigh. Leo reached for her hand and they followed James together, their socked feet padding in unison behind him in a silence that left him imagining looks, squeezes…

   At least Leo hadn’t brought a guitar.

   “How’s the sabbatical, James?” he heard as he turned into the kitchen, which looked a lot messier than he’d thought he’d left it.

   “Oh, I’m adjusting,” he said. “I’d forgotten how to sleep. I’m reading a bit. Investigating classes. I did sign up to a gym.”

   He could tell Manda knew what that meant: more or less diddlysquat.

   “You could join us,” she said. “Rebel for life.”

   As he focused on pouring drinks, Leo asked him about the courses he was considering. James sounded vague, forgetting most of them. He thought better of apologising for the food before he had served it.

   “Smells good,” said Manda.

   She could still read him and now it made him awkward. All those years they were married, he cooked for her once a year maybe, on her birthday. What had he been trying to prove, playing host? Maybe he’d just tired of waiting for them to invite him to the love nest.

   “You two can go and canoodle on the sofa while I focus in here,” he suggested.

   “It’s a great garden,” said Leo.

   “I’m managing to fit weeding into my hectic schedule,” James told them. “The tulips seem to be thriving.”

   Still her favourite, he wondered, especially the straggle-topped ones? She didn’t say because they’d gone.

*

Regent’s Park was bright, its perfect grass a deep, slightly damp green, but in spite of the sun Gem felt shivery. She’d need more clothes on Waterloo Bridge. Nick never wore enough. She glanced at the snatch of bare skin between his jeans and hoodie as he pushed the buggy and imagined him as a stringy boy, his feet and chest bare on a bitter British beach.

   Gem preferred the park in the summer when the delphiniums rioted deep purple and cobalt blue, but Skye liked the ducks and geese and looking down on water. In fact she had nodded off, her head tilted and her hat slipping. Gem smiled with Nick at the small mouth hanging open and shiny with dribble. Sometimes the newness of it, of her skin and fingers, made her soft inside – a softness she’d resisted for years, to be alone.    

   Nick spread out the picnic blanket and they sat. She’d brought a flask of coffee and poured him a cupful.

   “I know you’re disappointed but I can’t turn down paid work,” he said.

   She wanted to ask why. Some rebels had given up jobs for this. He looked good in his sunglasses but she couldn’t tell whether he was disappointed too.

   “But you’ll come on Wednesday?”

   “Sure, if I can. I want to be with you.”

   “But you’re not sure about it, are you?”

   “It’s beyond ambitious. Four sites to hold all week! Do they think the police will just give them up?” He paused, retrieving hair brushed free by wind. “And do they really think there’s the remotest chance the government will meet those demands?” He touched her hand a moment. “I’m not trying to burst your bubble.”

   “I believe in this,” she told him. “Time’s running out, Nick. I know the whole thing is ridiculously big and bold but it has to be.”

   “What love requires of you?” He smiled at her favourite Quaker phrase.

   She nodded.

   “But don’t get arrested.”

   “How can I, with Skye?”

   “I’d cry if I had to watch them carry you off.”

   She looked at him, surprised. A pigeon landed in a flurry even before she had thought about the sandwiches in her backpack.

   “You won’t have to,” she said.

   “Ducks!” cried Skye, straining in the buggy.

The next chapter will be posted on Friday 24th April at 5:30 UK time.

Thirteen

The short walk to the tube was busy but it didn’t stop Nick trying to talk.

   “You look cold.”

   “Yeah. It wasn’t fun.”

   “I’ve been wanting to see you since that day in Parliament Square. I kept thinking about you. And I know you’re going to work but I need to talk to you.”

   Suddenly Gem would rather be sitting in the road. She walked on but the traffic lights were red.

   “About Skye,” he said. “Is she Rob’s?”

   “I don’t know.”

   He was looking at her now in a way she’d dreaded. “You don’t know because there’s another possibility? Because you weren’t too drunk to remember what happened after the funeral?”

   Gem bit her lip and shook her head. She hadn’t wanted to hold on to it but she’d never quite erased it all. Leaning her head against his in the taxi they’d shared to the hotel where they’d both booked rooms. His hand holding hers. Pressed together at his door.  Stroking his hair, while his crying shook his chest.

   “We made love, Gem.”

   “We had sex.”

   “It was loving. We both lost Rob.”

   The light changed. They walked, in step now. He reached for her hand but she couldn’t let him take it, not this time.

   “We were both drunk. Maybe you don’t remember as much as you imagine.”

   “I didn’t… when I woke and you’d gone, I thought I’d dreamed it. How could it be real? And if it was, I thought you’d be sick with…. And blame me.”

   “With guilt. Yeah. I blamed myself more.”

   They stepped down into the tube station.

   “We didn’t take precautions?” he asked, his voice low.

   She swiped her Oyster Card. “I don’t know. Do you? But I’m guessing neither of us took condoms to Rob’s funeral.”

   She was first on the escalator but he stood close and tall behind her. She gazed up at the ads without seeing them.

   “But you and Rob…”

   “Not the last time.” The pack had been empty; she’d been the one to insist they took a chance, not caring if she fell pregnant with his child because thanks to him she was ready now to be a mother, with or without a father around. Forgetting the world that wasn’t fit to give a child a future.

   Stepping off the escalator, they entered the tunnel and saw a tube, its carriage doors opening. Instinctively, she rushed for it, and they both fitted in. Now they stood holding the same yellow rail. She looked at his hand above hers, just as smooth and pretty as his face.

   “So it’s fifty-fifty?”

   “Yeah. Pretty much.”

   “And you didn’t need to know?”

   “Nick, try to understand. I didn’t want to be smothered by the Craigs. And I didn’t want to ask anything of you. How could I? It wouldn’t have been fair.”

   “On me, or you?” Still his voice was quiet, kind.

   “Either?” Had it mattered, a few weeks after the funeral, when she took the kit straight from the counter at a department store into the Ladies, and the line was blue? She’d only known that she wanted her baby, and life after death. “I hadn’t seen you since. I didn’t expect to see you again.”

   “I didn’t think you’d want me to call.”

   “No.”

   “We hardly knew each other. Without Rob…”

   “Yes. So the only thing that made any sense was raising Skye alone. And I am, and she’s happy.”

   “She’s great.” His smile was sad. “And you left Bristol to be sure you didn’t bump into me…”

   “I left Bristol because Rob would always be there.”

   “You still love him?”

   She nodded. It kept her alive.

   “And you hope Skye is his?”

   “I always have.”

   Her stop had already been announced. He looked out as the tube slowed to a halt. “This is where you work.”

   “Yes.” She reached up to kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

   “Can I see you?” he called as the doors slid open. “One weekend? No claims.”

   Gem stepped onto the platform but looked back. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

   “Call me!”

   The doors closed. Gem walked towards the exit.

*

The café was quiet. Manda cut up her latest bake, thinking through the wording she would use at closing time, but beginning to hope she didn’t have to wait that long because the more she thought, the more decided she became. The three customers drinking coffee were all regulars and she usually enjoyed chatting with them, especially brave, quivery Viv, who walked with a stick and looked a generation older than she was, but today the only person she wanted to talk to was Farah.

   She arranged the ginger cake with its label and looked into the kitchen where her boss was chopping carrots as if they’d offended her.

   Farah turned and read her. “You’re going to tell me you’ve considered it carefully and you’re going to jump ship.”

   “Yes. I thought maybe after Christmas.”

   “What if this rebellion comes to a standstill?”

   “It won’t. It will grow.”

   “I dare say it could grow without you. But I know, you have to be there. You’d be blocking London right now if you weren’t trapped here.”

   Manda nodded. She had to give everything to this movement or it wouldn’t be enough. She kept Farah up to date with developments, but not via Twitter, because she’d left that – in case some sleazy online news outfit ran Adam’s story, or in case he messaged her again, under that name or any other.

   She was aware that Farah couldn’t quite believe she was in a position to manage without income, at least until the summer.

   “I should be grateful to James,” she said, because he’d always been the serious earner, and a bit of a miser with it. Her Home Economics teaching, never more than part-time, was always a hobby in his eyes.

   “The benefits of capitalism for the few,” teased Farah, and Manda held up her hands. “It won’t be the same without you here. That’s if I can keep afloat.”

   Manda blew her a kiss; Farah was less huggable with a sharp knife in her hand. A group, probably from a nearby office, walked in together. They were loud and Manda thought she knew what they were complaining about, but she kept listening to be sure while they ordered drinks in turn.

   “I think you’ll find,” she said, as they moved to sit down, “that these eco-warriors are motivated by the fact that the world is experiencing climate breakdown, as declared by experts from umpteen countries in zillions of scientific papers in the recent IPCC report. These people are bringing London to a standstill because signing another petition might not be enough to save our children.” She smiled. “I call them heroes myself. I’ll bring your drinks over in just a minute.”

   She mouthed at Farah, “Sack me!” and smiled as her boss tried to copy the emoji that slaps a hand to one eye. Not that she had scored any points over the loudest guy in the group, who interrupted a woman who told him Manda had a point, insisting this kind of irresponsible activism was counter-productive. In spite of her irritation, Manda was afraid it might be, but she hoped Rob would approve – of her words, smile and delivery, but also her commitment. Because she loved this job, and Farah, and the feel they’d created together here. It was a place where Rob would have felt at home.

*

The youngest of the partners, who had seen images from the road blockades, joked with James, “I haven’t spotted your ex.”

   The partner who wasn’t back from a meeting yet might not see any humour in the situation and James couldn’t blame him. Manda’s idea of giving up work for this rebellion was madness and Libby, who already called her mother an extremist, would be appalled – but what could he do?

   He could do with a break himself, a sabbatical. Not for the purposes of civil disobedience but to broaden his horizons with some personal development. Perhaps some art history, or world religions. He’d been thinking a lot since the exhibition with Tanya, about how narrow one could become, and how much more there was to learn. “Ah, James, there are more ways to be human than you realised.”

   His phone rang unexpectedly and he saw Libby on screen. Some personal emergency, he supposed, and hesitated before picking up.

   “Dad, I saw Gem sitting in the road with those Extinction Rebellion nutters. She looks out of it, a mess. And… thing is, Dad, she’s got a child.”

   “She’s sitting in the road with a child?”

   “I mean she has a child. And I think it’s Rob’s. And she’s an irresponsible mother. She looks like she could be doing drugs. So you might want to claim your grandchild.”

   James put a hand to his head. “Libby, you’re jumping way head of yourself.” He didn’t dare say he liked Gem. “We can’t talk about this now.”

   “What if she gets arrested? If she goes to prison?”

   “I don’t think obstructing a highway carries a custodial sentence, darling. Look, I have a meeting to go to,” he lied. “Let’s talk at the weekend.”

   Libby sounded deflated. “Good luck getting there!”

   James searched Twitter until he found her. Rob’s Gem, delicate-looking as ever, and yes, straggly and scruffy just the way Rob used to be. Her expression was sad, in fact. It reminded him of the face of the poet from the Marshall Islands. Suddenly he knew what Tanya would say, if he told her – which was hardly likely, given that he didn’t expect to see her again. She’d say, Leave her alone. And he wasn’t quite sure how Tanya became his touchstone, his new lens on the world. But he supposed that was in the pub, when he fell in love with her.

   What Manda would say, for once he couldn’t guess.

*

Trying to listen hard, and watch carefully, Pru realised she had a lot to learn.

   “It’s very sensible,” Mia said. “You’ll be a silver surfer.”

   “I thought you’d be the person to teach me,” Pru said, thinking how ridiculously young Mia looked, for a teacher. “You must need  a lot of patience in your job and you may need even more with me!”

   Gem had offered to come and visit after Christmas, and bring Skye, but she couldn’t expect her to do that. Besides, now that Pru had decided to go online and keep up with things she’d miss, she couldn’t wait to start. It might be fun. Ed had warned her it could be addictive but she wasn’t going to allow that, and she wasn’t going to allow him to do the teaching because he’d make her feel like a fool.

   “So I need to follow Twitter and Facebook and it would be nice to send some emails,” she told Mia, using the chair to make her a coffee like a proper hostess, and prove she was mobile and doing fine.

   “Sure,” said Mia, “but maybe not all in one lesson.” She asked Pru how it was working out with the carers.

   “Oh, we’ll get on like a house on fire once we get used to each other’s funny ways. I’m determined not to be a stickler or a whinger.”

   “You’ll be their favourite!”

   Pru was finding it hard being a burden to people, even though she paid them to put up with her, but she kept that to herself because she didn’t need people to feel sorry for her. And that included herself.

   “I miss everyone,” she said. “So I need to keep an eye on what they’re up to. Any more earthquakes today?”

   Mia nodded, and shook her head too, but couldn’t remember the frequency of the latest one.

   “That’s why I need to be on that internet, to find these things out. But if they go on like this they’ll have to stop for good, surely? It’s madness.”

   Mia said she hoped so but the dirty frackers, as Pru called them, wanted the government to relax the regulations so they didn’t have to stop at all, even for the rest of the day, after any tremor.

   Pru was afraid the dirty frackers had the government in their pockets and she didn’t like to be cynical but the evidence was pretty strong. Apparently there were diagrams; she’d be able to find them now. She’d be more informed than ever, as long as she didn’t fall for any fake news.

   “There’s been more civil disobedience in London,” Mia told her, fiddling with the wires at the back of Pru’s new computer. It was like waiting for the curtain to go up at the theatre. “And I think the school strikes are going to take off soon, maybe after Christmas. I need to talk to my Head about that.”

   While she was setting up the computer, she passed Pru her flat little phone to look at. “Gem, see, in the green hat?”

   The screen was so small, it could have been anyone sitting on the road with a placard that said, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. But she felt proud anyway. And one day, Skye would be proud too, and grateful.

   “Thank you so much for this, Mia,” she said. “It’s going to be an adventure.”

The final chapter of FOR LIFE will be posted on Friday 12th April, before the Global Rebellion.

Use this link to vote for ‘I am me’, Sue’s fundraising picture book for People not Borders, in the Finals of the People’s Book Prize.