Fifteen – early April 2019

the story resumes as the International Rebellion is about to begin

Telling people made all the difference. Until Libby heard herself, three drinks down, muttering to Bee that being with Marc was ‘getting boring’ after two whole months, she hadn’t labelled her feelings. And even then, the word she meant was hollow. That was how she felt it as she woke beside him, wondering what possessed her to allow him into her space and fill it – with his biceps and his smokiness, his toiletries and shoes. With underwear in her washing machine that counted on surfacing clean for his return.

   Libby watched him sleeping, his chin spiking with stubble and his chest model-tight. Bee had said she wouldn’t mind being bored out of her brains by him but that was a sex thing and for Libby that side had worn first, slipped into familiar choreography that was all placement and no flair.

   “Kew Gardens would be nice,” she’d said, wanting blue above and air with bite, but Saturdays meant football and lager and all the fags he couldn’t smoke in the week. And she hadn’t minded at first, because of the gifts that arrived at the office and the way the others gathered to see what he’d sent her this time. And because Bee had said ‘a regular guy’ was what she needed, someone to give her ‘a good seeing-to’. Which was what he thought he did, sometimes twice a night.

   Still, she thought, as she smelt the Marc-ness of his breath, he made her feel clever – which was a first. Told her she was too good for him. Was amused by jokes about her eco-extremist mother – who’d want to meet him, if she knew he existed, but not if she heard him laughing at her expense. And Libby might have called it enough, for now, if she’d stuck with the old job. Marc had lain in her bed, watching her dress for the interview, in a new and expensive little suit with leg room, and told her he’d employ her on sight – making the verb into innuendo.

   He didn’t guess what she thought about when he was on top of her. Or rather, who. And he didn’t ask. For Marc, questions were just foreplay. He didn’t need to know how she functioned, inside, any more than she needed to know what lifted an aeroplane off the ground. And he’d taken her for an expensive weekend in Barcelona, was talking now about hot white sand in Croatia for Easter.

   At that moment he woke quite suddenly, as if an alarm had sounded and a survival instinct kicked in hard. He reached out an arm soft with coppery hair, and smiled as if he thought, washed and dressed as she as, that she must be willing right now.

   “Don’t go.”

   It was her cue and she knew she had to work it somehow.

   “Thing is, in fact… I need you to go. As in, it’s over, you know, run its course?” He was staring, shocked, and making her feel cruel when it was just realism really. She softened her voice, hoped it transmitted to her face. “Just life, you know? Nothing lasts, right?” Somehow she held eye contact and wished it felt more powerful.

   His jaw clenched as if his teeth met hard inside. There was a furious reflex force in the way he exited her bed, sheets thrashed. He reached for his clothes, hanging in her wardrobe, knocking a dress of hers to the floor.

   “You’re a bitch, a fucking bitch.”

   She used to tell her mother that, in her teens, but it wasn’t true and she really hoped he was wrong too. “If I am, you’re best out of it.”

   Now she was glad she never told him anything, not about Rob or counselling. Not about anything that mattered, like the feelings she’d named for the counsellor. Part of her wanted to say she was sorry but that was a word that made her small. He’d been pestering her for a key but something in her always knew the narrative would work its way to this.

   “You’re welcome to breakfast before you go.”

   “Not hungry.” He made the two words sound like an accusation, or threat.

   Marc’s usual morning routine was careful and scented. Now he was heading for her door. She pictured him tying his red shoelaces before she heard him rattle the door shut with a final clash.

   “You deserve to be loved,” her mother had told her at Christmas.

   “Why?”

   “Because you’re human, darling.”

   It wasn’t the answer her mother would have given Rob. Because he was brave and principled, and funny and soft. Everything Libby wasn’t. How human was she, really? What if Rob got every bit of humanity that mattered and she was left with the dregs?

   Now her mother loved hip old Leo almost as much as she loved the planet, and sat with him like a conjoined twin on the sofa, their hands playing each other’s fingers like messages or tunes.

   “Of course it’s your choice when you stop,” said the counsellor. “But have you considered why you want to?”

   Wasn’t the wanting enough? Even love was just wanting, and needing to be wanted. And she was no good at loving, or hadn’t been up to now. She’d been waiting for the counsellor to tell her so.

   “Is it because we’re not making enough progress, or because the progress is real and challenging?”

   Libby liked to think she’d been challenging herself. “Isn’t that a loaded question?”

   Maybe she was better at asking questions than answering them. She knew she hadn’t told the truth, since she didn’t know what that was, but wasn’t she paying the counsellor to shine a light on it?

   Well this was the truth here, whether Marc could face it or not. Libby tugged the sheet from the bed and bundled it into the washing machine along with his pillow case.

   She didn’t know why she was crying.

*

Gem read the email from Mia a second time, as if the words would arrange themselves into a different meaning.

   Gem, I am very sorry to tell you that Pru died on Thursday night. It was sudden but peaceful. Her son has asked for an inquest but if she could she’d say she just wore out. I said that as the person who made her a silver surfer I’d go through her Contacts and let everyone know. It’s a short list and almost all what he would call troublemakers.

   I will let you know about the funeral but it’s a long way for you to come and she wouldn’t expect it. You know that.

   Hope you and Skye are well. She really loved you.

   Mia x

   “I really loved her too,” Gem told the screen.

   Looking at the time in the bottom right corner, she shut down the laptop and went to wake Skye. Her hair was wild around the cot, and warm on her forehead when she stroked it. Gem didn’t know anyone more alive.

   “Hey, sweetpea. Time for another day.”

   Skye pressed her lips to Gem’s cheek in a moist kiss as she lifted her. Gem thought there was a question in her eyes. Maybe she heard it in her voice: the loss, Pru gone. The cold space opening up around her.

   Would she have gone up to Preston at Christmas, if she and Nick hadn’t been… connecting? Pru had wanted to meet him. In the spring, she’d told Pru, before the International Rebellion.

   So are you and Nick what they call an item? Pru had asked, more than once.

   We’re friends, Gem had told her, and Skye loves him.

   It might be hard for a guy with a big, noisy family to understand what Pru was to her: a surrogate grandma, a role model, as open and giving as Gem had learned to be reticent and safe. But not with Pru, because Pru seemed to know straight away who she really was, the first time they met at the gates to the site where they hadn’t fracked now since December. Whoop whoop, her texts said, every time Cuadrilla took more equipment away. Perhaps Pru had died happy.

   Skye filled the potty, her eyes sleepy but curious. Then she followed Gem through to the kitchen and lifted her arms to be placed in her high chair. It seemed wrong to be reaching for a pan to make her porridge when the woman who doted on her from a distance was dead, and would never live for her, any more than Rob could.

   “See Daddy today?”

   Gem turned. It was a first and Nick would be… elated, moved. He didn’t press, didn’t talk tests, just enjoyed. Gem was grateful. But for her Rob did live, and always would, where it hurt most, not in the car upside down off the road but beside her, his hand in hers. And she wasn’t ready. It made her doubt…

   Taking her time, she stirred the oats into the rice milk as if she needed to concentrate. She couldn’t correct her; it wouldn’t be fair. Then she said, gently, “Nick’s working today.”

   They needed to talk about the Rebellion but no one could say how long it would last, or hold. She’d booked three days unpaid leave and wished she could take more; he didn’t seem sure whether he’d be there to film it. There’d be four key sites but she liked the idea of a garden bridge.

   She would see him tomorrow, after Meeting. He was interested in what being a Quaker meant. Gem knew he was in love – with Skye, with holding her high above his head and pushing her buggy. With her too, maybe. It was kindness and she couldn’t let it go. He was Rob’s best friend after all.

   “Porridge ready,” asked Skye as if it was an assumption, as Gem added some raisins and reached for the Tigger bowl.

The author as rebel

Part Sixteen will be posted at 5:30 UK time on Friday 17th April.

Letter to Earth

You are mother, home, life. We acknowledge your power, your beauty, your wildness and peace. With awe we remember the moments when truth broke in and held us still, bright, small. We reclaim the child in us who saw the detail and knew that it was fine, who watched and listened and felt the mystery. Your colours blaze and cool. Your sounds silence our clamour. We remember how to be, our place in the web, the rhythms and patterns beyond our busyness.

   Your life is intense, patient, unexplained. The world we share sings tunes we cannot learn and paints truths for which we have no words. It is your gift to us and we will treasure it, restore it, live simply and thankfully as love requires of us. Or we will die – and what then?

   Without us, you will heal in time. Our damage forgotten, you will roar and whisper on. The dance will not end, not yet. You will not mourn us. We will be unspoken in the silence that returns.

   Our loss, not yours, and our destruction. But we have no right – to let go of small hands, to cut the cord and the roots, to tear the roof from the sky, to smother the future’s breath. We will remember who we are and what we owe. We will live again.

Written for Extinction Rebellion Earth Speaks and read on Waterloo Bridge.

I am officially a rebel. In fact I was arrested on Thursday 18^th April for the first time in my sixty-two years. When a friend asked me why this was my answer: Everything that makes me an activist is deeply connected: peace and the arms trade, justice for refugees and this climate emergency which we face together as one human family. But if one issue is bigger than the rest it’s this threat to our existence and the challenge to live differently or die. I arrived at Waterloo Bridge on Monday 15^th April prepared to be arrested, and once I had become part of a beautiful, loving community living that difference, I found hope and with it determination. I have taken part in protests where as a Quaker I have been uncomfortable with words if not actions around me. Here at Extinction Rebellion my soul has found deep peace in the non-violence that holds and unites regardless of diversity. There has been nowhere I would rather be, spiritually and physically. And being arrested after sitting on the ‘heart line’ (front line being a military term we didn’t want to use) for the best part of two days was a shock just for a couple of minutes before I felt that deep peace of knowing we serve the truth and all people and species, that others were grateful and that the first time would not and could not be the last.

It’s frightening to watch police vans arrive and officers advancing with purpose. Arrest is a profoundly serious matter and I think all of us taken into custody, some long-term climate activists and some who had just arrived at a place of support for XR’s aims, felt the weight of that seriousness. But nothing can be more serious than this climate emergency. We know we are privileged to be able to protest on behalf of those who are feeling the impact ahead of us. And while being on Waterloo Bridge for six days was joyous and beautiful, it was a profoundly conscious commitment, with induction into the principles of XR and the set-up of the community, with wellbeing support, de-escalation training, an ecological washing-up system after free vegan food, composting, and traditional wood-cut printing onto T-shirts instead of merchandise. We were very fortunate at the bridge to have use of St John’s Church at the south end, where some slept in the crypt and all of us visited the toilets. We were young and older, from various faiths and none, but love and respect were fundamental to every decision made. Everyone who stepped onto the lorry stage expressed the same hopes and fears, including thirteen-year-old Max, whose speech had a call and response: “It’s bonkers!” and “Shut it down!” Isn’t that exactly how the business as usual that Sadiq Khan wanted to see restored must seem to a child becoming aware of the course we are still taking towards the end of the human race?

I went across to Oxford Circus on Thursday on hearing they needed numbers as the police moved in. It was a very different space, pace and energy, but in spite of the heat, overcrowding and tension, the spirit was warm and strong, with songs and chants, and dancing on the pink boat labelled TELL THE TRUTH. But my heart was on Waterloo Bridge, and I returned to be arrested. I walked rather than being lifted, and as I took my seat in the van a kind of disbelief set in. I’m well-behaved! Within minutes, a mother with a young child looked in at me, touched her heart and then held out both hands, saying “Thank you.” There was bonding in the van with the other three ‘prisoners’; the police were friendly and courteous. My experience in the station was interesting and relatively brief and at no point did I ask myself what I was doing. When I was released there was arrestee support waiting – another XR system efficiently in place – and I felt glad and at peace. In a statement I never needed (I wasn’t charged but released subject to further investigation) I said that as a Quaker I had done what love required of me.

On Easter Saturday my husband Leslie Tate, also a Quaker, was arrested when the police kettled us on the bridge in order to dismantle the lorry which was our stage, while we sang, “Police, we love you. We’re doing this for your children too.” At this point I discovered that it’s very much more distressing to be the partner of an arrestee than to be taken into custody oneself. Both of us, in the holding cell and van, talked about climate breakdown, introducing officers there to the Birth Strike and details of the Sixth IPCC report. Then on Easter Sunday when we had a day off, I wept to watch live footage of people being arrested on the bridge to the sound of Amazing Grace. The next day there was only one site to go to, at Marble Arch. We took friends who were hugely impressed, and at one point I joined XR families in a die-in under the blue whale at the Natural History Museum. When we all stood up, it was to a great cheer from those observing from around and above. A couple of days later I was part of an impressive lobbying group in Parliament. Rebels have a depth of knowledge and understanding of climate change that would shame most politicians.

Developments are fast with XR and I have no doubt that imaginative actions lie ahead. Disrupting people’s lives is not something any of us would choose but it has had an enormous impact, airing a taboo subject and generating conversations everywhere, including TV and radio. Nothing is perfect and it’s not unreasonable to call the movement white and middle-class, although there’s more ethnic diversity than some suggest, and one could blame the media for the irresponsible silence and downright misinformation that has denied many people access to the facts. Women, many of them young, fill key roles and everyone is heard in an attempt to be hierarchy-free. And to those who say that it was inconvenient and stressful for those trying to get to work or the shops, I can only ask for a better idea that would grow the movement by 30,000 in a week by making headlines – and point out the completely different scale of the disruption ahead if we don’t address the crisis now. It seemed to all of us that the police had no wish to waste their time harassing “nice” peaceful people, and that it was the tabloids that nudged the Home Secretary to demand that they used the full force of the law. A Sky News reporter asked me if I saw myself as a criminal. No, I am a Quaker, and a grandma, and an author who writes mainly for children. I am a conscientious protector. I have been a follower of Jesus all my life and my week on Waterloo Bridge took me closer to paradise than any other experience I’ve lived.

The rebellion will not end until the demands are met, so even if the last site has been cleared by the time you read this, nothing is over. I am ready to be arrested again, because there are no peaceful lengths to which I will not go to protect the future for my children and grandchild, and yours.

Fourteen: December 6^th 2018

It was Manda’s last day off, not counting Christmas. Following signs to City Hall, Westminster, she reflected that so far, bar a few dozen mince pies, she’d been detached from the consumer bingefest. An achievement. And she intended to stay that way up to what they called the wire. Note to self, she thought: the language of war was everywhere and it was a kind of infiltration, like the way the forces had a hold in churches and schools. Everyday militarism.

   The curved glass building, swelling out by the river, was impressive. She couldn’t help thinking that assembly members might be forgiven if their sense of importance swelled too, breezing with lanyards past security. But history wouldn’t forgive them if they voted NO today.

   Was she too early? Pinning her XR logo on her coat, she gazed around for others and smiled at three police officers waiting too. She wondered how Libby’s counselling was going, or whether she’d secretly stopped. They hadn’t even discussed Christmas arrangements yet, and Manda suspected Libby of planning to fly away to escape it.

   Looking at the river to the inner tune of Waterloo Sunset, she found it oddly moving. Loss made everything so beautiful, even before it was lost. Would the assembly vote the right way and if they did, would they commit to action that was swift and radical? Frankly, Stroud, Totnes and Bristol were pushovers; this would be a coup.

   Hearing voices she turned to find a group, mostly young, advancing with kit. She recognised a few faces. Soon banners were unfurled, and Manda helped to hold the one that said TWELVE YEARS TO SAVE THE EARTH. Passers-by, mostly on their way to work, were offered flyers, and it was heartening to see how many accepted them and signalled or expressed support. Soon the singing had begun, thinner than in Parliament Square but affecting all the same. Manda tried to join in, but joked with the young woman one place along the banner that no one would hang around to find out more with her wailing in their ear. It turned out that Manda was double her age with half her qualifications. Manda found herself mentioning Libby.

   “Is she in the rebellion?” asked Shani, brightly. She was wearing enough clothes for August, her tight midriff and tattooed arms bare.

   Manda pulled a face Libby wouldn’t like. “I failed there. I seem to be a deterrent rather than an inspiration. But my son was an activist.” Her voice thickened with no warning. “He died…”

   Shani’s face was even brighter now. “You made that film! I saw it. You must be so proud. He’d be glad to see this, right? It’s only just beginning but we’re rising up at last.”

   Manda smiled gratefully. “Yes. He would, and we are.”

   As if on cue, a new song began: “We are the change, we are the ones we are waiting for. We are dawning, we are rising up.” Its rhythm was less daunting than the ethereal anthem’s harmonies. Manda sang enthusiastically, stamping her feet and moving her hips as much as the banner allowed.

   A young guy was preparing to talk with a basic PA, his back to the water. The chorus ended for the last time and Manda watched him looking at the script on his phone the way speakers could nowadays.

   She realised that a tall man with dense, tight curls had stopped to watch and seemed to be looking straight at her, but because of his sunglasses, she couldn’t be sure. He was dressed casually, like a creative – as colourful and free as James was neat and grey.

   He accepted a flyer, read it, nodded and gave them a thumbs-up. Then he took off his sunglasses, and headed towards her. Manda opened her mouth wide.

   “Leo?”

   “Manda!”

   She looked at Shani and explained, “I’m going to have to let go for a moment, just long enough to hug this man – who was my first serious boyfriend!” Close-up he glistened and smelled wonderful, spicy but citrus. He was lean but firm. And this was ridiculous!

   “You look just the same,” he said, and they covered where she lived and her divorce, his early retirement and songwriting. He was in a band when they started dating at school, and so much more interesting than anyone else in the town. “So his mother’s black and his father’s white?” her mother had asked, the same way she’d ask whether one was a prostitute and the other a vicar who’d strayed off the straight and narrow. 

   “Do you still worship Hendrix?” she checked.

   “Oh, man, who else?”

   “And you… do you have children?”

   “Sure, three. But we lost their mother to cancer.”

   “I’m so sorry.” She produced a picture of Rob and was explaining when they heard, “Good morning. We are Extinction Rebellion and we are here to encourage the London Assembly to declare a Climate Emergency…”

   “Look,” Leo told her, “I need to go. I’m meeting my son for breakfast – five minutes ago, in that café right over there.” He pointed, named it and gave her a card with an electric guitar on it. “I’ll be there until ten so if you finish, come on over. If you can. I mean, no pressure. You have important business here.”

   Manda felt the grin on her face; it had been there a while. He leaned down and kissed her cheeks. She watched him walking away, a kind of a loping walk with a swing. Why had they split up? She didn’t even know. Turning her attention to the speaker on the mic, she heard him finish the Declaration of Rebellion, and joined in the cheering.

   “Climate justice now!” he began.

   Manda echoed with the rest. Somewhere in an old notebook she had lyrics she’d scribbled a year or so ago, for a song about Rob.

*

Gem had been on the point of making contact so many times. Every time, in fact, that she’d done the tube journey he’d shared with her that day of the swarming. This morning she found Nick Gorski’s card in her wallet where she’d kept it, looked at her face in the carriage window and pictured his. A seriously nice guy. Rob’s best friend. Perhaps a rebel too. And Skye’s father, maybe. Maybe not.

   Hey Nick. It would be good to meet up and talk properly. Gem

   She checked her reflection. Did she look excited or nervous, or just like a single mum who’d left the flat in a rush and wasn’t bothered about reflections in train windows?

   Gem, hi. I’ve been thinking hard about everything and I think I’m awake at last. Do you have a lunch hour?

   Yes, in theory. Now she was alarmed. She thought of a coffee shop she couldn’t afford to use as a habit, and gave him the address. But didn’t he want to see Skye? Wasn’t that the point, just like it would be the Craigs’ point if they knew?

   If she could open the door on a hotel room in the same chain, with the same colours and layout, and the same smooth, wide bed, would she remember more than the panic that followed her home, and the shame? Rob would understand, if anyone would, but she hadn’t understood it herself – how loving and grieving and red wine could have led her, unsteady, to Nick’s bed.

   “I’ve never been in love before,” Rob told her, the first time. He never asked her how many guys she’d had so she didn’t have to count, or wish them away. And they didn’t count, when she was using. She wasn’t herself and she didn’t know herself.

   Gem didn’t kid herself that Nick was in love – except maybe with the idea of having a kid he could play with once a week. But what harm would that do her, or Skye? If it added something warm and smiley to Skye’s life, why would she reject it – as long as the truth was served? The truth might matter more than anything, and it wasn’t always easy to see – although Nick didn’t seem to need it. She guessed some people made up their own.

*

The Green members of the assembly who’d proposed the motion didn’t want the protest to move inside and jeopardise the vote, and no one was arguing. They’d been optimistic when they stopped to chat on their way in, and stood behind the banner for photos – and now, as the singing stopped, the mood felt flat but confident too.

   Manda said her goodbyes as the group broke up. Feeling the superglue in her pocket she wondered if she’d need it anytime soon, and whether next year when the movement spread all over the world there’d be a global shortage. Libby would be appalled but when it felt right, she’d do it for Rob, and the grandchildren she’d probably never have.

   “Gem would have told us. Forget it, Libby. It’s a wild goose chase.”

   “What kind of grandma doesn’t want to find her grandchild?”

   She looked at her watch. She used to be mad about Leo when she was sixteen, and not just to annoy her parents. They’d lasted until he went to university a year ahead of her, which made the relationship long and, given the sex they managed mostly in his car, grown-up.

   She imagined Farah telling her to be careful, found her bearings and set off for the café.

*

Hello Gem this is Pru on the worldwide web! I promise not to be a nuisance though and bombard you. Mia set all this up and taught me basics. She says hi. No news really but I follow what’s happening in the world and it’s very exciting. Change gonna come like Sam Cooke sang. Will you be protesting at the BBC who really should know better? You can email me pictures of Skye now, with attachments. I am fine and as Enid says, hell on wheels.

Pru x

*

James felt uneasy. If the crisis was as huge as the activists said – and Attenborough, and the Secretary General of the UN, and the scientists of course – then why wasn’t it everywhere, dominating all media all day all over the world? Why were the Tories talking Brexit, which was a disaster in itself but hardly on the same scale? No mention of climate change in the latest budget, never mind breakdown or emergency.

   Then again, hadn’t people always thought the end of the world was nigh? Simple folk, religious nuts, but not scientists, perhaps, with access to the most sophisticated technology. He couldn’t understand why he’d ignored Manda for so many years, or humoured her by taking the line of least resistance, when he could have found out for himself. He supposed that would be because he was busy at work (which he no longer wished to be) and because he was used to Manda’s passions, which were once more attractive and became more wearing. Because he liked travelling the world, and cars, and steak – but no more, apparently, than the world leaders at COP24. Which seemed rather hopeless.

   He used to have a head for science. Perhaps he should read the IPCC report.

*

Libby was feeling Christmassy now, and there were parties ahead, and drinks, and dinners, and she’d told Dad what she wanted, sending links. So it would be a slimmer’s milk shake for breakfast and lunch in between. Looking at the small pink can in her bag made her long for a MacDonald’s.

   She turned on her phone and found Bee sounding excited.

   Lib, what would you say to a weekend in Vienna for the Christmas market? Gluhwein by the bucket?

   Libby checked the dates, grinned and replied: Yeah baby! Book it. Bargain. It would be great for Christmas shopping by day and then they could drink the nights away. Manda would never need to know. After all she said she didn’t want a present.

*

Gem showed Nick the latest pictures of Skye, and filled him in on the kind of details only mothers usually asked, about birth weight and milestones like crawling.

   “There were nine days between…” She didn’t want to spell that out. “You and Rob. So the birth date doesn’t make it conclusive because she was a few days early. But if you want a paternity test…”

   “I don’t need that.” He touched her hand in the centre of the table, between their coffee cups.

   Gem stared. “You just want to be…”

   “In her life.”

   “She’d like that.”

   Gem thought she’d like it too. “Do you think it’s wrong to have children, knowing what we know? Because her generation will inherit…” Her voice cracked. “Chaos. I don’t want to think about it, but…”

   “It drives you.”

   “Yes. How can it not? But what if it’s too late?”

   “You love her. And you’re doing all you can.”

   “I want to…”

  Nick took her hand in both of his. “So do I.”

If you’ve enjoyed FOR LIFE, why not join the Global Rebellion from Monday 15th April?

Twelve: November 2018

It had been fun on Waterloo Bridge, a kind of party. But this was different and Gem told herself she should have known. And worn more layers. This strategy was meant to be swarming but that sounded warmer and wilder.

   Banner first to block the road, they filed across. The guy with the old-fashioned kind of tannoy began to explain, “We are sorry to hold you up. We won’t be here long. We are Extinction Rebellion and we are here because this is an emergency. The IPCC report says we have twelve years left to make radical changes or…”

   Gem had been asked to take flyers to the drivers they were delaying – not a role she would have volunteered for – but they weren’t winding down their windscreens. Most looked fiercely ahead, deleting her. Some shouted – and some got out of their vehicles to gesticulate, swear and yell. Just about all of them kept their engines running, as if poisoning protestors was an act of revenge.

   No, she told herself. Not sides. Not enemies, however hostile. Something of God in everyone. No one was beyond reach. And most of these people simply didn’t understand what was at risk

   “We’re sorry to inconvenience you,” she began, to a guy who’d wound his window down.

   “Then fuck off!”

   “Our leaders have left us no choice,” she continued as he wound up again as fast as he could, his face twisted. “Petitions are not going to save us. We face an existential threat.”

   Gem walked on down to the next vehicle, and the next. Along with the flyers, she was carrying home-baked vegan cookies, but no one seemed to be hungry. Outside a white van ahead a guy stood far from still, his arms in the air. He jerked a fist towards her as she approached.

   “What the fuck are you doing, you wankers?”

   She began, trying to make eye contact, her voice low and reasonable. A mother’s voice, explaining. He interrupted but she didn’t stop. Then she used the phrase climate change.

   “Oh!” He lowered his arms. “This is about climate change!”

   “Yes… it’s a crisis we are facing….”

   His shoulders dropped and he saw her now. “Right, yeah. I know.” He leaned in towards the two guys in his van. “Climate change,” he said.

   “Ah, OK.”

   “Good on you, love.”

   Gem offered the tub of cookies and all three of them took one. There were smiles now. “Thanks, love,” they said, and one gave a thumbs up at the first mouthful. She could have hugged all three of them. 

   All around her, horns were honking. She walked back to the crossing and sat down on the ground, picking up the placard she’d left there. She mustn’t look at her watch and wish it all over, because it had to be done if London was going to be gridlocked, if a headline or two was to be made, and the politicians were going to wake up.

   “Let’s go,” called the guy in charge.

   They withdrew, huddled and waited for the next blockade, watched by police officers. Soon they’d step out again.

   “You all right?” asked a student who’d come down to London from York to swarm for three days. “Do you want to give me the flyers for the next one?”

   “I’ll keep going a bit,” she said, trying not to shiver. “Thanks.”

   “You’re frozen! Want some coffee?” asked an older woman called Liz who’d brought a flask, but Gem declined. “What time have you got to be at work?”

   “I said I’d be in by ten thirty.” Gem would make up the hours at home once Skye was asleep, and no one would disapprove exactly, but at the same time, it was harder to justify than holding the bridges on a Saturday afternoon because this was rush hour and ordinary people were stressed. But she told the others the story of the guys in the van because it made a difference. People cheered and the student gave her a high five.

   Time ran out so fast. The lights changed and they moved into the road again.

*

Someone in Libby’s office was an hour late. Hearing about the climate hippies blocking one of the busiest roads into the centre of London, Libby shook her head, rolled her eyes and hoped her mother wasn’t one of them.

   “Tell me about your childhood,” the counsellor had said. Predictably.

   “I was happy. I think I was. Kids are, right?”

   “Not necessarily. What made you happy? Did your brother make you happy?”

   “He didn’t make me unhappy. He was nice. But he was the favourite. Mum’s favourite anyway.”

   So it was about Rob again. He was still centre stage. She didn’t know how anyone talked about their childhood in any detail without photos as prompts. That Libby Craig who loved Busted didn’t feel like her, so how could she know how she felt? She wasn’t sure she’d bother to go back for a second session. The woman was so composed it made Libby feel a mess and she wasn’t. She had a good job and a healthy bank account. Her hair and figure were both… good. There were too many people trying to undermine everything, like these idiots sitting in the road, making life hard for ordinary people trying to get to work – and the counsellor was the same. She wanted her to dig up something really bad and admit she was damaged. But she wasn’t. She was doing fine and if only people would leave her alone she’d do better.

   “What would you say if I told you the majority of people who have siblings believe that they were their parents’ favourite?”

   “I’d say I don’t suppose their siblings are all dead.”

   “What would you say to Rob if he walked into the room now?”

   “Rob was a saint, not Jesus… Sorry. I’d say… I don’t know. I’d say,” She wasn’t expecting her voice to crack like that. “I missed you.”

   Her mother would probably think the money was well spent if it made her cry. Now, looking out of the office window as if she might see London at a standstill, Libby would tell Rob something else. “I wanted to BE you.”

   That was her jealousy – not of his politics but his freedom to be himself, to be heard, to be whole, and a fit. To be enough.

*

It couldn’t really be getting colder. Gem was sitting in the road, one hand holding a placard. Someone had said the traffic was backed up for miles. It wasn’t surprising that the drivers were more abusive. Her body stiff and her lips numb, she tried to screen out the noise, the fumes, the tension. All she had to do was find the place she arrived at on Sundays at Meeting, the place where only truth mattered, and beauty. Where peace filled the inside of everything until the world seemed held in it. I’m sorry my friends, I didn’t mean to trouble you… when you were having such a hard time… The movement’s anthem had been haunting her.

   “We act out of love,” said the guy with the tannoy.

   There’d been a motorcyclist at the last blockade who’d removed his helmet and shaken out long, glossy hair. “Bless you,” he said. So like Nick. She’d wondered whether he’d be here to film but the only footage was being transmitted live from people’s phones. Sooner or later, she’d be bound to see him again, wouldn’t she, if he cared enough to join the rebellion as well as document it on film?

   “Get a fucking job!” she heard from one passer-by. But another came across the road to join them, and was embraced. She’d feel less guilty now, when she had to leave. But when they cleared the road again, a coffee break was agreed, and they all headed for the nearest café, shedding the police officers who moved off in another direction. Gem bought a coffee and sat quietly, while the others chatted, reporting on the other road blocks and making introductions. Sometimes she’d rather message someone she loved.

   How are you doing Pru? x

   Oh not too bad dear. Better for hearing from you.

   I’m sitting in the road this morning with Extinction Rebellion and it’s pretty tough but not as tough as you! x

   Hero! But yes I can imagine. You take care of yourself. Skye needs you.

   When do you go home? Have the doctors said? X

   Well they don’t seem sure I can manage on my own but I will get help an hour or two a day and I’ll be fine. I can’t give up my freedom just yet.

   Don’t! Resist. x

   “Have you thawed out?” one of the older guys asked. Answering, Gem found her lips were mobile again. She sent love to Pru and put her phone in her pocket.

   They returned to the traffic in an even busier spot, only this time with no police escort. As Gem moved towards the island on her left, a large black saloon kept moving too, the wing mirror brushing her as it passed – but stopped when Liz stepped in front of it. Within seconds guys were out of their vehicles and marching towards them. Someone was shoved. The guy on the tannoy appealed for calm and reminded drivers that the protest was peaceful. A short middle-aged man in a woolly hat stride towards Gem and picked her up. All right, she thought, remaining still and silent until he deposited her at the side of the road, muttering, “Sorry love,” so quietly that she wondered whether she’d imagined it. Now the police were back and drivers argued but were sent back to their vehicles. One officer had words with saloon man.

   “I never thought I’d feel grateful for police protection!” Liz told her as she sat down again. “When it comes to the arms trade they protect the dealers, not the protestors. Are you all right?”

   Gem was fine. Years back she would have struggled, sworn. Rob had changed her, before and after he died. And now she lived up to her badge, Quakers for Peace – or tried, anyway. But perhaps, looking at the time, she’d make this her last blockade. She wouldn’t be sorry to stop. For the last time she tried to find that peace again, and remembered that phrase someone had quoted in Meeting on Sunday, so full of meaning it moved her, all of her: Put the centre of yourself outside.

   Seven minutes up. Walking away with the others she saw a tall guy with hair caught by the cold wind, approaching them. Approaching her. No camera, just Nick.

   “Gem,” he said, puffed. “I saw you on Twitter.”

   “I’m going to work now, Nick.”

   “On the tube? Can I come with you?”

   “O.K.,” she said.

Chapter 13 will be posted on Friday 5th April at 5:30 UK time.

Eleven: November 2018

James realised he was nervous, which seemed amusing in its way. There’d been no actual dates with Leanne at the rock choir – just kisses in her car, or his, after a quick drink when rehearsal ended. Fumblings. And some talk too, the first two Tuesday evenings, because Leanne was so sad about Rob, so patiently sympathetic it made her tender. Not enough to end a healthy marriage, but when it came to relationships, health could be a subjective thing, no tests available. He imagined it would be different with Tanya, although what it would turn out to be was very much an open question. Maybe just a coffee and debrief after they’d been around the exhibition? Oceania at the RA was her choice but he’d been enthusiastic; he liked not really knowing what it would offer – although he’d like to know what she’d understood from his briefest of emails, because he’d hardly been open about his hopes and yes, a good few dreams.

   Remembering Manda’s news that she’d ended her own relationship, almost before his source informed him it was happening, he couldn’t be sure how Libby would react if he began something with Tanya. Manda had a theory that their daughter’s development towards maturity had been stunted by grief and she was stuck at a flammable nineteen. But as far as James could see, everyone was still a kid at twenty-two; it was just that no one admitted it until they were heading for fifty. Manda’s family lunch had been about as relaxing as a cross-country run through sleet at boarding school.

   “So if you’ve finished with this Adam guy you’ll have time for me now?”

   “I always had time for you, love.” Manda passed her the salad.

   “Between the café and trying to get arrested in your time off?”

   “We all need to talk more. We’re still a family. And that includes Rob – in the sense that he’s still part of us and always will be.”

   “He’s gone, Mum! Get hold of it! I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about me. And you, and Dad, and… stuff! Like life!”

   It would have been funny, given Libby’s reluctance to talk about anything much at all, except the on-off feud with Bee that – like Brexit – he’d stopped trying to follow.

   “Your dad agrees that it would be worth investigating counsellors.”  

   Libby turned accusingly to him. Thanks, Manda. “Well yes, if you feel ready, sweetheart.”

   Clearly she hated it when they agreed about something for her supposed benefit.

   “I don’t, thanks.”

   Libby had perfect theatrical timing in these situations. Manda seemed to think progress had been made by the time they’d finished what was a surprisingly splendid vegan meal, but he couldn’t really see how or where. They were a family made to be four, not three. Rob had changed the dynamics; it was a fact. He was the superglue son, binding the three of them together for all their tugging. In fact, James understood the climate activists were using superglue now, in this rebellion Manda had embraced. Doubtless she’d stick herself somewhere soon; it made his skin creep to imagine it.

   He was meant to be meeting Tanya outside which wasn’t the best idea given the recent drop in temperature. Reliving his astonishment when she called him back after he left a message with Nick, he wondered what colour her hair was now, what she’d be wearing. And expecting. He didn’t even know her age.

   It was foolish to be so early, he thought as he arrived in the courtyard and saw what seemed to be the house from Psycho parked there in a Tate Modern sort of way. He’d better not make any derogatory remarks about modern art to Tanya or he’d be showing more than his age. His conservatism, as Manda put it. “You’re part of the Establishment, James, and it’s not done humanity much good.” Since he didn’t ask his parents to send him to private school, or ask for the salary he commanded, it didn’t seem entirely fair – especially as these days he suspected his partners considered him something of a snowflake.

   He ran a comb through his hair, aware that it was still good and that Libby was glad she’d inherited it, given the wild alternative Manda passed on to Rob.

   “It’s fine,” he heard.

   Tanya was behind him, and her own hair was vivid blue. Her tights were purple and her coat a kind of patterned artwork in itself. Her shiny Doc Martens looked too big for someone her height. The exuberance of it all made him smile.

   “Tanya! You caught me, banged to rights.” They exchanged cheek kisses, double. “Tell me about this exhibition.”

   “Oh, the captions will do that, and they’ll have audio to tell you all you need to know.”

   But headphones, he thought, would exclude the person he wanted to know, and block the space between them. They walked inside to join the queue.

*

Manda was surprised, during her late lunchbreak, to see a message from Nick Gorski asking her to call him.

   “Ah, Manda, thanks for getting back to me.”

   She expressed curiosity and asked what she could do for him.

   “It’s… um… a bit awkward. I got tipped off by a guy I know, an editor on one of the less enlightened broadsheets. He’s a mate, what can I say? So he knew I edited the film about Rob…” Manda waited. “There’s someone touting an inside story about you and climate activism. Not much of a story. My mate thinks he’s quite sad, you know? But he claims he’s been… in a relationship with you, and you’re a reckless revolutionary.”

   Manda’s throat made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Adam Browne.”

   “No, that wasn’t it. Maybe he’s using another name. Been watching too many spy movies. Anyway, my mate sent him packing but the tabloids might not be so picky so he thought…”

   “I should be pickier myself, about who I sleep with.” She knew she sounded calmer than she felt. There was something ridiculous about it, about her. It was a truth she could have understood if she’d been woke as the kids of America seemed to say now. And it wasn’t a death.

   “It’s a shitty, creepy thing to do.”

   “So he’s not a teacher?”

   “A writer, he calls himself. Ex-cop, he claims, but that might be fiction too. I’m sorry.”

   “I should know better at my age. And stupidly, part of me did.” She thanked Nick and said she must get back to work.

   “Don’t let him stop you. The rebellion… it’s necessary.”

   Surprised, she told him it wouldn’t, and yes, she knew. So Nick was back on track and that, at least, was something to celebrate. Now, though, she needed a shower. She must wash her hair. But she couldn’t clean inside, where he’d been, where she’d let him into her world, her beliefs, her grief, and he’d ransacked it all for what he could sell.

*

James had had no idea. Ten thousand islands on the map around the wall! Impatient to explore the artworks he could see ahead in the next room, James would happily have skipped the poem delivered on film by an earnest young woman from the Marshall Islands who was labelled a climate change activist. I lived with one of those, he could have told Tanya with a smile that was wry and worn.

   “Did you hear?” Manda had announced rather than asked on Sunday. “An island has just gone under!  East Island in the French Frigate Shoals, washed away by hurricane Walaka .”

   He looked back to the cascading textile tsunami that fell to the floor and dominated the octagonal hall, and supposed that it wasn’t simply beautiful, but a warning. Was that the message here – not art but politics?  

   “Tell them about the water,” Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner said, “how we have seen it rising flooding across our cemeteries gushing over the sea walls and crashing against our homes. Tell them what it’s like to see the entire ocean level with the land.”

   Tanya seemed rapt. He might as well not be there. As the film finished ready to begin again, she sighed.

   “Shit,” she said. “This is real, isn’t it?”

   “The artworks look wonderful,” he said, playing dumb really. “I had a Ladybird book about Captain Cook when I was seven or eight but I suppose he’ll be the villain here.”

   “I’m more worried about the future than the past,” Tanya said.

   James had read that the two hundred works, small and huge, illustrated five hundred years of history. “But what a past!” he cried.

   There was a soul canoe presumably rowing to the afterlife, and many paddles that looked too heavy to lift. A Tahitian mourner’s costume that looked too heavy to wear. Something seven metres long that reminded him of his university rowing days but turned out to be a ceremonial feast bowl from the Solomon Islands. Some of the ornaments were made of shell, some greenstone and some ceramics. Tanya seemed fascinated, studying the captions and moving slowly and rather independently. He felt surplus to requirements.

   “Am I the only person here who knew nothing about all this?” he asked her as she looked at him and smiled, as if remembering his existence.

   “I thought this was your area?”

   Had he given that impression? “Well, not really, but it’s good to learn.”

   “I don’t know much about anything,” she said. “But my great grandmother was Tahitian, and ended up in California.”

   James looked at her afresh and in spite of the colours he thought he could see something he might have called exotic. “Ah,” he said. “I understand. It’s personal.” With women it seemed things always were.

   “I’d like to go, but when you hear that poet… this is serious, isn’t it? Do you think we really should be flying around the world?”

   “It’s your heritage.” He imagined going with her to Tahiti. “I think you’re entitled…”

   “Yeah, but entitlement, you know? Isn’t that the cause of the trouble we’re in?”

   They moved into the next room, where some of the god images were tall and pretty ferocious.

   “I like this one,” said Tanya.

   The wooden figure of the Tahitian god Ti’i was smaller. He had two heads cocked at right angles from his fat little body and was frankly gruesome but when James suggested as much with a pulled face, she told him, “He’s serene though!” She said she wished she knew whether Ti’i would mean anything at all to her great grandmother. “I mean, I don’t know jack shit about archbishops or saints, but this was really part of people’s lives.”

   She admired the Hawaian god Ku with his mother of pear eyes and razor-sharp teeth – a gift to Cook when he first arrived. “That must have scared the shit out of him. But what a gift! I mean, this was generous and respectful.”

   James wasn’t sure he could buy into the paradise defiled narrative. Life wasn’t usually as black and white as that, and these people weren’t all love and peace. No one was, in spite of Manda’s dreams. They came to some drawings by a Tahitian priest who joined the Endeavour and Tanya said she hoped Cook and crew gave him celebrity treatment.

   “Meghan came to open this exhibition,” she told him. “I like her. A feminist of colour, right? Did you see the wedding?”

   Since he hadn’t, James feared he was disappointing her at every turn, but he hadn’t expected her to be a royalist. Shouldn’t that be him?

   “I hope she stops Harry hunting,” she murmured, bending to look closely at some cloth, and James decided there was no need to mention that he used to ride with the hounds, like his father, until he met Manda at university. “And she’s gorgeous too.”

   James didn’t disagree, although personally he found Tanya more attractive. Her purple legs were very distracting. When they reached the panoramic video that shamed Cook and co, she sat on the floor to watch, and soon muttered, “The world’s so unfair. White men have done so much damage.”

   Although this was hard to dispute, she did seem to be putting a negative spin on a stunning exhibition.

   “Have there been no good white men in your life?” he asked with a smile, wishing he’d kept up his RA membership so he could take her to the lounge. “Or good men, full stop? Because that seems hard to believe.”

   At that she stood, with more speed and ease than he could manage. Had he said the wrong thing?

   “I was giving you a clue with Meghan, in case. I thought you were excited about this exhibition too but it’s not a date. I’m thirty-six. Plus I’m a lesbian, James.”

   He hoped his smile wasn’t awkward. “Cool.”

   He could say he’d like to be friends while privately blaming Nick Gorski for passing her contact details over without as much as a hint. He could pretend he’d only wanted her to film something for the practice, and then say the other partners overruled. And he would very much like to advise everyone around them who had presumably heard her less-than-muted speech to focus on Captain Cook.

Chapter 11 will be posted on Friday 29th March at 5:30 UK time.

Ten: October 31^st 2018

Gem’s wasn’t the only buggy and Skye wasn’t the youngest member of the crowd. Parliament Square was colourful already. Some of the home-made banners were arty; others were simple, their messages penned or painted on cardboard cut from a box. She moved closer to the lavender beds by the low wall, and the space where the PA indicated the speakers would be.

   A woman with a pile of cloth cuts was offering her a bright green rectangle printed with the Extinction Rebellion logo, complete with safety pin. She nodded towards Gem’s forehead, where she’d recreated the same symbol with an old kohl pencil she never used on her eyes anymore.

   “Like it!”

   Gem smiled and attached the badge, which hung like a medieval favour from her jacket. The woman winked at Skye, crouched down and pinned a turquoise piece to her favourite red coat. Then she carried on working the crowd, while a couple of others sitting on the wall cut more cloth into sections.

   A white-haired woman beside her asked Skye’s name and said her name was Gaynor. Chatting, they agreed the numbers were going to be impressive. A man weaving through gave them both a handout that said Declaration of Rebellion.

   “Have you seen this?” asked Gaynor. “I wept my way from beginning to end. I’ve been waiting for this for twenty years.”

   Gem hadn’t read it yet and couldn’t without her glasses, which she’d left at home. “It looks inspiring,” she said.

   “Talking of inspiring…”

   Gaynor nodded towards a girl in plaits standing close to them with a long-haired man who was obviously her father.

   “Greta Thunberg!” Gem felt a frisson.

   “I’m star-struck,” Gaynor admitted.

   The girl, who was diminutive, looked serious. Gem had read that she’d travelled from Sweden without air miles. With her father she made way towards the ‘stage’, where a few faces Gem also recognised greeted her with enthusiasm.

   “By next year there will be school strikes all over the world,” Gem told Gaynor. Then she grinned wryly. “I’m not always so positive but I try to be, for Skye.”

   “I have grandchildren,” said Gaynor. “So ditto. And it’s my generation that messed up.”

   Gem found Skye’s cup. The sun was growing warm; she removed the woolly hat she’d pulled onto her daughter’s curls. Meanwhile Gaynor had been greeted by a group her age; much embracing began. Gem pushed the buggy a little closer to what would be the action and found herself hailed by Enid, who’d stayed in London overnight but said a coach was on its way from Blackpool. Gem felt touched to be remembered.

   “How’s Pru?” she asked. “She says she’s doing fine but I’m not sure that’s exactly true.”

   Enid agreed. “She’s home but she’ll need help now and you know how independent she is. We miss her at the gate.”

   Gem almost said she missed her too but it would sound implausible, soft. As an outsider she didn’t like to make that kind of claim. Enid said hello to Skye, made her smile and hurried away in search of someone from a past life.

   When Gem had booked her day off a couple of the others in the office had said they’d do the same, but she hadn’t spotted them yet. Working for a charity like hers meant she didn’t need to have the kind of conversation she found hard to begin. Here she was among friends and that felt comfortable, even to someone who mostly liked to keep a distance. “I can’t do parties,” she’d told Rob. He didn’t notice the difference, being equally and quietly at ease with one person or forty. She envied him, but more than that she liked the way he didn’t change, or even modify. He had one voice, one vocabulary and one self for all contexts. It made him seem strong as well as true. And he didn’t override her like other guys she’d known, as if her feelings were silly, a weakness or flaw. He listened, and that helped her know herself.

   There were lots of film cameras around. The closest to Gem, with a clear view of the speakers, was a sleek guy so tall that she had to move or see nothing. The woman with him had magenta hair and peace earrings: a style Gem would choose if she valued style, or had a hope of achieving it.  There were plenty of police about; they’d been informed. Maybe they’d be calling for back-up now the crowd in the square was so dense. Civil disobedience was the plan but she didn’t know exactly what form that would take, or how long Skye would stay happy.

   She crouched down and asked, “Do you want to climb to the mountain top?”

Skye was definitely up for that and reached her arms up high. Gem was unstrapping her and lifting her onto her shoulders when one of the faces she’d recognised took the microphone. He was eloquent and emotional.  The mood he created was silent, and intensified. This was humanity’s darkest hour. He cited the loss of 60% of the world’s species in his lifetime. Gem had grown up fighting tears but this was different; they were necessary, appropriate. Around her she saw the same response on other faces and she felt a kind of awe.

   Could Skye tell, up there? Did she feel the urgency as well as the mourning? She was quiet, her body still. What if no one could protect her?

   Applauded and spent, the speaker made way for others and sat, body and soul overwhelmed, on the wall. There were politicians, Green and red; a TV presenter Gem had always liked for not being girlie; speakers from different cultures at imminent risk.

   When she clapped, Skye clapped too, and wobbled. Then Greta was introduced to loud applause. She began, clear and direct. When she was eight she’d learned about climate change and couldn’t understand why adults weren’t talking about it all day every day on her TV, in school and all around her. Why the governments weren’t acting to ensure a future for people on earth. And the crowd echoed her sentences, clause by clause.

   There was a point when Gem glimpsed Manda Craig, just long enough to be sure she hadn’t been spotted herself. Then someone squeezed through, past Gem, and by the time her view settled Manda had moved, or someone taller had shifted in front of her. Gem wondered why a kind of panic undermined things, important things she wanted to give herself to, and not just in the moment. She couldn’t lose focus; that would be personal turned petty. But she’d set the film aside and held no grudge. Manda loved Rob too.

   Now Skye wanted to come down. Clipping her into the buggy, Gem passed her a sandwich that for a moment she didn’t take. Skye was occupied, making eye contact with another child, a couple of years older and free standing. He was running around his father’s legs, using them as a slalom course. Skye was enthralled and the boy was putting on a show but Gem didn’t want to miss a word of this speech. Some of the clauses were so long and complex that repetition by chorus was a challenge, but she needed to get them right.

   The tall guy turned his camera a moment to capture the reaction of the cheering crowd as Greta ended her speech. Gem saw his face – or part of it – before he left her staring at his well-groomed hair. After three years and two months, it was Nick Gorski.

   Gem told herself he hadn’t seen her. It was about scale and panorama, not individuals. He was at work. She was probably more forgettable than she realised. Motherhood had rounded a few spikes deep down and sometimes she thought it showed. What she needed was that Quaker space where peace and stillness held. 

   “Come on,” she told Skye, who was draining her cup. “Let’s go to the station for a wee.”

*

Everyone was singing as they moved into the road between Parliament and the square like a slow wave on a shore:

   “If you want to know where the power lies, turn and look into each other’s eyes.”

   Manda looked again and again, from face to face. Eyes looked back, reflecting the same spirit. Of sadness, yes, and a rebellion, but also love. She felt exhilarated. Assuming Adam was at her shoulder, she was about to sit down on the tarmac in front of the halted traffic when she lost him. Then, sitting anyway while the chant continued, she found him again, and saw on his face something other, something less. He wasn’t part of this, not really. The song wasn’t inside him. He’d joined in the Declaration of Rebellion, with its demands of the government, like a guy who’d ended up at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, not knowing the form, the words or tunes but trapped by embarrassment. Now with a yard’s distance she saw that he would rather not be here.

   He sat down too, awkwardly, as if concerned about the cost of dry cleaning his coat. The road was blocked by a thousand people, maybe two. She looked up at the cocooned tower where Big Ben should be, at the men at work on the scaffolding and the blue sky beyond them. Such a beautiful day.

   Someone was talking to the female driver of the nearest vehicle. Then he shouted, “There’s a new-born baby in the car.” Everyone stood and backed away just long enough to let the baby’s mother drive through with a smile and a wave, then filled the space again.

   “Are you OK?” Manda asked Adam. For someone who wasn’t comfortable he was taking a lot of photos.

   “Sure.” He straightened his coat underneath him. “What happens now?”

   “More speeches? More singing?” she guessed. “More cake?”

   It was the first time he’d refused her baking. But he couldn’t spoil this. As Caroline Lucas arrived from the Commons, Manda stood to whoop. A young Muslim woman sang a prayer in Arabic; a Catholic priest offered another. Every time police officers warned, “You’re obstructing the highway. I’ll have to ask you to move,” there was a chorus of “Shh.”

   A haunting tune with the chorus, This is an emergency, was delivered by a young woman who must sing professionally, her voice clear, pure and strong. From time to time someone thanked the police, invited them to join the rebellion and asked the crowd to show with raised hands whether they wanted to stay in the road another half hour. Each time Manda was part of the consensus to stay; Adam wasn’t.

    She leaned in as if to rest her head on his shoulder, but turned towards him.

   “I’m sorry my friend,” she sang, not very well, “I didn’t mean to trouble you… But this is an emergency.” She grimaced at the way the tune had derailed.

   Adam nodded, his mouth in a firm line. “This is cloud cuckoo land. Religious fervour meets political fantasy.”

   “Our connection to the earth and all living things is spiritual – how can it be anything else? And no one’s playing politics except the mob over the road!”    

   She nodded towards the heavily policed building and remembered the time she’d got in to lobby her MP, had to turn her T-shirt inside out because of the slogan, and shuddered at the machine guns. That was before she spoke to him and found no connection at all with that particular living thing.

   “They won’t change because people sit in a road.”

   “The demands have to be met or it’s over. So no point pussy footing around at the edges. Only radical will do. This is just the start, Adam!”

   He smiled. “I’d like to see you pussy foot.”

   Manda rolled her eyes, rather like Libby did with her. “Why are you here? Are you serious about anything except your GCSE targets?”

   “I’m serious about you.”

   “Then leave me to drink this in, OK?”

   “We agreed to leave at two. You know I have work to do…”

   “You go. I’ll call you later and tell you what you missed.”

   She saw him consider before kissing her cheek; he was warm and damp. “Don’t be angry with me. I have some catching up to do, that’s all.”

   She said she understood, and waved when he looked back and found her in the crowd where she belonged.

   “You’ve been shagging some guy! On a Saturday morning!” Manda had no idea how Libby knew, until she remembered the state of the bed after Libby had gone up to the bathroom. And his toothbrush!  “I’ll get used to it. To a new mother. But don’t shove my face in it. I don’t do that to you.” She was defiant but reasonable, mother to child. And guilty. And now she wondered what any of it was for.

   But it hardly mattered. She was here, with or without him, and it was happening at last, because it had to, and the cops could arrest her whenever they liked because this was unstoppable.

*

“Gem?”

 Somehow Nick had found her, and just when she was leaving. After an unexpectedly long nap, Skye was awake and dismayed.

   “I thought you were filming?”

   “I have an assistant. She’s finishing off. There are lock-ons now.”

   “I heard.”

   “The first arrests of the rebellion I guess.” Nick looked down at Skye, who didn’t smile. “Who’s this? Introductions please.”

   “Skye. She’s had enough. I need to take her home.”

   Nick talked to Skye, and somehow made her grin. He straightened up. “Her father isn’t here? Gem, is Rob…?”

   “I don’t talk about her father, not to anyone. She’s not the only child in the country being raised by a single mum and we do all right.”

    He held up a hand. “Sure. I can see that.”

   “I didn’t mean to be…”

   “Fierce?” He grinned. “You were defensive. It’s not my business. But it’s a lovely surprise to see you here – where Rob would be.”

   Gem heard a hymn, thin behind them. Gem thought about telling him she was a Quaker now but held back. Rob would have understood what that meant but Nick was always different, some way behind. She used to think what united them was good humour. Not the imbalance between Rob’s passion and Nick’s willingness to back him up, without details or certainty.

   His humour did seem good, better than hers could be. As if he really was happy to see her. But she couldn’t deal with him and his pretty face and advert-worthy hair, his long legs and boy band boots. He looked too successful. He was everything Rob would never have been.

   “Let me buy you coffee. A treat for Skye. Don’t say no.”

   “You’re working…”

   “I get a break. Boss’s perks. Tanya can join us if she packs up.”

   He was on his phone, messaging fast while Gem talked to Skye, sounding out her tolerance, doubting her own. Except that part of her was curious. And part of her was unsure how to feel. Three years. There were memories she’d shelved under Do Not Access and here he was, all joie de vivre and zero complications, no clue.

   They walked past Gandhi at the back of the square. Pick of the crop, she thought, but kept silent.

   “I know a coffee shop that’s close but unlikely to be heaving with other rebels.”

   “So that’s what you are?” she checked as he led the way across the road and she rebuffed his offer to push the buggy.  

   “A rebel?” asked Nick. “Two star, one – if Rob was five.”

   She supposed he thought his honesty was endearing. “This is your job, filming protests?”

   “Not really. I do commercial stuff for money. The enlightened press will be interested in this.”

   Gem said she wasn’t aware of any enlightened press but supposed everything was relative and the BBC had to be woken fast. He let it go. Or lost it in the traffic.

   “Bus!” she cried for Skye, and told him she loved them. “Not tubes, though. She scowls at the tunnel when the darkness starts to shake. And when they arrive and stop she looks at me as if to check they’re safe.” The adjective seemed so sad; she thought he felt its power.

   He asked about her own work, and seemed to approve although it meant nothing to him.

   “With charities, small is good,” she told him. “Agile is the word, although I hate that business talk.”

   “I bet Skye’s pretty agile now? Climbing? Into everything? Past the stage of putting everything in her mouth, though, right?”

   “Yeah.”

   Maybe her look asked how he knew. He said he had a nephew now, a little younger than Skye, and talked animatedly: how affectionate he was, how funny. If he’d been trying to prove how nice he was he couldn’t have done a lot better. But she remembered that anyway.

   “Gem,” he said at the funeral, touching her bare arm and looking at her empty glass. “I’ll get you another. No one should have to do this sober.”

   But she was, and she wanted to hold on to the clarity. Nothing blurred or smooth. Nothing lost. Not now she was clean and everything was fresh again, as grief should be – like air at the top of a mountain, so rich and full-bodied it was hard to stand.

   “Manda’s on the edge,” he said, returning with a large glass. “And James is being affable enough for two. Libby’s pissed and a bit hostile. I don’t blame any of them. There’s no way to be right now.”

   Gem didn’t argue. He sat next to her at the side of the dining room where the table held the remains of the buffet. Some guests had left. Most were in the lounge where photos of Rob filled one wall she needed to ignore however it compelled her. She didn’t have the right, the history. Whether she featured – a last minute extra – or not.

   “We’re allowed to be gutted too,” he said. “We’re eligible.” He said they appeared in one photo each. “He loved you.”

   He’d loved Nick too but she hadn’t said, because the words were no use. She couldn’t find a way to make them real.

   Now, the focus was on walking the busy pavement. Gem had hated the way the air tasted since she’d seen the data: one of the most polluted cities in Europe and no progress made. They were past Westminster Abbey, where tourists gathered, queued, took photos, but it was Westminster Hall Nick pointed out on the right.

   “Mum’s a Methodist. She bought me lunch in the café a while back. Dad’s an atheist – been to church once since they met, for their wedding.”

   The café was down in the basement. In the lift the sudden quiet felt like pressure to speak. Not that Nick needed prompting. He was down on his haunches again, amusing Skye by speaking for her hedgehog in a dialogue.

   “Good hedgehog,” he said, tried to stroke him and yelped. Skye chortled.

   Upright again as they exited into the café, he asked, “Did you see the film before Manda pulled it?”

   Gem nodded.

   “I edited it but I didn’t interfere. She knew what she wanted. I couldn’t really say no.”

   Gem knew she must be frowning. She had no idea he was still in touch with Manda. And no was what she should have said herself, thee years back.

   “Stoke Spike!” cried Skye.

   “I’m sorry if it… upset you, Gem.”

   “I’ve been trying to heal.”

   “I know. I mean, of course you have.”

   “You have to swear you won’t say a word to Manda about Skye – or me. I mean it, Nick.”

   “Sure, sure! You can trust me, swear to God.”

   They’d reached the front of the queue now and he asked what they wanted.

   “Stoke Spike!” cried Skye.

    Nick stroked the toy and looked up at Gem. She stared at the counter, the menu, and then Nick. His bright, open face: a blank canvas.

   “We need to get back, Nick, really. I’m sorry.” She began to turn the buggy round. “Don’t try to persuade me.”

   “All right…” He followed as she pushed a complaining Skye towards the door. Gem was angry now, with herself, for being weak all over again.

   “Here’s my card,” he told her. Gem took it, tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans. “You don’t have one?”

   “Not on me.”

   “You won’t give me your number?”

   The lift arrived. The door opened. “I can’t. Sorry.”

   As she pushed Skye into the lift she kept her eyes ahead, her body stiffening inside at the thought of his body tall behind her. The door closed, and she turned. He’d let her go. But she hadn’t wanted to feel like this.

   “It’s all right, sweetie,” she said, stroking Skye’s hot hair. We’re going home.”

*

Manda had turned off her phone. Switching on she found three messages from Adam.

   You’re angry with me. I’m sorry for whatever I did. Remember I’m new to all this. Give me a chance. X

   Are we still on for Sunday at the café? I’m worried I’ve blown it. I want to make it up to you. And come with you next time and keep my reservations to myself. I didn’t mean to spoil anything. X

   Speak to me, Manda. I can’t work for worrying. X

   It wasn’t his fault. He never pretended more than interest. He was just a passenger, an observer, his phone capturing things he didn’t feel. And she’d snatched at something convention declared she needed when she should have been rebuilding with Libby instead.

   It’s me who should be sorry, she told him. I’ll explain on Sunday. See you then. X

   She left a recorded message inviting Libby to supper on Sunday. Six o’clock, after she’d ended it with Adam. She’d have to tell him face to face, kindly, with respect. And then somehow she must prise Libby open. She’d ask James along too, for family counselling of a streamlined kind, minus the middle woman.

   “Don’t expect Dad to keep up, Mum,” Rob told her once. “He does too well out of capitalism to fancy the idea of change. Just keep telling the truth. Everyone will have to face it one day soon. And he loves you. He pays more attention than you think.”

   Had she loved James then, as much as Rob? Nowhere near, James would say. There were truths she couldn’t tell because she couldn’t keep hold of them. But they were trivial, arguable, flotsam. She spread on the kitchen table the Declaration the crowd had read together in Parliament Square.

This is our darkest hour.

Humanity finds itself embroiled in an event unprecedented in its history. One which, unless immediately addressed, will catapult us further into the destruction of all we hold dear: this nation, its peoples, our ecosystems and the future of generations to come.

   She leaned on the table, her hands on her hair, her eyes filling until she wailed.

Chapter Eleven will be posted on Friday 22nd March at 5:30 UK time.

Nine: mid-October

Eager to watch the release of the prisoners, Manda had barely arrived home from the café when the messaging began on Twitter. Adam had seen the footage from outside the prison and wanted to know how she felt, so she told him, You can imagine because he sounded like an emotionally illiterate on-the-spot reporter with no actual news.

   I’m imagining YOU. But I’d rather see you. Shall I take you out to dinner to celebrate? x

   On a Wednesday night? I thought you were too overworked to go out to play on a school night.

  Good point.  I could get to you for ten, if that’d be worth staying up for. A late takeaway?

   Manda frowned, and not just about the unnecessary foil – or worse still, Styrofoam. There was a teenage side to him that was only appealing when she wasn’t exhausted. And since they hadn’t had sex yet, she couldn’t really tell him that was really what he wanted. Besides, she wasn’t sure she did, not at this point, when there was so much about him she didn’t know or understand.

   Not tonight, Adam. It’s a nice thought. I’ll see you on Saturday.

   Twitter seemed to Manda a strange way to conduct a relationship if that was what they were in together. She suspected that when anyone on Facebook announced that they were in a relationship it meant they’d just had sex, whereas up to this point all she’d enjoyed with Adam – and she really had enjoyed it – was kissing. Snogs: increasingly long and adventurous ways to say goodbye when really they were bed kisses now. So when she mentioned her day off on Saturday, she couldn’t blame him for assuming he could stay over, but she held the invitation back, reserving the right to choose.

   For now, she was going to make a salad, catch up with emails and then read in bed at a ridiculously early hour. She might even allow herself a gin and tonic in honour of the country’s most celebrated lorry surfers.

   While she ate she tried to call Libby, impatiently cutting off the answerphone because she hated to hear her sound so upbeat, like a kids’ presenter, when she could be so morose face to face. The day they met, Adam had asked how close they were, mother and daughter, and she’d felt so sad all of a sudden. He’d read it at once. “I don’t want to talk about it now,” she said, afraid of what she might verbalise. Not that he could object to that because he said so little about people or feelings. But he kissed her cheek instead – the first kiss, which felt kind.

    Libby was a mystery but she couldn’t give up. Shouldn’t Rob’s death have brought them closer? Mightn’t James’s infidelity have created some kind of solidarity, regardless of differences?

   It was almost six o’clock now and she must catch the TV News in case they saw fit to report an item related to climate breakdown – even if they only ever called it change: neutral and to be expected. She was extracting some rocket from her teeth when her phone rang. Libby.

   “Mum, sorry I’ve been quiet but work’s shit. I can’t stand it any longer. Can I see you at the weekend? You said on a message a while back that you had a day off coming, on a Saturday?”

   Ah. Yes she did. “Um, yes. But don’t do anything reckless, darling…”

   “Coming from you that’s like a joke, right? Ironic? I’m off out soon but I’ll come round on Saturday, yeah? About two?”

   Manda said that would be lovely. Libby wouldn’t stay long; she’d have plans for Saturday night. Like Adam.

On Friday she called as she left the café to let him know.

   “Sorry to mess you around,” she added at the end.

   “She messes you around.”

   “Sorry?” Sometimes he spoke quietly on the phone, and there was a fair bit of rush hour traffic on the high street but he sounded cross.

   “I’m talking about your daughter, Manda.” He might be talking to a student with behaviour issues. “We had a date. And you haven’t told her about me, have you?”

   “Not yet. Look, Adam, I can see it’s not a good time. If you still want to see me and the eco-house you were so fascinated to investigate, come at four – no, four thirty. If you’re too annoyed with me to come at all, then you’re probably not much of a father.” She’d suspected that anyway, because he hardly mentioned his grown-up kids.

   She waited as she unlocked her bike. It was starting to rain but she didn’t want to cut him off or she’d be the unreasonable one.

   “I’m sorry. Ignore me. End of the week grumps. See you at four thirty tomorrow.”

   But he’d gone with no goodbye so she didn’t really feel forgiven. As she straddled her bike the phone rang.

   “Why don’t I come at ten, and then disappear by two – I know a nice café where I can hang out and do some marking – but come back when you call with the all clear?” He sounded chirpy again. “I’m sorry, Manda. I’ve been looking forward to spending time with you.”

   “Mm, me too,” she said, more upbeat than she felt but relieved all the same. It was just the sex getting in the way. Maybe he’d been celibate for even longer than her; she’d have to ask. “Sounds like a plan.”

   Now that made two of them who hadn’t been themselves.

   She didn’t sleep well, and then spent too long next morning cleaning the bathroom and changing her sheets before walking to the market to search for veg with no air miles AND no plastic. Arriving back at the house with a bulky backpack she’d be glad to discard, she saw a substantial figure in a long black coat looking the place over and peering around the side.

   “I’m not selling,” she called.

   Adam turned and held up both hands, smiling. “I’m a bit early. I hope that’s all right?”

   He kissed both her cheeks and she told him it was. “I hope you noticed the solar panels are oriented south.”

   Once inside, he asked for the tour while the coffee brewed, and took dozens of photos: the condensing boiler “and TVRs on all radiators, I’ll have you know”, the sunpipe that served the landing where she made him stand , and the mechanical ventilation with heat recovery “which is way more exciting than it sounds.”

She barred the bathroom door. “Even though it’s ultra low flush,” she told him, “no need to photograph the loo.”

She added the solid wall insulation and censored a remark she almost made about how sexy this stuff was. Adam wanted explanations more detailed than she could manage with conviction. In the kitchen he viewed the glass jars full of nuts, seeds, pulses and grains like an art work to be captured from different angles. She smiled as he made notes on his phone, and said she was glad he approved.

   “You live it,” he said.

   “With plenty of compromises. And thanks to James’s money. What I earn in Peace would pay for diddly squat.”

   “It’s impressive. You’re impressive.”

   “I’m trying, that’s all.” She smiled. “And Libby would second that.”

She poured coffee and they sat on the sofa, a small space between them. Manda felt suddenly awkward. This was such a strange way to spend a Saturday morning, the pace both slow and rushed. People did this with alcohol inside them, in darkness.

   Adam reached down to sit his mug on the carpet and as he leaned to kiss her she had to do the same.

   “Is there any reason,” he asked, almost like a Victorian with a marriage proposal, “we can’t go to bed now?”

   Manda was sure her mother would supply a few but if it was going to happen, and the doubt seemed to be ebbing away now, then it might be easier…

   The second kiss was deeper. Perhaps she should feel something else, besides the panic that kept the elation at bay. Perhaps her body, cooperative as it felt, should know better than this, because what was there to wait for? Who? And maybe when it began, she would need it – in practice as well as theory. Because she didn’t want to pretend.

   “Let’s,” she said, and as he followed her upstairs she couldn’t quite imagine his face.

   She’d already determined not to apologise for her body, since she didn’t suppose it would occur to him to do the same. Trying to banish memories of James declaring love well before he saw her naked, she hurried under the duvet before Adam Browne could lie. It was good to feel skin against hers. He was warm, and he’d washed his hair for her, which was touching. Like the way he found her so much more interesting than she felt.

   “I want to know everything about you,” he murmured. “Afterwards.”

   Not as much, she thought, as she wanted to know who he was. They kissed, and touched, and quickly, quickly, he was heavy on top of her, big inside her. So she let go and when she came, a moment after him, her smile overwhelmed her.

   The last time she’d felt this was the evening Rob died, all those miles away. James had wanted it unexpectedly, for the first time in weeks, and she had been worried that it wasn’t love anymore – and he’d known, accused her of going through the motions. And Rob crashed the car while she lay there wishing one of them was a different person, maybe both.

   There were things Adam wouldn’t want to hear, not now.

They laughed, disbelieving, at the two hours that had passed before they returned to the kitchen and she found him a knife to prepare salad.

   “So you don’t actually know the people behind this Extinction Rebellion?” He’d known about the rally in Parliament Square at the end of the month; it was already in her diary.

   “I know them to identify in a line up. They’re not my friends. And there won’t be any leaders.”

   He seemed doubtful about that. “And civil disobedience is built in? What will that mean?”

   Manda smiled. “I don’t know yet. But it will be non-violent.”

   “To start with.”

   She turned, shaking her head. “How can it be anything but peaceful? This will be a movement of people who want a better world. And if it takes off, it could be global by next year, massive. I’m trying not to get too excited…”

   “You succeeded upstairs.”

   His smile was a little too late and she hoped she didn’t sound wounded. “You like me for being authentic.”

   “I do,” he protested. “And I don’t blame you. I worked until two a.m. to get things out of the way. So I’m not at my best – in any department. And you’re quite obviously way too good for me.” He put his arms around her. “I’ll come with you to this declaration of rebellion. It’s Half Term.”

   Pulling away, she said, “Great.”

   “Rob would have been there.”

   “Oh yes.”

   “But you won’t get Libby along?”

    Manda shook her head. “Not even for Hollywood royalty.”

   “I’d like to meet your Libby.”

   “Brave man,” said Manda, and reached for the pasta as the water began to boil.

Part 10 will be posted on Friday 15th March at 5:30 UK time.

Here is an article about this project: https://ecohustler.com/2019/02/16/writing-for-life-try-serialised-ecolit-for-yourself/

Eight: October 2018

Pru was writing her third letter to the lads in jail. The Frack Free Three they called them, and she’d ordered her Free the Three T-shirt, which she’d wear with pride and outrage. Not that it was T-shirt weather anymore but she could layer up underneath and as winter drew in, they’d all have to. One of the men claimed to have worn seven up at the gates of hell but she wasn’t planning to beat that or she’d be too solid to jiggle when her leg allowed.

   The letters had to be A5 for some reason and she supposed the lads wouldn’t be the first to read them, in case she was sending details of the escape plan. She’d emailed the details to people who’d be writing too – like young Gem in London and Manda who lived somewhere expensive where they had vegan cafés. Chance would be a fine thing in Lancs.

   To the victims of a miscarriage of justice! She underlined her heading. I am no less angry as the days go by. You have a right to be angry too but I know you’ll be model prisoners, the three of you. You’ll be making the best of it. I hope knowing you did the right thing gives you peace. We’re all so proud of you. The crime is fracking and by jailing you so unjustly they’ve made a good few protestors out of people reading the news and crying, “What!” but it can’t be any fun and I’m sure you miss your loved ones like they miss you. What you did was brave and it inspired people. You’re still inspiring us now and they’ve got another think coming if they think we’ll give up now. Lots of love, Pru. (One of the old girls at PNR) x

   She hoped that was legible because her handwriting wasn’t as neat as it used to be now her hand didn’t hold the pen as still as it should. They’d be getting hundreds of letters and quite right too. That was more than conscientious objectors like her Uncle Jim ever had in the war, unless you counted hate mail through his letterbox and the odd bit of saliva aimed his way in the street. Pru remembered growing up with him as her favourite, and a kind of stand-in dad after hers died of T.B. And how in the family people were proud of him – same as Uncle Ted who was in the Navy, same respect. There was a difference, though, because the Navy fired torpedoes and guns and Uncle Jim wouldn’t use a weapon against anyone, so she thought the biggest hero was him.

   She’d like to think the young had learned from all the wars the West tangled with, and all the mess that followed. Gem was light years ahead of the mum she’d been at that age. The young joined everything up and it was heartening.

   Pru didn’t dare dwell on the appeal against the sentence that had put the lads behind bars when they should be on that spare plinth in Trafalgar Square. There was always hope and she didn’t let it go but at the same time it was a mistake to focus too hard on miracles or the law. She hadn’t believed they’d actually start drilling but they said that would begin tomorrow in spite of everything – the crowds, the celebs and the injunction on top of the evidence.

   And she’d be there for the darkest day because they had to face that together. No other way.      

   Looking around the living room with all its clutter – years of the Ecologist, books she started but didn’t always find time to finish, and letters she might as well keep now as a record of who she was and cared for – she supposed she should do some sorting, find some surfaces, neaten things up a bit and shake a duster round the place. That’d please Ed, who was always saying, “Isn’t it getting a bit much for you to manage?” when she could keep it spick and span if she wanted to. If she thought that was the best use of the time she had left.

   She’d just finished her third letter when a message popped up on her new ethical phone – from Gem, with a photo of Skye. Pru chuckled at the child’s plaits, which stuck out at angles and were no tidier than her old writing desk.

   What a hopeless mother!  Does she look like a naughty girl in a cartoon? x

   Pru’s fingers were a bit slow and stiff for messaging but it was quite fun.

   Cute as ninepence I’d say. I had bendy ones too when I was a girl. Ma called them my pipe cleaners. X She knew how to add a green heart; Gem had taught her all the tricks.

   Are they really going to start this week?

   Until the first earthquake. I give them two days.

   I’ll write to the prison tonight. Are you allowed to send in your ginger cake?

   With a breakout kit baked inside? A file for the bars and a rope to swing over the walls? Haha.

   Gem told her to enjoy her day off because she had to have one now and then. So she put a cassette on, of Vaughan Williams and his lark, which would do nicely for her funeral. Good job she never switched to CDs in spite of Ed’s remarks because they were all piled up on landfill now. It was funny that Gem and Mia and the other young ones received her just as she was when her own family wanted to update her relentlessly, every birthday and Christmas. The latest this and handiest that. And it all became old hat in five minutes, obsolete, waste.

   Gem could probably write her biography after all the chatting they’d done that summer but the lass kept her own story to herself. No mention of Skye’s father so Pru didn’t ask. She had resolved a while ago not to use her old age as an excuse for sticking her nose in where it wasn’t required.

   While the lark ascended she found a duster she hadn’t meant to bury, and started with the photos. In the black and white wedding one she appeared to be laughing her head off at something Tom said and she wish she could track it down, whatever it was, and laugh again, because that would help her to bring back the sound of his laugh, which she couldn’t hear anymore, not properly. Her mother didn’t think it was decent or something; brides were meant to be demure. But the picture was her favourite. It made her happy. And so had Tom, mostly. There had been moments when they scraped against each other, but that was life. When young Mia brought her girlfriend along, she couldn’t help wondering whether, on account of them both being school teachers with nice manners, their garden would be all roses without the thorns. Because for all her spirit  as Tom called it, what he shared with her wasn’t equality. These days young women like Gem expected that, and quite right too. And thanks to social media they knew more about the world than she ever had, which made living hard but at least they knew exactly what had to change.

   She was still holding the photograph, lingering over it as if she’d never seen it before. The truth was she didn’t really remember Tom at twenty-two, with those boy’s cheeks that thinned and dropped in the end. Not the way she remembered his hand on his stick: the shape of his fingers, his nails cut straight across, the raised veins and brown spots, the yellow and purple and thin white. Or the hang of his trousers, loose over the backside that used to be so soft and firm she didn’t suppose a baby’s could be… what? More charming.  

   “Tom, love,” she said, “I can’t recall much but I haven’t forgotten your bum!” Not that she’d seen it before the wedding night. In the old days she stuck to the rules!

   She hadn’t talked to him for a long time – as if she’d decided he was best off not knowing what was going on in the world, and up the road. “Still miss you,” she told him, so quietly she didn’t hear it herself.

   “Is it teatime?” he used to ask on a Sunday afternoon, any time after half- three, however many roast potatoes he’d eaten for lunch. She’d make him wait but now she didn’t put much store by the kind of time the clock showed.

   Her leg was being a nuisance today but it wouldn’t stop her swinging her way into the kitchen to put the kettle on.

Three days later, she felt like the most popular person on the ward. Everyone rang in case she hadn’t heard, but Gem was first.

   “Hey Pru, are you outside the prison? You must be so excited!”

   She didn’t like to spoil things so she just said, “No, I couldn’t make it. Are they out?”

   “Any time now. I’m keeping an eye on Twitter. No one minds at work – they all want to see. I can’t believe it – justice for a change! I feel like standing up and telling everyone on the bus.”

   “Wonderful!” said Pru, and she thought she might cry. “I shall imagine you and Skye doing a freedom dance when you get home.”

   Someone rattled in on a trolley and the loudest, breeziest nurse seemed to be trying to make the place sound like a holiday camp. Pru preferred the shy young Romanian who put a hand to his heart when he showed her his kids.

   “Where are you?”

   “Oh, in hospital. I had a silly fall on Sunday and they kept me in because I live alone.” No point in mentioning the heart that wasn’t behaving itself. “I’ll be home soon, like the Frack Free Three.” She heard in the silence that Gem was worrying now. “We needed good news here.”

   Gem knew what she meant.

   “If the tremors get bigger, they’ll have to stop, won’t they? For good?”

   “Or a quake can damage the well and then all those toxic substances they use down there can leak into the water supply.” Pru had raised her voice in case anyone needed educating.

   “Don’t! How is this even legal?”

   Pru heard Skye needing Mummy. “You go, love. I’ll let you know when I’m freed like the lads!”

   “I’ll call you tomorrow, Pru.”

   She said there was no need. Soon Enid called, elated, and told her to make sure she saw the six o’clock news. She promised not to miss it. And her T-shirt hadn’t even arrived yet. She couldn’t waste it so she’d have to get a fabric pen and edit the slogan from a demand to a cry of triumph.

   It was lovely to think of families reunited. She felt a bit weepy, and tired. It didn’t suit her being out of action and if they didn’t discharge her tomorrow she’d vote out with her feet.

Part Nine will be posted on Friday 8th March at 5:30 UK time.