Up All Night

by Carmen Reid

  ‘OK, let me get out my notebook,’ Jo said. ‘So, two windmills, solar panels, a grass roof . . . what else is different about the house?’

  ‘Oh loads of things,’ Savannah replied. ‘You’ve got to come over here and see my eight-bin system for a start. This bin is for bottles, then there’s newspaper, plastic, metal, compost, cardboard, bits and pieces I’d like to keep and use again . . . oh and the last one . . . that’s for rubbish, so I hardly ever use that.’

  Jo looked at the row of four small metal bins on the floor and the four bins suspended above them on the wall.

  ‘That’s a lot of bins,’ she said. ‘Do you have to take everything to the recycling place yourself?’

  ‘On my bike? Yeah, some things, but the collection service is getting better.’

  ‘On your bike?!’ Jo tried to picture this, wondered if she should get the photographer back to capture it. . .

  ‘How are you going to convince people to have eight bins?’ Jo asked. ‘I haven’t got room in my kitchen for eight bins.’

  This elicited a deep sigh. ‘Why are people always so put off by the inconvenience of being Green?’ Savannah asked. ‘When global warming really gets under way, that’s going to be pretty bloody inconvenient: catastrophic floods, storms, the collapse of the rainforests and so on.’

  ‘Right. . . well. . .’ Jo didn’t want to wade right into the environmental lecture yet. ‘So eight bins. Good. What else is different?’ she asked again.

  ‘There’s lots of non-toxic paint and non-toxic varnish, although now I’m quite into leaving surfaces bare, you know: waxed wood, wax-sealed plaster, I like to think of it as palazzo style.

  ‘The insulation under the floors and in the loft is made of wool, plant fibres, old newspaper,’ she went on. ‘But it’s not all back-to-nature. I’ve got lots of hitech stuff: triple glazing – Scandinavian standard – solar panels, a highly efficient AA rated fridge-freezer and washing machine, a top-of-the-range computer, my windmills . . . but I suppose on the whole, I like to use old stuff: reuse, recycle and all that. My sinks, my bath, my taps and most of my furniture are old instead of new.

  ‘Or they’re made of things that can be recycled: wood, metal and leather. I steer clear of plastic and that horrible MDF stuff. That’s just toxic rubbish. Hard to live with, impossible to dispose of.’

  Jo looked round the kitchen, trying to understand what was different about it. There was an old porcelain sink under the window with fat old-fashioned taps. Two solid wooden units stood at either side, then there were two wooden cupboards and a row of sturdy metal shelves on the walls hung with pots and kitchen utensils. Plants, and more plants, on the shelves, on the windowsills, on the kitchen table.

  ‘You still haven’t told me what tea you’d like,’ Savannah said, reaching up to the shelf where the mugs were stacked.

  ‘What do you recommend?’ Jo asked, pulling up a chair at the kitchen table and taking out her tape recorder. She had decided that this should definitely be a woman to woman round the kitchen table kind of interview. Not a come into my study, sit at the other side of my desk and be impressed but slightly intimidated by me thing.

  ‘How about green tea with jasmine?’ Savannah answered. ‘Enough caffeine to give you a boost without getting buzzy.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ was Jo’s verdict.

  So the tea was brewed in a chipped grey teapot that looked rustically home-made. And the two women sat down facing one another. Jo stacked fresh tapes beside her machine, primed it ready to go and opened with the words:

  ‘So Savannah, what turned you Green?’

  Savannah couldn’t help bursting into loud laughter in response to this, but she did finally reply: ‘I grew up in the Argentinian countryside. It was a much simpler life, much more in tune with nature than the one we are used to over here. My father was English,’ she explained.

  ‘What did he do?’ Jo asked, noting the past tense, picking up the implication that Savannah’s father was dead.

  ‘He was a cattle breeder. He had herds of beautiful blue-black animals and I ate steak and drank milk every single day. I think that’s why I’m so tall. Like the Masai.’

  Jo now recognized the lilt in Savannah’s voice. It was a long-eroded Spanish accent.

  ‘Does your mother still live in Argentina?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ Savannah said and there was a long pause before she added, ‘My parents were both killed in a plane crash. My younger brother still lives in Argentina. He runs the family farm and I go to visit him every year, if I can. He has a wife, three children and never comes to England. He hates towns and he also hates to leave his animals.’ She gave a little smile at this.

  Savannah’s parents were killed in a plane crash! Jo was absolutely certain she hadn’t heard this before or read it in any of the cuttings. Although she was sympathetically trying to imagine how terrible that must have been, she couldn’t suppress the knowledge that here was her exclusive human-interest angle and they weren’t even half an hour into the interview.

  ‘When were your parents killed?’ Jo asked as gently as she could, but still felt the uncomfortable harshness of the question. It sat badly with the warm tea, the shafts of sunlight falling on the golden wood of the table and the careless bunch of sweet pea petals in the vase beside her.

  Savannah drew in a breath. For a moment, Jo thought that she wasn’t going to answer, might even tell her off for asking.

  But Savannah took a sip from her cup, set it down on the table and said steadily: ‘It was six years ago now. They were making a short internal flight in a small plane, they hit bad weather and the plane flew into a hillside. Everyone on board was killed. My mother always hated to fly, so I never like to think of what she especially must have gone through. It was a very difficult time for me. I was working in Alaska, I felt terribly alone. It was a very . . . difficult. . .’ Savannah used the word again, while Jo was busy thinking: difficult, difficult? Jesus Christ, it must have been hell.

  ‘Difficult time,’ Savannah concluded. ‘They were lovely people. I loved them very much and I’ve managed to make some sort of peace with what happened . . . but I think you can maybe understand why I don’t like to talk about it.’ She folded her arms, turned her face slightly and Jo was reminded once again of Native American chiefs.

  ‘No, I understand,’ Jo said. ‘I didn’t know, I didn’t mean to go there. It was just the sequence of questions . . . Why don’t we get back to you?’ But Jo knew she would have to probe the parent deaths again later on – and ask for a photo.

  ‘I left Argentina,’ Savannah began, ‘to go to university in Paris and I’ve divided my working life between Britain and abroad. That’s the potted guide.’

  ‘What did . . . what do you work as?’ Jo followed up.

  ‘I’m a research chemist.’

  ‘Erm . . . yes, well that’s what it says everywhere, but I wanted to find out more about that, especially as, well. . . it doesn’t sound terribly . . .’

  ‘Green?’ Savannah offered.

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘I do choose who I work for very carefully,’ was Savannah’s response. ‘Also bear in mind, the information I learn is very useful to me and I’m often telling my employers things they don’t want to hear.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’ve worked with oil companies, chemical companies, pharmaceuticals.’

  ‘What’s your area of expertise?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Well. . . how to put it simply? I’m often looking at reactions – how things react with each other. The short- and medium-term effects. Personally, I’ve always been very interested in the long-term effects. But no one’s going to pay me to do that kind of work, because no one would make enough money out of it. The seventh generation from now – that’s the one we should be thinking about. The Native Americans had a saying “How will this affect the seventh generation?” That’s the kind of long-term view we should be taking.’

  Jo felt a little flash of vindi
cation. See! She was dealing with a chief. A chief who was pretty skilled at turning the answer to every question into a party political broadcast.

  ‘So, when did you get involved with the Green Party?’ she asked next.

  ‘About ten years ago,’ Savannah replied. ‘It was something I’d been thinking about for a long time, then I met some people who really impressed me and I signed up.’

  ‘Has it affected your job?’

  ‘In some ways, yes, in other ways, no. I do less work now anyway. I don’t need the money so much, I don’t need the status. I like to spend as much time as I can on the cause. Furthering the political side.’

  ‘Furthering your political career?’ was Jo’s next question.

  ‘Well. . .’ Savannah graced this with a laugh, ‘I don’t see it like that. I would love there to be a Green MP. It’s ridiculous that there isn’t one, all to do with our antiquated voting system. But I’m not personally ambitious, I could make a much bigger salary, much bigger splash out there in my own line of work. But I’m very passionate about Green politics and if the best thing I can do to further the cause is stand as an MP, then that’s what I’ll do.’

  ‘So you don’t think you’ll enjoy it?’

  Savannah smiled at this, wary of giving the wrong answer.

  ‘I’m sure it will be great. But it would be even better to be an MP in a Green parliament, we’d get a lot more done.’

  ‘So, I bet you’re dying to tell me what a Green parliament would do,’ Jo said.

  ‘Ha, well,’ Savannah smiled, ‘we’re pretty radical, you know. We’d probably do the opposite to any other kind of government. We want a sustainable economy, not one that’s just endlessly growing for the sake of it. We want local jobs, local food, local products. Not apples that have been flown by jumbo jet from the other side of the globe. We would encourage you to get rid of your car, but we’d give you great public transport, walkways and cycle paths. We’d tax pollution to the hilt but we would help people to use less oil, gas, electricity and produce less rubbish.’

  ‘I’m a bit worried this means we’ll all be working on an organic farm,’ Jo commented.

  ‘Would that be so bad?’ Savannah asked with a smile. ‘Think: clean air, clean water, clean food. Preserving what’s left of the natural world for future generations. Finding a way of letting humans live well that doesn’t destroy the one and only world we’ve got.’

  ‘Sounds good but incredibly idealistic,’ Jo said.

  ‘You’ve probably got the Green Gloom,’ Savannah smiled. ‘People think about what’s happening, know in their hearts it can’t go on, it’s a disaster waiting to happen, and feel helpless and depressed. So they stop thinking about it and carry on.’

  She took a sip from her mug and added with a bigger smile: ‘But I’m determined to be optimistic about the future. We can change. No one can imagine how the future will look. I’m sure if you’d told someone thirty years ago about how things would be today, they wouldn’t have believed you. They’d have thought you were being totally idealistic: everyone will have a mobile phone, houses will be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, there’ll be a huge supermarket in every single town, the internet will connect people all over the world in seconds . . .’

  ‘Can’t we have all the hi-tech stuff, all the convenience of modern life and still be Green?’ Jo asked her.

  ‘I like to think mainly yes with a bit of no,’ was Savannah’s answer. ‘I mean, downloading music, films and information is hi-tech and much more environmentally sound than producing CDs, DVDs, textbooks, carting them all over the world, then dumping them in landfill.’ She was gesturing so enthusiastically with her arms that her bangles were clanking: ‘I really do understand that people want progress and want to make their lives better,’ she said. ‘It’s human nature. No one wants to go back. So we’ve got to put our efforts into moving forward in a really clean, sustainable way. Not recklessly using everything up, without giving a damn about the mess we make, without a moment’s thought about what we’re handing on to our children.

  ‘I’m a scientist,’ she added. ‘Obviously I hope science can be used to make things better, not worse. There are a lot of tree-hugging scientists about nowadays because they’re out there on the front line, seeing the damage that is being done. They’re measuring the ice melting from the polar caps, taking the poison readings from the air, logging the ways in which medicine is hurting our children.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Jo was scribbling hurriedly, but still she thought she heard something especially pointed in that final remark.

  ‘You’ve done lots about vaccinations, haven’t you?’ Savannah was asking her now.

  ‘Yes. I’m looking into Quintet this week. As well as you,’ Jo replied.

  ‘Quintet should be interesting,’ Savannah said.

  ‘I’m hoping you’ll be interesting too,’ Jo added. ‘Got any good vaccination contacts I should tap?’

  ‘I’ll think about that,’ was Savannah’s reply.

  No one ever trusted a journalist all the way. That seemed fair enough. Always, always at the back of the mind was the knowledge that if something too good, too personal, too secret was revealed, it might one day find its way into the papers.

  So often an interview was like a card game with the interviewee giving long and careful consideration to a question before setting strategic answers down on the table.

  ‘So, how did you get over the Green Gloom?’ Jo decided to pursue this line.

  ‘Nature will have the last laugh. If humans are causing a huge problem, we’ll wipe ourselves out eventually and solve the problem. Earth will carry on, for several billion more years anyway. I’m just hoping maybe some eco-warriors up a nice clean mountain in New Zealand will survive and human life can start again in a better way.’

  ‘This is supposed to cheer me up?!’ Jo exclaimed. She drained the last of her bitter green tea from the mug and tried not to grimace too obviously. ‘Would you like to show me round your house and maybe the garden?’ she suggested. ‘Gives you a chance to talk about the Green lifestyle you’ve adopted . . . all that.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Savannah seemed to draw a fresh burst of enthusiasm from this. ‘But remember, “no point having a nice house if you haven’t got a decent planet to put it on”.’

  ‘No.’ The Green Gloom was definitely descending on Jo.

  The beauty of Savannah’s home was not in any overall ‘wow’ factor, but in the details. It was comfortable and all the small things had been very well done. The floor was wooden and polished. The doors, skirting boards and window frames were bare wood, stripped back and waxed. In the sitting room was a small leather sofa, creased and well-worn, sheepskin rugs, a corduroy beanbag, a big knitted blanket folded up at the edge of the sofa. This was a place to be comfortable and cosy.

  ‘I thought you’d be anti-sheepskin and leather?’ Jo asked. ‘You know, animal rights and all that.’

  ‘I’m a cattleman’s daughter, remember, I think a bit of organic, sustainable meat eating is fine, and once it’s eaten, the entire animal should be put to good use. No waste. Waste is the crime.

  ‘In New Zealand there’s a zero waste policy,’ Savannah added. ‘Everything in a household bin is sorted, separated and recycled. Plastic is being stored in underground mines as a resource for the future. I try to have faith that it will happen over here, eventually. I’m not sure why Britain is taking so long to catch on. Fishing, gardening, bird watching, hill walking are all great British traditions. Deep in their hearts, people love the countryside. But their souls have been suburbanized and they’ve forgotten.’

  There was a faded colour snapshot on the mantelpiece in a leather frame. Jo guessed it was a photo of Savannah’s family.

  Savannah saw what she was looking at and explained: ‘Those are my parents and my brother, Alfredo – Alfie. I think it’s funny the way my Dad looks so Argentinian and my mum looks English.’

  Jo picked the photo up and looked closely, wonde
ring when was going to be a good moment to ask Savannah if she could borrow a snapshot of her parents. All three adults were squinting against the sun so it was hard to make out their features clearly. Savannah’s father was a tall, strapping man in a pale blue shirt, with dark hair, a deeply tanned face and one arm across his son’s shoulders.

  Alfredo, even taller and more handsome, was grinning broadly and had his hand on the waist of his petite and delicate mother. What looked so English about her was the wide-brimmed floppy straw and the finely printed puff-sleeved dress.

  ‘My mother was a wonderful gardener,’ Savannah explained. ‘She kept a fully stocked kitchen garden with vegetables, fruit trees, flowers and herbs. She always wore a gardening hat to keep the sun off her face, but in the summer, her shoulders, arms and legs would turn as brown as a nut. She was a small woman with a big laugh, Mama. She—’ but Savannah broke off. ‘Well, anyway.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Jo said and placed the photograph back on the mantelpiece. As she did, she saw a tiny frame up there, round and intricate, no bigger than a 50p piece, with a baby’s sunny, smiling face inside.

  She assumed it was one of handsome Alfredo’s children and she would have asked, but Savannah was already at the front door, opening it and offering a tour: ‘Organic vegetables first, then the compost heap, the insulation, the solar panels and the obligatory visitor windmill lecture.’

  It took almost an hour, and afterwards Savannah insisted Jo stay for lunch, even though it was Friday and Jo had nothing but endless work ahead of her.

  Over a seventeen-ingredient salad – everything from the garden – and an organic, free-range, happy hen omelette, Jo turned her tape recorder off, put away her notebook, with the spare snap of Savannah’s parents inside, and chatted with something approaching normality.

  ‘Have you given much thought to what it will be like to be an MP?’ Jo wanted to know.

  ‘Some days,’ was Savannah’s answer. ‘I don’t take it for granted . . . but we’ll know pretty soon. Obviously, I’ll be the only Green and I’ll be very busy. But then Finlay might join me soon afterwards. You’ve heard about him?’