‘OK.’
‘Your story is a powerful cautionary tale. It could form the heart of our case. Can I count on your signature?’
‘Maybe. I’ll have to talk to David about it.’
‘Is he in?’
‘No. He’s actually at the commune.’
‘He’s there? Now?’
‘Visiting Rose.’
‘Oh! This whole thing must be awful for you! I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be. We’re fine.’
‘I admire your bravery. You’re an example to us all.’
‘I’m really not. But we’ve just sat down to dinner, so …’
‘Yes, yes! Life must go on, mustn’t it? In spite of everything.’
‘I’ll see you soon, Helena.’
‘I hope so. Stay strong!’
‘I’ll try.’
An hour or two later Dad finally arrives home, walking in with the cheerful, relaxed air of a guy who’s spent the evening in the pub with his mates.
‘Well?’ says Mum. ‘How did it go?’
‘I had a nice time, thanks.’
‘I’m not asking if you had a nice time. I’m asking about the welfare of our daughter!’
‘Oh, she seems fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Yeah.’
Mum fixes him with a piercing stare. ‘Are you drunk?’ she says.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes! I may have had a glass or two of mead.’
‘Mead?’
‘Yeah. It’s not bad. Apparently it’s one of the most ancient drinks there is. It’s basically fermented honey mixed with—’
‘How about we skip the novelty brewing lecture and you tell me about Rose?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Is she safe? Is she OK?’
‘She’s fine. Why don’t we sit down? It’s a long story.’
Mum follows Dad into the kitchen, turning back towards me to say, ‘Go to bed,’ which, obviously, I ignore.
‘Well?’ says Mum. ‘What happened? Did you tell her to come home?’
‘Er … I thought I’d try a different approach.’
‘Such as what? Forgetting what you went for? Sitting around getting drunk with the hippies?’
‘I’m not drunk.’
‘You’re suspiciously cheerful.’
‘Since when is it bad to be cheerful? You’re always telling me I’m grumpy, now I’m too cheerful! What am I supposed to do?’
‘Your mood swings are not the point here.’
‘Mood swings? What mood swings?’ he says angrily.
‘Rose – did you talk to her?’
‘Of course I did.’
‘And … ?’
‘Well … she’s clearly feeling very determined about the whole thing, so I think the best way forward, instead of trying to force her to do what we want, is just to spend some time over there, and show her that we’re capable of listening, and that we respect her autonomy and the decision she’s made. We can focus on keeping the lines of communication open, then if she gets in any trouble, or she begins to waver, we can help her out and try to bring her home.’
‘What, so you’ve given up?’
‘No. I just think we have to play the long game.’
‘This is typical! It’s just so lazy! She’s our child!’
‘I think we need to take some of the emotion out of this situation,’ he says.
‘EMOTION!?’ Mum yells. ‘Our daughter has run away from home and your suggestion is to feel no emotion! What’s wrong with you?’
‘I don’t think this is very helpful.’
‘Helpful!? She’s moved in with a bunch of anarchists and dropouts! She told me that bourgeois values are murdering the planet and she hates everything we stand for.’
‘That’s normal at her age, isn’t it?’
‘No, it’s not!’
‘She’s engaging with politics and the state of the world. It’s not all bad.’
‘How is it good?’ asks Mum.
‘I just think we have to work with this new passion of hers rather than against it. Maybe we can do some research into university courses which fit with these ideas that mean so much to her, show her what we find, and see if we can persuade her of the value of finishing her education.’
‘Finishing her education? What are you talking about?’
‘Did she not say that thing to you about finding her purpose in life?’
‘What purpose? What life?’
‘And how she’s not sure she wants to go back to school next year.’
‘WHAT!? But … her A levels are next summer!’
‘I know.’
‘She can’t not go back to school!’
‘Well … she could. We can’t make her.’
‘That’s really what she said to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you not tell me this straight away?’
‘I was building up to it.’
‘This is a disaster! She’s lost her mind!’
‘Well, the more we act like it’s a disaster, the more she’s going to carry on. That’s how rebellion works. We’re going to have to take it slow, stay calm and try to patiently win her back.’
‘She can’t leave school now! She can’t just drop out! We can’t do nothing and let her live in that dump with a mob of weirdos and freaks. We don’t know who they are! It’s not safe!’
‘Well, I met most of them this evening, and they’re not so bad. I thought they’d hate me and try to kick me out, but they were actually quite welcoming. They gave me a bowl of vegan chilli.’
‘Vegan chilli?’
‘It was pretty good. Have you ever thought maybe we shouldn’t eat so much meat?’
Mum doesn’t seem to hear him. All the blood appears to have drained from her face. Then she remembers I’m still sitting at the kitchen table with them, and tells me again to go to bed, this time as if she actually means it and will lose her rag if I ignore her again.
I stand, walk slowly to the door, then turn back and say, ‘So that’s it? She’s gone?’
They both look at me, and neither of them speaks.
‘Do you think she’s going to be OK?’ I ask.
There’s a long pause, then Mum and Dad reply at the same instant: Mum saying, ‘I hope so’; Dad saying, ‘Of course she will.’
As I’m walking upstairs to bed, it occurs to me that even with just one person missing, the house feels eerily empty. I decide that tomorrow I’ll head over the road and try to find out if what seems to be happening really is happening, or if Mum and Dad are just being hysterical. It sounds like a cool place. Maybe someone will offer me some mead.
The doorbell doesn’t look promising. It’s an old-fashioned brass one, heavily tarnished and is hanging by one wire from a hole in the wall. It looks more like a device designed to give you an electric shock than anything that might be used to announce the arrival of a visitor.
Someone has decorated the front door with an elaborate and beautiful swirling floral design. The stalks of the flowers are made of slogans written in bulgy green lettering. I tilt my head to read them: ‘Leave your prejudices outside’ forms the stem of a dandelion; ‘We tolerate everything except intolerance’ is what looks like a daisy; ‘If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem’, complete with thorns, is supporting a multi-headed yellow rose.
The decoration must have taken days, but whoever did it clearly wasn’t much interested in whether the door was capable of opening and closing, because it is hanging from only one hinge, at a skewed angle and wedged into the floorboards.
I step inside and, as my eyes adjust from the glaring sunlight, before I can see anything, I register the cool, dark air, heavy with a faintly fetid, sweetish smell.
‘Hello?’ I say, but there’s no answer, and nobody appears. The only sign the house isn’t abandoned is the sound of one lone voice, drifting down the staircase.
This is the b
iggest house on the street, and it feels like not so long ago that the Winters lived here. They were an old couple who barely spoke to anyone and were rarely seen, apart from occasional comings and goings in their silver Mercedes. I never went into their home, but it’s a fair guess it didn’t look like this. The hall floorboards are bare and ragged, roughly painted in blotchy streaks of lurid purple and green, and the once fancy wallpaper is only visible up near the ceiling, since all the walls are now covered in a mixture of murals, slogans and printouts of blogs, photos and news articles, all of which, at a glance, seem to be about the climate crisis. The only other remnant of the Winters I can see is the elaborate light fittings: big, old, swirly chandeliers now hanging incongruously above the stripped-out chaos.
I take a few tentative steps across the hallway, enough to see into the front room, which has the same painted floorboards and is furnished with a scattering of mismatched falling-apart chairs that look like they must have been salvaged from skips. Above the candle-filled fireplace is a wall painting of a globe inside an hourglass, dissolving like sand, crowned by an arc of white capital letters drawn to look as if they are melting, which say, ‘HOW LONG HAVE WE GOT?’ Underneath, forming a matching curve of writing, it says, ‘THINK BIG. CHANGE EVERYTHING.’
Nobody seems to be around, and the house is strangely quiet. I can’t even hear any drumming.
I walk on through the hallway, past the battered-looking staircase, following a tomatoey cooking smell to a room which looks out on to the junk-strewn, overgrown garden. A vast pot, big enough to bath a dog, is bubbling away on the stove, containing some kind of bean stew, and the sink is heaped with a teetering mound of dirty dishes. One more mug and the whole thing would collapse. An impressive amount of effort and skill has been applied to the task of a delaying this washing-up as long as possible.
Opposite the cooking area three pub-garden-style tables with built-in benches have been pushed together to form an eating area for twenty or so people. Behind the table is a large noticeboard thickly layered with colourful scraps of paper announcing craft workshops, jam sessions, discussion groups, meditation meetings, housework rotas, strategy forums, a bike-share scheme and more.
I gaze at the noticeboard, fascinated by this glimpse into the world my sister has entered, filled with activities I’ve barely heard of, and certainly never participated in. I’m standing less than a minute away from my own home, but I seem to be in another dimension.
‘Who are you?’ A thin, high voice cuts suddenly though the air, making me jump and swivel towards the sound. In the doorway is the tree-hanging girl who greeted me yesterday. There’s a streak of mud across one of her cheeks. I can see now that her hair reaches all the way down to her elbows and is filled with beads and tangled knots. A severe kitchen-scissors fringe just above her eyebrows is the only part of her hair that looks as if it’s ever been cut.
Despite the heat, she is wearing a fluffy rainbow-striped jumper and a pair of loose cotton trousers with intricate embroidery at the ankles, just above bare feet which are whitish-grey on top, edging towards black at the toes and soles.
Seeing my face, she says, ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘I’m Luke,’ I say. ‘I live just over the road.’
‘I know,’ she says, after a long stare. ‘How long have you lived there?’
This seems like a weird question, rather than, say, ‘What are you doing in my kitchen?’ but she doesn’t look like the kind of person likely to ask what you expect, and, given the state of the front door, it’s perfectly possible that random people could wander into this house every day.
‘All my life,’ I reply.
Her eyes seem to grow wider in their sockets. ‘Wow!’ she says.
After a long, uncomfortable silence, during which she stares at me as if I’m some sort of medical curiosity (which is kind of ironic, since the weird-looking person in the room certainly isn’t me), she says, ‘Your bedroom is the one upstairs at the front, isn’t it? Over the front door. I’ve seen you.’
This girl is seriously strange. I decide to sidestep the stalking issue and get away as fast as possible. ‘Listen – I’m here to visit my sister. She moved in a few days ago. Do you know where I’d find her?’
‘I’m Sky,’ she says, stepping towards me with an arm outstretched as if wanting to shake my hand.
‘Great,’ I say, tucking my hands into my pockets. ‘Do you know where I’ll find my sister? Seventeen. Longish hair dyed black. Black clothes. Always wears loads of eyeliner.’
‘There’s a house meeting upstairs,’ says Sky. ‘She’ll be there.’
‘Thanks,’ I reply, edging out of the room.
As I turn to mount the staircase I glance back, and Sky is still in the same spot, with her neck twisted round towards me, following my every move with eerie, unblinking eyes.
From the upstairs landing I peer into the crowded room where the meeting is taking place, examining the house’s new inhabitants, who are perched on a jumble of rickety chairs and uncomfortable-looking stools or sprawled across the floor on cushions and rugs.
It takes me a while to spot my sister. She looks different, but it takes me a moment to realise how. Then I twig that it’s her clothes, which, for the first time in ages, aren’t black. But there’s also something unfamiliar about her face. She hasn’t been tattooed or pierced, yet she looks transformed. She looks happy. She’s smiling, and not the weird, strained smile of the night she borrowed my sleeping bag, but a genuine one that actually fits with the rest of her face.
As soon as she spots me, this freakishly contented expression clouds over. She rearranges her features into a ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ look, and I respond with a shrug. She rolls her eyes, raises herself from the cushions she’s curled up on and tiptoes through the tangle of sprawled limbs towards me.
‘What do you want?’ she says.
I probably should have thought of an answer to this question in advance. Bad planning on my part, there.
‘Er … I came to see you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re my sister.’
‘Why are you behaving like a moron?’
‘I just wanted to say hi, and … Mum and Dad have gone totally off the deep end about you moving in here, so I thought I’d come and take a look. See what it’s all about.’
‘It’s a climate protest. Why is that so hard to understand?’
‘It’s not.’
‘I explained it to Mum, I explained it to Dad, now they’ve sent you. What’s the problem?’
‘They haven’t sent me. I just came.’
‘Why?’
‘To see what you’re doing.’
‘I’ve told them what I’m doing. I’m taking a stand on the most important issue of our age.’
‘OK. Right.’
‘It’s a global movement to face up to what’s happening and actually change things, and I want to be part of it, instead of just ignoring the problem and distracting myself by buying more and more stuff while we all wait for the planet to die. I know Mum and Dad are freaking out and they think this is crazy, but what’s crazy is not doing it. What’s crazy is carrying on as if nothing’s wrong.’
‘You’re right.’
‘Well, if you think I’m right, why won’t you leave me alone?’
‘Who says I’m on Mum and Dad’s side?’ I say. ‘I agree with you. I went on all the school strike marches.’
‘Big wow.’
‘I want to help.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re right. And because our street has split in two, and it’s pretty obvious which side of the road is the boring one.’
She looks me up and down assessingly, then says, ‘Well, the best contribution you can make is to keep Mum and Dad off my back. Tell them you visit me regularly, and I’m really happy, and everyone here is really nice and normal.’
‘Are they?’
&
nbsp; ‘Well, they’re nice. And you don’t have to actually visit me. That’s just what you have to tell them.’
‘Can I come sometimes?’
‘If you have to. But I’m busy at the moment. This is a house meeting.’
‘OK. Can I stay and listen for a bit?’
‘I suppose. If you really want to.’
She gives me a quick half-smile and heads back to the cushions, returning to her spot next to a guy with a dense orange beard and a mop of ginger hair pinned up into a man bun, sitting as close to him as you can to another person without actually sitting on their lap.
I hover in the doorway for a while and take in the intense discussion, which seems to be about refillable jars. Hoping that the debate will move on to a topic that explains a little more about how they are going to save the world, I look around at the commune members. Rose appears to be the youngest. There are lots of beards and dreadlocks, lots of tattoos, lots of shapeless garments in lurid colours, several adults in dungarees, and an extravagant peppering of piercings to ears, noses, lips and even the odd eyebrow. Most of them could pass for students, apart from one old guy with a long grey ponytail, wearing jeans, a lumberjack shirt and an ancient-looking leather waistcoat, and a pair of middle-aged women who both have long, curly hair and are sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Even though two shafts of sunlight are slicing in through the grimy windows, a nest of candles and tea lights is at the centre of the room, surrounding a smoking stick of vaguely armpity incense. Or maybe the room’s odour is actual human armpits and the incense isn’t cutting through. It’s impossible to tell.
The topic of the meeting continues to be refillable jars for a very long time, way beyond my food container boredom threshold, and eventually I slink away, giving Rose a little wave as I leave, but she’s too riveted by the discussion to notice.
In the front garden (or what was once the front garden but is now the front junkyard) Sky is sitting on a chair made of builders’ pallets. The instant I appear, she jumps up and walks towards me. Something about this strikes me as weird, so I keep walking and try to pretend she isn’t there.
The Summer We Turned Green Page 3