Love and Fallout by Kathryn Simmonds

sorry she was forgetting and asks me again why it was they were never allowed to play Monopoly. I close down that particular discussion before we go completely off topic.
    â€˜Pip, there are people fighting for university places. Students are out on the streets trying to protect their right to an education. Why do you want to waste your time with this nonsense? Just think about it, that’s all I ask…’
    â€˜There’s nothing to think about. It’s no big deal.’
    â€˜If it’s what she wants,’ says Pete, ‘I don’t see the harm. We all do silly things when we’re young.’
    â€˜It’s not silly. Oh.’ She rises from the beanbag, but with difficulty because beanbags aren’t designed for decisive action. ‘For some reason I thought someone might be, God, I don’t know, pleased for me or something.’
    â€˜I can’t say I’m hugely excited about my daughter parading around in her pants, no.’
    â€˜Well everyone’s just seen yours,’ she says, straightening up.
    â€˜That was different.’
    â€˜How?’
    â€˜I wasn’t doing it for me…’
    â€˜Well I’m not either. I’m doing it for charity.’ I give her a sceptical look and her brown eyes become fierce. ‘You know how expensive fees are, you were the one who wanted me to go on the marches, remember?’
    â€˜This isn’t the answer is it!’ I knew she wasn’t joining the women’s society but I didn’t expect this. ‘If you’re going to use that argument you might as well take up pole dancing, that probably pays a few quid.’ She picks up her glass and heads towards the door. I try to calm my voice. ‘Pip, you may think this is all a bit of fun, but there’ll be people making money out of it. Making money out of you . You’re a beautiful girl, of course you are, but you don’t have to prance up and down to prove it. You don’t have to feed the machine.’
    â€˜ What machine ? There is no machine!’ she says flinging an arm up so the silver bangles on her wrist jangle and her wine sloshes. ‘I’m sorry you haven’t got a daughter who wants to sit in a field all day eating mungbeans and going on about global warming… I’m sorry I’m not kicking about in charity shop clothes getting neurotic about other people’s heating bills or whatever it is you do…’
    â€˜Pippa!’
    â€˜â€¦but that’s not me, okay. And it never will be. I’m not like you.’
    She makes her exit.
    Dom shakes his head. ‘She’s mad.’
    I have the urge to run upstairs, to suggest that walk in Fosset wood so we can talk things over and make our peace. But even as I’m thinking this I also want to shake her by the shoulders because for the life of me I can’t understand her. A beauty pageant? And what was that about mungbeans? It’s her first year at university, she’s young, she wants to fit in, but even so, a beauty pageant? Is her need to be accepted really that strong? I remember nineteen – the muddle of it – and I remember what it was like wanting to belong, only the gang I wanted to belong to had a very different agenda.

8
    Singing Lessons
    By three o’clock, at least twenty-five of us were gathered around the fire waiting for the meeting to start. Our numbers had been temporarily bolstered by members from Ruby gate, our nearest neighbours, who were camped half a mile away. Rori and I sat side by side on milk crates while Barbel, wearing a poncho made from a blanket, walked around the ragged circle handing out Common Good , the newsletter. Everyone accepted it keenly, even the couple with their arms slung around each other who seemed too deep in conversation to notice. I shared my copy with Rori and together we turned through the photocopied patchwork of handwritten articles, cartoons and announcements, pausing at