Love and Fallout by Kathryn Simmonds Page B

to get the uniforms?’
    â€˜We can’t wear uniforms, we’ll be as bad as they are.’
    â€˜But it’s subversion.’
    Everyone was talking together. Rori balanced a cigarette paper on her palm and with pinched fingers began sowing a seam of loose tobacco along its centre, taking care to protect the paper from the wind.
    â€˜What are the trucks for?’ I asked.
    â€˜Building work on the silos. We blockade to stop them getting through.’ Manipulating the tobacco into a neat roll, she skimmed her tongue over the paper’s gummed edge, sealed the tube and then, tearing a small square from her Rizla packet, rolled and inserted a filter. Finally, she dipped a twig into the fire, lit her cigarette and inhaled. It was an operation of fluid beauty. She offered me the tin.
    â€˜It’s all right thanks,’ I said, reaching for my new pouch of Golden Virginia. ‘Got my own.’
    As the debate about costumes intensified, I made my first shaky attempt at a cigarette while Sam’s strong voice rose up.
    â€˜Listen, this camp has been established for over a year, right? We’ve got to push forward. Surprise is our best weapon.’
    â€˜We shouldn’t use language from the male lexicon,’ someone declared. A discussion started up about gender-neutral language, but Sam wasn’t distracted for long. ‘We’ve got to remember why we’re here.’
    â€˜What about the diggers? This is common land, or at least it was,’ came another voice.
    â€˜Are they sending in diggers?’ I asked Rori. I still didn’t know what a silo was.
    â€˜No, she means the Diggers, you know, like the Levellers.’
    â€˜Oh, right.’
    I glanced back at Angela. She had such a pale, serious face. Under the hood of her parka, she reminded me of a daguerreotype I’d seen in a history O-level book, a little girl wearing a bonnet and looking out with an old woman’s stare.
    I’d overfilled my cigarette paper and couldn’t get control of it, and had just decided to extract a fat lump of tobacco when a gust of wind got up and blew everything away, leaving me with an empty hand. I made a disbelieving face. Rori giggled. Angela’s eye landed on me briefly.
    The red-hatted woman was speaking again. ‘But we could make authority look at itself. Think about it: pictures in the papers, photos of police dragging away other police.’
    Sam cut in. ‘Stunts are well and good but I came here to do something.’ There was silence, only the fire and a bird disturbing the trees. And then she said, ‘It’s time we cut the fence.’
    It was as if she’d suggested setting someone alight. A chorus started up immediately, but Sam wasn’t swayed and only raised her voice louder, ‘Look at the ANC. They could only use non-violence for so long.’
    â€˜We’re not the ANC, their human rights are being violated.’
    â€˜So are ours. The first human right is to live, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Cutting the fence is an act of violence,’ said a middle-aged woman in a snood arranged so that only her face was visible, like a nun’s from her wimple.
    â€˜They’re planning to put ninety-six nuclear missiles in there in a year’s time and we’re worried about cutting holes in some wire meshing. This is mad.’ Sam shook her head, confounded.
    â€˜We’re non-violent witnesses,’ said the snood lady.
    Everyone was talking over each other. The only one looking settled was Di, who sat knitting, the firelight playing on her round face.
    Sam raised her voice. ‘This is a resistance camp, we’re involved in a struggle.’
    â€˜Shouldn’t Jean do something?’ I said to Rori as the voices grew louder still.
    â€˜She’s not the chairwoman, there’s no hierarchy.’
    â€˜Cutting the fence is a criminal act,’ repeated the lady in the snood.
    â€˜I’m not going