‘Du te inapoi in cort, Ramona! Nu ai nici o fucking modestie!’ the man yelled at her.
The young woman threw him a look and withdrew into the tent, only to re-emerge a few minutes later with a baby.
It was at this point that Violet lost the plot. She rushed up to some sharp-suited, up-himself creep who was taking a short cut through the grove on his way to the City while talking loudly in an Eton drawl on his mobile phone, and asked him to help. He ordered the hard-hats to stop, and they backed off in the deferential way of the working classes confronted by their natural superiors. Violet gave him one of those sweet girly looks, and I thought she was going to throw her arms around him too, but fortunately she didn’t, and off he went on his indomitable way.
‘Costum fucking grozav,’ said the underpants man admiringly to his departing back.
Then the workmen zoomed off in their van, and there was now no conceivable reason for me still to be chained up here almost an hour later. It had been a mistake to trust Inna with the key. She had said she would follow in a few minutes with some coffee and toast, and bring the key to unchain me at the right moment. What in God’s name had happened to her?
While not wishing in any way to make light of Jesus’ suffering on the cross, there were certain parallels in our situation, which put me in a meditative frame of mind while I awaited my release. I thought of my dear mother embarked on her fearsome journey to the undiscovered country, her ashes mixed with those of strangers and scattered to the winds by unknown hands. Yet there was a kind of consolation in the mixing: she was what you’d nowadays call ‘a people person’; she wouldn’t have wanted to travel that way alone.
The years she had lived at Madeley Court had been rich with love, friendship and mutuality — years of believing that a better world was possible if we would only give it a try. Years of pre-school playgroups and after-school crèches, allotment gardens and tenants committees, tombolas for Africa and India, fasts to free Mandela, anti-nuclear coffee mornings and solidarity barbecues. When the first Jamaican family had moved into the block in 1968 and Enoch Powell had warned of ‘rivers of blood’, Mum had plied them with rivers of tea. My childhood had been lived in a world designed by Berthold Lubetkin and charmed into being by Aneurin Bevan — paternalistic maybe, but untainted by cynicism and self-interest. An uncynical tear sprang to my eye. Chained with my back to the road, my eyes feasted on the fine proportions of Lubetkin’s building, the private spaces and the communal spaces interlinked, the winding line of the walkway through the gardens uniting his vision.
If only Mother had been here to defend her domain and the ideals it embodied, wielding her umbrella alongside Mrs Crazy! But what would she have made of the long-haired tent-dwellers messily encamped in her cherry orchard? Would she have admired them as free spirits and adventurers, or abjured them as lazy ne’er-do-wells? You could never tell with Mother. She was vehemently critical of idleness, drunkenness and bad language. On the other hand, since her retirement, she had seldom been out of her dressing gown before noon, her sherry habit was legendary, and she had tried to teach Flossie to swear at the television. She deplored promiscuity, but she adored babies, whatever their parentage. Women are soft that way. Even bloody Inna — damn her, where the hell had she got to with that key? — never missed a chance to gawp into a stranger’s pram.
On the wall in my room I have a photo of Stephanie and Meredith in that same pose, taken in our old flat in Clapham: Stephanie is smiling, not at me, not at the camera, but at her own inner pleasure; Meredith is a fat greedy blob of sensuality with a wisp of dark hair on her crown. If she had lived, she would be twenty-three now. If she had lived, perhaps Stephanie and I would still be together, and I would have a string of acting credits and an almost-paid-off mortgage.
Chained as I was, unable to move, my mind was wandering off down the hazardous trails of the past. I pictured Meredith as she might be now, and the image that skipped into my mind was Violet with her swept-up hair and her dimpling smile, so beautiful and so vulnerable, though at the time of the accident she had seemed as sturdy as a pony on her little legs. Here she was at long last, trotting through the dappled shade of the cherry grove, holding a cup with a lid, and Inna overtaking her in her characteristic high-speed hobble, bringing two slices of toast on a plate, which she thrust into my hands.
‘It, it.’
‘But where’s the key?’ I asked.
Inna looked shifty. Her diamanté glasses had slipped to the bottom of her nose. ‘Oy! Lost it!’
She turned to consult Violet over her shoulder; they exchanged a few muttered words.
‘I’m afraid Inna’s lost the key.’ Violet smiled and surreptitiously tapped her temple.
‘For God’s sake, woman! You only had it for two minutes! How can you have lost it?’
Inna did her confused act, flapping her hands and rolling her eyes the way I had taught her. I wanted to slap her. The twig dug deeper under my left shoulder blade. Above me in the cherry tree there was a sudden rustling of leaves and a large gob of something warm and moist landed on my head.
‘Naughty Pidgie!’ Violet chided, and leaned forward with a tissue to wipe it away.
For a moment I felt the pressure of her firm young breast on my naked chest. Confusion overcame me.
‘Have you looked down the side of the sofa, Inna? Have you looked in the rubbish bin? This is getting bloody uncomfortable,’ I shouted.
Not only was it uncomfortable, it was also embarrassing. The eleven occupants of the three tents, including the Y-fronts man, the lady with the baby, a couple of colourfully dressed oldies and assorted children, had all gathered in a semicircle around my tree, and were whispering among themselves.
‘Go away! Piss off! Bloody foreigners!’ I shouted at them, which I know was wrong, but I was annoyed because the glory of the day — i.e. the saving of the cherry trees — which should have been mine alone, had to be shared with this scruffy-looking crew and the smarmy businessman-type, who seemed to be on far too friendly terms with Violet. After all, it was I who had raced down here half naked at seven o’clock and suffered the discomfort of quasi-martyrdom, while he swanned off to his office and they hung around smoking and gibbering.
They fell silent when I shouted, then an old guy in an embroidered shirt and baggy trousers stepped forward, grabbed my hand, pumped it up and down, and made an incomprehensible speech that went on for several minutes. The semicircle of onlookers clapped politely. Next, the young woman with the magnificent tits, the one who had been breastfeeding her baby, stepped forward and handed me a long, stiff pinkish object, partly wrapped in a white cloth. To my horror, it looked like a wizened dead baby, but on closer inspection turned out to be a large salami. The woman handed it over with a little bow and said a few words. The audience clapped.
Inna, who was still standing beside me, whispered in my ear, ‘She say thank you for save our home and baby.’
The young woman then embraced me, pressing her magnificent tits against my bare chest, which was quite nice, though unfortunately she was now fully clothed. Having become accustomed to these female gestures of affection, I was beginning to realise what George Clooney has to put up with.
‘He say you big hero, chain yourself on tree, stop workmen knocking down tent,’ whispered Inna.
‘Oh, tell them it was worth the suffering,’ I said nobly, gulping down the now-tepid coffee which Violet had brought.
‘Is it okay?’ she asked.
‘Perfect,’ I said, though it was weak and too sweet, and I had to stop myself from saying ‘like you’. But here was the puzzle — even when she brushed against me with her breast, when she stood so close to me that I could smell the soap on her skin, even when she touched me with her ethereal hands and wiped the bird shit from my brow, even when my love blazed up through all my being, the beast below did not stir.