Just as we set off, a car full of servicemen spun round the corner. Leaning out of his window, the driver jeered loudly, and, as the car came past, deliberately steered the wheels through pools of rainwater on the side of the road, sending wet sheets of filth up in our faces.
‘For God’s sake!’
Goggle-eyes stared down at his sodden, splattered suit. His eyes narrowed, and there was one of his dangerous pauses. Then he swung round in time to see the back of the servicemen’s car disappear round the next bend.
Well, you can’t pick a fight with the armed forces, can you? Of course not. So he picked on us. Glowering at me, he waved his free hand to indicate the raggletaggle procession ahead.
‘You realize,’ he snarled, ‘that all these people would be far better off living under some form of dictatorship. They might no longer feel obliged to go round asserting their democratic rights!’
I lifted my side of the banner higher. It was his own fault. He should have taken Mum’s advice, and worn an anorak and kicker boots.
‘In a dictatorship,’ I told him proudly, ‘all these people would probably already be dead.’
And so, in perfect step if not in perfect accord, we followed everyone along the road towards the main gate of the submarine base.
Sighing, the police heaved themselves out of their vans and followed us.
6
It’s not as easy as you might think to get arrested. For one thing, there’s never enough wire-cutters to go round.
‘Who was supposed to bring the other pair?’
‘That group from Muirglen. They said they’d meet the snowballers at the police station, and provide transport home.’
‘What use is that? How will we ever get to the police station if we can’t cut the wire?’
‘This pair’s completely blunt!’
‘So are these!’
I blocked my ears against the bickering at the fence, stretched out and stared up at the sky. When we do one of our die-ins, I let myself go all limp until the tarmac no longer feels gritty and hard under my body. I lie and watch the clouds go scudding overhead, and try to forget that other people are packed around me like sardines, some grumbling they’ve fetched up in a puddle, some lost in thought, some coming out with those baffling snatches of conversation you always hear when you’re close to strangers. Then, at a signal from whoever is organizing us, we quieten down to deathly and foreboding silence. However many times you’ve been a part of it, it still feels strange. Suddenly, with everyone lying there pretending, just for a few minutes, that the worst has actually happened – it’s too late now – it’s all over – the world seems larger, somehow, and more serious and more precious. And the police walkie-talkies suddenly sound so cheap and tinny and unimportant that some of the officers stare ahead in real embarrassment as the stupid chirruping pours from their jacket pockets.
Lie down and look up at the sky. It’s such a small thing to do, but it makes such a difference. The sky looks so huge it’s absolutely astounding. You only notice when you’re flat on your back. Strolling along streets or glancing out of windows, you only get to see the thinnest rim of it. On your back, you can see it alclass="underline" the vast upturned bowl that stretches miles and miles in peaceful blue, or hangs right over you in dark, bruisy colours, threatening to spill. I think that everyone in the world should stretch out quietly for a while every single day of their lives, look up at the whole sky, and be astonished.
Our minutes of silence were over, so it popped out.
‘I think that everyone should lie on their backs every day, and stare up at the sky.’
‘You must be joking!’
Goggle-eyes shuddered in horror, and reached down from where he had been standing beside a couple of police officers, preserving what was left of his suit and his dignity. He hauled Mum to her feet.
‘Kitty’s right,’ Mum agreed, brushing grit off her jeans. ‘People waste too much of their lives rushing about building new things and pulling old things down. They ought to take time to look at what’s been there for ever.’
‘An empty sky!’
‘Infinity,’ Mum corrected him. ‘Eternity.’
Well, we can’t all be closet philosophers. ‘Did you bring the sandwiches?’ I interrupted, patting the bulging pockets of Mum’s anorak. ‘I’m really hungry.’
Unfortunately, this started Jude off.
‘Me, too,’ she wailed. ‘When are we going ho-o-me?’
‘Please don’t start whining,’ Mum told her irritably. ‘You know I can’t stand it.’
Jude didn’t answer back. She never does. But, scowling, she sidled closer to Gerald Faulkner, exactly the same way she always used to move towards Dad for his support whenever Mum was ratty. And, sure enough, Gerald immediately stuck up for her, just the way Dad always did.
‘Go easy, Rosalind. It’s been a tiring day.’
Mum’s like me. She hates people even hinting she might be being a bit unreasonable.
‘For heaven’s sake!’ she snapped. ‘It hasn’t been that bad! When I was young we used to have to sit for two whole hours every Sunday in a stone cold church, bored stiff, to save our selfish little souls. Jude’s lucky! A few times a year she gets a couple of hours of fresh air to try to save the whole world’s bacon. Is that so terrible?’
There was a little Gerald Faulkner pause. I waited with interest. (It’s not that often they’re not directed at me.) Then:
‘Do you know what you are, Rosalind?’ he said. ‘You are almost unbelievably bossy.’
Jude and I caught our breath. If Dad said anything like that, the fur would fly so fast, so furious, you’d hit the floor for safety. But, then again, Dad would have said it differently. It would have come out as a sort of snarl, a terrible insult. Somehow Gerald Faulkner managed to say it in an affectionate kind of way that made you think the fact that Mum was so bossy filled him with loving admiration.
And, astonishingly, that’s the way she took it.
‘I am bossy, aren’t I?’ she said. ‘Yes, I really am bossy.’
I breathed again. (So did Jude. I heard her.)
‘You’re wasted running that hospital,’ Gerald Faulkner told Mum, as he ground the poles of my banner deep in the mud of the bank, so it would stand up by itself. ‘You ought to be running British Telecom. Or Great Britain! Or the world!’
Everyone around us, I noticed, was beginning to look rather uncomfortable now.
‘Yes. I could run the world.’ (Mum sounded keen.) ‘I’d do a really good job. I’d make an excellent dictator.’
It was embarrassing. She honestly didn’t seem to notice that half the people who overheard were reaching down for the little waterproof rucksacks that held their thermos flasks and banana yoghurts, and were edging away uneasily. Others were standing paralysed, with their mouths full of alfalfa-sprout sandwiches, watching with shocked expressions.
Goggle-eyes didn’t seem to notice, either. Or, if he did, he didn’t care.
‘You’d be ideal!’ he assured her. ‘You have the basic qualification for the job. You know for a simple fact that, to be absolutely in the right, people need do no more than come round to your views.’