Chapter 14 #2
‘Was the photographer OK?’ she asked, looking around.
Fortunately, the ceilings in the cottage were higher than she’d expected, so Savannah, who must have been at least six foot two, didn’t have to stoop.
In fact, her posture was upright and graceful for such a tall person.
She moved calmly, purposefully. Serene strength.
Those were the words that sprang to Jo’s mind.
With the height, the face, the bright knitted clothes and the silver accessories, Jo was reminded of photographs of Native American chiefs.
‘The photographer was fine,’ Savannah said, opening a cupboard entirely filled with boxes of tea: green tea, black tea, herbal tea, loose tea, bagged tea.
As she’d said, every taste in tea could be accommodated.
‘He photographed me outside in the garden, then out on the common. He asked if I could wear something green…’ she gestured to her outfit.
‘So, all the usual, really.’ She flicked a smile, lifted the cover from something that looked like a hi-tech version of an Aga and set a full kettle of water on the surface.
‘What’s that?’ Jo asked.
‘This is my electric stove, run off the panels on the roof.’
‘Right. OK, let me get out my notebook and recorder,’ Jo said. ‘So, solar panels, a grass roof, an electric stove. What else is different about the house?’
‘Oh, loads of things,’ Savannah replied.
‘You’ve got to come over here and see my eight-bin system for a start.
This bin is for bottles, then there’s newspaper, plastic, metal, compost, cardboard, batteries, bits and pieces I’d like to keep and use again…
oh, and the last one… that’s for rubbish, so I hardly ever use that. ’
Jo looked at the row of four small metal bins on the floor and the four bins suspended above them on the wall.
‘That’s a lot of bins,’ she said. ‘Do you have to take everything to the recycling place yourself?’
‘On my bike? Yeah, some things, but the collection service is getting better.’
‘On your bike?!’ Jo tried to picture this, wondered if she should get the photographer back to capture it.
‘How are you going to convince people to have eight bins?’ Jo asked. ‘I haven’t got room in my kitchen for eight bins.’
This elicited a deep sigh. ‘Why are people always so put off by the inconvenience of sustainable living?’ Savannah asked. ‘When global warming really gets under way, that’s going to be much more inconvenient: catastrophic floods, storms, heatwaves, the collapse of the rainforests and so on.’
‘Right… well…’ Jo didn’t want to wade right into the environmental lecture yet. ‘So, eight bins. Good. What else is different?’ she asked again.
‘There’s lots of non-toxic paint and non-toxic varnish, although I’m quite into leaving surfaces bare: waxed wood, wax-sealed plaster, I like to think of it as Italian palazzo style.
‘The insulation under the floors and in the loft is made of wool, plant fibres, even old newspaper articles,’ she smiled at Jo.
‘But it’s not all back-to-nature. I’ve got lots of hi-tech stuff: triple glazing, solar panels, very efficient fridge-freezer and washing machine, a top-of-the-range computer…
but generally, I like to use old stuff: reuse, recycle and all that.
My sinks, my bath, my taps and most of my furniture are old instead of new.
Or they’re made of things that can be recycled: wood, metal and leather.
I steer clear of plastic and that awful MDF stuff. ’
Jo looked round the kitchen, trying to understand what was different about it. There was a square porcelain sink under the window with fat old-fashioned taps that caught her eye and the plants, and more plants, on the shelves, on the windowsills, on the kitchen table.
‘You still haven’t told me what tea you’d like,’ Savannah said, reaching up to the mugs.
‘What do you recommend?’ Jo asked, pulling up a chair at the table. She had decided this should be a woman to woman, round the kitchen table kind of interview. Not a come to my study, sit at the other side of my desk and be intimidated by me thing.
‘How about green tea with jasmine?’ Savannah answered. ‘Enough caffeine to give you a boost without getting buzzed.’
‘Sounds good,’ Jo said.
So, the tea was brewed in a chipped grey pottery teapot. And the two women sat down facing one another. Jo stacked fresh tapes beside her machine, primed it ready to go and opened with the words: ‘So, Savannah, what turned you Green?’
Savannah couldn’t help bursting into loud laughter in response to this, but she did finally reply: ‘I grew up in the Argentinian countryside. It was a much simpler life, much more in tune with nature than the lives we live over here. My father was English,’ she said.
‘What did he do?’ Jo asked, noting the past tense, picking up the implication that Savannah’s father was dead.
‘He was a cattle breeder. He had herds of beautiful blue-black animals and I ate steak and drank milk every single day. I think that’s why I’m so tall. Like the Masai.’
Jo now recognised the lilt to Savannah’s voice. It was a long-eroded Spanish accent.
‘Does your mother still live in Argentina?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Savannah said and there was a long pause before she added, ‘My parents were both killed in a plane crash. My younger brother still lives in Argentina. He runs the family farm and I go to visit him every year, if I can. He has a wife, three children and never comes to England. He hates towns and he hates to leave his animals.’ She gave a little smile at this.
Savannah’s parents were killed in a plane crash.
How absolutely awful. Dreadful. And, Jo hated herself for the thought, here was her exclusive, human-interest angle.
‘I am so sorry to hear that… When were your parents killed?’ Jo asked as gently as she could but still felt the uncomfortable harshness of the question.
It sat badly with the warm tea, the shafts of sunlight falling onto the wooden table and the sweet pea petals in the vase beside her.
Savannah drew in a breath. For a moment, Jo thought that she wasn’t going to answer, might even tell her off for asking.
But Savannah took a sip from her cup, set it down on the table and said steadily: ‘It was eight years ago now. They were making a short internal flight in a small plane, they hit bad weather and the plane flew into a hillside. Everyone on board was killed. My mother always hated to fly, so I never like to think of what she must have gone through. It was a very difficult time for me. I was working in Alaska, I felt terribly alone. It was a very— difficult—’ Savannah used the word again, while Jo was busy thinking: difficult?
It must have been hell. Her admiration for Savannah growing by the minute.
‘A very difficult time,’ Savannah concluded.
‘They were lovely people. I loved them so much and I’ve managed to make some kind of peace with what happened…
but I think you can understand why I don’t like to talk about it.
’ She folded her arms, turned her face slightly and Jo was reminded once again of Native American chiefs.
‘No, I do understand that totally,’ Jo said.
‘I wasn’t aware of your loss and I didn’t mean to go there.
It was just the sequence of questions— Why don’t we get back to you?
’ But Jo knew she would have to probe the parents’ deaths again later on – and ask for a photo of them.
‘I left Argentina aged eighteen,’ Savannah began, ‘to go to university in Madrid and since graduating, I’ve divided my working life between Britain and abroad. That’s the potted guide.’
‘What do you work as?’ Jo followed up.
‘I’m a research chemist.’
‘Erm… yes, that’s what it says everywhere, but I wanted to find out more about that, especially as… it doesn’t sound terribly—’
‘Green?’ Savannah offered.
‘Well, no.’
‘I do choose who I work for very carefully,’ was Savannah’s response. ‘Also bear in mind, the information I learn is useful and I’m often telling my employers things they don’t want to hear.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ve worked with oil companies, chemical companies, pharmaceuticals.’
‘What’s your area of expertise?’ Jo asked.
‘Well… how to put it simply? I’m often looking at reactions – how things react with each other.
The short and medium-term effects. Personally, I’ve always been interested in the long-term effects.
But no one’s going to pay me to do that kind of work, because no one would make enough money out of it.
The seventh generation from now – that’s the one we should be thinking about.
The Native Americans had a saying “How will this affect the seventh generation?” That’s the kind of long-term view we should be taking. ’
Jo felt a little flash of vindication. See! She was dealing with a chief. A chief who was skilled at turning the answer to every question into a party-political broadcast. ‘When did you get involved with the Green Party?’ she asked next.
‘About ten years ago,’ Savannah replied. ‘It was something I’d been thinking about for a long time, then I met some people who really impressed me and I signed up.’
‘Has it affected your job?’
‘In some ways, yes, in other ways, no. I do less research work now anyway. I don’t need the money because my parents left me some and I don’t need the status. I like to spend as much time as I can on the cause. Furthering the political cause.’
‘Furthering your political career?’ was Jo’s next question.