Chapter 14 #3
‘Well…’ Savannah graced this with a laugh, ‘I don’t see it like that.
I would love there to be a Green MP. It’s ridiculous that there isn’t one, all to do with our antiquated voting system.
But I’m not personally ambitious, I could make a much bigger salary, much bigger splash out there in my own line of work.
But I’m very passionate about Green politics and if the best thing I can do to further the cause is stand as an MP, then that’s what I’ll do. ’
‘So, you don’t think you’ll enjoy it?’
Savannah smiled at this, wary of giving the wrong answer.
‘I’m sure it will be an amazing opportunity. But it would be even better to be an MP in a Green parliament, we’d get a lot more done.’
‘So, I bet you’re dying to tell me what a Green parliament would do,’ Jo said.
‘Ha, well,’ Savannah smiled, ‘we’re pretty radical, you know.
We’d probably do the opposite to any other kind of government.
We want a sustainable economy. We want local jobs, local food, local products.
Not apples that have been flown by jumbo jet from the other side of the globe.
We would encourage you to get rid of your car, but we’d give you great public transport, walkways and cycle paths.
We’d tax pollution to the hilt but we would help people to use less oil, gas, electricity and produce less rubbish. ’
‘I’m a bit worried this means we’ll all be working on an organic farm,’ Jo told her.
‘Would that be so bad?’ Savannah asked with a smile. ‘Think: clean air, clean water, clean food. Preserving what’s left of the natural world for future generations. Finding a way of letting humans live well that doesn’t destroy the one and only world we’ve got.’
‘Sounds good but incredibly idealistic,’ Jo said.
‘You’ve probably got the Green Gloom,’ Savannah smiled. ‘People think about what’s happening, know in their hearts it can’t go on, but feel helpless and depressed. So, they stop thinking about it and carry on.
‘But I’m determined to be optimistic. We can change.
No one can imagine how the future will look.
I’m sure if you’d told someone just thirty years ago about how things would be today, they wouldn’t have believed you.
They’d have thought you were being totally idealistic: everyone will have a mobile phone, houses will be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, there’ll be a huge supermarket in every single town, the internet will connect people all over the world in seconds—’
‘Can’t we have all the hi-tech stuff, all the convenience of modern life and still be Green?’ Jo asked her.
‘I think mainly yes with a bit of no,’ was Savannah’s answer.
‘I mean, downloading music, films and information is much more environmentally sound than producing CDs, DVDs, textbooks, carting them all over the world, then dumping them in landfill.’ She was gesturing so enthusiastically with her arms that her bangles were clanking: ‘I do understand that people want progress and to make their lives better,’ she said.
‘But we’ve got to move forward in a clean, sustainable way.
‘I’m a scientist,’ she added. ‘I hope science can make things better, not worse. There are a lot of green scientists because they’re out on the front line, measuring the ice-melt, pollution, or the ways medicine could be harming as well as helping.’
‘Hmm.’ Jo was scribbling hurriedly, but thought she heard something pointed in that final remark.
‘You’ve reported on vaccinations before, haven’t you?’ Savannah was asking her now.
‘Yes. I’m looking into Quintet this week. As well as you,’ Jo replied.
‘Quintet should be interesting,’ Savannah said.
‘I’m hoping you’ll be interesting too,’ Jo added. ‘Got any good vaccination contacts I should tap?’
‘I’ll think about that,’ was Savannah’s reply.
No one ever trusted a journalist all the way.
So often an interview was like a card game with the interviewee giving careful consideration to a question before setting strategic answers down on the table.
‘So, how did you get over the Green Gloom?’ Jo decided to pursue this line.
‘Nature will have the last laugh,’ Savannah said with a smile.
‘If humans do too much harm, we’ll wipe ourselves out and solve the problem.
The Earth will carry on, for several billion more years anyway.
I’m just hoping some eco-warriors up a nice clean mountain in New Zealand will survive and human life can start again in a better way. ’
‘This is supposed to cheer me up?!’ Jo exclaimed. She drained the last of her green tea from the mug. ‘Would you like to show me round your house and maybe the garden?’ she suggested. ‘Gives you a chance to talk about the Green lifestyle you’ve adopted.’
‘Good idea.’ Savannah seemed to draw a fresh burst of enthusiasm from this. ‘But remember, no point having a nice house if you haven’t got a decent planet to put it on.’
‘No.’ The Green Gloom was definitely descending on Jo.
The beauty of Savannah’s home was not in any overall ‘wow’ factor, but in the details.
It was comfortable and all the small things had been very well done.
The floor was wooden and polished. The doors, skirting boards and window frames were bare wood, stripped back and waxed.
In the sitting room was a small leather sofa, creased and well-worn, sheepskin rugs, a corduroy beanbag, a knitted blanket folded at the edge of the sofa.
This was a place to be comfortable and cosy.
‘I thought you’d be anti-sheepskin and leather?’ Jo asked. ‘You know, animal rights and all that.’
‘I’m a cattleman’s daughter, remember, I think a bit of organic, sustainable meat-eating is fine, and once it’s killed, the entire animal should be put to good use. No waste. Waste is the crime.
‘In New Zealand there’s a zero-waste policy,’ Savannah added.
‘Everything in a household bin is sorted, separated and recycled. Plastic is being stored in underground mines as a resource for the future. I try to have faith that it will happen over here, eventually. I’m not sure why Britain is taking so long to catch on.
Fishing, gardening, bird watching, hill walking are all great British traditions.
Deep in their hearts, people love the countryside.
But their souls have been suburbanised and they’ve forgotten. ’
There was a faded colour snapshot on the mantelpiece in a frame. Jo guessed it was a photo of Savannah’s family. Savannah saw what she was looking at and explained: ‘My parents and my brother, Alfredo – Alfie. I think it’s funny how my dad looks so Argentinian and my mum looks English.’
Jo picked the photo up and looked closely, wondering when was going to be a good moment to ask Savannah if she could borrow a snapshot of her parents.
All three adults were squinting against the sun so it was hard to make out their features clearly.
Savannah’s father was a tall, strapping man in a pale blue shirt, with dark hair, a deeply tanned face and one arm across his son’s shoulders.
Alfredo, even taller and more handsome, was grinning with his hand on the waist of his petite and delicate mother.
What looked so English about her was the wide-brimmed floppy straw hat and the finely printed puff-sleeved dress.
‘My mother was a wonderful gardener,’ Savannah explained.
‘She kept a fully stocked kitchen garden with vegetables, fruit trees, flowers and herbs. She always wore a gardening hat to keep the sun off her face, but in the summer, her shoulders, arms and legs would turn as brown as a nut. She was a small woman with a huge laugh, Mama. She—’ but Savannah broke off. ‘Well, anyway.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Jo said and placed the photograph back on the mantelpiece. As she did, she saw a tiny frame up there, round and intricate, no bigger than a 50p piece, with a baby’s sunny, smiling face inside.
She assumed it was one of handsome Alfredo’s children and she would have asked, but Savannah was already at the front door, offering a tour: ‘Organic vegetables first, then the compost heap, the insulation and the solar panels.’
It took almost an hour, and afterwards Savannah insisted Jo stay for lunch, even though it was Friday and Jo had nothing but endless work ahead of her.
Over a seventeen-ingredient salad – everything from the garden – and an organic, free-range, happy hen omelette, Jo turned her tape recorder off, put away her notebook, with the spare snap of Savannah’s parents inside, and chatted with something approaching normality.
‘Have you given much thought to what it will be like to be an MP?’ Jo asked.
‘Some days,’ was Savannah’s answer. ‘I don’t take it for granted… but we’ll know if it’s going to happen soon. Obviously, I’ll be the only Green and I’ll be very busy. But then Finlay might join me soon afterwards. You’ve heard about him?’
Jo nodded.
‘So how Green are you?’ Savannah put to her. ‘Am I allowed to ask that? Or is it like therapy and only you get to ask the questions?’
‘Well, I suppose it is like therapy. I like to at least pretend I’m neutral,’ was Jo’s reply.
‘But are you really? The things you write about every week indicate a certain sympathy with us, surely?’
‘You could say that,’ Jo admitted with a smile.
‘Ooh… a politician-like answer.’
‘Sorry, am I being cagey? I don’t want you to think you’re getting an easy ride.’
‘But I’m not! Look how severely you’ve twisted my arm to get that picture out of me.’
Jo laughed.
‘I’d just like to know if you’ve ever thought of going Green, politically.’
‘I’m very impressed with what you’re trying to do. OK?’ Jo decided on finally. ‘That’s all you’re going to get out of me and that’s strictly off-the-record!’
When lunch was over, Jo ordered a taxi to take her to the station, despite Savannah’s pained expression.
‘I’ve got to rush if I’m going to make the 2.30 p.m.,’ Jo told her, justifying the decision.
The women shook hands on the doorstep and Jo wished Savannah well. ‘I really hope you do it,’ she said. ‘It’ll make the House of Commons much more interesting. I’ll be watching on the night.’
‘Thank you,’ Savannah said and held her hand. ‘I look forward to reading your article… I hope!’
As soon as Jo was in the taxi, she rang the news desk.
Jeff’s deputy, Mike, picked up and, not caring if it was bad form, insubordination or whatever, she said a pleasant hello and asked if she could talk to Jeff.
It was simpler this way. She didn’t want any of the Chinese whispers or misunderstandings that speaking to Mike often resulted in.
‘So, what have we got? Anything interesting?’ Jeff asked as if she’d been to some rubbish press conference that might make a paragraph on page 22.
‘Anything interesting?!’ she retaliated.
‘More like everything interesting. Her parents were killed in a plane crash, she was devastated, never got over the loss. She’s full of radical ideas: taxing rubbish, building mines to store all our waste plastic in, paying everyone in the county a “citizen’s income”—’
Jeff interrupted with: ‘Yes, but have you found out about her love life?’
‘Jeff! Please, can’t we try and stay just a tiny bit on the highbrow side with this?’
‘Maybe, Jo, but I’ve got some very interesting information for you. I’ve just had a call from your little protégé, Aidan.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
The taxi was making good time. She was being whizzed through side streets and would easily catch the train.
‘He has some names and dates you might like to write down if you’ve got a free hand. Are you in a cab?’ Jeff asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you might want to tell the cab to turn around and take you straight back to Savannah’s house.’
‘Aha.’ Why did she have a sinking feeling about this? A feeling that it was going to get messy. Had Aidan unearthed some boyfriend who had moaned about what a terrible lover she was and now she was going to have to go back and ask Savannah about it? How horrible.
‘Stop your cab,’ Jeff reminded her.
‘Just a sec then.’
The driver was grumpy about the request and complained that he already had another job lined up in the centre of town.
‘Look I’m sorry—’ She took the few moments necessary to promise him extra money on top of the fare.
‘Right,’ she resumed the conversation with Jeff. ‘What have you got for me?’
‘A birth certificate,’ he replied: ‘Felix Martin Teyhan. Father, Philippe Teyhan, engineer, mother—’
He didn’t need to say it, she already knew: ‘Savannah Tyler, scientist.’ Oh God. She felt the lurch in her stomach as she guessed what was coming next.
‘And a death certificate,’ Jeff said, but with understanding, not any sort of ‘wow what a great scoop’ note of triumph in his voice: ‘Just twenty months later. Felix Martin Teyhan, respiratory failure. Post-mortem and toxicology report, no abnormal indications.’
‘Jesus. Not even two years old. Where and when did this happen?’
‘Felix was born in Wainwright, Alaska. His death took place there as well,’ Jeff said, adding the dates.
‘She said she’d worked in Alaska.’ Jo was doing the maths.
Eight years ago… Savannah’s parents had died earlier in the same year.
How absolutely dreadful, no wonder Savannah never talked about any personal stuff.
Presumably she and the baby’s father had split up as well.
There hadn’t been any photos… any indication…
and that was when Jo recalled the tiny picture frame.
The small smiling face was Felix: Savannah’s dead son.