Present day #2
‘Oh no, no, no.’ She shook her head. ‘That sounds horrifically close to the racist sentiments I hear on the radio. Soundbites offered by morons who don’t understand how this melting pot of a city works, how it’s always worked.
No, I think we direct it at the developers, something like .
. .’ She exhaled, trying to think. ‘Something like Portland and Montague – dismantling our history, destroying our architecture, selling out the poor, putting profit before people, and, erm—’
‘If you don’t mind me saying, Lil,’ her friend cut her off, ‘you’re either going to need a much bigger canvas or a much shorter slogan. And besides, you’re not poor.’
Lilly laughed out loud; there it was again, one of Glenda’s favourite topics. ‘No, but a lot of the people I care about in this development are. You’re probably right about the slogan. What would you go for?’
‘Hmm . . .’ Her friend took a seat at the table. ‘I’d keep it short and say something like Don’t knock down my home. I like it here.’
Lilly smiled. ‘Do you know, that’s not half bad.’ She liked the simplicity of it, with its twist of drama. It might make people think. If they, too, liked their home, would they want it knocked down? ‘Let’s give it a go!’ She prised the lid from the black paint pot and gave it a stir.
‘You should call the papers too. They’re good at making a fuss.’
Lilly clapped. ‘You’re right, Glend, they are!’
Her enthusiasm helped partially erase the sense of doom that had dogged her since Mr Vaughan’s last visit. It felt good to be doing something – anything! Other than sitting and waiting for the axe to fall.
‘No time like the present!’ Abandoning the tin of paint, she rushed to the desk in the lounge, opened her computer and searched for the number for the Gazette . . .
‘Call me Jake.’ The journalist walked straight towards the window. She liked his Che Guevara T-shirt. He reminded her of the long-haired philosophical wannabe boys of her youth. ‘Wow!’
‘Yep.’ She smiled.
‘Wowsers!’
‘Yes.’ She understood.
‘Flippin’ marvellous! That’s some view!’
‘It really is. One of a kind, a bit like Waide House.’ She extended her hand, encouraging the young man to take a seat on the sofa as she sat in the chair opposite, hoping to keep him on track and to get this interview over and done with.
It had felt like a great thing to call the paper when she was high on the adrenaline of a good idea and with sugar fizzing in her blood.
She and Glenda had, between them, eaten almost an entire packet of custard creams. Now, however, as she sat opposite the journalist, who took out a laptop and flipped up the screen, she wasn’t quite so sure.
‘Do you mind if I take notes as we chat?’
‘I don’t mind at all.’ She folded her hands into the folds of her voluminous green linen skirt, which she had paired with a thin, cotton, mustard-coloured jersey over a green and gold striped T-shirt.
‘So . . .’ Face set, back straight, he tip-tapped on the keys as if trying to injure them, each stroke loud, severe and, in her view, entirely unnecessary.
His art, the opposite of gently waving a brush over canvas, and she was thankful that it wasn’t hers, knowing she’d find this frenzied bashing quite stressful as an occupation.
‘I’m thinking the angle is Original resident booted from home to make way for luxury development by big-money investors – kind of thing? ’ He looked up at her.
‘Erm . . .’ Not for the first time, Lilly doubted her decision to involve the press, concerned by the man’s lack of subtlety.
‘It’s not so much about the big-money investors.
I mean, please, yes! Big-money investors, do come and invest in our postcode!
We need an improved library, we need breakfast clubs and after-school clubs for little ones, we need sporting facilities for our teens, literacy classes for adults, training and job opportunities, you name it!
There’s much we could do with a great big whack of investment!
’ She sat back in the chair, watching as Jake stared at the ceiling, his fingers mid-air as if wanting to bash away on the keys but unsure of where to strike.
He tried again. ‘But your gripe is that you’re being booted out?’
‘Gripe puts me in mind of something mealy-mouthed and possibly sounds a little bit woe-is-me, and booted is a curiously violent word that I don’t really feel applies here.’ She smiled at him.
‘What would you suggest?’ He folded his arms across his chest.
She couldn’t quite tell if he was genuinely asking for her assistance or being sarcastic.
‘I might go for something like coerced – it feels a lot like coercion. And possibly railroaded. I might not like them, but the developers have been very fair, really. Offering me the market value of my home and giving me notice, which I ignored, but that’s not really their fault, the letters fell down the back of my cupboard.
I don’t really like admin.’ She paused. ‘And Mr Vaughan, who they send to talk to me, is only doing his job, a nice enough young man, I’m sure.
And I do rather rile him, made him talk to me through the letterbox, despite him having a bad back on account of his cricketing debacle. ’
Jake looked at her through narrowed eyes, and she didn’t like his scrutiny.
It felt unfavourable, and that was never nice, especially in her own home.
‘So, just to clarify’ – this time there was no mistaking his sarcasm – ‘you say you don’t have a gripe, are not being booted anywhere, the developers have been very fair, and you get on with the chap they send to deliver the bad news.
So what are you, Mrs Cooper, slightly miffed?
’ He made the suggestion with a downturn to his mouth.
‘It’s Miss.’ She held his eyeline. ‘And I’m slightly more than miffed.
Miffed rather suggests mild irritation and not the level of distress I feel about the whole thing.
I can, for example, tell that you, Jake, are slightly miffed by my dislike of your original angle, which makes you seem inflexible, precious and oversensitive, but that can’t be helped.
Far better we get it right, don’t you think? ’
‘Yes, Miss Cooper.’ He sounded like a child who had been suitably admonished.
‘What I feel about this whole upheaval is a lot closer to grief. I think anyone who has experienced such a thing will tell you that it’s a rather grinding state of affairs, a slow drip of desolation that colours even the brightest day with sadness and taints the taste of good food.
’ She pictured her mum at the countertop, before Jeannie had taken a hammer to their family, dishing up supper with the radio playing, and her dad, sitting at the kitchen table, reading the very newspaper for which Jake worked, and felt a lump forming in her throat.
‘It wraps your whole world and fills you with a sorrow that feels permanent. A sorrow that is permanent, no matter that it might dilute a little over time. This feels a lot like that. This is where I live, where I have always lived. The rooms in which I have celebrated every birthday, each Christmas and even a funeral. I’ve laughed here, cried here, eaten nearly all of my meals here, dreamed here, slept here, watched TV, done my homework, read books, fallen in love, and vaulted the line from child to teen to very old woman.
All of it within these walls. And it happened in a blink.
’ She clicked her fingers and he stared at her, his shoulders dropped a little, his arms unfolded, his stance not quite so rigid.
‘I am bereft at the thought that not only do I lose my home, my memories, my history, but this city loses this wonderful, untouched example of 1950s architecture and the community loses nine flats in which eight families, other than my own, can live at an almost affordable rate. I think it would be a great loss in so many ways. So, yes, I’m more than miffed, Jake. ’
He tip-tapped a little more gently now, and she was glad of it.
‘I suppose’ – he looked up at the ceiling again – ‘that those in favour of the development would point out that the hike in property prices once the new apartments start selling is good for those who own around here. A rising tide raises all ships, and all that.’
‘I suppose they would. But it’s not those who own property I fear for, Jake.
’ She looked him in the eye. ‘Indeed, I own this property, and as you say will undoubtedly gain financially, but things can’t only be about money, can they?
Surely there has to be greater consideration of the wider context?
It’s about those who just about manage, those without housing security, those who in a rising tide fear drowning!
’ Her emotions rose at the thought of Clodagh and Apollo living away from her, upsetting this lovely little routine and the circle of support that they had formed.
She wondered how many more sticks might clutter up the hallway yet, knowing she would treasure and appreciate each and every one.
‘I guess the counterargument might also be that the money the authorities get could be spent on social housing and other projects?’
Lilly gave a soft laugh. ‘It could, Jake, and I might win the Turner Prize.’
‘Have you a piece under consideration for the prize?’ This seemed to have caught his interest. A bigger story, no doubt.
‘No. And I guess that kind of sums up my point.’
‘Can I take some photographs of your sign in the window?’ He pointed over his shoulder. ‘I can do it from the walkway.’
‘I’m not sure.’ She was, in that minute, mistrustful of how Jake might represent her and her story and decided she’d rather not have her placard, her window, her address and her business splashed all over the Gazette, or worse, the internet.
With only herself to blame for getting caught up in the moment, she regretted the enthusiasm with which she’d made the call, aware she might have wasted his time and her own.