Joe Treasure - The Book of Air

After a while Dell slept and so did I. When I woke she was gone. The morning light was thin through the trees and I heard them outside, Dell and Trevor, talking and chopping logs for the cooking.

I hear them now, and last night’s sleepers stumbling down the stairs, laughing or cursing and calling for food. And I feel so sorry for myself. Once I had a cottage and my own little room in it that I kept neat and clean. And I had a mother who loved me in her way. I had Sarah to read me texts from the Book of Air. I had Roland, who knew almost everything about me. In time we would have married. I would have led him to his bed at the Hall and it would have been our bed. But he chose Megan because I let this book fill me with wrong thoughts, and I let Brendan trick me into thinking I loved him, and because I lost my way. I miss my father. I think of his treasures hidden in the cottage – the knife with the sliding blades, the wren he carved for me, the silver chain – and think I shall never see them again.

I didn’t see Penny for three or four years – not until I was about to start work on the old maternity hospital in Bermondsey. I loved that project – beautiful Victorian brickwork and one spectacular wall of smoked glass spanning the gap between the north and south wings. High-ceilinged, big-windowed spaces, accessed directly from a glazed atrium, the old dark corridors carved up into en suite bathrooms. It was going to be perfect. Never happened, of course. What happened was the virus. And people lost interest in luxury apartments, along with the whole money system, the whole property thing. But we weren’t there yet. We had no idea what was about to hit. We were all still scrabbling to get ahead. I thought the worst thing we had to deal with was Brexit, starting with a lot of jumpy foreign investors scared that London was dropping off the map. And I figured I could ride that wave.

The atrium was going to be built on what had been the hospital garden, a patch of ground bounded on three sides by the walls of the building and open to the west to catch the afternoon sun. We were ready to start on the foundations when the protestors moved in. They called themselves the Urban Diggers. Their literature said that they were planting for a sustainable future. They reckoned my proposed extension would bury one of the last green spaces in the borough and they were asserting their right as citizens of the planet to grow vegetables. Bivouacs sprouted overnight. The Diggers walked between them with watering cans.

I ventured on to my own property, introduced myself, and asked to speak to their leader. They said they didn’t have a leader but would delegate some people to meet me. I invited their delegation to my office. They countered with the One World Cafe on the corner – breakfast at seven. I suppose they thought I’d be a walkover at that hour of the morning, seeing I was a member of the idle rich.

I was tempted to tell them to go fuck themselves, but I wanted to work something out so I could get on with the job.

I made sure to get there early. I watched them through the window dodging the morning traffic, three of them and a kid. When they pushed open the door, I realised their secret weapon wasn’t vegan omelette and camomile tea at the crack of dawn, but Penny. There she was in a headscarf, cotton dress and rubber boots, reinvented as an Urban Digger, chin forward, ready for a fight. The kid was Random’s, I could see that. A white-haired woman held him by the hand and waited while he raised his foot over the threshold. Trailing after them was a beautiful Asian girl.

I introduced myself.

Penny said, ‘They know who you are, Jason.’

‘So they know you’re my sister? I hope they don’t hold it against you?’

‘We don’t believe in genetics, Jason. We’re environmentalists.’

It was the kind of thing Penny said and you weren’t sure if it was a joke or not. She was bright but had these gaps, like someone who hasn’t been speaking the language very long.

Only the older woman, Ursula, gave a smile, but she was looking down at Simon and might have been smiling at him or might just have been smiling out of general contentment. The Asian girl, who was called Aisha, looked at me solemnly and rubbed Penny’s back.

I made my arguments. I was preserving a piece of historic London. It was a cutting edge development in terms of energy use. It fulfilled all the requirements for social inclusion. I wasn’t Satan. I wasn’t even one of Satan’s lesser minions. So the economy was in the crapper – people still needed somewhere to live. I’d make a donation in their name to an environmental cause, the World Wildlife Fund or some tree-planting outfit. I’d find them another plot in the borough, a piece of land the same size, give them free use of it for a year to grow their vegetables.

But they weren’t there to negotiate. They’d come to convert me. Couldn’t I see there were too many buildings already and not enough land? That we were choking the planet with our emissions, stoking the flames of our own destruction? Aisha and Penny did most of the talking, Aisha reacting to Penny’s agitation by stroking her arm or touching her hair. The meeting went nowhere. About the planet at least they were right.

As we were leaving, Simon held something up to me. It was a plastic dog. It looked grubby, and I thought maybe one of the Diggers had found it buried in the hospital garden.

I squatted to his level, ‘What’s this?’

He held it up to one eye. ‘This is Dumpy. Dumpy is mine dog. He’s a brave dog.’

‘He looks fierce.’

‘He has ventures. If you’re mean to me Dumpy will biten you. And if you’re mean to Dumpy and make him cry I will biten you until you say sorry.’

‘Now, Simon,’ Ursula said gently, ‘no biting. Little boys who bite must be sent to their room.’

With his eyes still on me, Simon nodded. ‘Yes, withouten any ice cream.’

I asked if he’d mind being sent to his room.

He thought about this and said, ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

He gave a sly grin. ‘Because I haven’t gotten a room.’

‘You haven’t?’

‘No.’ He leant towards me as if to tell a secret. ‘I got mine Dora Splorer snuggle bag.’

Outside on the pavement, while Aisha and Penny watched for a break in the traffic, Ursula said, ‘We don’t mean you any harm, you know.’

‘You just want to stop me earning a living.’

‘If it means more buildings, yes.’

‘And what am I supposed to do about that?’

Her face wrinkled up in a smile. ‘Take up gardening.’

The hospital project was stalled. But I wanted to make peace with Penny. If things were going to get messy with the Diggers, and it was heading that way, I wanted to give her and Simon a chance to get out of there. I also wanted to give her our news – your news, Caro. So I phoned and we arranged to meet in a pub by the river.

I got some drinks and we sat on a bench on the Embankment looking at the lights along the Thames. I asked about Simon and she said he was fine.

‘How’s he enjoying life in a tent?’

‘Oh that. We’re not doing that any more. The Diggers are irrelevant.’

‘That’s a relief.’

She seemed on edge. ‘There’s this book I’ve been reading. It puts it all in perspective.’

‘Good. Perspective is good.’

‘It makes the Diggers seem so trivial, so… marginal.’

‘Great! I’ll buy a dozen copies for Ursula and her friends. Maybe it’ll persuade them to get off my case.’

‘Forget the Diggers. Listen, Jason. I’m telling you something important.’

‘Me first. Caroline’s pregnant.’

‘What?’

‘I’m going to be a father.’

I didn’t know she was going to cry until the tears spilled down her face. I put my arms round her and her body felt frail. She clung to my neck, shaking and sobbing.