Miss Jenkins made them both a cup of tea. Bridget felt like she’d been let in the staff room on a weekend, only it was the art room, and it was Friday.
“None of us will survive if it happens, Bridget. We won’t have time to run anywhere.”
Bridget shrugged and wondered if it was all right to ask for sugar.
Miss Jenkins opened a tin of biscuits. “We have to do everything to stop it.”
There were rumours that the plants on Miss Jenkins’ high up shelves were cannabis. Bridget wasn’t clear what you did with cannabis but whatever it was, it sounded like Miss Jenkins had been doing it. “No one can stop a bomb, Miss. It’s impossible.”
Miss Jenkins took her tea to the table, the pictures they’d been working on. “You know they’ve been there a year already.”
“Who has?” She couldn’t care less. As long as she missed netball.
“The women, Bridget. The peace camp.” Miss Jenkins was trying to make Bridget look at her through wisps of orange hair, her face tilted, she was trying to catch her eye but Bridget kept her head down. She didn’t want to get all swept up with what Miss Jenkins was going on about, who cared, it was stupid anyway, she wanted to get back to her drawings. She let her own hair fall across her face, a thick dark protective curtain.
Miss Jenkins picked up the leaflet that Bridget had brought crumpled to the table that morning. She waved it in the air. “If we don’t stop them there’s going to be American nuclear warheads here, in the UK, on British soil, pointing at Moscow, and do you know where Moscow will point their nuclear war heads if we let that happen? At us, here, in Surbiton.”
“Not directly at Surbiton, though.” It sounded to Bridget as if her art teacher and her dad had been reading the same secret documents naming places the Russians wanted to bomb with Surbiton top of the list.
“England, Bridget. If they hit England, nothing will survive.”
“My dad says that’s why we have to have them though.” She drank her tea like Miss Jenkins did, in small sips, feeling like they could almost be the same except that Miss Jenkins was wispy and thin and a lot older and a teacher and Bridget was more like a fat shadow who couldn’t imagine feeling lighter than air or wispy ever, the way everything felt so heavy around her. Her dad made comments about how she looked different these days, not saying the women’s words like her mum did, but saying, He could see things were changing and, Wasn’t it time Janet took her down C&A. She’d already gone down C&A ages ago, and to the chemist. Her mum had said, Leave the girl alone, Ray and, Isn’t the news on? He liked nothing better than plonking in his TV chair and nodding along to Heseltine, shouting every word to Janet in the kitchen as if Heseltine was doing all his speaking for Ray. Her mum tried to get her to watch along with him, give them something else to talk about, she said it was good to learn each other’s interests and her dad meant well, he didn’t mean to upset her, but Bridget wondered what her dad thought her interests might be, seeing as he never asked, and Paul asked if Maggie and Heseltine were married making their mum laugh and their dad shout at him to come in and get some sense between his ears. Bridget reckoned her dad wanted to be Heseltine the way he went on about him so much in which case why was he married to their mum because Janet was nothing like Maggie Thatcher, she was the opposite.
“It’s the opposite!” It’s the exact opposite.” Miss Jenkins’ face was all lit up as if she’d been running. “How do we even know the Russians want a war? How do you know it’s not the Americans who want to blow us all to pieces? Can we believe anything the government says? They’re out for blood, they’re the warmongers. They want to take us to the brink, the very brink of civilisation, and then what happens? One false move and it’s over. Mutually Assured Destruction. Do you know what that spells, Bridget? M.A.D. They actually call it that.”
Bridget swore Miss Jenkins had almost said the f-word. “My dad says the Russians wouldn’t dare.”
“Then why is he building a fallout shelter?”
Bridget had asked him that. He’d said you couldn’t count on those Ruskies.
“Do you know the only nation to have pressed the button are the Americans?”
Bridget shook her head.
“Hiroshima? Nagasaki? Have you not seen the pictures? You must have done the second world war.”
“We won, didn’t we.”
Miss Jenkins seemed to shiver from head to toe. She got up, rustled about in her cupboard, and brought out a book which she opened on the table. Photographs of people burnt, people covered in welts, their skin torn and risen in unnatural bumps and waves, their eyes on the camera, their mouths open, muted screams. On another page was a body twisted and mauled, the page opposite showed a black and white land, flattened.
“Is that what we want?” Miss Jenkins stood over the book like her dad had stood over his Big Map. “They’re going to store cruise missiles, that’s nuclear warheads to you and me, like the bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They’re going to arm us for a war that no one will survive, that no one wants. They’ve stolen common land, they’ve fenced it and flattened it and run it over with concrete and tarmac and if we don’t stop them, this time next year they’ll be bringing their cruise missiles here, all in the name of peace. These men,” and she paused to wipe her nose.
“And Maggie,” said Bridget.
“And Maggie, they think it’s all right to bring their bombs and point them at anyone they please. They think it’s perfectly fine to start world war three while we’re too busy doing the washing up to stop them.”
“My dad looked it up on a map.”
Miss Jenkins took a gulp of her tea. “These brave women have been there a year already.”
“To get out of doing the washing up?”
“To stop the bomb!” cried Miss Jenkins.
Bridget knew that already. She just wanted to see Miss Jenkins’ hair fly up all over the place, and her nose get redder. “Yeah, but just sitting there?”
“Yes, just sitting there. And also not sitting there. Protesting. Camping. Refusing to leave. They won’t budge till Maggie and Heseltine and all their cronies see sense and send the Americans packing and return the common land to the common man. I mean woman. I mean people.”
It sounded stupid to Bridget but at least it wasn’t school.
“Where are you supposed to be right now?” Miss Jenkins put her cup in the sink.
“I’m on my period,” said Bridget, not moving.
Bridget’s boobs had grown before anyone else’s and Bridget’s body had swelled and got hair when most of her class were still in unisex vests and pants and she hadn’t liked any of it. Her mum had called it, Becoming a woman, as if that was something to look forward to but Bridget had preferred her life when she was nothing, before she had to choose though it wasn’t a choice, her body had chosen for her and all the world had followed, saying she’d better dress like a girl now, she didn’t want to put the boys off. But what if she did. What if she wanted to put everyone off.
Feet outside, students changing classrooms, shouting in the corridor and doors banging. The plants on the high shelves waved in the winter breeze.
“Who are you going to give them to?”
“I’m not giving them to anyone.”
Miss Jenkins looked at the clock, and then she looked at Bridget.
Such a humble phrase "Bridget had preferred when her life was nothing" and beautifully written. Nothing comes with troubles of its own for sure but nothing can sometimes be liberating. I have no idea why it took me so long to get into these but so far love them. I am starting to see a connection to the title as well.
“Yeah, but just sitting there? / Yes, just sitting there.” Love the dialogue twisting and turning through all the anxiety and beliefs staring down the unknown. Very timely, as we all figure out what role we want to take on and if it’s really making a difference.