‘I’m going to fucking break your neck if you don’t get down off of there!’
‘Get a proper job, you cunt!’
Now a few drivers have climbed out of their cabs and are standing in a fleshy cluster, staring up at the protestors on top of the tankers and shouting at them to come down. As the morning light begins to break, Cosima watches as the drivers jeer and spit and heckle, shaking closed fists at River, who she can see has now hung a blanket over the side of the metal cylinder. It is spray-painted with a peace sign and ‘Oblivion Oil – Act Now to Save Our Planet’.
‘Get that shit off my truck,’ one of the men on the ground is shouting. He’s in a grubby white T-shirt and the waistband of his trousers keeps slipping, so he has to heave them up with his hands.
The drivers clamber back into their cabs. Another engine fires up. The drivers’ rage is gathering. Cosima can taste it on her tongue. She shuts her eyes and imagines River’s face staring back at her: his frowning gaze, the single raised mole on one of his cheeks, his long, straight nose.
There are police cars now, speeding towards the terminal gates. Sirens. A jangle of noise and light. Doors slamming. The sound of police asking what’s going on, their radios leaking tinnily into the night.
Her eyes snap open. She keeps facing forward, trying to follow River’s advice to ‘go floppy’ and to ‘embody non-violence’. Her breathing is shallow. Her teeth chatter with the cold but her chest is burning hot.
‘Pineapple!’
Cosima hears the sharpness in Meadow’s voice as she calls to her. Her thoughts are muddied. Her tie is too tight around her neck. She reaches up to loosen it, then realises she isn’t wearing a tie. She isn’t in school uniform. She is—
‘Pineapple! For fuck’s sake. Hold my hand. Hold it.’
Meadow’s face is right in front of hers. The older woman grips her roughly by the shoulders. Her mouth is so close that Meadow’s spittle lands on Cosima’s lips.
‘Where’ve you gone?’ Meadow is saying, the words rapid-fire. ‘Look at me. Pineapple. Look at me. Get back here. Focus. Focus on my eyes.’
Cosima stares at her sleepily. Meadow starts to rub her hands along Cosima’s arms.
‘She’s freezing, Peatbog, freezing.’
A soft weight around Cosima’s shoulders. Peatbog has given her his anorak, which smells of apple cores and cheddar.
‘You’re OK,’ Meadow says now. ‘You’re alright. Just breathe, yeah?’
Cosima nods.
‘Oh dear,’ Peatbog says. ‘That’s not good. That’s not good at all.’
Cosima follows his gaze towards the police cars, parked up on the kerb now, sirens silent but still flickering. Two policemen are walking towards the line of trucks, waving their hands to try and get the drivers to stop, but the trucks keep moving forwards. A sharp tang of exhaust fumes settles in the air.
Four trucks back, she can make out River seated on one of the giant shimmering silver tubes like a triumphant knight on horseback. The Oblivion Oil banner shivers in the wind. The tanker jolts forward with a spark of ignition. Cosima imagines two fluffy pink dice knocking against each other in the driver’s cab. She imagines tattooed arms resting on the steering wheel, a white face snarling behind the windscreen.
River raises his fist aloft as the metallic beast lurches ahead. He begins to struggle. It’s impossible for him to stay in position as the lorry judders forward. Impossible for him to grab hold of anything other than the banner, which is loosening and folding in on itself, dragging on the ground as River fights for purchase on the tank’s slippery surface. The truck speeds up. The banner crumples on the tarmac. And then, River disappears from Cosima’s sightline like a breeze-blown scrap of ash. A thudding sound, muffled as if from underwater. Snap.Crunch. A beat of silence. Running footsteps. Men shouting. And one voice, raised above the others.
‘FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?’
Meadow screams. She pushes Cosima aside with such force that Cosima almost falls over. Meadow runs, trainers slapping against tarmac, across the terminal entrance and through the metal gates, sprinting and screaming and pushing the drivers out of her way because they’ve all climbed out of their tankers now, haven’t they? They know they’ve gone too far. Fucked up royally, haven’t they?
And now the drivers are all huddled in a group around a dark shape on the ground and one of them is crouching down, a hand outstretched, holding on to … what, exactly? A slender piece of machinery or a branch or something long and thin. Cosima can’t make it out.
‘Why must we be so ghastly to each other?’ Peatbog says.
She stares harder, as if she can convince herself that it’s not true, that it hasn’t happened. She sees a small flash of silvery white, like tree bark, but she knows it’s not a branch or a piece of machinery at all. The dawning light has caught on a patch of pale skin. It’s an arm. And the shadow on the tarmac is a body. And the driver is holding on to a wrist, trying to find a pulse.
She remembers the first time she heard River speak, in the Tipworth Community Arts Centre near her parents’ house. Cosima had seen hand-drawn posters stuck up on lampposts advertising the meeting and had decided to pop in on a whim. She was interested in environmental issues but it was more that she was bored and the only shops in Tipworth were full of old lady cardigans and crafting beads.
When Cosima arrived, there were twenty or so blue plastic chairs laid out in a semi-circle on the laminate floor. The hum of a nearby generator lent the room a friendly reverberation. The fragrance of orange squash hung in the air. A group of adults, dressed in old combat trousers and paint-spattered jeans were chatting by the tea urn. When River arrived, the atmosphere became attentive and respectful.
He stood in the centre of the semi-circle, waiting for the chairs tofill, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. He was wearing a khaki military jacket and black tracksuit bottoms, gathered in at the ankle over muddy walking boots. His hair hung down his back in dreadlocks. He reminded Cosima of her aunt Fliss – routinely referred to by the Fitzmaurices as ‘our grey sheep’ and ‘the bolter’ because she wore tie-dye pantaloons and multiple piercings and never had a proper job. Cosima liked Fliss because she swore and smoked pot out of the bedroom windows and talked to her like she was an adult, offering Cosima the joint to toke on as soon as she was deemed old enough, which turned out to be thirteen.
‘Way healthier than alcohol,’ Fliss used to say. ‘Trust me.’
