I spent my first two hours at Greenham wandering around in wellies, feeling alternately thrilled to be there and utterly humiliated, sweating in my bear suit, blisters forming, shiny and taut, on my toes after the long walk from the train station. But as time went on, and more and more smirks and sniggers were coming at me, any remaining thrill wore off. I’d made a terrible mistake in coming. Maybe Caitlin had been winding me up. I was going to kill her when I next saw her in the shop. While I overheard lots of talk about the human chain – apparently the turn-out had way exceeded expectations – there were no signs whatsoever of any other bears. Or what if Caitlin had got the wrong day?
By seven o’clock I wanted to cry. I hadn’t had the nerve to stop and talk to any of the women huddled in groups around fires along the fence. There were not as many as I’d thought, but maybe most of them had gone out to do this human-chain thing. Many of the women I saw had grubby-looking, half-naked toddlers running around, brandishing sticks, so presumably it was all the mums who’d stayed in camp. I was getting funny looks too, which implied that none of them had heard about the teddy bears’ picnic. I trailed miserably along the fence, which was bedecked with colourful banners and slogans, quilts embroidered with ‘Ban the Bomb’ and ‘Protest and Survive’. The evening air was redolent with the scent of wood smoke, weed, lavender and patchouli. I could smell it, trapped in the fake-fur fibres of my bear suit.
What was I going to do if I didn’t find them? Stupidly, I hadn’t thought through the return part of the journey. I’d brought Pete’s sleeping bag; it was strapped into the top part of his rucksack, which I’d nicked from his bedroom, so if the worst came to the worst I could sleep under a tree. Hopefully someone would take pity on me, though, and let me stay in their tent or something … I shuddered with dread. I was way out of my depth.
‘You all right, love?’ came a voice from near the fence.
I looked up to see an elderly woman with long white hair, sitting on a camping chair, knitting something complicated-looking. A hand-painted placard saying ‘I’M HERE BECAUSE I LOVE MY GRANDCHILDREN’ rested against the fence next to her. I was so relieved to hear a friendly voice that tears leaped into my eyes.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, my lip trembling. ‘It’s just that it’s so … big here. I thought it would be easy to find the person I know, but that was stupid of me. Have you seen any other people dressed as bears? There’s supposed to be some kind of teddy bears’ picnic but I have no idea where and now I’m worried I’ll never find them.’
She smiled, her eyes vanishing into a ruffle of crow’s feet. ‘Like them, do you mean?’
I turned and followed her gaze. Two women had just tramped past behind me, one dressed as Rupert the Bear, in a red jumper and yellow checked trousers with matching scarf, the other, a tall slim woman with long, wavy red hair tucked into the neck of a costume a bit like mine, only dark brown instead of my golden fake fur. Hers had a bear’s face hood, pushed down so that it rested on her shoulders, the bear’s upside-down eyes staring glassily skywards.
I thanked the knitting lady and dashed after them. ‘Excuse me! Excuse me!’
They turned. The red-haired woman was strikingly beautiful – huge green eyes, high cheekbones and Pippi Longstocking freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose as if they’d been drawn on. ‘Oh lookit! Another bear! And such a cute one,’ she exclaimed, in a broad American accent not dissimilar to Daisy Duke’s in The Dukes of Hazzard.
‘I’m so relieved!’ I gushed. ‘I thought I’d got it wrong. I was told there’d be bears, but I’ve been here ages and haven’t seen any…’
‘“I was told there’d be bears”,’ quoted the American woman solemnly. ‘I think I’ll have that as the title of my autobiography, if you don’t mind?’ She stuck out her hand and smiled, her face lighting up. ‘I’m Samantha. Pleased to meet you, little bear.’
I laughed too and shook it. ‘Meredith. Very pleased to meet you.’
The other woman, who looked less interested, gave me a fleeting smile and a nod. ‘I’m Sandrine.’ Now that I could see her face, I thought she actually looked like Rupert the Bear, with a plump-cheeked face and beady eyes.
Samantha’s approving eyes didn’t leave mine. In anyone else I’d have found it disconcerting, but I felt myself relax in her gaze, opening up like a flower. I wondered if she was gay. I’d never met a lesbian up close before.
‘So where is this picnic going to be?’ I asked. ‘Is it an actual picnic? I mean, I ate my sandwich on the train and I didn’t bring a rug or a flask or anything.’
They both laughed then, Sandrine in a more mean way. ‘Not a real picnic,’ she said. ‘It’s symbolic.’
She said the word slowly and deliberately – as though I was a stupid person who had never heard it before.
‘Right,’ I said, staring her down. Somehow Samantha’s warmth emboldened me.
‘So where have you sprung from today?’ Samantha asked, linking arms with me as we fell into step together. They seemed to know where they were going.
‘I got the train up from Salisbury,’ I said, thrilled by her familiarity.
Samantha stopped suddenly, gripping my arm harder. ‘You’re kidding – you’re from Salisbury? Me too!’
‘Ha,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ I put on my thickest Wiltshire accent. ‘Oi could tell az zoon as you opened yer mouth you woz one of uz.’
Samantha creased up, literally bending over at the waist and roaring. ‘You are SO FUNNY!’ she shrieked.
Sandrine looked pointedly at her wristwatch. ‘Come on, girls, we’re going in through the fence at Turquoise Gate at eight p.m. That’s a ten-minute walk from here and it’s already five to.’
I didn’t care about her waspish tone. I was basking in the glory of Samantha’s amusement. ‘So where are you really from?’ I asked, ignoring Sandrine.
‘I’m from a town called Lawrence, in Kansas, but I truly have been living in Salisbury for the past couple of months. Staying with my sister’s husband’s sister. Such a small world, hey? And such a cool city.’
I nodded, delighted.
‘What do you do?’ she enquired. ‘Something arty I’ll bet.’
I beamed. ‘No, I’m still at school actually. First year of A levels. What about you?’
‘No way! You look a lot older. Me? I have a law degree from KU, but I decided to travel for a couple of years. Heard about Greenham’ – she pronounced it Green Ham instead of Greenum, as everyone else did – ‘and decided to come check it out. First came last year, and now I have a place to stay, in a yurt over at Turquoise Gate, so I spend quite a bit of time here. I love it!’
‘That’s so cool,’ I said, mentally wincing that I’d copied her word; a word I never normally used.
Sandrine pointed ahead. ‘Here we are. Just in time. They’re cutting the holes.’
‘Our people!’ said Samantha, throwing her arms wide as we surveyed the crowd gathered close to the gate. Some had bear costumes like ours, some had made a token effort by wearing black and white and sporting panda masks. Bears of all different types and sizes were working in silence, huddled around the ones with wire cutters.
‘I’d assumed they’d be chanting or singing,’ I said, surprised at how quiet it was.
‘Oh, we will be,’ Samantha said. ‘That comes later, once we’re inside. Don’t want to alert the pigs to what we’re planning – we need the element of surprise.’
‘What are we planning?’ I asked nervously. This was getting serious.
A ripple of excitement went around as the first ladder was propped against the fence, thick blankets flung over the barbed wire, and a second ladder passed up and over by three overgrown teddy bears.
‘Here we go,’ whispered Samantha, and to my surprise she took my hand. ‘Stick with me, OK?’
Sandrine rolled her eyes. ‘Catch you later,’ she said, vanishing into the crowd. ‘Not in the mood for this today.’
‘Oh that one, she’s such a misery guts!’ Samantha said, her eyes shining. ‘This is the fun part – come on!’
I’d have preferred to go through rather than over the fence, but as we got closer, Samantha suddenly shoved me towards the foot of the ladder. She was ripping my backpack off my shoulders. ‘Leave that here, you can come back for it. It’ll be fine,’ she said, and before I knew it, her hands were pushing my furry backside up the ladder. ‘I’ll be right behind you!’
Then I was at the top, straddling the barbed-wire fence. I could see for miles, wisps of smoke above the treetops to my left, rising from dozens of campfires and merging with the pinkening dusky clouds. To my right, the alien green mounds of the silos.
I froze, suddenly convinced I’d fall, but the encouraging faces of the women already inside were urging me over, their arms outstretched. Other women were pouring through the gap in the cut fence, racing towards the silos.
‘Come on, honey, almost there,’ said Samantha, halfway up the ladder behind me. There was a queue behind her. I couldn’t hold them up. No going back now.
Taking a deep breath, I put my hands flat on the scratchy blankets, slid my right leg down to the top of the second ladder, and swung my left leg round to join it. I was over! I half climbed, half slid the rest of the way to the ground, my knees trembling with fear and exhilaration. I had never done anything illegal before. I had to banish the vision of my disappointed parents and my furious headmistress.
Seconds later, Samantha was next to me. ‘We’re IN!’ She hissed, grabbing my hand again. ‘Man, what a buzz!’ Dragging me with her, she ran towards the silos, following the other bears, several of whom were already at the top of the grassy banks, dancing and hooting, chanting and singing.
It was the most exciting thing I’d ever been a part of, bar none. At first there were about twenty of us dancing up there, then thirty, forty, fifty, sixty … beyond that I had no clue of numbers, just that I was part of this glorious sisterhood of impassioned faces, some shouting slogans with anger imprinted on their features, others, like me and Samantha, alight with a strange joy. I had to admit that nuclear weapons were the last thing on my mind then. I was caught up in the moment, and I never wanted to go home. I wanted to stay with Samantha and these women forever. At that moment she moved close to me, wrapped her arms around my neck and swung me with her. I could see her freckles up close, her wide black pupils in the bright-green irises. Nobody had ever had such an instant or strong effect on me.
We slowed, swayed together, my own arms shooting unbidden round her waist, eyes locked. Softly, gently, she reached forwards and kissed my lips, sending a stab of desire right down to my groin. Our lips began to part…
…But that was when it all turned nasty. Men in uniform – police, soldiers, military police – streamed through the gate, dozens and dozens of them, wielding truncheons, faces dark with fury and aggression, their yelling drowning out the ululations still going on all around us. We broke apart.
‘Stick with me,’ Samantha shouted as I turned to see a huge policeman charging straight for me. Women were being seized bodily and dragged away screaming. The huge cop bent at the waist, grabbed me around mine and in one swift move put me over his meaty shoulder and started running back towards the gate. How could I stick with her?
As he carried me, squirming as my breasts bumped against his back, I saw her through the melee, fighting with another, smaller guy.
‘Stop resisting!’ he was screaming at her, brandishing his truncheon above her head.
I mentally entreated her to stop resisting. The thought of her being injured made my pounding heart hurt.
As we got away from the main throng my own abductor seemed to relax a bit. He slowed to a jog and asked me where I got my bear outfit from. I didn’t answer – I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, bouncing upside-down over his back.
‘Oi!’ he said breathlessly, ‘I asked you a question!’
I was scared now; scared, angry, aroused, confused. Had I really just kissed a girl on top of a silo? I’d never found a woman attractive before!
‘My nan made it for me,’ I panted. ‘For a fancy-dress party.’
The copper’s laugh made me livid, and I punched at his solid thigh until he told me, in a less nice voice, to cut it out. He even smacked my fake-fur arse at one point, quite hard, which made me scream, ‘Police brutality!’
But that only made him laugh again.