Eighteen years old was far too young to be living in a crumbling derelict apartment block in Willesden Green, sleeping on a stained mattress like a tramp, condensation running down the walls and no heating apart from a brazier we all huddled round in the bare upstairs bedroom we’d made into our living room, since the ground floor rooms were too unspeakable, even for us.
Later, I came to realise that there was a subconscious element of penance about the squalidness of my surroundings. I told myself I was free; free of exams, school uniform, the oppressive clutch of Mum’s misery, Dad’s empty armchair in the corner. But the truth was that I’d merely tried to run away from my own grief. I’d thought that by putting miles between me and my family’s vast loss, it would diminish its perspective. But in hindsight all it did was add a bucket of guilt to the already potent cocktail of suppressed negativity and unexpressed sorrow. I’d abandoned Pete and Mum when they needed me most – even though Samantha, on the rare occasions I tried to articulate this, merely shrugged and said, ‘Baby, what use would you be to them, feeling this fucked up? You’ll be much more useful once you get your head straight.’ I pretended to believe her.
I missed Pete, and Dad of course, and I hated that Pete was so angry with me for leaving him with Mum, but it was done. I had failed Dad. They were better off without me.
Apart from my guilt, the other blot on my hippie landscape was Samantha’s excessive free spiritedness. She hated being in one place for more than a few days at a time and spent increasingly lengthy periods of time at Greenham, which made me itchy with insecurity. Mostly because she never invited me to go with her – although I was secretly quite glad about this, being terrified of getting arrested again; the last thing I wanted was more police officers peering into my knickers. And Samantha was so effervescent with love and affection whenever she came back that I refused to read anything into it more than her desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons. I was utterly besotted. I’d even thought about how we could have children together and which of my fellow squatters we’d ask to be sperm donor – Marsh was the answer; he was gorgeous.
Despite the privations, I loved living in the squat. I adored the bunch of guys I lived with: mild-mannered twenty-something Goth eco-warriors to a dreadlocked man: Spike, Matty, Marsh and Webbo. Every night the five of us – six, when Samantha was there to share my mattress – sat around the brazier and smoked weed until I wove a hazy web inside my head, rolled up in my sleeping bag and drifted off into a comfortable night’s sleep. Often we would sing – Matty was a really good guitar player and Webbo brought out bongos. Those were the best nights. We wrote music together – mostly rage-filled protest songs, but they were pretty good. The boys treated me like a kid sister and were unfailingly protective, and in return I cooked and kept the squat as clean as I could while they were out busking and working odd jobs for pittances that were then pooled.
Feminism? What feminism? I later thought.
One day after I’d lived there about six months, Marsh shouted up the stairs from the kitchen – we had to come in and out through the forced back door – ‘Come and see what the fuck we’ve got!’
I raced downstairs as fast as was possible, while avoiding the broken stair treads, hoping it was something really nice to eat. I’d have killed for roast chicken, and Marsh was the only other non-vegetarian, although we both pretended to the others that we were. I was so sick of veggie curry made with chickpeas and tinned plum tomatoes – or, as they were for some reason referred to in the squat, ‘wombat’s afterbirth’.
But it wasn’t a chicken, or a few packets of sausages he’d foraged from the bins at the back of Safeway. It was an amp, a couple of microphone stands and a bass guitar, all sitting on the filthy, peeling lino of the kitchen floor.
Marsh grabbed me round the waist and hugged me effusively, stinking of frib juice – as I’d learned to call patchouli oil – and weed. ‘It’s for us! Man, we’re starting a band!’
He always spoke like that, putting heavy emphasis on certain words as if he had to conserve his energy for the rest of them. I laughed, mentally picturing our motley, unwashed crew in a line-up next to sequinned and styled favourites like ABC and Duran Duran. ‘A band?’
‘Yeah man! The landlord at The Five Bells wanted to get rid of it all cos he’s getting a better rig. He said I could take it off his hands if I repainted the bogs for him.’
‘Wow.’ I examined the battered amplifier and the random cables and boxes, not having a clue how any of it worked. ‘But how will Matty’s guitar be heard over the top of this lot?’
Marsh smirked at my ignorance, scratching his long wispy beard to hide it. ‘His guitar’s got a pick-up. We just plug this’ – he held up a long cable – ‘into this and we’re in business. I’ll play bass, and for now we’ll have to do with bongos till we can get a drum kit, but, you know, it’s gonna be epic!’
‘Who’s going to be the lead singer?’ I foresaw fireworks – Marsh and Matty were both pretty competitive.
‘You are!’
I laughed, thinking he was joking. ‘No, really. I’ll do backing vocals.’ Then I saw the intense expression on his face. ‘What? You’re not serious.’
‘Totally serious! Why not? You’re way more interesting to look at than the rest of us, and you’ve got a great voice! We’ve got, like, ten songs now, plus covers? That’s more than enough for a set.’
I leaned back against the sticky kitchen counter. ‘Wow,’ I repeated, a slow smile spreading across my face. For the first time I was glad that Samantha was away. I wouldn’t have stood a chance if she’d been in the running. She looked like a red-headed Kate Bush, and her voice was just as good as mine. ‘Cool.’
I wouldn’t have had this if I’d stayed in Salisbury.