More Than Love Letters (13 page)

But, Margaret, hon, this whole Richard hair-touching thing – what was that all about? Because I’m really not sure it comes under the heading of expected behaviour from an MP towards a constituent, like shaking hands a lot, or kissing babies.
How
did he touch it exactly?

Big hugs,

Becs xx

 

 

From:
Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]
Sent:
16/5/05 23:03
To:
Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]

 

I don’t know, he just reached out and touched it. Does it matter? At least I am not teetering on the brink of the stygian abyss.

Margaret xxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr Richard Slater (Ipswich)
(Lab): First of all, may I say how delighted I am that the government has taken the necessary steps to implement the EU Emissions Trading Directive. Could the Secretary of State please comment upon the progress currently being made towards the renewable energy target of 10 per cent by 2010?

 

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Ms Sandra Harcourt)
: Substantial moves have already been made towards achievement of the 10 per cent target. By the end of 2005, for example, Britain will have over five hundred offshore windmills generating clean, renewable electricity. The government is leading the way by effecting changes on its own estate. The target (set in 2001) of 5 per cent renewable energy use by government departments by March 2003 has already been met, and good progress is being made towards achieving the target of 10 per cent by 2008.

 

Mr Slater
: I thank my honourable friend for that reply. But is it likely that the national target of 10 per cent energy use from renewable sources by 2010 is going to be met?

 

Ms Harcourt
: Um . . . I am pleased to report to the House that three government departments have so far set an excellent example by developing on-site Combined Heat and Power (or CHP) systems, to meet 100 per cent of their own space heating needs.

 

Mr Slater
: Well, defra certainly generates plenty of hot air . . .

 

Ms Harcourt
: A number of further inland sites for wind farms are also under consideration, subject to the necessary public consultations with local residents. Additional government funding is also being directed towards research into wave power and geo-thermal energy sources.

 

Mr Slater
: I am delighted to hear about these initiatives, but aren’t the results likely to be long term? Don’t we need to be reducing our dependence upon fossil fuels rather more quickly if we are to meet our Kyoto obligations?

 

Mr Colin Harrison (Epsom)
(Con): Didn’t I read something about an alternative fuel oil made out of sugar-beet? Maybe the honourable member for Ipswich should be putting that in his car.

 

[Laughter]

 

 

Mr Christopher Parker (Wolverhampton North)
(Lab): Could the Secretary of State please comment upon stories in the press that under new EU regulations, all prepackaged pizzas (other than those made in Italy) are required to be labelled as dairy-topped tomato dough roundels?

 

 

WITCH

Women of Ipswich Together Combating Homelessness

 

Extract from minutes of meeting
at Margaret’s house, 19 May 2005, 8 p.m.

 

There was a long discussion about Helen, who has been feeling increasingly desperate, and has suggested that she may need a full-time hospital admission for a while, rather than the current arrangement of weekend respite stays. Margaret pointed out that it is bedtimes that are the worst, which is why she finds it difficult to cope in Witch House, given the staffing hours. Alison came up with a plan whereby members of the support group would, at least for a short trial period, provide more than the usual emergency telephone cover, and would take turns to go out to Witch House to sit with Helen for an hour each weekday evening at around 10.30 p.m., to help her get to sleep. This was agreed, and Alison volunteered to draw up a rota.

 

We were sorry to hear that Marianne has lost her job at the newsagent’s. When Mrs Bhandari noticed that her concentration had been dipping after breaks, Marianne admitted that she had been sniffing Tippex in the storeroom. Emily and Pat T. have been trying to find a place for her on another rehab scheme.

 

Mrs Robertson from number 27 attended a house meeting last week, and afterwards Pat T. and Emily explained to her something about the project. She seemed a little mollified about noise and nuisance in the street, and has offered to lend Carole her dry foam carpet cleaner.

42 Gledhill Street
Ipswich

 

22 May 2005

Dearest Pete,

Another eventful week to report on here! First Margaret had that meeting with the MP and the man from the council as well, and I think that went OK, except that she then found out that poor Nasreen hasn’t much hope of being allowed to stay in England, because of where she comes from. Apparently Albania isn’t somewhere that we take refugees from any more. Poor Margaret took it very hard – she was talking about it half the evening, I don’t think she could quite believe it. And it does seem very hard, to send the poor girl back into a situation like that, after she’s had the courage to get away: she’s sure to be punished for it, if she tries to go back home. Anyway, that was Monday, so on Tuesday I bought us both a nice piece of sirloin steak each for supper, as a cheer-up for Margaret (over ten pounds they cost me). I did chips and all the trimmings, grilled mushrooms and halved tomatoes – just the way you like it, Petey – and she seemed quite touched.

Then on Thursday Margaret’s hostel support group had their meeting here. I gave them the sitting room, and came to sit and read in the kitchen, and then at half past nine I took them in some tea and a packet of Hobnobs, and stayed to chat a bit. They really do seem very nice ladies, and of course I had heard a lot about them all from Margaret. It felt as though I knew them already! Over the tea, one of them, Persephone (I think that’s how you spell it, but you say it as if it ended with a y) was talking about starting some evening classes in herbalism, and you know me and all my herbs in the pots out the back, so I said that sounded interesting. And do you know, she’s given me the details and we are going to start the classes together! I’ve sometimes thought about doing some classes, but I’ve never felt quite brave enough on my own somehow, and gardening does sound like my sort of thing, don’t you think? It’ll be every Tuesday at seven thirty.

On Wednesday, Mrs Edgar had been round with some more cuttings and bits and pieces for the garden. I said thank you very much, of course, but actually the beds are pretty full at the moment, everything’s grown so much, so I wasn’t sure where I’d find the gaps to put it all. But then after the meeting on Thursday, when Margaret’s friends had all gone home, I suddenly had a brainwave, and I asked if there is a garden at the hostel. It turns out there is, not much more than a pocket handkerchief (I went to see it today), and it’s very bare, nothing more than a patch of grass and some bits of overgrown ivy and other climbers on the fence. None of the women living in the house seem to know about gardens, and the staff don’t have the time. It could certainly do with some brightening up, so I did a bit of digging over and put in some of Mrs Edgar’s dogwood cuttings, and a few clumps of Michaelmas daisies. Nasreen came out to say hello and brought me a cup of tea, and she remembered to put in the milk, and another young woman, who introduced herself as Lauren, came and chatted to me. She seemed quite interested and even took a turn with the spade – though she’d got on the most unsuitable shoes, white with what we used to call kitten heels. I said I’d go back next weekend and dig in some compost, because the soil is ever so thin and sandy, and Lauren said she’d help me again, if I didn’t mind, which was very nice of her.

I’m reading another one of Margaret’s books. I finished the last one,
Ruth
, and it was so sad at the end it made me cry, so I asked if she had anything lighter. This one’s by Anthony Trollope, and it’s called
The Warden
. It’s all about a Victorian vicar who is the warden of some almshouses. Margaret said it made her laugh because her father is a vicar, and it reminded her of the petty arguments that still go on today in church politics, but I think it’s funny that she should have recommended it, because in a way her hostel is the modern equivalent of an almshouse, really.

Last week they started the refit at the bank. They’ve put up partitions which are supposed to keep the plaster dust away from where we are working, but it still finds its way through. We keep a J-cloth and some Mr Sheen handy all the time, but the computers still look as if they’ve been dusted with icing sugar, the way I do with my chocolate sponges sometimes. If you leave a cup of coffee standing for a while, it starts to look like one of those fancy cappuccinos they do in that new American place, Starbucks. It’s ever so noisy, too – a bit of hardboard does nothing to keep out the banging. The drills are the worst. We either have to yell at the customers, or else wait for the gaps in the drilling and then speak really fast. I’ve got quite good at it now – during the loud bits I just smile at the customer and plan what I’m going to say when it goes quiet again. Mind you, I do get a few funny looks sometimes, if there’s a particularly long spell of drilling.

The other big news is that on Friday Mr Slater, the MP, phoned up again to speak to Margaret. She didn’t say much about it, afterwards, except that he wants her and Nasreen to go to London to meet a government human rights lawyer, and that he’s going to meet them in Ipswich and travel down on the train with them, but it was lovely to see her looking hopeful again – her eyes were shining like I hadn’t seen them shine all week.

With all my love, darling, and a big wet lick from Snuffy,

Cora xxx

 

 

From:
Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]
Sent:
22/5/05 21:53
To:
Margaret Hayton [[email protected]]

 

Hi! Oh God, Margaret, the gaping maw of eternal damnation is opening ever wider beneath my feet. I had a phone call on Friday night, quite late, after I had got back from Declan’s . . . and it was Elliot. For a foot-soldier of Lucifer he doesn’t half have a gorgeous voice. He said he was going to be over in Manchester again this weekend, and he knew Declan and Zoe were going to London to see Zoe’s mum. (Did I tell you, turns out she is French, lives in Lyon, so if she’s over here with work, as she is this weekend, Declan always takes the opportunity to let her see Zoe. They seem to get on well together still – it’s all disgustingly adult and civilised.) So Elliot said, maybe he and I could meet for a drink. Which seemed perfectly reasonable. But it wasn’t what he said, so much as the way he said it, as if having a drink was some kind of wickedly pleasurable intimate practice known only to handservants of the Dark Lord. I actually had to sit down to recover after he’d rung off. But by then it was too late – I appeared to have said yes. And only then did I wonder by what demonic craft he had obtained my number – because he sure as hell hadn’t asked Declan!

Well, he was staying at the Mitre Hotel, and even I knew better than to agree to meet him in the bar there, so we agreed on a pub nearby, Saturday night, eight o’clock. I thought, public place, lots of people about, nice early hour, nowhere near bedtime, what can possibly be the harm? Oh, but never underestimate the wiles of the Archfiend, because of course what I had forgotten was that an early start meant more drinking time! After six or seven draughts from Beelzebub’s accursed chalice (several of them doubles), I was in the hands of the Tempter. In the lift up to his hotel room, to be precise, with his hands doing exceedingly tempting things under my shirt, while he pressed me up against the carpeted wall, giving an ample demonstration of why he is known as the hornèd one. I made a last effort at saving my wretched soul and managed to tear myself away from him at the door to his room, and not go in to my certain perdition.

But I have sinned, and my fear is that I would sin again, and sin properly this time, if he only repeats the suggestion. He may be an emissary of the Evil One (and perhaps it goes with the territory) but, Margaret, he is hot, hot, hot!

As, coincidentally, am I. Something has gone wrong with the heating in my flat, so you can’t have the hot water on without the central heating going full blast as well. I must get on to the landlords about it. (Unless, of course, it is the first Hadean flames beginning to lick around my ankles.)

Hugs,

Becs xxx

 

 

From:
Margaret Hayton
[[email protected]]
Sent:
22/5/05 22:38
To:
Rebecca Prichard [[email protected]]

Dear Becs,

Well, I’m not your confessor, what do you want me to say? But Declan trusts you. And Zoe trusts you even more, and when you have forgotten both of these men and moved on to Fabian or Guy, Zoe will still have a dad and an uncle who aren’t speaking to each other, and a teacher who can’t look her in the eye. Garlic is the thing. Garlic and a crucifix. (But maybe that’s just vampires?) Or a chastity belt. You can borrow mine – I’m a vicar’s daughter, remember, I’ve still got the one Daddy stitched me into when I was thirteen.