And finally there was Bill, an old guy in his fifties. He’d been a mechanic in the RAF and Viola said, “Yeah, my dad was in the RAF during the war,” and he said, “Oh, really? Which squadron?”
“No idea,” she shrugged. She had never talked to her father about the war and anyway it was years ago. Her indifference seemed to disappoint Bill. “I’m a pacifist,” she told him.
“We all are, dear,” he said.
She really was, she thought crossly. She’d gone to a Quaker school, for heaven’s sake, and had taken part in an anti–Vietnam war demonstration in the course of which she had tried hard to get arrested. Her glory years were still ahead of her—Greenham, Upper Heyford—but she had long been treading the path of righteous indignation. Her father had flown planes, dropped bombs on people. He’d probably been responsible for the firebombing of Dresden—Slaughterhouse-Five had been on her syllabus at university. (“It was only the Lancasters who bombed Dresden,” Teddy said. “So? So?” his daughter said. “You think that absolves you?” “I’m not asking for absolution,” Teddy said.) War was evil, Viola thought, but was rather cowed by Bill’s lack of interest in her opinion. Apparently he didn’t want absolution either.
Dominic was happy because he had a studio, an old whitewashed cowshed out the back, and Viola was relieved that she no longer had to co-exist with his paintings.
Their numbers were augmented by a continual stream of visitors coming mostly from London for the weekend. There were always complete strangers sleeping on floors and sofas or sitting around smoking dope and talking. And talking. And talking. And talking. They were supposed to “contribute” by helping with gardening or general maintenance but that rarely seemed to happen.
Dorothy was the queen bee, of course. Everything was supposed to be shared and held in common but she still retained the deeds to the farmhouse, and owned the van, their only means of transport, plus the whole enterprise had been her idea. She was in her sixties, wore kaftans and wrapped her hair in long silk headscarves, and went around with a beatific smile on her face that could be very irritating if you yourself weren’t feeling beatific. She was an old crone as far as Viola was concerned, almost as old as her father. She had been an unsuccessful actress but then had “followed a man” to India and came back without him, bringing back “enlightenment” instead. (“How is she enlightened?” Viola muttered to Dominic. “I don’t see any sign of it. She’s like everyone else, but worse.”)
Dominic had been vetted for his suitability for the commune but Viola didn’t meet Dorothy until she moved in. Dorothy, she noticed, liked the sound of her own voice and made Viola feel as if she was back at university. “Adam’s Acre,” Dorothy said grandiloquently, “is a place where all that is possible is made possible. Where we can explore our artistic nature and help others find theirs. We are continually moving towards the light. Tea?” she asked in the manner of a duchess, startling Viola, who had begun to nod off, as she always did in lectures.
Dorothy passed Viola a thick mug of some sludgy bitter concoction. “Not tea as you know it, I expect,” Dorothy said and Viola wondered if she was trying to drug her or poison her. (“You’re so paranoid,” Dominic said.) She shook her head when Dorothy said, “Scone?” holding out a plate to her that was piled with what looked like cobblestones. There was a hiatus while Dorothy chewed her way through a mouthful of one of these pavers. “You will find,” she continued eventually, “that we are a loose gestalt of powerful individuals who chance to be moving in the same direction. Towards a transcendental understanding.”
“OK,” Viola said cautiously, having no idea what the words meant that were falling from Dorothy’s crumb-covered lips. There was transcendental meditation, obviously, she had done that, and she had studied the Transcendentalist movement in American literature, ploughed her way through Walden and Emerson’s Nature, but they didn’t seem to have much to do with Dorothy’s sage-burning and unholy chanting (like a depressed gorilla).