The Good Terrorist (20 page)

Alice slept late. When she went down to the kitchen, eight mugs on the draining board said that someone had washed up; she was the last. On the table a note addressed to her: “We’re off for the weekend. Back Sunday night. Jasper knows.” Pat had signed, “Pat and Bert.”

Philip was working on the electrical wiring of the top floor with the easy-paced, contemplative manner of a workman. Alice, helpfully squatting by him, thought: This one would never make a boss; he’s an employee; he can’t work without somebody holding his hand. Philip was being obliging, feeling that yesterday he had not been. He talked of all that remained to be done, of how he would do it all, bit by bit; said that first of all the attic should be examined, for so much rain soaking in must have affected the beams. Alice said she would go up there with him, but first of all she must quickly ring Electricity. And where was Jim? He could help in the attics. Alice was thinking: Jim’s so big and strong, Philip isn’t; together they’d need half the time. But Philip said he had asked Jim, only that morning. Jim was a moody sort of individual, wasn’t he? He hadn’t liked being asked. In Philip’s opinion there was more to Jim than met the eye. Here Alice and Philip exchanged, with their eyes, feelings about Jim; exactly as people looked, but did not speak, apprehensions over Faye—as if something there was too dangerous for words, or at least volatile, to be set off like a risky electronic device by an injudicious combination of sounds.

“Perhaps I’ll have a chat with him,” said Alice vaguely, and went downstairs to survey her territory before going to the telephone.

Mary, of course, was at work. Reggie? As she wondered, in he came with more cartons of gear. He looked exultant, as befits a man who has conquered territory, but abashed, too, because of all these evidences of concern for the material. He would have preferred, in short, not to have run into Alice. But now said that although he and Mary were already filling a second room with their bits of furniture and stuff, of course they would move it all out at once if that room were needed by anyone to live in.

“There’s the attic,” said Alice. “Or there will be. It has to be cleared out.” She waited for him to offer to help clear it, but that did not occur to him. He went off at once to fetch another load.

Alice thought she would get the business of ringing Electricity over with. She resented having to run out to the telephone, in the middle of this useful busyness, wasting time over something that was just a routine.

But as soon as she heard Mrs. Whitfield’s voice she knew she must pay out more of her time and attention to the situation than she thought. Mrs. Whitfield was, if not hostile, stiff with reproach. She said that in her opinion it would be desirable if Alice came in, as soon as possible. Alice said she would come now, it was only just down the road, in a bright chatty voice that insisted there was no real problem, nothing wrong. And put down the receiver gently, in a way that went with the voice. But she was being attacked by one of her rages. Her father! What had he said? It must have been pretty bad for Mrs. Whitfield to change like this.

She was too angry to run down at once to Electricity, had to calm herself by walking briskly around the streets, postponing thoughts about her father till later. But she would show him, he needn’t think she wouldn’t.

In the anteroom at Electricity she smiled and waved to Mrs. Whitfield: Here I am, a good girl! But Mrs. Whitfield looked away. Four people went in before Alice. What a waste of time.

She sat in front of the official, in the large light office, and knew that Mrs. Whitfield would not cut off the electricity. At least, she did not want to. It was up to Alice. Who began talking about her father. He was rich, he owned a printing firm. Of course he could easily pay the bills if there was need. But he was, Alice admitted, in a bad phase at the moment.

“He’s had a lot of trouble,” breathed Alice, on her face the look of one who compassionately contemplates human misery, absolving it from blame. And at that moment, it was what she felt. “The breakup with my mother … then all kinds of problems … his new wife, she’s nice, she’s a good friend of mine, but she’s not a coper, you know what I mean? He’s got a lot on his back.” She burbled on like this, feeling dismally she was not helping herself, while Mrs. Whitfield sat, eyes lowered, pricking out a pattern with the tip of her ballpoint on the top left-hand corner of Alice’s form.

“Your father,” she remarked at last, “was quite definite about not being prepared to guarantee payment.”

She did not want to look at Alice. Alice was trying to make her raise her eyes,
take her
in. What could Cedric Mellings have said?

She said, “There are ten of us in the house now. That’s a lot of money coming in every week.”

“Yes, but is some of it going to come this way?” Mrs. Whitfield was too dry to relent, yet. “Aren’t any of you in work?”

“One is.” She added, on an inspiration, “But she is a Council employee. She works in Belstrode Road, and she doesn’t want to give her address as a squat. She couldn’t find a place; she was desperate.”

Mrs. Whitfield sighed, said, “Yes, I know how bad things can be.” But now she raised her eyes and did look differently at Alice, the housemate of a Council official who worked at the main office for this area. She said, “Well, what are we going to do?”

That was it, she had won! Alice could hardly prevent herself from openly exulting.

She said humbly, “I have a brother. He works for Ace Airways. I’ll ask him.” Mrs. Whitfield nodded, accepting the brother. “But he’s in Bahrein at the moment.”

Mrs. Whitfield sighed. Not from irritation, but because she knew it was a lie, and felt sorrowful because of Alice. She had lowered her eyes again. A second tricky little pattern was appearing beside the first on Alice’s form.

She enquired mildly, “And your brother would be prepared to guarantee the electricity bills for ten people?”

Alice said, “But he would know he wouldn’t have to pay them, wouldn’t he?” She hurried on, in case Mrs. Whitfield felt obliged actually to answer the question: “But I am sure he’ll say yes.”

“When is he coming back from Bahrein?”

“In about a month. But I’ll go up and see him about it, talk to him and explain. That’s where I went wrong with my father. I should have gone over and explained, instead of just assuming …” Her voice trembled. It: sounded pathetic, but hot red waves of murder beat inside her. I’ll blow that house of theirs up, she was thinking, I’ll kill them.

“Yes, I do think that would be a good idea,” said Mrs. Whitfield.

A long pause. Not because she was undecided: the decision had been made. She wanted Alice to say something more that would make the situation better, or seem better. But Alice only sat and waited.

“Well,” said Mrs. Whitfield at last, sitting upright inside the corset of her strong, short-sleeved brown dress, with her fat arms and fat brown forearms, fat hands with the little rings twinkling on them, all disposed regularly about her, her feet—no doubt, though Alice could not see them—placed side by side. “Well, I’ll give you five weeks. That should be plenty of time to see your brother.” She was not looking at Alice. “And I’ll need more in the way of a deposit.”

Alice took out a ten-pound note—not enough, she knew—and placed it in front of Mrs. Whitfield, who took it up, smoothed it flat, placed it in an old-fashioned cashbox in a drawer, wrote out a receipt. Then she said, “I’ll see you in five weeks,” and sighed again. “Good-bye,” said the kindly, decent woman, her distress at the ways of this wicked world written all over her. Almost certainly in her eyes, too, but she was not looking, would not look, at Alice; only said, “Ask the next one to come in.”

Alice said, nonchalantly, so as not to make too much of it, though she was soft with gratitude and relief, “Thanks. ’Bye, then,” and went out. Five weeks was a lifetime, anything could have—would have—happened. But she was on a winning streak, a lucky wave; she would nip down to the Gas Board and fix things up.

There, she said number 43 Old Mill Road was an agreed tenancy, Mary Williams of Belstrode Road would confirm; electricity was being supplied, Mrs. Whitfield of the Electricity Board would confirm; and her brother, now in Bahrein, would guarantee payments. She had waited until this sympathetic-looking man, elderly, fatherly, was free, and now she pleaded, “Can we have the gas on now, please, it is so cold … no hot water … it’s awful.…” His concerned, shocked face! This man could not easily imagine life without hot water, at least not for people like himself and Alice.

A deposit?

She laid down twenty pounds and fixed on him girlish, friendly eyes.

He took up the money. Accepted. But he was unhappy about the situation. Like Mrs. Whitfield at the first interview, he was not sure why he was being compelled by Alice.

“We do have to have a guarantor,” he remarked, as much to himself, and said, “Very well, you said your brother would be back in a month? Good.”

It was done. Alice went off, demurely grateful.

She was going to have to get some money. Had to.
Where?

Sobered, she went back home, told Philip that the gas would be on. If they could lay hands on a second-hand boiler, did he know enough to fix it?

They squatted opposite each other on the top floor, on the landing, in the bright April light, which came, slightly dimmed by dirt, through the window on the stairs. He was smiling, pleased with her, with this house, with his place in it; ready to go on working. But, she knew, sorrow and resentment were there, only just subdued; and soon she must find more money for him. For the boiler. For new floorboards in the hall, in a corner where water had dripped from a leaky pipe. For … for … for …

She said, “Philip, I know that if you had taken on this job on a business basis you would have had to charge hundreds. Well, don’t worry … but wait a bit. I’ll have it.”

He nodded, he smiled, he went on with his work, sitting in a tangle of new black cable like some kind of leprechaun among urban roots. Frail—you could blow him away, thought Alice, her heart aching for him.

And where was Jasper? He had not been in court that morning after all? Or he had been, had been silly, was bound over again?

Worry, worry, worry; she felt bruised with it.

She sat in a heap at the kitchen table. She thought, looking at the pleasant room: I’m taking it for granted already!

Forcing herself, she worked for an hour or two on the great heap of stuff purloined from the skips that lay in a corner of the hall; fitting a curtain here, laying a rug there. Everything needed a good scrub! Well, she would take down all these curtains when there was time and get them to the laundrette, but meanwhile … She found a nice solid little stool, thrown away only because a leg was loose. She glued it back in, put the stool in the corner of the kitchen, went out into the garden to the forsythia bush, cut some branches. The old woman was asleep in her chair under the tree. Joan Robbins was only a yard away through the fence. She was glad to see Alice, began talking in a heavy tired voice about how the old woman had her running up and down the stairs, even got her up in the middle of the night. What was she to do? She was sick and tired of it.

Alice, familiar with this situation from somewhere in her well-stocked past, knew there was little that could be done; in fact, it would get worse. She asked whether Mrs. Robbins knew about the services available for the old. Yes, but she didn’t like the idea of all these people in and out all day; who were they? She’d have no check on them.

She went on and on, digging viciously into the soil of her border. For years the house had been civilised and orderly; she and her husband downstairs, with the garden; Mrs. Jackson, a widow, keeping herself to herself in the flat above. But now she might just as well be living with Mrs. Jackson! You’d think she was her daughter! The old woman certainly seemed to think so.

Alice, with all the time in the world and nothing better to do, stood with the branches of forsythia blazing yellow in her arms, listening and advising. Surely it would be better to have Home Helps, Meals on Wheels, all that, and a social worker to advise and take on responsibility, than have to do it all yourself?

Joan Robbins agreed that perhaps it might, she would think.… With a smile at Alice of real gratitude, neighbourliness, she said that she was glad Alice was there, glad that decent people were in poor Number 43 at last.

Alice went in, stacked the forsythia in a jug on the stool in the corner of the kitchen, sat down.

Where was Jasper?

This was the night they were going spray-painting. She had the paint—two cans, in scarlet and black—ready in the corner of the hall.

At the kitchen table, she pencilled slogans on an envelope.

What was the message they wanted to convey? The full message, exact—that was where she must start.

The Use of Supergrasses Unmasks the True Nature of British Democracy. One Law for England, Another for Northern Ireland, England’s Colony.

That was it. Possibly they’d find a good space, like a bridge, or a long low wall, to get all that in.

She must work out something shorter.

Supergrasses Threaten Democracy!

No, too abstract.

Supergrasses—Unfair!

Supergrasses a Shameful Blot on Britain!

Supergrasses—Shame on Us!

She sat still, with the blaze of the forsythia in her eyes. She shut her eyes, and the yellow blurred and danced on black. She was smiling, remembering the last time she and Jasper had gone out together. Only two weeks ago. In scarlet and black they had written “Support the Women of Greenham Common” on the dull grey-green paint of a bridge two hundred yards from a police station. She had sprayed; Jasper kept watch, from the other side of the station. She had finished when she heard his signal, a yell he had perfected to sound like a car hooting. She had thrust the spray paint in her carrier bag. Not looking back, she strolled along the pavement, thinking that Jasper was sauntering past the police station. Between him and her, probably two policemen. But the footsteps that came up beside her were Jasper’s—light and urgent. That meant the police had gone up the other way—but could see them by turning. Jasper and she stood looking into each other’s faces, alive and tingling and delighted, knowing that anyone looking at them could guess, simply from the waves of energy that danced from them. Jasper’s eyes said, Let’s …