The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [120]
The policemen were bored and resentful, forced to stand there in the rain; they were only too ready to be provoked. A girl near Alice picked up a large orange from the ground and flung it at a policeman. His helmet was dislodged. Delighted, two policemen came to her. She dodged about in the crowd for a bit, then they caught her, and she went limp and was dragged to a van, her long brown hair trailing wetly. The two policemen came back to a chorus of boos and jeers. Alice could feel Jasper beside her, pulsating with frustrated excitement. He was longing for a real tussle. So was she. So were the police, who grinned challengingly at the demonstrators. Alice, remembering her role, said to Jasper, “Careful, that one over there, he’s a brute, he’s just waiting to get you.” And, since Jasper seemed to be about to explode into action, “Remember, it’s Saturday. We don’t want to spend the weekend inside. And, anyway, there’s your trip, don’t forget.”
Others, less burdened by circumstance, were throwing fruit and eggs at the police, and were promptly being taken to the vans.
“Fucking police state,” shouted Jasper, almost out of control with excitement. He was dodging about in the crowd, as if he were being pursued.
The crowd took it up: “Police state, police state,” they yelled.
Alice saw an eye signal pass among the policemen; she knew that they would all be arrested at the slightest provocation. She yearned for it, longed for the moment when she would feel the rough violence of the policemen’s hands on her shoulders, would let herself go limp, would be dragged to the van.… But she said to Jasper, “Come on, run,” and she grabbed him by the hand and they ran. Bert, standing rather by himself at the edge of the crowd, stepped back as the arrests started. He stood watching. But he, too, would be arrested in a moment. Alice, her blood on fire, her face distorted with excitement, rushed in, darted among the policemen, admiring her own skill in it, grabbed Bert, and said, “Come on.” Bert, roused, said, “Oh yes. Yes, Alice, you’re right.” And followed her.
“Get them,” shouted a policeman, as the three sprinted away.
Five or six policemen set off after them, but one slipped in a puddle, rolled over, and slid along in the mud, and when he tried to get up, he fell again. It seemed that he had hurt himself. The others crowded around him. Meanwhile, disappointed that the chase had been so short, the three found their way to the bus stop. It was pouring steadily, a cold hard rain.
Their spirits sank, now that the challenge of the police was taken off them. It had not been very satisfactory. They were all thinking that they had spent a lot of money for very little.
They went into a café. The men ate sausages and chips; Alice, a salubrious vegetable soup.
They debated about whether to go back to the university for Mrs. Thatcher’s exit to the cars. Alice was for it, though she was afraid of the effect of that pink-and-white, assured, complacent Tory face on Jasper. If he were kept in for the weekend, the weekend ticket return would be invalid, and the fares back on Monday would be double.
But she did feel she hadn’t had her money’s worth.
They agreed they would go back, to show solidarity with the others—if any demonstrators still remained. But it began to rain even harder. A real tropical deluge, if such cold rain deserved the name “tropical.”
They returned to the station and, dispirited, to London. There they went to the pictures, and then, finding Faye and Roberta in the kitchen, they all swapped notes. Clearly, they—Jasper and Alice and Bert—would have done much better to have gone to the anti-professor demo, which had been a great success. About a thousand people, Faye said—Alice automatically corrected this to “six hundred.” Mostly women, but quite a lot of men. They had jostled the professor badly, had nearly brought him down, had got him really rattled. “Well, that ought to give him pause for thought, at least,” said Roberta happily, thinking of how she had shrieked he was a scummy sexist