The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [125]
But Alice had suddenly understood something else. She said wildly, “Good God, I’ve just seen—Pat is going, too, she is, isn’t she?”
“If she told you, she shouldn’t have,” said Muriel.
“She didn’t, no, she didn’t. I’ve just …”
“I’m late,” said Muriel, and walked firmly away from Alice, showing a degree of relief that made Alice think, Well, she’s going to need a lot of training, not to show every little thing that’s going through her mind.
She went slowly back to number 43 and sat by herself in the kitchen, at the table, thinking.
The strongest thought, which was more a feeling, or an ache, was that Jasper had not told her he had believed he would be away for months. Yes, he had been “nice” to make up for it. But he had not told her! He had never before betrayed her. Yes, of course, there had always been a part of his life she was not told about; she accepted that. But politics—there everything had been discussed.
He had become capable of going off for six months, a year, and not saying a word. Bert? It was Bert’s influence?
Yes, of course, there was the question of security, she could see that. But that did not change how she felt.
Something had been cut between him and her; he had severed himself from her.
She was going to do something about it—leave, go to another commune, give him up (but at this she went cold and sad all over), tell him that … tell him something or other, but she wouldn’t go on like this. People were right, he made use of her.
With this, she took the packet of Comrade Andrew’s money from its place in the sleeping bag and went to the post office.
Then she returned to the kitchen table, and sat on in the late afternoon, watching the light go out of the sky, feeling the house go dark about her. She did not want to have to talk to anyone, so when she heard Reggie and Mary, she went walking around and about the streets by herself. For some time she stood outside the flats where her mother lived. The lights she could see up the front of the building were none of them her mother’s, for the flat was at the back. She went to peer at the little glow that showed Mellings, scribbled on a card. Then she walked home, hoping the kitchen would be empty. It was eleven.
No one was about. She would have a good sleep, and decide what to do in the morning. Probably visit one or other of the communes or squats where she had friends. Or perhaps she would go to the Marxist Summer Festival in Holland. She would be bound to meet people she knew there; and if not, she would soon make new friends.
One thing she was already determined on: she would not be here when Jasper and Bert returned in ten days’ time—no, less than a week now.
She would have liked to sink at once into a deep sleep and get away from thinking, but no one slept much in number 43 that night, for Faye was shouting and screaming and hammering on the walls.
Alice thought, for the first time, that the reason Faye was here, and not in the women’s commune where the two spent so many of their days, was that she was not welcome there—had been thrown out, in fact. They would not put up with this madwoman. They had had enough. Obvious, when you thought of it: she could spend the day there, but not the night, disturbing people’s sleep. But poor Roberta! Her low, urgent, kind voice was at work nearly all night, soothing and admonishing.
Lying awake, listening to Faye’s distress, her misery, Alice thought as usual that one day soon there would be no people like Faye. Because of people like Alice. Even Muriel. No more people damaged by life.
She thought, too—steadily, letting her mind open out into one perspective after another—of the implications of what she had learned since she had come here. She simply hadn’t had any idea before! All over the country were these people—networks, to use Comrade Andrew’s word. Kindly, skilled people watched, and waited, judging when people (like herself, like Pat) were ripe, could