The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [127]
Roberta said, not at all annoyed, “Yes, I’ve thought that myself. It is strange, isn’t it? Faye is normal with everyone else—well, nearly always.…” Here she invited Alice, with a small rueful smile, to remember the incident when Faye ran shrieking downstairs to expel Monica. And other things. “She’ll probably be all right with you.”
“If she doesn’t try to commit suicide.”
A sharp look, repudiating. A quick shake of the head, which meant, Alice knew: I am not prepared even to think about that.
“Well, we have to think about it.”
“Look, Alice, I must get dressed and go. I’ve got an hour to catch the train.”
Roberta ran out, and came back, as Alice knew she would, with bottles of pills.
“If you make sure she takes these in the morning, and these before she goes to bed …”
Alice took the bottles with a look that said: You know very well I can’t make her do anything.
Roberta said, “It’s no good saying thank you, what’s the good of thank you. But if I can help you some time …”
She went, and five minutes later Alice heard her go downstairs, running, and out of the house.
Faye would not wake till midday, or later.
Alice took her time with bathing and dressing, and was in the kitchen drinking coffee when Caroline came in.
She had been wanting to be friends with Caroline, but now she felt that this was bound to be some last straw.
Caroline said, moving to the kettle and the coffee jar, as if she already lived there, “Alice, I’ve come to ask if it would be all right if I moved in.”
Alice only shrugged; but held out her mug to Caroline, for a refill.
Caroline, after a quick inspection of Alice from those sharp eyes of hers, filled the two cups and sat down with hers, at the other end of the table.
“What’s wrong?”
Alice told her.
“Only a short-term problem,” pronounced Caroline, dismissing it.
Alice laughed. “Very well, then,” she said, “so what’s wrong next door?”
Caroline sat briskly stirring sugar into her cup, in itself a gesture that announced self-determination in these days when people confess to sugar as once they might have done to a drink problem. One, two, three large teaspoons went in, and Caroline took up the mug to drink, with a frank and greedy enjoyment.
Alice laughed again, differently. She had been right: she and Caroline were already at the start of that mysterious process known as “getting on.”
“The police raided us again last night.”
“Haven’t you arranged with the Council yet?”
“We were always going to do it, but we didn’t get around to it. Anyway, that wouldn’t make any difference.”
“So what were they looking for?”
“They were certainly looking for something. They took the place apart.”
“But nothing there?”
“Nothing.”
Caroline was waiting for the questions that Alice was framing in her mind.
“So somebody did inform?”
“We think not. Actually, I think they were looking for smack.”
“But nobody uses it, do they?”
“Pot, of course. Not heroin. No, I think they thought forty-five was a cache. You know, a bale or two of best-quality heroin lurking beneath the floor.”
Alice was thinking, intently. Her face was puckered up, like an anxious dog’s.
“Hey, relax,” said Caroline, “no harm done.”
“How long were … things coming in and out, next door?”
“Not long. A few weeks. And usually only for a day or so. Sometimes an hour or two.”
“Always for Comrade Andrew?”
“Well, he organised it all.”
“How did Comrade Andrew get to next door in the first place?”
“He met Muriel somewhere. He really goes for Muriel.”
“You’re saying that he chose forty-five to live in because Muriel was there?”
“He hasn’t been living there. He’s in and out. I don’t suppose he’s ever been there longer than two or three days at a time.”
“And Comrade Muriel goes for Andrew.”
“Actually, I think it is she who turns the cheek.”
“Oh well, I don’t care about all that,” said Alice, as usual saddened and disgusted. “Anyway, it all seems very hit and miss.”
“Why? The proof’s in the pudding. The police have actually been in three times while I’ve been here. They never found anything. Once half the rubbish sacks