The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [130]
Two policemen, one of them the youth with the vicious face. They were in a bad mood, sent out to do something they didn’t want to do.
“We’ve been informed you have something buried in your garden,” said the ugly youth. “We are going to dig.”
“You know what’s there. We’ve told you,” said Alice. She was far from laughing. She knew that very little would make these two start breaking the place up.
“We know what you have told us,” said the other policeman, whom Alice had not seen before.
“I’ll get you our spade,” said Alice.
“We’ve got our own, thank you.”
Alice took them round to where the pit had been dug. The light from the kitchen fell out here.
“This is where the earth has been disturbed,” said the vicious youth to the other.
Alice retreated indoors swiftly. She said to the others, who were ready to explode into laughter, “Don’t, don’t, don’t laugh, or they’ll get us for it.” To Faye, who was tittering and swaying, on the verge of hysteria, “Faye, don’t.” Alice knew if that little psychopath outside was provoked by Faye at her worst, he could do anything. “We can laugh afterwards, not now.”
“She’s right,” said Caroline, and they sat, their faces wooden, containing an anguish of laughter.
Outside, in the streaming light from the window, the two men dug. Not for more than a couple of minutes. They straightened, stood on their spades, then disappeared.
Alice had been careful to leave the front door open, so that they would be visible sitting round their meal: the comfortable kitchen, the flowers, the food.
She went to the front door, looking polite and helpful.
The vicious one was ready to explode with temper.
“You people should be prosecuted,” he shouted, looking past Alice into the scene in the kitchen.
“We told you everything as we did it,” said Alice. “I came myself, to file a report.” She knew that phrase, “file a report,” was the right one.
He stood there literally grinding his teeth at Alice, ready to charge in and smash and destroy. But she was careful to keep her eyes away from him, and to look passive and even indifferent.
The other man was already in the police car.
In a minute they had gone. Alice fetched their own spade and swiftly filled in what they had taken out. Not too bad; Nature, as expected, was doing her job nicely.
She went back into the kitchen, and her appearance was the signal for a celebration of laughter and jeers. It seemed they could not stop laughing, particularly Caroline and Jocelin, for whom the whole story was new. Alice did not feel much like laughing. She knew that it was not the end; their visitors would be back.
She knew, too, looking at Faye, that she was unlikely to have much sleep that night. Indeed, it was past three when Faye went back upstairs. She accepted two Mogadons from Alice, and said good night prettily enough.
Very soon, however, she started weeping. Not the noisy angry weeping that she used when Roberta was there, but the heartbreaking helpless sobs of a child. Alice went in, and sat with her, holding her hand. Faye did not sleep until seven in the morning, and Alice slept sitting there beside her.
Several days passed. Faye was trying hard, and they all knew it, and supported her. When she heard people in the kitchen, she would come down and sit with them, chatting about everything quite amusingly, as she could, doing her little cockney act, but she tended to fall silent suddenly, staring; and then someone would gently try to rouse her and bring her back in with them again.
She offered to show Alice an economical vegetable stew, and it was very nice, and they all enjoyed it. Alice wondered how she could stand—if she was conscious of it—the way everyone was on tenterhooks for her to break out, break down. But she did not break down, or cry. She seemed to be quite normal, even ordinary; and Caroline and Jocelin even said they couldn’t see why people went on and on about Faye. She was very pleasant, she was very clever, and what a lot she knew about politics. It turned out that Faye had read a great deal,