The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [133]
She ran next door to Joan Robbins. The house was in darkness, and Alice put her finger on the bell and kept it there. She could hear it shrilling. A window went up above her head, and she heard Joan Robbins’s voice, sharp, “What is it? Who is it?”
“Let me in, let me in,” cried Alice, her voice like a child’s, or like Faye’s. “It is Alice,” she wept, since Joan Robbins did not at once leave the window. “Alice from next door.”
The lights went on in the hall, and Joan Robbins stood there in a flowered dressing gown and bright-red mules, looking angry, puzzled, and afraid.
“I must ring someone—I must—someone’s ill,” she stammered, and Joan Robbins stood aside.
At the telephone, she fumbled for the books, which Joan took out from a plastic cover and gave to her.
She found “Directory Enquiries,” got the number, rang the hospital in Bradford, left a message for Roberta. “Tell her her friend is ill, she must come at once.”
Then she started turning the pages over, looking for another number, and it was not until she saw “Samaritans” that she knew what she wanted.
“Don’t you want nine-nine-nine?” asked Joan Robbins curiously. Alice shook her head and stood, eyes shut, breathing irregularly, as if she might faint, and Joan padded off to her kitchen to make her a nice cup of tea.
Alice rang the Samaritans. A pleasant, steady voice spoke. Alice did not hear the words, only the tone. She stood silent, listening. She was going to have to say something, or this voice would stop, go away.
She said, “I want your advice, that’s all, your advice.”
“What’s the trouble?”
She said nothing, but stood listening to the sensible, helpful voice. Which went on, saying that Alice should not ring off, that no one would put any pressure on Alice or on anyone else, no one would report Alice, no matter what she or anyone else had done.
Alice did not speak until she heard Joan Robbins coming back. She said quickly, “Someone has cut her wrists.”
There was no time for more. Joan arrived with two mugs of hot tea.
Alice picked up hers at once, knowing how badly she needed it. She stood trying to drink the boiling liquid, listening, listening. “You must get your friend to hospital. As quickly as you can. Call the ambulance. Call nine-nine-nine. It’s a matter of life and death. You really must.”
“Suppose I don’t?” said Alice at last, choosing her words because of Joan, who stood helplessly by, urging her with smiles and looks to drink up.
“Then, if you don’t—but you really should—the main thing is to keep your friend awake and get as much liquid into her as possible. Can she drink?”
“Yes,” said Alice, and went on listening as if she heard some impossible, far-off music that beguiled and comforted, soothed and offered infinite, unfailing support.
After some minutes, she simply put down the receiver, letting that gentle, sensible voice disappear into the realm of the unreachable. She adjusted her face to her usual bright, good-girl’s smile, and said to Joan Robbins, “Thank you. Thanks a lot. That was the Samaritans. Do you know about them?”
“I have heard of them, yes.”
“They are very good, really,” said Alice, vaguely. “Well, I had better get back. I’ve left someone coping and I don’t think he’s much used to people being ill.”
Joan followed Alice to the door, with the look of someone who feels that everything has not been said, and who hopes that it might be said even now.
“Thank you,” said Alice politely. Then, wildly and gratefully, “Thank you, thank you.” And she ran away into the dark. Joan Robbins waited to see her go in at the door of number 43. Then she went back into her kitchen, where she examined the smears of blood on the telephone directories and on the table. She wiped the table and stood thinking for some minutes. Then she decided not to call the police, and went quietly to her bed.
Alice found Philip and Faye exactly as she had left them. But Faye’s eyes were open, and she stared, expressionless, at the ceiling.
“I’ve rung Roberta,” said Alice.
Then she searched around for a clean nightie or something,