The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [157]
Caroline remarked, “Probably just rubbing the marks off like that won’t be much good—not with the methods they use these days.”
“Probably not,” said Jocelin, “but it’s too late to think of that now, isn’t it? We’ve got to get rid of these things—just get rid of them.”
“Why don’t we bury them in the garden?” suggested Bert, sounding like a deprived small boy, and she said, “In this garden, I suppose you mean, what a brilliant idea!” And then, as she snuggled back the gun parts into their nest, she said, “If you have in mind any little jobs that actually have to be done, something concrete—that is, within a proper context, properly organised—then weapons are available. Surely you know that?”
Bert was looking at her with resentment, but also with admiration that relinquished to her the right to take command. His eyes burned with excitement, and he could not stop smiling: teeth, eyes, his red lips, flashed and shone.
Jasper was containing himself, eyes shielded by his lids, so as not to show how furious he was—which Alice knew him to be. She was seeing Jasper, Bert as she had not done before—soldiers, real soldiers, in a war. She was thinking, Why, they’d love it, particularly Jasper. He’d enjoy every minute of it.… This thought made her even more dismayed, and she took a few steps back from the scene, the knuckles of both hands again at her mouth.
Jocelin was taking in her condition very well, despite her preoccupation with closing up the package. “Alice, have you never seen guns before?”
“No.”
“You are overreacting.”
“Yes, she is,” said Jasper at once, coming to life in open fury at Alice. “Look at her, you’d think she’d seen a ghost.” And here he became, suddenly, like a child in a playground trying to scare another. “Woooo-o-o,” he wailed, flapping his hands at her, “Alice has seen a ghost.…”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” shouted Jocelin, losing her temper. “We’ve got a serious job to do—remember? And I’m going back up to work. Take those cases out somewhere and dump them and forget about them. They’re nothing but trouble.” With which she went upstairs, in her slow, determined way, not looking back at them. She was—they knew—furious with herself for losing control.
They all watched her, silent, till she was out of sight, and the atmosphere eased.
“Come on, let’s get going,” said Bert.
Indecision. With Jocelin, the real boss of the scene, absent, for a moment no one could act. Then Alice came to life, saying, “I’ll go and get the car.” She ran off.
The car keys had been left downstairs with Felicity’s neighbour, because—she said crossly, demonstrating Felicity’s annoyance for her—Felicity had waited for Alice to arrive when she had said she would. Apologies and smiles. Alice drove the car back to number 43. The four of them got the packages out to the car. No wonder they were so heavy.
They stood around debating where to take the packages. The rubbish dump? No, not at that hour of the day. Down to the river? No, they would be observed. Better drive out to some leafy suburb like Wimbledon or Greenwich, and see what they could find. They were on their way through Chiswick, crawling through heavy traffic, when they saw, in a side street, big corrugated iron gates and the sign: “Warwick & Sons, Scrap Metal Merchants.” They turned out of the traffic and round the block and past the gates. The place seemed deserted. Alice double-parked while Bert went in, coolly, like a customer, and hung about for a bit. But no one came. He sprinted back, face flushed, eyes reddened, white teeth and red lips flashing in his black beard. Jasper caught the fever at once. Alice, admiring them both, backed the car between the great gates and stopped. It was a large yard. In this part of London, capacious plots of ground accommodated large houses and big gardens. But this place had some ramshackle brick-and-corrugated-iron sheds at the back with heavy locks on them, and otherwise everywhere were heaps of metal pipes, bits of cars, rusting iron bars, bent and torn corrugated iron. Brass and copper gleamed unexpectedly, and stacks of milky