The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [160]
“This is what you like, isn’t it?” guffawed the little fascist, and flung, in a strong underarm action, a filled plastic bag into the hall.
“Shit to shit,” said the other.
The smell filled the hall, filled the house, as they ran away, laughing.
Of course, it was everywhere, had splashed all over the place.
The main thing was, Jasper had stayed inside.
Stepping delicately, she went to the kitchen door, said, “If I were you I’d stay exactly where you are.”
But they did not, appeared in a noisy, raging group, full of imprecations and threats. Jasper would go up to the police station now. He would kill that fascist. He would burn down the police station. He would blow the place up.
Faye was retching into the kitchen sink, aided by Roberta. Jocelin appeared on the landing, stood looking down, like a figure of Judgement or something, thought Alice, sick of them all. She knew who was going to clear up.
“Shut up,” she said. “You don’t understand. This is good, it isn’t bad. He was going to get his own back for being made to look a fool the other day. We are lucky he’s done this. He could have come in and smashed everything up, couldn’t he? We’ve all seen that done before!”
“She’s right,” said Jocelin. She, too, retched, and controlled herself. She went back into the room.
Alice had already got a pail, water, and newspapers. She stood for a moment looking at the three, Jasper, Caroline, Bert, who were all still in the doorway, staring at her.
She knelt down at the very edge of the hall, and began on her task of slowly washing the carpet, every inch of it. When she had finished she would get Bert and Jasper to carry it out to the rubbish bins.
“Why are you wasting time washing that for?” demanded Caroline. “Throw it out.”
She had expected someone to say just that. She said coldly, “If we put it out like this into the garden it will stink, and there’ll be complaints, and an excuse for the police to come back.”
“Yeah. That’s right,” said Jasper.
She went on with her task. She was full of a cold fury. She could have killed, not only the policemen, but Jasper, Bert, and even the good-natured Caroline, whose shocked face peering out of the door seemed to say that one couldn’t credit the stupidity and malice of the world.
“Don’t go to bed,” Alice ordered Jasper. “When I’ve done this, you and Bert can carry it out.”
It took her an hour or so to do the carpet. They carried it, heavy with water and detergent, smelling now of chemicals, out to the dustbins.
“I suppose some night owl will be up and watching, as usual,” said Alice, bitter and very tired, standing carefully in the very middle of the hall floor.
Faye said she was going to bed. Roberta took her up, then came back and got another pail and helped with washing down the woodwork and the walls. All the others went to bed.
As Roberta worked, she swore steadily in her other voice, the rough, clumsy, labouring voice of her upbringing, not the slow, easy, comfortable voice of the everyday Roberta they knew. She did not swear loudly, but only just audibly: a steady quiet stream of hatred against the police, the world, God; on her own behalf, on Faye’s.
When they had finished, both women took baths. Then Roberta went out for the Sunday papers. But there was nothing in the Sundays, not a word.
Alice and Roberta slept for some hours. Faye, awake at midmorning, was angry with Roberta for “getting herself involved.” To pay her out, she went up to talk to Jocelin, at work on her bombs. First, as apprentice, she helped Jocelin; then, it turning out she had a real aptitude, she tried out a tricky little number on her own account. She came down for a cup of tea and brought her instruction manual with her. At the same moment, Reggie and Mary returned from work on their new flat. It was an awful mess, they said: but, having seen Alice at work, they knew what could be done with chaos. The way they said this told the others that they were determined to be “nice” for as long