The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [17]
Philip said, facing her, with stubbornness she recognised as being the result of effort, a push against odds, “But I’ve got to charge for it. I can’t do it for nothing.”
“Fifty pounds,” said Alice, and saw a slight involuntary movement towards her from Jasper that told her he would have it off her if she wasn’t careful.
Philip said, in the same soft, stubborn voice, “I want to see the job first. I have to cost it.”
She knew that this one had often been cheated out of what was due to him. Looking as he did, a brave little orphan, he invited it! She said, maternally and proudly, “We’re not asking for favours. This is a job.”
“For fifty pounds,” said Bert, with jocular brutality, “you can just about expect to get a mousehole blocked up. These days.” And she saw his red lips gleam in the black thickets of his face. Jasper sniggered.
This line-up of the two men against her—for it was momentarily that—pleased her. She had even been thinking as she raced home that if Bert turned out to be one of the men that Jasper attached himself to, as had happened before, like a younger brother, showing a hungry need that made her heart ache for him, then he wouldn’t be off on his adventures. These always dismayed her, not out of jealousy—she insisted fiercely to herself, and sometimes to others—but because she was afraid that one day there might be a bad end to them.
Once or twice, men encountered by Jasper during these excursions into a world that he might tell her about, his grip tightening around her wrist as he bent to stare into her face looking for signs of weakness, had arrived at this squat or that, to be met by her friendly, sisterly helpfulness.
“Jasper? He’ll be back this evening. Do you want to wait for him?” But they went off again.
But when there was a man around, like Bert, to whom he could attach himself, then he did not go off cruising—a word she herself used casually. “Were you cruising last night, Jasper? Do be careful; you know it’s bad enough with Old Bill on our backs for political reasons.” This was the hold she had over him, the checks she could use. He would reply in a proud, comradely voice, “You are quite right, Alice. But I know my way around.” And he might give her one of his sudden, real smiles, rare enough, which acknowledged they were allies in a desperate war.
Now she smiled briefly at Jasper and Bert, and turned her attention to Philip. “The most important thing,” she said, “is the lavatories. I’ll show you.”
She took him to the downstairs lavatory, holding the lamp high as they stood in the doorway. Since the day the Council workmen had poured concrete into the lavatory bowl, the little room had been deserted. It was dusty, but normal.
“Bastards,” she burst out, tears in her voice.
He stood there, undecided; and she saw it was up to her.
“We need a kango hammer,” she said. “Have you got one?” She realised he hardly knew what it was. “You know, like the workmen use to break up concrete on the roads, but smaller.”
He said, “I think I know someone who’d have one.”
“Tonight,” she said. “Can you get it tonight?”
This was the moment, she knew, when he might simply go off, desert her, feeling—as she was doing—the weight of that vandalised house; but she knew, too, that as soon as he got started … She said quickly, “I’ve done this before. I know. It’s not as bad as it looks.” And as he stood there, his resentful, reluctant pose telling her that he again felt put upon, she pressed, “I’ll see you won’t lose by it. I know you are afraid of that. I promise.” They were close together in the doorway of the tiny room. He stared at her from the few inches’ distance of their sudden intimacy, saw this peremptory but reassuring face as that of a bossy but kindly elder sister, and suddenly