The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [177]
“Absolutely,” said Bert, hearty. “And I and Alice will be there, too. No argument! Vote taken! That’s it, then.”
Laughter, even from Alice, who felt again one of the family.
Two o’clock. Off went Jocelin and Faye and Jasper.
Jasper did not remember to give Alice a smile or a look. He was in animated talk that looked like a flirtation—with Faye. They were all laughing loudly as they went off.
Roberta sat in a huddle at the table, silent, morose. Now it could be seen how much she did not like this, had not wanted Faye in this danger.
With the three gone, the remaining three were edgy, quiet, far from elated. They had to wait.
It would take Faye, Jasper, Jocelin ten minutes to get to the Underground. Then probably half an hour, depending on how the trains were running, to reach the car. Say three-quarters of an hour; there were two changes. Ten minutes from the Underground to the car. Then it was hard to judge exactly how long it would take to drive the car to the scene of the crime. The rush hour would not have started. But there might be a lot of traffic; who could tell? That journey could take fifteen minutes or, with bad luck, take forty. Somewhere between half past three and four o’clock, Jasper and Faye—not Jocelin; she would have been dropped off along the route—would be looking for a parking place outside the great hotel. They might have to drive round and round it for some time. There was also the question of traffic wardens. If they appeared, while Jasper and Faye were still driving about looking, then they would go away for a few minutes and come back after the wardens had gone. If the wardens appeared after the car was parked, it didn’t matter; the worst that could happen—Faye had said—was that they would be too close when the car exploded.
The bombs would have been set to go off at a quarter to five, later only if the traffic looked particularly bad.
There would be no point in Alice, Bert, and Roberta’s leaving until three, they thought, but at half past two they could not bear to wait even one more moment. As they got up from the table, there was a knock on the front door. A civilised knock, not the police.
“I’ll go,” said Alice. “It’s probably Felicity with something she’s giving me from Philip.” In Felicity’s house had been left a little marquetry table made by Philip, and she had said she would bring it round, for Alice. This was partly, as Alice knew, a need to rid herself of everything that reminded herself of Philip and the complex emotions that he evoked, and partly a generous impulse: she said that she felt Philip would have liked Alice to have it.
At the door stood a man Alice did not know. Having expected only Felicity and a table and a brief emotional moment, being literally ill with apprehension and excitement, she was not prepared to ask him in, or to deal with him or with any situation he was bringing.
“Is Miss Mellings in?” he enquired, and she automatically made the usual assessments from his voice: middle-class, British, an official of some kind, probably.
“I am Alice Mellings,” she said, “but, excuse me, I am in a very great hurry.”
“If you will be kind enough to give me a moment,” he said.
Oh, Christ, she was thinking, oh, shit, we have to leave: for now that the decision had been taken to go, she felt that not one more second should be wasted. “Well, can’t you come back?”
“Yes, I can come back. I certainly will. But in the meantime, you could assist me with some information.”
Alice thought that this might have something to do with the Council’s decision to do up the two houses; he might be someone from the Council. She was not really thinking at all. A flash of recognition, or of warning, that this man’s manner, his style, his way of talking were not appropriate to the Council situation, but to another one altogether, went past her.
“What?” she said hurriedly. “What is