The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [183]
“No,” Faye had said gallantly, “there’s nothing for it,” and had tried to drive faster, but was hemmed in by traffic.
And when Jasper had got out but Faye had not, was it that Faye’s door had jammed? Had he been going to help her with the door?
This was Roberta, and she sounded accusing.
Jasper hesitated. Alice knew it was because he was trying to think how not to say something. When he looked like this, very pale but luminous, with a candid, suffering, helpless look, it meant he was going to lie. Or wanted to. He began to stutter, checked himself, and said simply, “When Faye drove into the empty space, she went too fast up onto the pavement, and then braked. She did not have on her seat belt. We did not have our seat belts on, you see.”
“Of course not,” said Roberta, severely.
“But she was jerked forward, and the driving wheel got the pit of her stomach. She didn’t have any breath, you see?” he said gently to Roberta. Alice was thinking, There, he’s kind, Jasper’s kind, he didn’t want to tell Roberta any of this.…
Roberta was staring at Jasper, her mouth was open, and she was breathing badly. She was thinking, they all knew, that her Faye had been killed because of some silly little thing, something ridiculous; for the rest of her life Roberta would be thinking, incredulous, that Faye died because she drove too fast and too hard up onto a pavement.
“I could see she couldn’t move,” said Jasper. “I got the car into reverse—I stretched my feet over, and did it. Then I said she must get out quickly. But she did not move. I think she was too sick to move. I got out to drag her out of the car from the driving side. And then the bomb went off.”
“Five minutes too early,” said Roberta, this time accusing Jocelin. Who, like Jasper, had sat quiet, hesitating. There was something she did not want to say.
Roberta asked quickly, “Who set the timing? Faye?”
“Yes.”
Roberta shook her head, as if saying No, no, no—to all of it—but then sat heavily silent, saying yes to tea, yes to sugar in it, yes to a biscuit. But she did not eat, or drink.
Roberta, they all knew, would at some point come out of this passive state.
Jasper was beginning to hurt, very badly. Bert ran upstairs, fetched painkillers for Jasper, sedatives for Roberta, and a radio.
They listened to the news.
“Five people have been killed, and twenty-three injured, some seriously, this afternoon, when a car exploded outside the Kubla Khan hotel, breaking all the windows down that side and damaging several parked cars. This monstrous and callous crime illustrated yet again the total lack of ordinary feeling by the IRA, who had claimed responsibility for the crime.”
“Well, what about that,” said Jocelin. “What a fucking nerve.”
“Absolutely,” said Alice, not connecting her telephone call with this development. Then, after a few minutes, listening to the indignation, the frustration of the others, she did connect it, and she realised that she could never tell them what she had done. Never. She never would be trusted again.
Suppose Bert remembered that she had been gone off that pavement near to him for what must have been a good five minutes?
It seemed he did not.
At about ten o’clock Caroline came back. She was distant, even cold. She said she wouldn’t sit down; she was tired and wanted to sleep.
She had heard the news, she said, when it seemed that Jasper was about to start the story.
She made herself coffee, drank it standing, not looking at them.
“Where’s Faye?” she asked, and they realised there was no possible way she could know.
Roberta said, “Faye’s dead,” and began to cry. At first it was quiet, helpless weeping, and then she began to wail and moan.
“Well, that was due,” said Bert, briskly.
“Was she in the car, then?” asked Caroline, but she didn’t want to sound interested.