The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [28]
Alice ran lightly up the steps and, knowing her way from having been in so many similar buildings, went straight to the first floor, where she knew she was in the right place, because there was a room where ten or so people waited. Unpaid bills, new accounts, threats of disconnection: a patient little crowd of petitioners. From this room opened two doors, and Alice sat herself so as to be able to see into both rooms. As the doors opened to emit one customer and admit another, Alice examined the faces of these new arbiters, sitting behind their respective desks. Women. One she knew, after a single glance, she must avoid. The letter of the law, that woman, judged Alice, seeing a certain self-satisfaction in competence. A thin face and lips, neatly waved fair hair, a smile Alice had no intention of earning. But the other woman, yes, she would do, although at first glance … She was large, and her thick, tight dress held her solid and secure, performing the function of a corset, but from this fortress of a dress emerged a large, soft, rather girlish face and large, soft hands. Alice adjusted her seat, and in due course found herself sitting in front of this motherly lady, who, Alice knew, several times a day stretched things a little because she was sorry for people.
Alice told her story, and described—knowing exactly what she was doing—the large solid house that inexplicably was going to be pulled down so that yet another nasty block of flats could be built. Then she produced her official-looking Council envelope, with the letter inside.
This official, Mrs. Whitfield, only glanced at the letter, and said, “Yes, but the house is on the agenda, that’s all, it hasn’t been decided.” She turned up a card in the cabinet beside her, and said, “Number forty-three? I know it. Forty-three and forty-five. I walk past them every day to the Underground. They make me feel sick.” She looked, embarrassed, at Alice, and even blushed.
“We have already begun to clean forty-three up. And the dustmen are coming tomorrow to take it all away.”
“You want me to get the power switched on now, before knowing what the Council decides?”
“I am sure it is going to be all right,” said Alice, smiling. She was sure. Mrs. Whitfield saw this, felt it, and nodded.
“Who is going to guarantee payment? Are you? Are you in work?”
“No,” said Alice, “not at the moment.” She began to talk in a calm, serious way about the houses in Manchester, in Halifax, in Birmingham that had been rescued, where electricity had flowed obediently through wires, after long abstinence. Mrs. Whitfield listened, sitting solid in her chair, while her white large hand held a biro poised above a form: Yes. No.
She said, “If I order the power to be switched on, first I must have a guarantor.”
“But do you know that it is only in this borough—well, one or two others. In Lampton, for instance, you’d have to supply electricity to us. If people demand it, then it must be supplied.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Whitfield mildly, “you seem to know the situation as well as I do! I do not make policy. I implement it. The policy in this borough is that there has to be a guarantor.”
But her eyes, large, soft, and blue, were direct on Alice’s face and not combative or hostile, far from it; she seemed to be appealing for Alice to come up with something.
“My father will guarantee payment,” said Alice. “I am sure of that.”
Mrs. Whitfield had already started to fill in the form. “Then that’s all right,” she said. “His name? His address? His telephone number? And we have to have a deposit.”
Alice took out ten pounds and laid it on the desk. She knew it was not enough. Mrs. Whitfield looked at it cautiously, and