The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [39]
Alice sat by herself, the large shabby sitting room comfortably about her, and thought that she was hungry. She did not have the energy to go out again. Against the wall was a crumpled carrier bag, and in it, a loaf of bread and some salami. God knew how long that had been there, but she didn’t care. She sat eating, slowly, careful of crumbs. For this room, she would need help: it was so large and the ceilings so tall. But the kitchen … It took an hour or so to get herself going; she was really tired. Besides, she was enjoying mentally spending the money that she could feel in a large soft lump just under her heart. Then she did pull herself up, and went into the kitchen. Filling buckets with—unfortunately—cold water, she began to work. Swabbing down ceilings, walls, while she manoeuvred the stepladder around the cooker, which still lay on its side on the floor. At one point she knew that tears were running down her cheeks—she had been thinking of the others, all together, shouting in unison, “Thatcher out, out, out!,” shouting “Blacklegs out, out, out!”
She could hear them chant, “The workers united shall never be defeated!”
She thought how one of them—Philip, yes, she thought, Philip—would go off to a pub and buy sandwiches and beer for all of them. There might even be a mobile canteen by now; there ought to be, the picket had been going on for some time.
She thought of how the atmosphere would get thick and electric, and how when the armoured vans—the symbol of everything they loathed—started to move, the crowd would struggle together and become like a wall against which the police …
Alice wept a little, aloud, snuffling and gulping, as she stood swabbing the floor. If they decided that Philip could not stay here, then … those tiles on the roof, those tiles …
Round about four in the afternoon the kitchen was scrubbed, not a smear of dust or grit anywhere. The big table stood where it ought, with its heavy wooden chairs around it, and on it a glass jam jar with some jonquils out of the garden. Only the poor cooker lay on its side, a reminder of disorder. Alice thought that she would get on a train and go down to the others—she had a right to it, she was the veteran of a hundred battles—but sat down for a rest in the sitting room and fell asleep, and woke to find the others noisily crowding in, laughing and talking, elated and full of accomplishment.
Alice, a sleepy creature in the big chair, was humble, even apologetic, as she struggled up to greet them. She felt she had no right to it when food and drink were spread about the floor and she was invited to join.
Then she remembered. She pulled out her thick roll of notes and, laughing, gave £150 to Philip. “On account,” she said.
A silence. They stared. Then they laughed, and began hugging her and one another. Even Jasper put his arm around her briefly as he laughed, and seemed to show her off to the others.
“Better not ask where,” said Roberta, “but congratulations.”
“Honestly gained, I hope,” said Faye primly, and they started again, embracing and laughing, but this was as much, Alice knew, out of the exuberant excesses of emotion from the day’s energetic confrontations with Authority as because they were pleased with her.
“All the same,” said Faye, “we have to come to a group decision,” and Roberta said, “Oh, balls, Faye, come off it. It’s all right.…”
The two women exchanged a look; and Alice knew: they had been discussing it down there, and had disagreed. Bert said briefly, as though it really didn’t matter, and had not mattered: “Yes, as far as I am concerned it is all right.” Jasper echoed, “Yes, I agree.”
Pat said, “Of course it is all right.”
Philip could not speak, for he would have wept; he was shining with relief, with happiness. And Jim: well, he was taking it, Alice could see, as a reprieve; she knew that nothing could ever seem, to Jim, more than a temporary good. But he was pleased enough. There was a warm, good feeling in the room. A family …
The good feeling lasted through the meal, and while Alice took them to