The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [53]
Roberta sat there isolated, repudiated, unable to speak.
Alice said, “But, Faye, do you think I’m not a revolutionary? I agree with every word you say.”
“I don’t know anything about you, Comrade Alice. Except that you are a wonder with the housekeeping. And with the police. I like that. But just before you came, we took a decision, a joint decision. We decided we were going to work with the IRA. Have you forgotten?”
Alice was silent. She was thinking, But Jasper and Bert have been discussing things next door, surely? She said, carefully, “I understood that a comrade next door had indicated that …”
“What comrade?” demanded Roberta, coming to life again. “We know nothing about that.”
“Oh,” said Alice. “I thought …”
“It’s just amateurish rubbish,” said Faye. “Suddenly some unknown authority next door says this and that.”
“I didn’t realise,” said Alice. She had nothing to say. She was thinking: Was it Bert who led Jasper into …? Was it Jasper who …? I don’t remember Jasper doing anything like this before.…
After some time, while no one said anything, but they all sat separate, thinking their own thoughts, Alice said, “Well, I agree. It is time we all got together and discussed it. Properly.”
“Including the two new comrades?” enquired Faye, bitter.
“No, no, just us. Just you and Roberta and Bert and Jasper and Pat and me.”
“Not Philip and not Jim,” said Roberta.
“Then the six of us might go to a café or somewhere for a discussion,” said Alice.
“Quite so,” said Faye. “We can’t have a meeting here, too many extraneous elements. Exactly.”
“Well, perhaps we could borrow a room in forty-five,” said Alice.
“We could go and have a lovely picnic in the park, why not?” said Faye, fiercely.
“Why not?” said Roberta, laughing. It could be seen that she was coming back into the ascendant, sat strong and confident, and sent glances towards Faye which would soon be returned.
Another silence, companionable, no hard feelings.
Alice said, “I have to ask this, it has to be raised. Are you two prepared to contribute anything to expenses?”
Faye, as expected, laughed. Roberta said quickly, reprovingly of Faye—which told Alice everything about the arguments that had gone on about this very subject—“We are going to pay for food and suchlike. You tell us how it works out.”
“Very cheaply, with so many of us.”
“Yes,” said Faye. “That’s fair. But you can leave me out of all the gracious living. I’m not interested. Roberta can do what she likes.” And she got up, smiled nicely at them both, and went out. Roberta made an instinctive movement to go after her but stayed put. She said, “I’ll make a contribution, Alice. I’m not like Faye—I’m not indifferent to my surroundings. You know, she really is,” she said urgently, smiling, pressing Alice with Faye’s difference, her uniqueness, her preciousness.
“Yes, I know.”
Roberta gave Alice two ten-pound notes, which she took, with no expression on her face, knowing that that would be it, and thanked Roberta, who fidgeted about, and then, unable to bear it, got up and went after Faye.
It was not yet ten. Mary had said to ring at one. Persuaded by the odours left on the air of the kitchen by Faye, by Roberta, she went up to the bathroom and forced herself into a cold bath, where she crouched, unable actually to lower her buttocks into it, scrubbing and lathering. In a glow she dressed in clean clothes, bundled what she had taken off with Jasper’s clothes that needed a wash—determined by sniffing at them—and was on her way out to the laundrette when she saw the old woman sitting under the tree in the next garden, all sharp jutting limbs, like a heap of sticks inside a jumble of cardigan and skirt. She urgently gesticulated at Alice, who went out into the street and in again at the neat white gate, smiling. She hoped that neighbours were watching.
“She’s gone out and