The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [54]
“Tea, tea,” urged the crone.
“You’ll have to have coffee. We’re short of a teapot. Now, you just sit there and wait.”
Alice went back, made sweet coffee, and brought it to the old woman. “What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Jackson, Jackson, that’s what I am called.”
“My name is Alice and I live at forty-three.”
“You sent away all those dirty people, good for you,” said Mrs. Jackson, who was already slipping down in her chair again, like a drunken old doll, the mug sliding sideways in her hand.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes,” said Alice, and ran off.
The laundrette used up three-quarters of an hour. She collected her cup from Mrs. Jackson, and then stood listening to Joan Robbins, who came out of her kitchen to tell Alice that she should not believe the old lady, who was wandering; there was not one reason in the world why she, Joan Robbins, should do a thing for her, let alone help her down the stairs to the garden and up again and make her cups of coffee and … The complaints went on, while Mrs. Jackson gesticulated to both of them that her tale was the right one. This little scene was being witnessed by several people in gardens and from windows, and Alice let them have the full benefit of it.
With a wave she went back into her own house.
It was eleven, and a frail apparition wavered on the stairs: Philip, who said, “Alice, I don’t feel too good, I don’t feel …”
He arrived precariously beside her, and his face, that of a doleful but embarrassed angel, was presented to her for diagnosis and judgement, in perfect confidence of justice. Which she gave him: “I am not surprised, all that work on the roof. Well, forget it today, I’d take it easy.”
“I would have gone with the others, but …”
“Go into the sitting room. Relax. I’ll bring you some coffee.”
She knew this sickness needed only affection, and when Philip was settled in a big chair, she took him coffee and sat with him, thinking: I have nothing better to do.
She had known that at some time she would have to listen to a tale of wrongs: this was the time. Philip had been promised jobs and not given them; had been turned off work without warnings; had not been paid for work he had done; and this was told her in the hot aggrieved voice of one who had suffered inexplicable and indeed malevolent bad luck, whereas the reason for it all—that he was as fragile as a puppet—was not mentioned; could never, Alice was sure, be mentioned. “And do you know, Alice, he said to me, Yes, you be here next Monday and I’ll have a job for you—do you know what that job was? He wanted me to load great cases of paint and stuff into vans! I’m a builder and decorator, Alice! Well, I did it, I did it for four days, and my back went out. I was in hospital for two weeks, and then in physio for a month. When I went to him and said he owed me for the four days, he said I was the one in the wrong and …” Alice listened and smiled, and her heart hurt for him. It seemed to her that a great deal had been asked of her heart that morning, one poor victim after another. Well, never mind, one day life would not be like this; it was capitalism that was so hard and hurtful and did not care about the pain of its victims.
At half past twelve, when she was just thinking that she could go to the telephone booth, she heard someone coming in, and flew to intercept the police, the Council—who this time?
It was Reggie, who, smiling, was