The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [56]
“Well, it doesn’t matter to you, does it? You and Reggie can stay here by yourselves. You can easily get friends in, I am sure.”
Mary collapsed into a chair. From being the happiest girl in the world, she had become a poor small creature, pale and fragile, a suppliant. “I don’t understand! What difference does it make? And of course Reggie and I wouldn’t stay here by ourselves.”
“Why not?”
Mary coloured up, and stammered, “Well, of course … it goes without saying … they can’t know I am living here. Bob Hood and the others can’t know I am in a squat.”
“Oh well, that’s it, then,” said Alice, vague because she was already thinking of the problems of moving again.
“I don’t understand,” Mary was demanding. “Tell me, what is the problem.”
Alice sighed and said perfunctorily that there were reasons why some of them did not want their presence signposted.
“Why,” demanded Mary, “are they criminals?” She had gone bright pink, and she sounded indignant.
Alice could see that this moment had been reached before, with Militant. Methods!
Alice said, sounding sarcastic because of the effort she was making to be patient, “Politics, Mary. Politics, don’t you see?” She thought that with Jim it was probably something criminal, but let it pass. Probably something criminal with Faye and Roberta, for that matter. “Don’t you see? People collect their Social Security in one borough, but live somewhere else. Sometimes in several other places.”
“Oh. Oh, I see.”
Mary sat contemplating this perspective: skilled and dangerous revolutionaries on the run, in concealment. But seemed unable to take it in. She said, huffily, “Well, I suppose the decision could be adjusted. I must say, I think it is just as well the Council don’t know about this!”
“Oh, you mean you can get the decision changed?” Alice, reprieved, the house restored to her, sat smiling, her eyes full of tears. “Oh, good, that’s all right, then.”
Mary stared at Alice. Alice, bashful, because of the depth of her emotion, smiled at Mary. This was the moment when Mary, from her repugnance for anything that did not measure up against that invisible yardstick of what was right, suitable, and proper that she shared with Reggie, could have got up, stammered a few stiff, resentful apologies, and left. To tell Bob Hood that the Council had made a mistake, those people in number 43 …
But she smiled, and said, “I’ll have a word with Bob. I expect it will be all right. So everyone will chip in? I’ll get them to send the bills monthly, not quarterly. It will be easier to keep up with the payments.” She chattered on for a bit, to restore herself and the authority of the Council, and then remarked that something would have to be done about number 45. There were complaints all the time.
“I’ll go next door and see them,” said Alice.
Again the official reacted with, “It’s not your affair, is it? Why should you?” Seeing that Alice shrugged, apparently indifferent, Mary said quickly, “Yes, perhaps you should.…”
She went upstairs, with a look as irritated as Alice’s. Both women were thinking that it would not be easy, this combination of people, in the house.
Soon Mary went off with Reggie. He would drop her back at work, and they both would return later with another load. They were bringing in some furniture, too, if no one minded. A bed, for instance.
Alice sat on, alone. Then Philip came to be given the money for the glass, and went off to buy it.
Alice was looking at herself during the last four days, and thinking: Have I been a bit crazy? After all, it is only a house … and what have I done? These two, Reggie and Mary—revolutionaries? They were with Militant? Crazy!
Slowly she recovered. Energy came seeping back. She thought of the others, on the battlefront down at Melstead. They were at work for the cause; and she must be, too! Soon she slipped out of the house, careful not to see whether the old lady was waving at her, and went