The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [66]
She said, “I really cannot imagine why you should react like this. People have been burying their excrement in pits for thousands of years. They do now, over most of the world.…” As this did not seem adequately to reach them, “In this country, we have only generally had waterborne sewage for a hundred years or so. Much less in some areas.”
“Yes, well, we have it now,” said the policewoman smartly.
“That’s right,” said the policeman.
“It seems to me we did the responsible and the hygienic thing. Nature will take care of it soon enough.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” said the policeman.
“We won’t have any need to, will we?” said Alice sweetly. “What I came to say was, if you check with the Council, you will have confirmation: number forty-three is now an agreed squat. An agreed short-term tenancy.”
The policewoman reached for a form. Her colleague went back to join his mates. Soon there was a burst of loud scandalised laughter. Then another. The policewoman, diligently filling in her form, tightened her lips; Alice could not make out whether in criticism or not.
“Small things amuse small minds,” said Alice.
The policewoman shot her a look that said it was not for her to say so, even if she, herself, had been thinking it.
Alice smiled at her, woman to woman. “And so,” she said, “that’s it. Number forty-three is now legal, and in order. Any more raids and you’ll be stepping well over the line.”
“That’s for us to say, I think,” said the policewoman, with a tight little smile.
“No,” said Alice. “As it happens, no. I think not. There will certainly be no further complaints from the neighbours.”
“Well, we’ll have to hope not,” and the policewoman retreated to join her own in the back room.
Alice, satisfied, went out, and home, directing herself to pass 45. No one in the garden now. But in the deep shade in the angle of the two hedges she could just make out that a pit had been dug. She could not resist. For the second time that night, she slid silently in at a garden gate. Forty-five looked deserted; all the windows were dark. The pit was about four feet deep. There was a strong sweet earthy smell from the slopes of soil around its edges. The bottom looked very flat—water? She bent to make sure. A case, or carton, something like that, had been placed at the bottom. She swiftly straightened, looked around. Consciously enjoying her condition, the sense of danger, of threat, she thought: They will be watching from those curtains or upstairs—I would be, in their position. What a risky thing to do, though; she turned to examine the strategy of the operation. No, perhaps it was all right. Whereas the digging of their own pit on the other side of the fence could have been observed by the occupants of three houses and by anyone about in Joan Robbins’s house, here two sides were tall fence and hedge, the third the house. Between here and the gate were shrubs and bushes. Joan Robbins’s upper windows were dark. Over the road, set back in its own garden, a house; and certainly anyone could see what they liked from the upstairs windows. Which were still dark; the people had not yet gone upstairs to bed. She had seen what she needed to see. She would have liked to stay, the sweet earthy smells and the impetus of risk firing her blood, but she moved, swift as a shadow, to the front door and knocked, gently. It was opened at once. By Andrew.
“I knew you must be watching,” she said. “But I’ve come to say that I told the police station forty-three is an agreed squat. So they will be quite prepared to accept it when you say you are.”
Her pulse was beating, her heart racing, every cell dancing and alert. She was smiling, she knew; oh, this was the opposite of “her look,” when she felt like this, as if she’d drunk an extra-fine distilled essence of danger, and could have stepped out among the stars or run thirty miles.
She saw the short, powerful figure come out of the dark of the hall, to where she could see his face in the light from the street lamps. It was serious, set