The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [69]
Again she began to laugh: her mother liked looking after people!
She was inside the sleeping bag. Lights from the traffic fled across the ceiling. She thought with envy of Jasper in his cell. He would be with this mysterious new contact of his.… Well, she would hear about it all tomorrow. He would be here by lunchtime.
Alice slept late. When she went down to the kitchen, eight mugs on the draining board said that someone had washed up; she was the last. On the table a note addressed to her: “We’re off for the weekend. Back Sunday night. Jasper knows.” Pat had signed, “Pat and Bert.”
Philip was working on the electrical wiring of the top floor with the easy-paced, contemplative manner of a workman. Alice, helpfully squatting by him, thought: This one would never make a boss; he’s an employee; he can’t work without somebody holding his hand. Philip was being obliging, feeling that yesterday he had not been. He talked of all that remained to be done, of how he would do it all, bit by bit; said that first of all the attic should be examined, for so much rain soaking in must have affected the beams. Alice said she would go up there with him, but first of all she must quickly ring Electricity. And where was Jim? He could help in the attics. Alice was thinking: Jim’s so big and strong, Philip isn’t; together they’d need half the time. But Philip said he had asked Jim, only that morning. Jim was a moody sort of individual, wasn’t he? He hadn’t liked being asked. In Philip’s opinion there was more to Jim than met the eye. Here Alice and Philip exchanged, with their eyes, feelings about Jim; exactly as people looked, but did not speak, apprehensions over Faye—as if something there was too dangerous for words, or at least volatile, to be set off like a risky electronic device by an injudicious combination of sounds.
“Perhaps I’ll have a chat with him,” said Alice vaguely, and went downstairs to survey her territory before going to the telephone.
Mary, of course, was at work. Reggie? As she wondered, in he came with more cartons of gear. He looked exultant, as befits a man who has conquered territory, but abashed, too, because of all these evidences of concern for the material. He would have preferred, in short, not to have run into Alice. But now said that although he and Mary were already filling a second room with their bits of furniture and stuff, of course they would move it all out at once if that room were needed by anyone to live in.
“There’s the attic,” said Alice. “Or there will be. It has to be cleared out.” She waited for him to offer to help clear it, but that did not occur to him. He went off at once to fetch another load.
Alice thought she would get the business of ringing Electricity over with. She resented having to run out to the telephone, in the middle of this useful busyness, wasting time over something that was just a routine.
But as soon as she heard Mrs. Whitfield’s voice she knew she must pay out more of her time and attention to the situation than she thought. Mrs. Whitfield was, if not hostile, stiff with reproach. She said that in her opinion it would be desirable if Alice came in, as soon as possible. Alice said she would come now, it was only just down the road, in a bright chatty voice that insisted there was no real problem, nothing wrong. And put down the receiver gently, in a way that went with the voice. But she was being attacked by one of her rages. Her father! What had he said? It must have been pretty bad for Mrs. Whitfield to change like this.
She was too