The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [71]
Alice took out a ten-pound note—not enough, she knew—and placed it in front of Mrs. Whitfield, who took it up, smoothed it flat, placed it in an old-fashioned cashbox in a drawer, wrote out a receipt. Then she said, “I’ll see you in five weeks,” and sighed again. “Good-bye,” said the kindly, decent woman, her distress at the ways of this wicked world written all over her. Almost certainly in her eyes, too, but she was not looking, would not look, at Alice; only said, “Ask the next one to come in.”
Alice said, nonchalantly, so as not to make too much of it, though she was soft with gratitude and relief, “Thanks. ’Bye, then,” and went out. Five weeks was a lifetime, anything could have—would have—happened. But she was on a winning streak, a lucky wave; she would nip down to the Gas Board and fix things up.
There, she said number 43 Old Mill Road was an agreed tenancy, Mary Williams of Belstrode Road would confirm; electricity was being supplied, Mrs. Whitfield of the Electricity Board would confirm; and her brother, now in Bahrein, would guarantee payments. She had waited until this sympathetic-looking man, elderly, fatherly, was free, and now she pleaded, “Can we have the gas on now, please, it is so cold … no hot water … it’s awful.…” His concerned, shocked face! This man could not easily imagine life without hot water, at least not for people like himself and Alice.
A deposit?
She laid down twenty pounds and fixed on him girlish, friendly eyes.
He took up the money. Accepted. But he was unhappy about the situation. Like Mrs. Whitfield at the first interview, he was not sure why he was being compelled by Alice.
“We do have to have a guarantor,” he remarked, as much to himself, and said, “Very well, you said your brother would be back in a month? Good.”
It was done. Alice went off, demurely grateful.
She was going to have to get some money. Had to. Where?
Sobered, she went back home, told Philip that the gas would be on. If they could lay hands on a second-hand boiler, did he know enough to fix it?
They squatted opposite each other on the top floor, on the landing, in the bright April light, which came, slightly dimmed by dirt, through the window on the stairs. He was smiling, pleased with her, with this house, with his place in it; ready to go on working. But, she knew, sorrow and resentment were there, only just subdued; and soon she must find more money for him. For the boiler. For new floorboards in the hall, in a corner where water had dripped from a leaky pipe. For … for … for …
She said, “Philip, I know that if you had taken on this job on a business basis you would have had to charge hundreds. Well, don’t worry … but wait a bit. I’ll have it.”
He nodded, he smiled, he went on with his work, sitting in a tangle of new black cable like some kind of leprechaun among urban roots. Frail—you could blow him away, thought Alice, her heart aching for him.
And where was Jasper? He had not been in court that morning after all? Or he had been, had been silly, was bound over again?
Worry, worry, worry; she felt bruised with it.
She sat in a heap at the kitchen table. She thought, looking at the pleasant room: I’m taking it for granted already!
Forcing herself, she worked for an hour or two on the great heap of stuff purloined from the skips that lay in a corner of the hall; fitting a curtain here, laying a rug there. Everything needed a good scrub! Well, she would take down all these curtains when there was time and get them to the laundrette, but meanwhile … She found a nice solid little stool, thrown away only because a leg was loose. She glued it back in, put the stool in the corner of the kitchen, went out into the garden to the forsythia bush, cut some branches. The old woman was asleep in her chair under the tree. Joan Robbins was only a yard away through the fence. She was glad to see Alice, began talking in a heavy tired voice about how the old woman had her running up and down the stairs, even got her up in the middle of the night. What was she to