The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [72]
Alice, familiar with this situation from somewhere in her well-stocked past, knew there was little that could be done; in fact, it would get worse. She asked whether Mrs. Robbins knew about the services available for the old. Yes, but she didn’t like the idea of all these people in and out all day; who were they? She’d have no check on them.
She went on and on, digging viciously into the soil of her border. For years the house had been civilised and orderly; she and her husband downstairs, with the garden; Mrs. Jackson, a widow, keeping herself to herself in the flat above. But now she might just as well be living with Mrs. Jackson! You’d think she was her daughter! The old woman certainly seemed to think so.
Alice, with all the time in the world and nothing better to do, stood with the branches of forsythia blazing yellow in her arms, listening and advising. Surely it would be better to have Home Helps, Meals on Wheels, all that, and a social worker to advise and take on responsibility, than have to do it all yourself?
Joan Robbins agreed that perhaps it might, she would think.… With a smile at Alice of real gratitude, neighbourliness, she said that she was glad Alice was there, glad that decent people were in poor Number 43 at last.
Alice went in, stacked the forsythia in a jug on the stool in the corner of the kitchen, sat down.
Where was Jasper?
This was the night they were going spray-painting. She had the paint—two cans, in scarlet and black—ready in the corner of the hall.
At the kitchen table, she pencilled slogans on an envelope.
What was the message they wanted to convey? The full message, exact—that was where she must start.
The Use of Supergrasses Unmasks the True Nature of British Democracy. One Law for England, Another for Northern Ireland, England’s Colony.
That was it. Possibly they’d find a good space, like a bridge, or a long low wall, to get all that in.
She must work out something shorter.
Supergrasses Threaten Democracy!
No, too abstract.
Supergrasses—Unfair!
Supergrasses a Shameful Blot on Britain!
Supergrasses—Shame on Us!
She sat still, with the blaze of the forsythia in her eyes. She shut her eyes, and the yellow blurred and danced on black. She was smiling, remembering the last time she and Jasper had gone out together. Only two weeks ago. In scarlet and black they had written “Support the Women of Greenham Common” on the dull grey-green paint of a bridge two hundred yards from a police station. She had sprayed; Jasper kept watch, from the other side of the station. She had finished when she heard his signal, a yell he had perfected to sound like a car hooting. She had thrust the spray paint in her carrier bag. Not looking back, she strolled along the pavement, thinking that Jasper was sauntering past the police station. Between him and her, probably two policemen. But the footsteps that came up beside her were Jasper’s—light and urgent. That meant the police had gone up the other way—but could see them by turning. Jasper and she stood looking into each other’s faces, alive and tingling and delighted, knowing that anyone looking at them could guess, simply from the waves of energy that danced from them. Jasper’s eyes said, Let’s …
She raced back to the smooth green paint that was evenly lit by a street lamp ten yards away. The policeman and a woman sedately progressed away from them. Jasper waited where he was. She took out the red spray and, in letters a foot high, began “Greenham Common Women …”
She kept her attention half on what she did, half on Jasper, who suddenly raised his arms. Without looking round she sped toward him, hearing the heavy feet running behind her. Now she was spitting: Filthy beasts, fascists, pigs, pigs, pigs.… She had come up to Jasper, who caught her wrist in his bony grip, and they ran together up towards the Underground. But before they reached it, they turned into a side street and then, they hoped before the police reached that street, into another. They knew someone living in a house there. But their blood was