The Good Terrorist - Doris May Lessing [99]
He ran off down the stairs, without a smile or a look, and she was left again with Philip. Who was distressed. By the atmosphere he had been in, which, she knew, was pure poison.
She knew he was thinking: If I had not put so much of myself into this house, perhaps I’d leave. Besides, he was upset about Pat’s going.
She left Philip to his work, thinking that this time she had given him the money for the materials but none for his labour. Almost, she went back up the stairs to give him what she had.… She took a few steps down … almost went back up, hesitated, then—luck being on her side—she did it. She gave him what was left of the already denuded packet—not quite two hundred pounds, it was true, and nothing like what it should be—and went down into the kitchen, whose door she boldly opened, not caring that it had been shut to bar her out.
Bert had gone.
Jasper was waiting for her.
“Where did you get that money?”
“It’s not your money, so shut up,” she said.
“You are making us all sick,” he said. “We all think you’ve gone rotten. All you care about is your comfort.”
“Too bad,” said she, sitting down. In the bright mid-morning light he looked, standing there, rather commonplace and even ugly—so thought Alice, who a few moments before had been melting in a familiar ecstasy of admiration for him.
He was staring at her midriff. The jacket, hastily put on, was open. At the front, inside the thick cotton shirt, was the flat protuberance of the packet.
For a moment she feared he would simply step over, grab her wrist, pull out the money. He did not, but went to stand at the window, looking out.
He said, “You needn’t think I’m just going to give up, that I’m just going to take their word for it!”
It took a moment for it to penetrate: he was talking about his rejection by the Irish comrades.
She said companionably, “No, of course not.”
She believed, and with what a lightening and easing of her poor heart, that now could begin the real, the responsible, discussion she loved so much to have with Jasper. But the door opened and she looked up to see Jim. Who at first she thought was not Jim. The brown glossy skin was ashy and rough, and his eyes stared.
“What’s wrong, what is wrong?” And she went to him.
He shook her off. “They gave me the sack.”
“Oh no,” she said at once, decisively. “Oh no, he couldn’t have.”
He stood, breathing in, breathing out in a big gasp, breathing in. A loud, painful sound. “They said I stole money.”
“Oh no,” said Alice. And then again, but differently, “Oh no.”
Meanwhile Jasper stood taking all this in.
“What’s the point?” demanded Jim, of the heavens, not of her, and it sounded histrionic, but was not; for the question had behind it his whole life. Then he did look properly at Alice, seeing her, and said, “Well, thanks, Alice, I know you tried. But there’s no point.” And he went stumbling out, crying.
She went after him. “Wait. You wait. I’m going right over there. I’ll fix it, you’ll see.”
He shook his head, went into his room, shut the door.
Alice remained outside, thinking. Jasper appeared from the kitchen. He was grinning complicity, even congratulation. The whole truth of course he had not sussed out, for who could possibly imagine that luck of hers, which had caused the telephone to ring at precisely the right moment. But he had grasped, being so quick, the bones of it.
She said, “I’m going over to my father.”
“You’d better not go over with that on you,” he said, looking at her middle. He spoke nicely, like a comrade at a tricky moment. Without thinking, as though there were nothing else she could do, she slipped her hand in under her thick shirt. The package of notes had got caught in her jacket waistband and she stood fumbling. Her fingers were sliding over the satiny warmth of her skin, and in a sweet intimate flash of reminder, or of warning, her body (her secret breathing