The Good Terrorist Page 30

  To hear her mother’s words coming so complacently out of Caroline’s plump smiling face was so much of a blow to Alice, her two worlds becoming confused in this way, that she missed a good bit of what Caroline was saying. When she listened again she heard, “I think our Comrade Andrew was not up to his job. I think the West went to his head. The fleshpots, you know.”

  “Then God help him,” said Alice, disgusted.

  “Quite so. And Muriel was just too much for him, girl from the shires, Roedean and all that.”

  “Roedean, is she?”

  “Roedean and finishing school and gourmet-cooking school. Isn’t it amazing how the upper classes go for communism? Do you think Comrade Marx foresaw that in his crystal ball?”

  “Who’s talking,” said Alice, knowing it was not right to talk about Marx like this.

  “I? I’m not upper-class. Just boring old middle-class, like you.”

  “I am one generation away from working-class. On my mother’s side.”

  “Congratulations,” said Comrade Caroline, laughing.

  “For all that,” said Alice, “I am sure Comrade Muriel will be very good.”

  “Who said she wouldn’t? Born for it. I can see the headlines now: ‘Red Mole Caught Red-Handed in the …’ where, do you think?”

  “BBC,” said Alice, unable to prevent herself.

  “Right on. Or the Times. The Guardian, do you think?”

  “No, the Times, wrong style for the Guardian. But probably by the time she’s been trained … She’s very clever, I am sure she is.”

  “So am I, but Comrade Andrew didn’t fall for Comrade Muriel because of her espionage potential. They were hardly ever out of bed. Or, to be accurate, off the floor.”

  Alice turned the switch. She said vaguely, “Oh well, I don’t care about all that. And so. Muriel’s gone. Andrew’s gone. You want to come here. That leaves …”

  “And Jocelin wants to come here, too.”

  “So there will only be Paul and Edward next door?”

  “They are moving into a flat this week. They’ve found work. Rather, Andrew found them work. In a very strategic place. ’Nuff said.”

  “So, soon there’ll be a different set of squatters next door.”

  “Provided I’m not there. No hot water. Cold as Siberia. Not like this house.”

  There was an empty room on the top floor, and another next to Roberta and Faye’s room.

  “I don’t see why not,” said Alice.

  “I can’t wait to come. Apart from anything else, the police dug up that pit in the garden, and all the rubbish we buried is blowing everywhere.”

  For some reason this seemed to Alice the last straw she had been expecting. “Oh no,” she wailed. “Oh, God, no.”

  “Oh yes. Back to square one. We said to them, when they had dug up everything, Aren’t you going to put all that rubbish back? ‘Piss off,’ they said. Charming, Old Bill is. Well, I’ll get my things.”

  Alice went next door with her and stood at the gate looking in. Rubbish everywhere, and a brisk spring wind was blowing it about. The pit where she had seen—but what?—-was an ugly trench, with pale earth in untidy heaps.

  But she could not leave Faye alone like this, and so she went back.

  • • •

  Faye did not come down until evening, wan and sad, and ready to weep. But she was in command of herself and willing to take part in the communal evening meal, with Caroline and Jocelin, Mary and Reggie, Philip and Alice.

  It was all going on very nicely when, about nine, there was a violent knocking at the door.

  “Oh no, not again,” said Caroline. Alice was already off and at the front door, opening it with a smile.

  Two policemen, one of them the youth with the vicious face. They were in a bad mood, sent out to do something they didn’t want to do.

  “We’ve been informed you have something buried in your garden,” said the ugly youth. “We are going to dig.”

  “You know what’s there. We’ve told you,” said Alice. She was far from laughing. She knew that very little would make these two start breaking the place up.

  “We know what you have told us,” said the other policeman, whom Alice had not seen before.

  “I’ll get you our spade,” said Alice.

  “We’ve got our own, thank you.”

  Alice took them round to where the pit had been dug. The light from the kitchen fell out here.

  “This is where the earth has been disturbed,” said the vicious youth to the other.

  Alice retreated indoors swiftly. She said to the others, who were ready to explode into laughter, “Don’t, don’t, don’t laugh, or they’ll get us for it.” To Faye, who was tittering and swaying, on the verge of hysteria, “Faye, don’t.” Alice knew if that little psychopath outside was provoked by Faye at her worst, he could do anything. “We can laugh afterwards, not now.”

  “She’s right,” said Caroline, and they sat, their faces wooden, containing an anguish of laughter.

  Outside, in the streaming light from the window, the two men dug. Not for more than a couple of minutes. They straightened, stood on their spades, then disappeared.

  Alice had been careful to leave the front door open, so that they would be visible sitting round their meal: the comfortable kitchen, the flowers, the food.

  She went to the front door, looking polite and helpful.

  The vicious one was ready to explode with temper.

  “You people should be prosecuted,” he shouted, looking past Alice into the scene in the kitchen.

  “We told you everything as we did it,” said Alice. “I came myself, to file a report.” She knew that phrase, “file a report,” was the right one.

  He stood there literally grinding his teeth at Alice, ready to charge in and smash and destroy. But she was careful to keep her eyes away from him, and to look passive and even indifferent.

  The other man was already in the police car.

  In a minute they had gone. Alice fetched their own spade and swiftly filled in what they had taken out. Not too bad; Nature, as expected, was doing her job nicely.

  She went back into the kitchen, and her appearance was the signal for a celebration of laughter and jeers. It seemed they could not stop laughing, particularly Caroline and Jocelin, for whom the whole story was new. Alice did not feel much like laughing. She knew that it was not the end; their visitors would be back.

  She knew, too, looking at Faye, that she was unlikely to have much sleep that night. Indeed, it was past three when Faye went back upstairs. She accepted two Mogadons from Alice, and said good night prettily enough.

  Very soon, however, she started weeping. Not the noisy angry weeping that she used when Roberta was there, but the heartbreaking helpless sobs of a child. Alice went in, and sat with her, holding her hand. Faye did not sleep until seven in the morning, and Alice slept sitting there beside her.

  Several days passed. Faye was trying hard, and they all knew it, and supported her. When she heard people in the kitchen, she would come down and sit with them, chatting about everything quite amusingly, as she could, doing her little cockney act, but she tended to fall silent suddenly, staring; and then someone would gently try to rouse her and bring her back in with them again.

  She offered to show Alice an economical vegetable stew, and it was very nice, and they all enjoyed it. Alice wondered how she could stand—if she was conscious of it—the way everyone was on tenterhooks for her to break out, break down. But she did not break down, or cry. She seemed to be quite normal, even ordinary; and Caroline and Jocelin even said they couldn’t see why people went on and on about Faye. She was very pleasant, she was very clever, and what a lot she knew about politics. It turned out that Faye had read a great deal, more than any of them, and was particularly well up on Althusser. She had written part of a thesis on Althusser at university, where, however, she had stayed only two terms before cracking up.

  Faye did not go to bed until very late and, wh
en she did, said to Alice that she would be all right by herself.

  Alice got up in the night quite often, to listen outside Faye’s door. She thought that Faye hardly slept; often she wept, quietly, not wanting to disturb the others. Sometimes Alice could hear her moving about the room, lighting cigarettes, even singing a little to herself.

  Roberta had written; they had the address of the hospital. Her mother was slowly dying; Roberta would come back as soon as she could.

  A week had gone by. Jasper and Bert should be there. Then arrived a postcard written by Jasper, signed by them both, from Amsterdam, saying, “Wish you were here. Back soon.”

  Caroline and Alice spent a lot of time together. Alice, drained and tired, needed Caroline’s natural vitality, her good spirits. Caroline admired Alice, could not stop talking about how Alice had transformed this house.

  Most of the time Jocelin was in her room. She was at the top of the house. She seemed to have little to say to them or, indeed, much to say to anybody. She was a silent, observant—and, thought Alice, frightening—girl. What did she do in her room? Caroline said she was studying handbooks on how to be a good terrorist. She said this laughing, as was her way.

  A weekend approached.

  On the Friday, Reggie and Mary left for Cumberland after Mary finished work, for another Saturday of demonstrations. Jocelin departed, saying only, “See you Monday.”

  Caroline said she was off to spend the weekend with a former boyfriend, who had married someone else, was now separated, and wished still to marry Caroline. Sometimes she thought that she would; more often, that she wouldn’t. Still, she liked being with him; they had a good time together, she said. She had invited Alice to come as well. Alice would have gone, but there was Faye. She felt bitter, sitting alone at the kitchen table, Faye having gone up to bed, and Philip upstairs, too.

  All things being equal—this meant, without Faye—she would have gone off without leaving an address for Jasper; it didn’t matter where. She really must put her foot down, say she’d had enough. She might even leave him.

  Repeating to herself how much better off she would be by herself, she felt how her heart chilled and saddened; and she stopped, saying again, “I’m just going to show him, that’s all.”

  But how could she show him anything, if she was obediently waiting here when he got back? Which would almost certainly be in a day or two.

  No, this business of Roberta’s mother was a disaster, for her as much as for Roberta and for Faye.

  So she brooded, drinking coffee, and more coffee, sitting alone.

  It was not yet twelve when she went up. Outside Faye’s door she stood listening: not a sound. This was unusual. Faye did not sleep, ever, until two or three.

  Alice saw herself, standing there, her ear to a door panel on the dark landing, and was angry with herself, with everyone—self-pity raged. She went into her room and decided to go to sleep at once. But she did not. When she was safely in her scarlet Victorian nightdress, she went to the window and stood watching the traffic rushing past. She was remarkably uneasy and restless. Again outside Faye’s door, she said to herself: Now, this is enough, go to bed and stop it! But she did nothing of the kind. Gently she opened the door and stood there like a ghost, ready to hear Faye shout at her to go away, to leave her alone, to stop prying.… The light was out, and the room was dark. Faye could just be seen, a bundle in the corner. There was a strong smell. As Alice realised this smell was blood, she switched on the light and screamed. Faye lay on her back, propped slightly up on embroidered and frilled cushions, ghastly pale, her mouth slightly open, and her cut wrists resting on her thighs. Blood soaked everything.

  Alice stood screaming.

  She had foreseen this, dreaded it, half knew it was bound to happen. She had always known she could not bear blood, would go to pieces if she found herself in this situation. She simply had to stand and scream.

  Philip arrived beside her. His shout, hushed and wary, reached her, “Alice, Alice, what is it?”

  She stopped screaming. In her scarlet voluminous nightdress she was like a female in a Victorian melodrama. She pointed a finger at the horrid sight, and shuddered.

  Philip said, “She has cut her wrists.”

  He then put his arm round Alice, who, being so much taller and heavier than he was, made him stagger. Together, they lost balance, and found it by clinging to the doorframe.

  Alice had got back her common sense, her control.

  She was by Faye’s side. The blood was still pulsing out in red waves.

  “We have to stop it,” she said. She looked around for anything that would tie, found a scarf lying on a chair, and tied it round Faye’s wrists, like handcuffs. The bleeding stopped.

  Philip, also back in control, said, “I’ll ring for an ambulance.”

  “No, no, no,” screamed Alice, “you mustn’t.”

  “Why not, she’s going to die.”

  “No, no, no, she won’t. Don’t you see? She mustn’t go to hospital.”

  “Why not?”

  “Roberta would never forgive us, she wouldn’t want that. The police, don’t you see? The police …”

  Philip was staring at Alice as at a madwoman.

  “Have we got any elastic bandage in the place?”

  “Why should we have any?” he said, distressed.

  “I know. Your masking tape. The tape you use for your electrics.”

  He had already gone to get it. Alice knelt by Faye, who seemed to have become as light and empty as a dead leaf. How can you take the pulse of a woman whose wrists are butchered? Where else is there a pulse, wildly wondered Alice, peering here and there. She held her cheek to Faye’s nostrils and felt a slight breath. She wasn’t dead. But so much blood lost, so much … Everything was soaked with it. Faye was lying in a thick red pool.

  Philip ran in, with a roll of black tape. Alice fitted her hand, like a bracelet, around one wrist, to stop the blood from bubbling and spurting, while Philip strapped up the wound. Then she held the other wrist, and they cut the scarf away.

  “She’s lost so much blood,” said Alice.

  “She ought to have a transfusion,” said Philip, obstinately. His face was full of criticism of Alice.

  “We’ve got to get liquid into her. No, wait.…”

  Down ran Alice to the kitchen. She made a mixture of warm water and salt and sugar, glucose not being available. Up she ran with it.

  “She’s unconscious, Alice,” said Philip, still with that look of dislike, hostility. “How can she drink if she’s unconscious?”

  Alice knelt down, slid her arm under Faye’s lolling head, so that she was well propped up, and began trying to pour the liquid into Faye.

  “It’ll go into her lungs, you are drowning her,” said Philip.

  And then, miraculously, Faye swallowed.

  “Faye,” commanded Alice, “Faye, drink, you’ve got to drink.”

  Faye seemed to want to shake her head, but swallowed. It was because she was in the habit of taking orders, commands from Roberta. Alice knew that, so she made her voice soft and full and loving like Roberta’s and said, “Drink, you must drink.”

  Slowly, over twenty minutes, Alice got a pint or so of the mixture into Faye.

  Then she rested. She was running with sweat. The sweat was from terror, she knew that.

  Philip knelt at Faye’s feet, watching. His look of disapproval, even of horror, had not abated. It was Alice who horrified him, and she knew and could not care.

  “She’s not going to die,” she said, loudly, for Faye’s benefit as well as Philip’s.

  She said, “You stay here. Make her drink some more, if you can. She must have done it only a minute before we came in. I’m going to telephone Roberta.”

  Philip took her place, his arm under Faye’s head. He reached for the jug full of liquid.

  Alice thought, seeing them like that—frail white Faye, frail pale Philip—that they were two of a kind, victims, born to be trampled over
and cut down. There was a flash of vindictiveness in this thought, as far as Philip was concerned, for she knew that he still hated her.

  She ran next door to Joan Robbins. The house was in darkness, and Alice put her finger on the bell and kept it there. She could hear it shrilling. A window went up above her head, and she heard Joan Robbins’s voice, sharp, “What is it? Who is it?”

  “Let me in, let me in,” cried Alice, her voice like a child’s, or like Faye’s. “It is Alice,” she wept, since Joan Robbins did not at once leave the window. “Alice from next door.”

  The lights went on in the hall, and Joan Robbins stood there in a flowered dressing gown and bright-red mules, looking angry, puzzled, and afraid.

  “I must ring someone—I must—someone’s ill,” she stammered, and Joan Robbins stood aside.

  At the telephone, she fumbled for the books, which Joan took out from a plastic cover and gave to her.

  She found “Directory Enquiries,” got the number, rang the hospital in Bradford, left a message for Roberta. “Tell her her friend is ill, she must come at once.”

  Then she started turning the pages over, looking for another number, and it was not until she saw “Samaritans” that she knew what she wanted.

  “Don’t you want nine-nine-nine?” asked Joan Robbins curiously. Alice shook her head and stood, eyes shut, breathing irregularly, as if she might faint, and Joan padded off to her kitchen to make her a nice cup of tea.

  Alice rang the Samaritans. A pleasant, steady voice spoke. Alice did not hear the words, only the tone. She stood silent, listening. She was going to have to say something, or this voice would stop, go away.

  She said, “I want your advice, that’s all, your advice.”

  “What’s the trouble?”

  She said nothing, but stood listening to the sensible, helpful voice. Which went on, saying that Alice should not ring off, that no one would put any pressure on Alice or on anyone else, no one would report Alice, no matter what she or anyone else had done.