The Good Terrorist (30 page)

Jill made a sick sort of noise and went out to the lavatory.

Alice sat down in the chair opposite her father’s and waited for him to recover.

“You took that money?” he asked at last.

“Well, of course I took it. I was here, wasn’t I? Didn’t Jill tell you?”

“It didn’t cross my mind. And it didn’t hers. Why should it?”

Now he sat back, eyes closed, trying to pull himself together. His hands trembled, lying on the desk.

Seeing this, Alice felt a little spurt of triumph, then pity. She was glad of this opportunity to look at him unobserved.

She had always thought of her father as attractive, even handsome, though she knew not everyone did. Her mother, for instance, had been wont to call him “Sandman” in critical moods.

Cedric was a solid, tending-to-fat man, pale of skin, lightly
freckled, with short fair hair that looked reddish in some lights. His eyes were blue. Alice was really rather proud of his story, his career.

Cedric Mellings was the youngest of several children. The family came from near Newcastle. There were Scottish connections. Cedric’s grandfather was a clergyman. His father was a journalist and far from rich. All the children had had to work hard to become educated, and launched. Cedric had been just too young for the war, and for this he had never forgiven Fate.

Unlike his brothers, he did not seem able to get himself together; wasted his time at university, married very young, came to London, did this job and that; wrote a book that was noticed but made no money, then another, a jaunty and irreverent account of a journalist’s career in the provinces. This was based on his father’s life, and it did well enough to bring in five thousand pounds, a lot of money in the mid-fifties. He saw—Dorothy advising and supporting him—that this was a chance that might not recur. He bought a small printing firm that had gone bankrupt, and because of contacts in the Labour Party and all kinds of left-wing political groups, soon had a bread-and-butter basis of pamphlets, brochures, tracts, leaflets, and then a couple of small newspapers. The firm flourished with the good times of the sixties, and Cedric started the stationer’s as a speculation, but it at once did well. The family thankfully left the small shabby flat in Stockwell, and bought a comfortable house in Hampstead. Good times! That was what they all remembered of the sixties, the golden age when everything came so easily. Times of easy friendships, jobs, opportunities, money; people dropping in and out, long family meals around an enormous table in the big kitchen, achievements at school, parties, holidays all over the Continent.

Cedric Mellings had an affair or two, and then so did Dorothy Mellings. Shocks, storms, rages, accusations; long family discussions, the children much involved, things patched up and smoothed over, the family united. But by then the children were growing, growing up, grown, going, going, gone—Alice up north, back to her father’s territory, though at first she did not see this.

Cedric Mellings and Dorothy Mellings were alone in the too-large house. Which did not cease to be full of visitors coming and
going, eating and drinking. Cedric fell in love with Jane. He went off to live with her. Dorothy remained in the large house.

All gone. Blown away, and gone, the good times, the easy jobs, even, it seemed, the accomplishment, the friends, affection, money.

Cedric and Dorothy had seemed a centre, even an essential one; so many well-known people had been in and out with their politics, books, causes, marches for this and that, demonstrations. There had seemed to be a shine or gloss on Cedric and Dorothy, an aura or atmosphere about them, of success, of confidence. But then … what had happened to all that? Cedric with Jane was a very different matter! For one thing, a much smaller house, because, after all, C. Mellings, Printers and Stationers, had to support two establishments; Cedric and Jane’s house did not have that elusive but unmistakable atmosphere of ease, of success. Dorothy, left in the bigger house, alone for a time and later with Alice and Jasper, seemed to have fewer friends. Certainly those who came for a meal with Dorothy Mellings—while Alice was there, with Jasper—tended to come in ones or twos, mostly women, perhaps needing Dorothy’s advice, or even to borrow money; divorced friends—so many of the couples that had been to the Mellingses’ in the good days, had split up. Or a couple, who talked a lot about how things had been, and how they weren’t the same now. If Dorothy gave a party, and it was only a small party, it was an effort, and she appeared to be tired of it all, to have forgotten how, in the sixties and early seventies, parties just happened. They took the house over and sucked in people from everywhere and telephones rang with careless invitations and orders to wine merchants and grocers.

Whereas, for a time, Cedric Mellings had been the ugly duckling of the family turned swan—for who else of his siblings lived this glittering glamorous life?—now there was a shabby-duckling quality again. Anyway, what had it all amounted to? scorned Alice, triumphantly examining that too-pale, anxious, strained face, with beads of sweat on the forehead: printing fucking garbage for this or that bloody faction in the fascist bloody Labour Party, printing dishwater newspapers for bloody liberals and revisionists, sucking up to shitty politicians on the make and bourgeois trash anyway doomed to be swept into the dustbins of history?

It had all been rubbish, all of it. What Alice could not forgive herself for was that she had been taken in by it all.… Well, she had had the sense to get out in time, and meet people who could lead her on the right path.…

At last Cedric Mellings sighed, opened his eyes, and, having thought out his position, leaned forward and, without looking at Alice but keeping his eyes down, said, “Very well, you took the money, if you say so. I am sorry about that young man. Tell him to come back and … I am sure we can make it all right. Now, as for you, Alice. I suppose it will be a surprise to you, you live in such a dreamworld, but that thousand pounds is not a sum that the firm can afford to lose. We are suffering from the recession, too, you know. It is touch and go—we might have to fold. The printing firm, not the stationer’s.” He let out the incredulous, admiring little snort of laughter he usually did when mentioning the stationer’s: “Greeting cards! That’s the thing. And, of course, the sweets and chocolates and all that sort of rubbish.”

Now he did look at Alice, and was able to sustain the look, though it was evident it was a strain, keeping his eyes on his daughter’s eyes; he simply did not understand what he was seeing.

“I suppose it is no good asking you to return the money?” he almost pleaded.

At this Alice laughed. The laugh acknowledged, even admiringly, some sort of necessity that Cedric, poor fool, could not begin to understand. He, however, nodded, having understood. He said, “I suppose that Jasper of yours has already got it. Well, I know it is no use saying anything to you about him. You have a blind spot of some kind. But you must understand this: you are not having any more money from me. I see no reason why I should support that—well, let that go. I am very pushed for money, Alice–do you understand that? And it’s not just this thousand. A few days ago, some hooligan or other walked into our bedroom, mine and Jane’s—and lifted …” Suddenly, as the thought struck him, he jerked back in his chair as if he had been given a minor electric shock and stared at Alice, his jaw literally dropping. Until this moment, that theft had not been connected with Alice. She merely
smiled, admitting nothing, but knowing that she need not bother with denials.

Again he had been shocked to the heart, could not speak, sat struggling to order his thoughts. He was breathing shallowly, in quick gasps. Then he fumbled for a cigarette, lit it clumsily, and sat drawing in smoke as if it were a narcotic.

At last he said, “Alice, I don’t know.… Now you are a thief? Is that it? Is that how you live? I don’t understand.” Putting out the cigarette again, as though stubbing Alice out of existence, he said, “I thought it was some hooligan, these kids who come into a house on an impulse.…” It was at this point that the next thought hit him, and again he sat staring. “Was that you?” he asked blankly; “did you throw that stone?” He knew it was; this was not a question.

He said, “That stone missed little Deborah by six inches. There was glass everywhere—Jane got a splinter in her leg.…”

He shook his head, like a dog with pain in its ears. He was shaking Alice off—forever.

“You are, of course, quite right in your calculations,” he said. “You worked it all out. You decided I would not go to the police, because you are my daughter. I won’t this time. But next time I shall. As far as I am concerned, you’ve become some sort of wild animal. You are beyond ordinary judgement.”

Alice stood up. She did not feel pain at this casting off; she felt that she had been cast off, abandoned, long ago.

She said, “What is my mother’s address?”

This query took some time to reach Cedric. He had to give himself time to let the thought reach him. He said, “Have you lost her address, then?”

“I never had it. She just left, didn’t she? Just left our house, just abandoned it.” Alice’s voice was all furious accusation.

“What are you talking about? She’s been going to move for months.”

“Because you won’t support her,” she shrieked.

“Because I won’t support bums like you and Jasper.”

“Well, what is her address?”

“Find it out yourself. The next thing, I suppose, you’ll be stealing from poor Dorothy and throwing stones through
her
windows.”

But this came out in a stumbling, heavy voice; he still could hardly believe it all.

Alice went out of his office and along a passage to the general office at the end. To the girl there in charge of the files, she said: “What is my mother’s address? Dorothy Mellings, what is her address?” This girl had, of course, not been told of the scandal of the boss’s daughter, and she willingly went to the tall cabinet, found the card, read it to Alice, who memorised it and ran out. She passed Jill, who stared at her, almost pleadingly, as if Alice were a murderer, or thug, who could attack her.

Alice ran through the stationer’s, where idiots bought magazines about gracious living, romantic or adventure novels, and pretty cards saying “For a Special Friend,” “Love on Your Birthday,” or “I’m Thinking of You.” Or boxes of letter paper with daffodils or roses on them. Or … just shit and rubbish.

Alice went to a café in Finchley Road, and sat for a long time quietly by herself over strong coffee. She needed to think.

She decided that the link with Bert was unlikely to hold Jasper back from one of his binges; that she would have to sit it out; that Bert was almost certainly going after Pat; that the best thing she could do was to organise a Congress of the CCU for as soon as possible. The work for this would foment in the house the right kind of feeling, atmosphere, to do away with the nastiness of the last day or so. She had just saved the situation with Jim. But Philip, a gentle and even timid soul, would leave if something were not done.

When she got home, the door into Jim’s room was open, and all his things gone.

This really did hit her, hard. She wailed, standing there, looking in at the room that had nothing left of him. Not his musical instruments—drums, guitar, accordion; not his sleeping bag, or his clothes, or his record player … nothing. Jim had been blown out of this room as though he had never been.

She did not have any addresses of friends, or family.

She stood at the open door, fists up on either side of her head, banging it, banging it hard, and wailing, “No, no, no, oh no …”

Feet running down the stairs; Faye stood there, indignant, outraged: “Whatever is the matter?” she called.

“Jim—he’s gone, he’s gone.”

“Good riddance,” said Faye, smartly, laughing. “We didn’t want him anyway.”

Looking up, Alice could see, above Faye, Philip, whose face said that he heard this, as—no doubt—Faye wanted him to. But she saw, too, Roberta, who came swiftly to Faye, and seized her two arms, and pulled her back out of sight. Roberta’s face was grave and shocked—hurt because of Faye.

Roberta’s low urgent voice; Faye’s tittering, high laugh. A door slammed. Roberta came running down, grasped Alice, stood rocking the sobbing girl: “There, there, there …”

“It’s my fault,” sobbed Alice. “Mine. I did it. It’s because of me.”

“There, there, there. Never mind.”

She took Alice to the sitting room and made her get inside the sleeping bag. She fetched her a tumbler of whisky, bade her drink, sleep, forget it.

Hysterical Alice, like the so-often hysterical Faye, was being doped into harmlessness.

She slept until evening. Then she found, in the kitchen, Roberta and Faye, Mary and Reggie. Jasper was not there. Bert had gone to see whether he could persuade Pat to return to him.

Alice, sitting down, said, “I think we should organise a CCU Congress.”

“Another democratic decision?” said Faye, laughing.

“I’m suggesting it,” said Alice. “I’m putting it forward.”

“And I’m in favour,” said Roberta. “There are all kinds of members we have never met. A new branch, new groups—we should meet.”

“It sounds a good idea,” said Reggie in a judicial way, one who would always welcome congresses, discussions, any manifestations of the democratic process.

“Yes, I agree,” said Mary. “I’ve been thinking, it might be just the kind of political party I’ve been looking for. I’ve no time for the big bureaucratic parties, anyway.”

“When?” said Faye.

“Soon,” said Alice. “The sooner the better. The party has grown quite fast. We need to consolidate and formulate policies now.”

General agreement, though Faye came in only because Roberta did.

Five days, five nights followed, without Jasper. Bert returned, unfulfilled, and with a gaunt bitter look to him that Alice continued to feel as an improvement. Bert asked where Jasper was; Alice, as usual covering up, said that Jasper had decided to visit a brother. Bert, who had after all spent a fair bit of time with Jasper, was surprised that a brother had never been mentioned. Alice said that Jasper did visit his brother, who was his only “viable relative.” This phrase caused Bert to look at her oddly, but she said he had a shitty family, and the brother was the only decent person in it. (Jasper’s visits to his brother did in fact happen, if rarely.)