The Good Terrorist (49 page)

Alice shrieked, “You’ll see, you shitty old fascist. You and your fascist friends. That’s all you care about.…” She was incoherent, panting, sweating. “But you just wait. Everything is
rotten
. It’s all
undermined
. But you’re so dozy and stupid and you can’t even see it. We are going to pull it all down.” And she even came over to her mother and gave her a push on the shoulder, so that Dorothy had to hold on to the table edge. “You’ll all see,” Alice yelled finally, and ran out of the room, slamming the door.

Fuelled by an anguish of rage, Alice dashed down the stairs and then the street, turned a corner, and became part of the thin late crowd dispersing from the Underground. A block away, two strolling policemen approached, and Alice became at once the good citizen coming home after an evening’s fun. She knew one of the policemen. He had been on that very first raid. He did not know her. She nodded at him, and smiled, ratepayer who paid his wages. He said, “Good evening.”

Well, they had orders to fraternise, thought Alice, allowing her face, her body, to scorn him, once safely past. But her real anger had gone into her pounding race along the pavement. Now she was thinking of her mother with a strong protective pity. Two shitty little rooms! Dorothy looked so big in that sitting room; if she turned too quickly she might knock a wall down. Spending her evenings talking to Zoë Devlin and reading books! Alice now examined, from a stored mental picture, titles from the two tidy little strips of shelves up the walls, and from the pile of books on the floor by the big chair. What did she want to read that kind of book for! She might just as well still be at school. When Zoë Devlin came to spend the evening they sat opposite each other and talked about
life. No. About books. No, of course, they had that row. Well, that was ridiculous; they’d have to make it up; they’d been like sisters; they said so themselves. A stupid shitty row … well, quite a lot of quarrels, really.

Alice was standing on the pavement, like a child playing statues, apparently waiting for a taxi or to be given a lift. She was—unwillingly—seeing the scene of that dreadful final row between her mother and Zoë. It was in the old sitting room, on the first floor, which stretched from front to back and from side to side of the old house, windows all round, and through the windows views of garden and trees. Dorothy Mellings and Zoë faced each other, pale, too serious to shout or insult each other, as they had done before, but then always made it up, laughing. Two tall strong handsome elderly women, with the lovely room stretching away all around them to the windows, and, beyond them, the gardens.

Alice’s vision seemed to shift. Two old women.
Ancient
. They both looked so battered and beaten. Alice felt their being old as an affront to her. How had they got like this so quickly? Why had they? Why had they let it happen? Why didn’t they care? Didn’t they see how ridiculous they were, taking themselves so seriously?

Three days before that, these two women had broken off an argument, saying that if they did not, they would start hitting each other.

On that occasion, Dorothy had said, “You and I met on the Aldermaston marches. We met because of our political attitudes. That is what we had in common.”

Zoë had said, “Oh, all the rest didn’t count, of course! We’ve been friends for twenty years!”

“Zoë, do you realise that I have to censor everything I say to you now? I can’t talk to you about anything I am really thinking?”

“Well, there’s plenty to talk about.”

“No, there isn’t. I’m not wasting my time gossiping and talking about whether we should eat butter and bacon or not. Or start making our own pasta. That’s what we talk about.”

“You’ve got so bloody reactionary, that’s the trouble.”

“Don’t stick bloody stupid labels on me. You’re back in the
nineteenth century, all of you. Weeping about the Tolpuddle Martyrs and singing the Red Flag. You are a bad joke.”

“You used not to think it was a joke.”

“No. I do now. Do you realise I have to think twice before I invite you here? You can’t be invited with anyone who has a different political opinion on anything, because you start calling them fascists! You won’t meet anyone, even, who reads a right-wing newspaper. You’ve become a dreary bigot, Zoë, do you know that?”

“And you are a fascist! Not far off one. Reading books about the KGB, and seeing Reds under every bed.”

“There are Reds under every bed,” said Dorothy seriously. “God, when I think it used to be a joke, do you remember? The funny thing was, we
were
the Reds under the beds.” And Dorothy had started to laugh. Zoë had remained serious, fiercely accusing: “The next thing, you’ll be supporting Reagan’s and Thatcher’s foreign policies.”

“I’ve been wondering whether I shouldn’t. After all, forty years ago it wasn’t fascist to fight for the bad against the worse. Why is it now?”

“I’m just going to leave, Dorothy. If I didn’t, I think I’d hit you.”

“Yes, I think you’d better.”

That had been three days before. Neither woman had made any move towards the other. Then Zoë arrived one morning. Jasper was in the kitchen, eating breakfast cooked by Alice. Dorothy Mellings was on the telephone in the sitting room, having taken herself well out of the way of Jasper, as Alice appreciated.

Zoë went into the sitting room, looking through Alice, who was doing the flowers for her mother. She stood in the middle of the room, gazing dramatically at Dorothy. Who took her time ending the telephone conversation, in order—as both Alice and Zoë could see—to prepare herself for the confrontation with Zoë. A confrontation it was going to have to be—Zoë’s face and body said so. It was evident to Alice that Zoë had come to provoke a quarrel. She wanted some kind of noisy showdown with Dorothy; there was
something self-consciously accusing about her. She had prepared all kinds of things to say and how to say them.

Dorothy slowly got up and went to stand opposite Zoë, as if accepting a challenge to fight. But now the moment had come, both were very pale and serious, and—much worse than shouting, which anyway usually ended in laughter—spoke in low voices that were breathless because of the awfulness of what was happening.

“Listen, Dorothy. I’ve got to say this and you’ve got to listen. Even if you start hating me for it. I mean, even more than you do already.”

“Rubbish,” said Dorothy, impatient.

“Well, it amounts to that, doesn’t it? If everything I do or think is stupid in your eyes?”

“Do you want to talk about that? I mean,
seriously?
People with different political opinions being stupid? That is what I used to think, certainly.”

“Dorothy, don’t sidetrack me. I
want
to say this. Do you realise what you are doing, Dorothy? Because Cedric has left you …”

“Five years ago now.”

“Let me say it. Cedric left you, and you have to leave this house. And it’s all so awful, you just have to burn your boats, scorched-earth policy—just destroy everything as you leave. Because it won’t hurt so much if you do.”

Here Zoë stood waiting—expectant, it seemed, of Dorothy’s grateful acceptance of her diagnosis.

“You can’t be serious!” said Dorothy, keeping her voice low, though it sounded bitterly scornful. “You’ve come here to say that?”

“Yes, I have. It’s important. You’ve got so extraordinary.…”

“Strange as it might seem, the idea had occurred to me. You know, that psychotherapy of yours has made you very dim-witted, Zoë. You come out with something absolutely obvious as if it’s some revelation.”

Zoë stood vibrating with anger. But she was not going to let her voice rise, either. “If it’s so obvious, then why do you go on doing it?”

“There might be different ways of looking at it? Can you conceive there might be different ways of looking at a thing? I doubt
it, the way you are.… Can’t even meet someone who reads a different newspaper.… Listen. My life has to change. Right? Strange as it might seem, I had taken all that into account, what you said. But I am doing a stock-taking—do you understand? I am
thinking—
do you see? I’m
thinking
about my life. That means I am examining a lot of things.”

Dorothy and Zoë stood opposite each other, standing straight, like soldiers told to stand at ease, or a couple about to start the steps of an intricate dance.

“And all you can see about me,” said Zoë, “is that we’ve got nothing in common. Is that all? Twenty years of being friends.”

“What have we got in common now? We’ve been cooking meals and talking about our bloody children and discussing cholesterol and the body beautiful, and going on demonstrations.”

“I haven’t noticed you going on any recently.”

“No, not since I understood that demos and all that are just for
fun.”

“For fun, are they?”

“Yes, that’s right. People go on demos because they get a kick out of it. Like picnics.”

“You can’t be serious, Dorothy.”

“Of course I’m serious. No one bothers to ask any longer if it achieves anything, going on marches or demos. They talk about how they feel. That’s what they care about. It’s for kicks. It’s for
fun.”

“Dorothy, that’s simply perverse.”

“Why is it perverse if it’s true? You’ve just got to use your eyes and look—people picketing, or marching or demonstrating, they are having a marvellous time. And if they are beaten up by the police, so much the better.”

A silence. Zoë was staring at Dorothy, bewildered. She really could not believe Dorothy meant it. As for Alice, who was standing there transfixed with flowers in her hands, staring at the two, and praying inwardly, “Oh, don’t, don’t, please don’t, please, please stop,” her mother had gone over the edge into destructiveness, and there was no point in even listening to her. Better take no notice.

“I’ll tell you something, Zoë. All you people, marching up and
down and waving banners and singing pathetic little songs—‘All You Need Is Love’—you are just a joke. To the people who really run this world, you are a joke. They watch you at it and think: Good, that’s keeping them busy.”

“I just don’t believe you mean it.”

“I don’t know why not: I keep saying it.”

“You want to smash things up, you want to break with all your friends.”

“Well, I just can’t talk to you any more. When I say anything I really think, you start weeping and wailing.”

“Well, I care about our friendship ending, if you don’t.”

“I haven’t the energy for all these rows and little scenes,” said Dorothy.

Then Zoë had run out of the room, muttering something furious—but not loudly; not once had the voices of the two women risen. And Dorothy, with a pale, listless, dreary look, had gone back to the telephone and sat down, ready to make another call. But had not dialled at once. She had sat, head on hand, looking at the wall.

“Shall I make you a cup of tea?” Alice had brightly offered.

“No, thank you, Alice dear.”

But she had gone into the kitchen, made tea, taken her mother a cup, put it by her where she still sat, not moving, head in her hand.

Alice thought (standing on the pavement’s edge, though she did not know she was, not yet): She needs someone to look after her, she really does! No food to speak of in the refrigerator, drinking away there by herself. It’s not on. No, better if she came to live with us, at number 43. She could have those two big rooms upstairs, when Reggie and Mary move out. Through Alice’s mind floated the thought, immediately censored: Then I would have someone to talk to.

Alice saw herself and her mother at that table in the big kitchen, newspapers and books all over the place. Dorothy would talk about the books, and Alice would listen to news about that world she herself could not for some reason bring herself to enter.

This idea died a swift natural death.

Alice came to herself, on the pavement’s edge. It was chilly. Overhead a sky full of hazy stars. Opposite, a yellow street lamp.

It was about midnight now. Jasper and Bert and Caroline would not be home tonight; she had known that when they went off. And Bert and Caroline would be humping and bumping away together; all those flashing eye exchanges and atmospheres hadn’t been for nothing. And Jasper would (if he could) be in the room next to them.…

Alice put this last thought out of her mind and entered the house quietly, not wanting to see Faye and Roberta, or Reggie and Mary. But no one was at home, except for Jocelin, still at work. Alice knocked, polite, and went in on a gruff sound that presumably was a “Come in.” On the long table in front of Jocelin were four nasty little devices, identical, ranged side by side, and looking rather like outsize and complicated sardine tins. Everywhere on the trestle were parts of bombs, now dismantled, and some white kitchen bowls holding the household chemicals. Presumably waiting to be returned to their proper packets in the kitchen? Jocelin was sorting items into little piles. She nodded at Alice, not smiling. She looked like a factory worker bending over an assembly bench, but no factory worker would get away with those stray pieces of pale greasy-looking hair falling over her face, and the old stained jersey with the hole in the elbow.

“I’m going to bury these,” said Jocelin. “We can get them when we need them next.” She allowed Alice a smile. “No policeman is going to come digging around in this garden for a bit.”

“Are those four enough?” Alice asked, but only to show she marvelled at Jocelin for planning to accomplish so much with so little, and Jocelin nodded, looking at the four items with a satisfied proprietorial air.

She went to the window and stood with her back to Alice, arms akimbo, and turned to say, “It is dark enough. Come on.”

The collection of components were swept—carelessly, since they were not dangerous now—into a plastic bag, enclosed in another and then another, and they crept out into the night, not making a sound.

They stood for a minute over the place where the police had started to dig, both thinking that that would be the safest place, but could not face it. A lilac bush near Joan Robbins’s fence was still heavy with scent, though its blossoms, black in this light, had gone bruised and blotched. It had some soft soil around it. No lights were on anywhere. Dark houses stood all about, eyeless for once. Making no noise, using a trowel, Alice dug out a good-sized hole, Jocelin’ slid the bundle in, together they covered it over, and in a moment they were inside the house, feeling warm towards each other, successful accomplices.