The Good Terrorist (37 page)

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.

Alice did not speak until she heard Joan Robbins coming back. She said quickly, “Someone has cut her wrists.”

There was no time for more. Joan arrived with two mugs of hot tea.

Alice picked up hers at once, knowing how badly she needed it. She stood trying to drink the boiling liquid, listening, listening. “You must get your friend to hospital. As quickly as you can. Call the ambulance. Call nine-nine-nine. It’s a matter of life and death. You really must.”

“Suppose I don’t?” said Alice at last, choosing her words because of Joan, who stood helplessly by, urging her with smiles and looks to drink up.

“Then, if you don’t—but you really should—the main thing is to keep your friend awake and get as much liquid into her as possible. Can she drink?”

“Yes,” said Alice, and went on listening as if she heard some impossible, far-off music that beguiled and comforted, soothed and offered infinite, unfailing support.

After some minutes, she simply put down the receiver, letting that gentle, sensible voice disappear into the realm of the unreachable. She adjusted her face to her usual bright, good-girl’s smile, and said to Joan Robbins, “Thank you. Thanks a lot. That was the Samaritans. Do you know about them?”

“I have heard of them, yes.”

“They are very good, really,” said Alice, vaguely. “Well, I had better get back. I’ve left someone coping and I don’t think he’s much used to people being ill.”

Joan followed Alice to the door, with the look of someone who feels that everything has not been said, and who hopes that it might be said even now.

“Thank you,” said Alice politely. Then, wildly and gratefully, “Thank you, thank you.” And she ran away into the dark. Joan Robbins waited to see her go in at the door of number 43. Then she went back into her kitchen, where she examined the smears of blood on the telephone directories and on the table. She wiped the table and stood thinking for some minutes. Then she decided not to call the police, and went quietly to her bed.

Alice found Philip and Faye exactly as she had left them. But Faye’s eyes were open, and she stared, expressionless, at the ceiling.

“I’ve rung Roberta,” said Alice.

Then she searched around for a clean nightie or something, found pyjamas, fetched hot water and cloths. She and Philip stripped Faye. They peeled off her soaked sleeping bag, lifted off blankets, and slid away the foam-rubber mattress, which was filled with blood like a sponge. Then Faye was washed and dressed. Through all this she was limp and meek. But Alice was not deceived. She knew that Faye was waiting for the moment when she and Philip turned their backs, when the strapping would be off those wrists.

Alice’s sleeping bag was brought, and more blankets. A hot-water bottle was found in a drawer. It took a long time, but finally Faye was lying clean and tucked into warmth and comfort.

It was well after three.

Alice was thinking: If Roberta was at the hospital, she will have had the message, she will be on her way, she might be here by morning.

Meanwhile, she and Philip must sit up, in case one fell asleep.

No one slept. Faye lay where she had been put, her face like a little ghost’s. She did not close her eyes. She did not look at them. She said nothing.

Philip knelt at Faye’s feet, and Alice sat at her side. From time to time Alice lifted Faye up and put the cup to her lips and Faye swallowed.

Philip went off to make more of this mixture of salt and sugar and water, and to make tea for himself and Alice. But he did not look at Alice, would not meet her eyes.

He had been so badly shocked by her, by the situation, that he was simply divorcing himself from it.

She thought, defiantly, even mockingly: That defines Philip, then! That’s what he’s like!

Morning soon came, it being halfway through May. With the prickly, hollow feeling that accompanies exhaustion, Alice listened to the dawn chorus, thinking that she would like to hear it more often; tried to catch Philip’s eye, to share this moment of renewal, or promise, with him, but he knelt there, like a little devotee, patient, modest, ready to be useful. And absolutely cut off from her.

At last she said, “If you go and sleep, Philip, I’ll make myself stay awake. And then, when I can’t stay awake, I’ll shout up the stairs.” Meaning, I can’t leave her, we can’t, not for a second. He heard this, understood, nodded, and went out.

Faye slipped off to sleep, or was pretending to sleep—Alice did not know which, but was taking no chances. She sat on, from time to time flicking water onto her own face, slapping her cheeks. When she did this she thought she saw a flicker of something that could be amusement, or at least comment, on Faye’s passive face. The sounds of a normal Saturday morning, the milkman, children playing in the street, voices from the gardens. What a lot of sounds there were that she never ordinarily listened to.…

The bloodstained pile in the corner was beginning to sicken Alice. But she could not, must not move. She knew Faye was not asleep.

Time passed … passed. More than once she had caught herself as she dropped off, even jerking awake. Once when she did this, she saw Faye open her eyes; they exchanged looks. Alice: I’m not going to let you; and Faye: You can’t stop me if I want to.