The Good Terrorist

‘Oh go on, Dorothy, let up, do. I don’t want to quarrel even if you do.’

‘You are not prepared to quarrel about anything so unimportant as a book? As a view of life?’

Zoë had made a joke of it all. Had soon left. Had she been back to the house again? Of course, she must have, she had been in and out of that house for – since before Alice was born.

Zoë was one of Alice’s ‘aunties’, like Theresa.

Why had Alice not thought of going to her for money? Wait, there was something there, at the back of her mind – what? Yes, there had been this flaming row, terrible, between Dorothy and Zoë. Yes, recently, good Christ, not more than a week or so ago. Only one row? No, more. A lot.

Dorothy had said Zoë was soft-centred, like a cream chocolate.

They had screamed at each other. Zoë had gone running out. She – Alice – had screamed at her mother, ‘You aren’t going to have any friends, if you go on like this.’

Alice was feeling sick. Very. She was going to vomit if she wasn’t careful. She sat, very still, eyes squeezed tight, concentrating on not being sick.

She heard Pat’s voice. ‘Alice. Alice. What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, in a hurried, low voice, still concentrating, ‘it’s all right.’ In a minute or two she opened her eyes and said, normally, and as though nothing at all had happened, ‘I am afraid of the police crashing in suddenly.’ This was what she had come to say.

‘The police? Why, what do you mean?’

‘We’ve got to decide. We have to make a decision. Suppose they come crashing in.’

‘We’ve survived it before.’

‘No, I mean, those pails, all those pails. We daren’t empty them into the system. Not all at once. We daren’t. God knows what the pipes are like down there where we can’t see them. If we empty them one at a time, one a day let’s say, it’ll take for ever. But if we dug a pit…’

‘The neighbours,’ said Pat at once.

‘I’ll talk to the woman next door.’

‘I can’t see Joan Robbins being mad with joy.’

‘But it will be the end of it, won’t it? And they would all be pleased about that.’

‘It would mean you, me and Jim.’

‘Yes, I know. I’ll go across to the Robbins woman. You ask Jim.’

A pause, Pat yawned, wriggled around in her chair, lifted her book, let it drop again, and then said, ‘I suppose so.’

In the next garden, which was wide, divided by a crunching gravel path, Joan Robbins worked on a border with a fork. Under a tree on the other side sat a very old woman, staring at the sky.

Joan Robbins stood up when Alice appeared, looking defensive and got at. But Alice did not give her time for grievance. She said, ‘Mrs Robbins, can we keep the tools for a bit? We want to dig a pit. A big one. For rubbish.’

Joan Robbins, who had withstood the annoyances of this dreadful No. 43 for so long, looked as if she would say no, say she had had enough of it all. Her pleasant face was irritable, and flushed.

But now the old woman under the tree sat up in the chair, leaned forward, staring. Her face was gaunt and purplish, with white woolly hair sticking out around it. She said in a thick, old, unsteady voice, ‘You dirty people.’

‘No,’ said Alice steadily. ‘No, we’re not. We’re cleaning it all up.’

‘Nasty dirty people,’ said the old woman, less certain of herself, having taken in Alice, such a nice girl, standing on the green lawn with daffodils behind her.

Alice said, ‘Your mother?’

‘Sitting tenant. Upstairs flat,’ said Mrs Robbins, not moderating her voice, and Alice understood the situation in a flash. She went over to the old woman, and said, ‘How do you do? I’m Alice Mellings. I’ve just moved in to 43 and we’re fixing the place up, and getting the rubbish out.’

The old woman sank back, her eyes seeming to glaze with the effort of it all.

‘Goodbye,’ said Alice. ‘See you again soon,’ and went back to Mrs Robbins, who asked sullenly, ‘What are you going to bury?’ indicating the ranks and ranks of filled shiny black sacks.

She knew!

Alice said, ‘It’ll get rid of all the smell all at once. We thought, get the pit dug this afternoon, and get rid of everything tonight…Once and for all.’

‘It’s terrible,’ said Mrs Robbins, tearful. ‘This is such a nice street.’

‘By this time tomorrow the rubbish will be all gone. The smell will be gone.’

‘And what about the other house. What about 45? In summer, the flies! It shouldn’t be allowed. The police got them out once but…they are back again.’

She could have said you; and Alice persisted, ‘If we start digging now…’

Joan Robbins said, ‘Well, I suppose if you dig deep enough…’

Alice flew back home. In the room where she had first seen him, Jim was tapping his drums. He at first did not smile, then did, because it was his nature, but said, ‘Yes, and the next thing, they’ll say, Jim, you must leave,’ he accused.

‘No, they won’t,’ said Alice, making another promise.

He got up, followed her; they found Pat in the hall. In the part of the garden away from the main road, concealed from it by the house, was a place under a tree that had once been a compost heap. There they began digging, while over the hedge Mrs Robbins was steadily working at her border, not looking at them. But she was their barrier against the rest of the busybody street, which of course was looking through its windows at them, gossiping, even thinking it was time to ring the police again.

The earth was soft. They came on the skeleton of a large dog; two old pennies; a broken knife, a rusting garden fork, which would be quite useful when cleaned up; and then a bottle…another bottle. Soon they were hauling out bottles, bottles, bottles. Whisky and brandy and gin, bottles of all sizes, hundreds, and they were standing to waist level in an earthy sweet-smelling pit with bottles rolling and standing around the rim for yards, years of hangovers, oblivion, for someone.

People were coming home from work, were standing and looking, were making comments. One man said unpleasantly: ‘Burying a corpse?’

‘Old Bill’ll be around,’ said Jim, bitter, experienced.

‘Oh God, these bottles,’ swore Pat, and Alice said, ‘The bottle bank. If we had a car…who has a car?’

‘They have one next door.’

‘45? Would they lend it? We have to get rid of these bottles.’

‘Oh, God, Alice,’ said Pat, but she stood her spade against the house wall – beyond which was the sitting-room where they knew Jasper and Bert were, talking; and went out into the side street and then the main street. She was back in a minute, in an old Toyota. They spread empty black plastic sacks on the seats, filled the car with bottles; to the roof at the back, the boot, the pit in front near the driver, leaving only that seat, on which Alice squatted, while Pat drove the car down to the big cement containers where they worked for three-quarters of an hour, smashing in the bottles.

‘That’s it for today,’ said Pat, meaning it, as she parked the car outside 45, and they got out. Alice looked into its garden, appalled.

‘You aren’t going to take that one on too!’ said Pat in another statement.