The Good Terrorist

D. Whitfield.

Chapter 6 (#ulink_70f91974-4e2b-5cce-9979-ed437e46e453)

This pleasant, human little letter made Alice first feel supported, then rage took over. Luckily there was no one to see her, as she exploded inwardly, teeth grinding, eyes bulging, fists held as if knives were in them. She stormed around the kitchen, like a big fly shut in a room on a hot afternoon, banging herself against walls, corners of table and stove, not knowing what she did, and making grunting, whining, snarling noises – which, soon, she heard. She knew that she was making them and, frightened, sat down at the table, perfectly still, containing what she felt. Absolute quiet after such violence, for some minutes. Then she whirled into movement, out of the kitchen and up the stairs, to knock sharply on Philip’s door. Stirrings, movements, but no reply, and she called, ‘Philip, it’s me, Alice.’

She went in as he said, ‘Come in,’ and saw him scrambling up out of his sleeping-bag and into his overalls. ‘Oh sorry,’ she said, dismissing his unimportant embarrassment and starting in at once.

‘Philip, will you guarantee our electricity bill?’ As he stared, and did not understand: ‘You know, the bill for this house? My mother won’t, my father won’t, bloody bloody Theresa and blood bloody Anthony won’t…’

He was standing in front of her, the late-afternoon light strong and yellow behind him, a little dark figure in a stiff awkward posture. She could not see his face and went to the side of the room, so that he turned towards her, and she saw him confronting her, small, pale but obstinate. She knew she would fail, seeing that look, but said sharply, ‘You have a business, you have a letterhead, you could guarantee the account.’

‘Alice, how can I? I can’t pay that money, you know I can’t.’ Talking as though he would have to pay, thought Alice, enraged again. But had he heard her joke that the first payment would be the last?

She said, bossy, ‘Oh, Philip, don’t be silly. You wouldn’t have to, would you? It’s just to keep the electricity on.’

He said, trying to sound humorous, ‘Well, Alice, but perhaps I would have to?’

‘No, of course not!’

He was – she saw – ready to laugh with her, but she could not.

‘What can I do?’ she was demanding. ‘I don’t know what to do!’

‘I don’t think I believe that, Alice,’ he said, really laughing now, but nicely.

In a normal voice, she said, ‘Philip, we have to have a guarantor. You are the only one, don’t you see?’

He held his own, this Petrouchka, this elf, with, ‘Alice, no. For one thing, that address on the letterhead is the place I was in before Felicity – it’s been pulled down, demolished. It isn’t even there.’

Now they stared at each other with identical appalled expressions as if the floorboards were giving way; for both had been possessed, at the same moment, by a vision of impermanence; houses, buildings, streets, whole areas of streets, blown away, going, gone, an illusion. They sighed together, and on an impulse, embraced gently, comforting each other.

‘The thing is,’ said Alice, ‘she doesn’t want to disconnect. She wants to help, she just needs an excuse, that’s all…Wait – wait a minute, I think I’ve got it…’

‘I thought you would,’ he said and she nodded and said excitedly, ‘Yes. It’s my brother. I’ll tell Electricity he will guarantee, but that he’s away on a business trip in – Bahrain, it doesn’t matter where. She’ll hold it over, I know she will…’

And making the thumbs-up sign she ran out, laughing and exultant.

Too late to ring Mrs Whitfield now, but she would tomorrow, and it would be all right.

No need to tell Mary and Reggie anything about it. Of course, if Mary was any good, she would be prepared to guarantee the account; she was the only one among them in work. But she wouldn’t, Alice knew that.

She needed sleep. She was shaky and trembling inside, where her anger lived.

Chapter 7 (#ulink_33844485-9ab5-5798-b395-6700323deb2a)

It was getting dark when Alice woke. She heard Bert’s laugh, a deep ho, ho, ho, from the kitchen. That’s not his own laugh, Alice thought. I wonder what that would be like? Tee hee hee more likely. No, he made that laugh up for himself. Reliable and comfortable. Manly. Voices and laughs, we make them up…Roberta’s made-up voice, comfortable. And that was Pat’s quick light voice and her laugh. Her own laugh? Perhaps. So they were both back and that meant that Jasper was too. Alice was out of her sleeping-bag, and tugging on a sweater, a smile on her face that went with her feelings for Jasper: admiration and wistful love.

But Jasper was not in the kitchen with the other two, who were glowing, happy, fulfilled, and eating fish and chips.

‘It’s all right, Alice,’ said Pat, pulling out a chair for her. ‘They arrested him, but it’s not serious. He’ll be in court tomorrow morning at Enfield. Back here by lunchtime.’

‘Unless he’s bound over?’ asked Bert.

‘He was bound over for two years in Leeds, but that ended last month.’

‘Last month?’ said Pat. Her eyes met Bert’s, found no reflection there of what she was thinking – probably against her will, Alice believed; and, so as not to meet Alice’s, lowered themselves to the business of eating one golden crisp fatty chip after another. This was not the first time Alice had caught suggestions that Jasper liked being bound over – needed the edge it put on life. She said apologetically, ‘Well, he has had to be careful so long, watching every tiny little thing he does, I suppose…’ She was examining Bert who, she knew, could tell her what she needed to know about the arrest. Jasper was arrested, but Bert not; that in itself…

Pat pushed over some chips, and Alice primly ate one or two, thinking about cholesterol.

‘How many did they arrest?’

‘Seven. Three we didn’t know. But the others were John, Clarissa and Charlie. And Jasper.’

‘None of the trade union comrades?’

‘No.’

A silence.

Then Bert, ‘They have been fining people twenty-four pounds.’

Alice said automatically, ‘Then probably Jasper will get fifty pounds.’

‘He thought twenty-five. I gave him twenty so he’d have enough.’

Alice, who had been about to get up, ready to leave, said quickly, ‘He doesn’t want me down there? Why not? What did he say?’

Pat said, carefully, ‘He asked me to tell you not to come down.’

‘But I’ve always been there when he’s been arrested. Always. I’ve been in court every time.’

‘That’s what he said,’ said Bert. ‘Tell Alice not to bother.’

Alice sat thinking so intently that the kitchen, Bert and Pat, even the house around her vanished. She was down at the scene of the picket. The van loaded with newspapers appeared in the gates, its sinister gleaming look telling everyone to hate it; the pickets surged forward, shouting; and there was Jasper, as she had seen him so often, his pale face distorted with a look of abstracted and dedicated hate, his reddish crop of gleaming hair. He was always the first to be arrested, she thought proudly, he was so dedicated, so obviously – even to the police – self-sacrificing. Pure.

But there was something that didn’t fit.

She said, ‘Did you decide not to get arrested for any reason, Bert?’

Because, if that had been so, one could have expected Jasper too to have returned home.

Bert said, ‘Jasper found someone down there, someone who might be very useful to us.’

At once the scene fell into shape in Alice’s mind. ‘Was he one of the three you didn’t know?’

‘That’s it,’ said Bert. ‘That’s it exactly.’ He yawned. He said, ‘I hate to have to ask, but could you let me have the twenty pounds? Jasper said I should ask you.’

Alice counted out the money. She did not let her gaze rise from this task.