The Good Terrorist

‘It needn’t cost all that much more,’ said Alice. ‘For one thing, food will be half as much, or less. I know, I’ve done it.’

‘Right,’ said Pat. ‘So have I. Take-away and eating out costs the earth.’

‘Alice is good at feeding people cheap,’ said Jasper.

It was noticeable that while these five outlined their positions, they all, perhaps without knowing it, eyed Roberta and Faye. Or, more exactly, Faye, who sat there not looking at them, but anywhere: the ceiling, her feet, Roberta’s feet, the floor, while she puffed smoke from the cigarette held between her lips. Her hand, on her knee, trembled. She gave the impression of trembling slightly all over. Yet she smiled. It was not the best of smiles.

‘Just a minute, comrades,’ said she. ‘Suppose I like take-away? I like take-away, see? Suppose I like eating out, when the fancy takes me? How about that, then?’

She laughed and tossed her head, presenting – as if her life depended on it – this cheeky cockney as seen in a thousand films.

‘They have a point, Faye,’ said Roberta, sounding neutral, so as not to provoke her friend. She was keeping an eye on Faye, unable to prevent herself giving her quick nervous glances.

‘Oh fuck it,’ said Faye, really laying on the cockney bit, because, as they could see, she was afraid of her own anger. ‘Yesterday, as far as hi wuz concerned, everythink was going along just perfeck, and today, that’s it. I don’t like being organized, see what I mean?’

‘And she did it her way,’ said Bert, in cold upper-class, smiling, as if in joke. He did not like Faye, and apparently did not care if he showed it.

Pat quickly covered up with humour. ‘Well, if you don’t want to join in, then don’t, have it on us!’ This was said without rancour. Pat even laughed, hoping Faye would; but Faye tossed her head, her face seemed to crumple up out of its prettiness, and her lips went white as she pressed them together. The cigarette in her hand trembled violently, ash scattered about.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Roberta. ‘Just hold your horses.’ This was addressed, apparently, to the five who were all looking at Faye. Faye knew it was meant for her. She made herself smile.

‘Was anything said about how we were to pay?’ asked Roberta.

‘No, but I know of various ways they can do it,’ said Alice. ‘For instance, in Birmingham there was a flat sum assessed for the whole house, to cover rates. And we paid electricity and gas separately.’

‘Electricity,’ said Faye. ‘Who wants to pay electricity?’

‘You don’t pay at all, or you just pay the first instalment,’ said Jasper. ‘Alice is good at that.’

‘We can all see what Alice is good at,’ said Faye.

‘Look,’ said Pat, ‘why don’t we postpone this discussion till we know? If they make an assessment for rent and rates and put it on all our Social on an individual basis, then that would suit some and not others. It would suit me, for instance.’

‘It wouldn’t suit me, see?’ said Faye, sweet but violent.

‘And it wouldn’t suit me,’ said Roberta. ‘I don’t want to become an official resident of this house. Nor does Faye.’

‘No, Faye certainly does not,’ said Faye. ‘Yesterday I was free as a bird, coming and going. I didn’t live here, I came and went, and now suddenly…’

‘All right,’ said Bert, exasperated. ‘You don’t want to be counted in, all right.’

‘Are you telling me to leave?’ said Faye, with a shrill laugh, and her face again seemed to crumple up out of its self, suggesting some other Faye, a pale, awful, violent Faye, the unwilling prisoner of the pretty cockney.

Jim laughed sullenly and said, ‘I’ve been told to leave. Why not Faye and Roberta if it comes to that.’

Faye turned the force of her pale awfulness on Jim, and Roberta came in quickly with, ‘No one is leaving. No one.’ She looked full at Jim. ‘But we have all to be clear about what we will or will not do. We have to be clear now. If a lump sum is assessed for this house, then we can discuss who is going to contribute what. If we are assessed individually, and our Social Security is adjusted individually, then no. No. No.’ This was kept amiable, but only just.

‘I’m not going to contribute,’ said Faye. ‘Why should I? I like things the way they were.’

‘How could you like them the way they were?’ said Bert. ‘Putting up with them, is one thing.’

And suddenly they all knew why it was Faye they had been eyeing so nervously, Faye who had dominated everything.

She sat straight up, straddling the chair-arm, and glared, and trembled, and in a voice that in no way related to the pretty cockney, said, ‘You filthy bloody cuntish ‘Itlers, you fascist scum, who are you telling what to do? Who are you ordering about?’ This voice came out of Faye’s lower depths, some dreadful deprivation. It was raw, raucous, labouring, as though words themselves had been a hard accomplishment, and now could only be shovelled out, with difficulty, past God knew what obstacles of mind and tongue. What accent was that? Where from? They stared, they were all silenced by her. And Roberta, putting her arm swiftly around her friend’s shaking shoulders, said softly, ‘Faye, Faye darling, Faye, Faye,’ until the girl suddenly shuddered and seemed to go limp, and collapsed into her arms.

A silence.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Bert, who was refusing to see that he was the cause of this outburst from Faye’s other self. Or selves? ‘If Faye doesn’t want to contribute, that’s fine. They always set the assessment very low, for squats anyway. And there’ll be other people coming in, of course, to replace the comrades who left yesterday. We’ll have to be sure they understand the arrangement we make with the Council.’

Faye, half-hidden in Roberta’s arms, seemed to heave and struggle, but went quiet.

Alice said, ‘If we don’t get this place cleared up, we’d have to leave anyway. We can clear it up, easy enough, but to keep it clean, we need the Council. There’s been all the complaints. The woman next door said she complained…’

‘Joan Robbins,’ said Faye. ‘That filthy fascist cow. I’ll kill her.’ But it was in her cockney, not her other, true, voice, that she spoke. She sat up, freed herself from solicitous Roberta, and lit another cigarette. She did not look at the others.

‘No, you won’t,’ said Roberta, softly. She reasserted her rights to Faye by putting her arm around her. Faye submitted, with her pert little toss of the head and a smile.

‘Well, it is disgusting,’ said Alice.

‘It was all right till you came,’ said Jim. This was not a complaint or an accusation, more of a question. He was really saying: How is it so easy for you, and so impossible for me?

‘Don’t worry,’ said Alice, smiling at him. ‘When we’ve got the place cleaned up, we will be just like everyone else in the street and after a bit no one will notice us. You’ll see.’

‘If you want to waste your money,’ said Faye.

‘We do have to pay at least the first instalment of electricity and gas. If we can persuade them to supply us,’ said Bert.

‘Of course we can,’ said Alice, and Pat said, ‘The meters are still here.’

‘Yes, they forgot to take them away,’ said Jim.

‘And what are we going to pay with?’ asked Faye. ‘We are all on Unemployment, aren’t we?’

There was a silence. Alice knew that, paying a very low rent, there would be plenty of money. If people had any sense of how to use it, that is. She and Jasper, living with her mother and paying nothing, had about eighty pounds a week between them, on Social Security. But none of it was saved, because Jasper spent all his, and most of hers too, always coming to demand it. ‘For the Party,’ he said – or whatever Cause they were currently aligned with. But she knew that a lot of it went on what she described to herself, primly, as ‘his emotional life’.

She knew, too, that in communities like this, there were payers and the other kind, and there was nothing to be done about it. She knew that Pat would pay; that Pat would make Bert pay – as long as she was here. The two girls would not part with a penny. As for Jim – well, let’s wait and see.

She said, ‘There’s something we can do now, and that is, get the lavatories unblocked.’

Roberta laughed. Her laugh was orchestrated; meant to be noticed.

Faye said, ‘They are filled with concrete.’

‘So they were in one of the other houses I knew. It isn’t difficult. But we need tools.’

‘You mean tonight?’ asked Pat. She sounded interested, reluctantly admiring.

‘Why not? We’ve got to start,’ said Alice, fierce. In her voice sounded all the intensity of her need. They heard it, recognized it, gave way. ‘It’s not going to be nearly as difficult as you think now. I’ve looked at the lavatories. If the cisterns had been filled with concrete, it would be different, they’d have cracked, probably, but it isn’t difficult to get it out of the bowls.’