The Good Terrorist (31 page)

Bert, Alice was pleased to see, missed Jasper, tended to be at a loose end. But they were in a phase of intense activity, for the Congress was to be the weekend after next, in this house, number 43. Message sending and letter writing went on, and they were always running up to the telephone booths at the station.

Alice undertook most of this; but Bert visited the branch in South London to make sure everyone would be inspired to come. Number 45 was asked whether people wished to attend, if not as members or potential members, as delegates or observers. Observers, Alice knew, there would certainly be; and was not surprised when goose-girl Muriel said she would attend. Comrade Andrew said he would have liked to be present, only he would be away.

Both houses could be used as dormitories, if number 43 proved inadequate.

Alice undertook to provide filling but cheap food. For once some contributions to her funds were assured, since delegates would be charged a small fee for their food and lodging. After discussion, this was set at two pounds a head for the weekend.

Alice also said it would be a good thing if all the rubbish remaining in number 45 were to be disposed of, for it gave such a bad impression. As nothing was done, she borrowed the car and made several trips, Philip assisting, to the rubbish dumps.

Philip’s misgivings, his hurt over Jim, were being assuaged by the Congress, and the happy atmosphere that was leading up to it.

Bert repeatedly visited number 45 during those five days. He was seeing Comrade Andrew, as Alice knew, for she, too, visited Comrade Andrew, who seemed to want to talk about Bert, making no secret of his plan for him, which was that he should follow the path of job, flat, security, and respectability. And “special training,” unspecified but understood. Alice rather wondered at the choice of Bert; why had Andrew changed his mind about him? She herself would not rely much on him. Too easily led, for instance! Was there anything else that Bert discussed with Andrew? Alice was anxious to know, for if the IRA wouldn’t have Bert and Jasper (and, by extension, the rest of them, Alice included), then something else of the kind would certainly make its appearance. They all wanted to be of use, to serve! Alice probed Andrew, but he was either not giving anything away, or was ignorant of Bert and Jasper’s alternative ideas. Alice probed Bert, but it seemed he was waiting for Jasper to “formulate a commitment appropriate to our resources.” Again Alice was thinking, “So much for easy impressions!”—the impression in this case, and she knew that many people thought this way, being that Jasper was Bert’s hanger-on, his disciple.

Jasper had several times mentioned Muriel, and this could have given Alice a clue, if her dislike of Muriel did not always rise promptly in her, preventing her from hearing what she might have done. Muriel, Jasper had said, was leaving 45. She was going to begin work. “Real work,” he had emphasised, with a proud, but discreet smile, inviting Alice with his eyes and his manner to understand him. But what she had needed to hear from him was
that he found Muriel as off-putting as she did: he certainly didn’t like her, Alice knew that. “Comrade Andrew has fixed it all up, you know, the training and everything.” His respect for Andrew clearly made what he felt about Muriel unimportant.

Alice even tried to find out from Muriel what Jasper’s plans might be, but as soon as Muriel heard Jasper’s name, she said briskly that in her opinion Andrew was “basically” a sound and useful cadre. This seemed to Alice thoroughly off the point. Was it said, she wondered, because of her—Alice’s—occasional doubts over Andrew?

These doubts, hard to pin down, because reason easily disposed of them all, crystallised around the fact that Comrade Andrew too often smelled of drink; she could not bring herself to criticise him for his partiality to the goose-girl, because she had learned so long ago and so thoroughly simply to switch off in this area. People had to have all this sex, she knew that; they had to have it with surprising people and in sometimes surprising ways. Just because Comrade Andrew was … what he was, did that mean he had taken a vow of celibacy? No! All the same … Bottles of whisky and vodka stood on the mantelpiece of his room, often replaced.

There was another girl, Caroline, who, it appeared, lived at 45, though she was not much seen. Alice would have liked to talk to her, for she felt drawn to her in some kind of kinship; but Caroline did not feel this, it seemed. At any rate, she remained aloof. She was a short, rather plump woman—or girl, for she was in her early twenties—dark, not unattractive, who gave the impression of smiling a lot. Perhaps it was this easy smile that drew Alice, although her eyes, never off guard, were like hard little brown buttons. Yet the general impression was of good nature, wanting to please. Caroline, said the goose-girl crisply, was not prepared to follow Comrade Andrew’s prescriptions for becoming a really useful cadre, but had (Muriel thought, and therefore Andrew must think) tendencies towards liberal idealism.

Caroline had a friend called Jocelin who visited number 45, and who it seemed might even decide to live there. She, unlike Caroline,
was off-putting. A stocky, even heavy woman, with straight blond hair that was parted in the middle and otherwise unregulated, she padded about with firm, deliberate steps, not looking much at anyone, not smiling easily as Caroline did, only nodding indifferently when Alice caught a glimpse of her through a door or coming efficiently through the hall.

There were also a couple of young men who lived in 45, who had not actually been seen by Alice. The goose-girl said that Andrew was “working on them”—apparently with success. They were from the North of England, working-class, unemployed—but, it was thought, only temporarily. These four—Caroline, Jocelin, Paul, and Edward—refused to attend the CCU Congress, but would come to the party afterwards, on Saturday night. There would be, in short, a good many observers around that weekend; and, as far as Alice was concerned, why not?

Jasper came home on the Sunday night. As always after these excursions, he looked ill. He had lost weight, and was more than usually thin. There was a dull spotty look to his creamy skin, his eyes were bloodshot, he had a shredded, weak appearance as though his essential self had been attacked or depleted. He found Alice at once, and she fed him her soup, good bread, and glass after glass of cold milk: milk that she had made certain to have in the refrigerator for him. Nothing was said about the money.

Told about the Congress, he was at first indifferent, and soon asked for Bert, who joked about his appearance, and said his brother could not have given him anything to eat. Jasper joked that his brother wasn’t, like Alice, a cook. Although it was evident he should be in bed, he insisted on going with Bert up to the top of the house to talk. Some plan or decision had been maturing in him, even while he pursued the excitements of the homosexual scene. He had to talk about it at once.

When he did decide to go to bed, he went back to the room on the top floor, as Alice had expected.

As for her, she was again sleeping in the room she had shared
with Jasper, next to Bert’s. For one thing, she knew that if Pat came back, then Jasper would be back, too.

On that Monday, Philip said he had had one serious answer to all his advertising. But he wanted help. The trouble was that time after time he went along to offer his services, and people took one look at him and made excuses. Yet he could do the job perfectly well—as everyone in number 43 could verify. He wanted Bert to go with him as his mate. He could remain silent if he wanted; it was just for the first interview. Once the thing had been agreed, it would not be easy for the clients to turn him, Philip, down, even though he would arrive for work without Bert. This plan caused a lot of good humour around the supper table. Bert agreed, and the plan succeeded. The work in number 43 was deemed finished, even though in the attic were two rotten beams that were spreading their infection through the house. Philip said he would attend to them when he had done this job, for which he would be properly paid. He had refused to start without a good sum down in advance, and would not complete the work unless paid step by step. It was at a new take-away restaurant half a mile away.

The first delegates arrived in midweek, Molly and Helen from the Liverpool branch. They were militants in the Women’s Movement, and had written to say they would be prepared to organise a crèche. If there were no crèche, mothers with small children would not be able to come; it was a question of principle. It must be understood, though, that they would cater only for girl children; that, too, was their principle, successfully applied, apparently, in all the crèches they undertook.

Alice had vaguely supposed that there would be children coming with parents; but now, reminded of the thorns and snags of the thickets of principle and, too, of Faye’s probable reactions, sent off a second batch of messages and letters in all directions to say that children could not come. Molly and Helen had a good deal to say about this when they arrived; and Alice was relieved when they decided to make the most of their stay in the capital, with its amenities, and went off at once for a day with the pickets in Melstead. They spent another day visiting Faye and Roberta’s women’s commune, followed by a late-night porno movie with
Faye and Roberta, from which they returned laughing, restless with vitality—
much
better not ask what kind—and very hungry. Offering their two pounds each, they said they would not go shopping with Alice tomorrow, for they needed to buy clothes, but they would help her cook later.

Meanwhile, four comrades had arrived from Birmingham: two men, two women who, as a matter of course, spent a day with the pickets, and a night in jail. Because every penny brought with them had gone on fines, they were unable to contribute to the weekend’s expenses. Two more comrades would come on Friday night from Liverpool—they had jobs and could not arrive earlier. There would be six more from Birmingham, also on Friday, also in work. Four people from Halifax thinking of starting a branch would come on Friday.

All the thirty-odd London members would arrive on Saturday morning, and would sleep where they could, in either 43 or 45, on Saturday night.

Alice was evolving her soup. But she needed, and did not want to buy, an extra-large saucepan. Her mother had such a saucepan. Leaving her assistants chopping vegetables and soaking lentils, she took the Underground, and then walked until she found herself standing in front of the “For Sale” sign. She had forgotten her mother had moved. This made her impatient and angry; she was again angry with her mother. The new address was competently filed away in her mind. It brought with it a feeling of shame, of regret. Not a very nice area; it could just—Alice supposed—be called Hampstead, by someone charitable. Soon she was standing outside a four-storey block of flats, with a small dirty garden in front. Surely her mother was not living here? Yes, her name was on a scrap of paper inserted in a slot opposite number 8: Mellings. An entry phone. Alice was in the grip of an inexplicable panic, could not make herself ring it. But an old woman was standing next to her, putting a key in the door. “Excuse me,” Alice improvised, “I’m looking for a Mrs. Forrester. Number two.”

“You wouldn’t find a Mrs. Forrester in number two, love. I’m number two. And I am Mrs. Wood.”

“That’s funny,” said Alice, all bright and chatty, every granny’s
dream. “Do you know if there’s a Mrs. Forrester in this building at all?”

“No, I am sure not, no Forresters here,” and the old girl laughed at her joke. Alice laughed. Then, as Alice had prayed she would, she said, “I’m going to put the kettle on. Would you like a cup of tea?” Oh yes, wouldn’t she; and in went Alice, pushing the shopping trolley, opening the door into number 2, and going into the little kitchen to help with the disposal of the shopping. Part of her mind was sternly chiding: What do you think you are doing, letting just anybody in? Why, I might be a mugger. Another screamed: My mother can’t be living here, she can’t. Still another was saying: I’m going to blow this place down, I am, it shouldn’t be allowed.

Mrs. Wood’s flat, and presumably Dorothy Mellings’s flat, contained two not very large rooms, with a kitchen just big enough to take a little table, at which Mrs. Wood and Alice sat close to each other, side by side, staring at a dingy yellow wall, drinking tea and eating two biscuits each. Mrs. Wood was on the pension. Working-class. She had a son in Barnet who visited on Sundays. She did not like her daughter-in-law, God forgive her. She had a grandson, aged five.

Dorothy Mellings had no family to visit her at weekends; this thought brushed the surface of Alice’s mind, but was rejected with a gust of emotion: if her mother had decided to live in a place like this, then she must have gone mad!

By the time Alice left, she knew to the last inch of cupboard space what her mother, three floors up, would have; and there certainly would not be room for an enormous aluminium saucepan.

Alice stayed a good hour or more, and left with promises to return. She went to the hardware shop and bought the necessary saucepan, thinking that after all there would be many more congresses and meetings at number 43, and if she had to move, the saucepan would go with her.

But she had received a blow; her heart whimpered and hurt her; she had no real home now. There was no place that knew her, could recognise her and take her in.

Suddenly a whole army of recollections invaded her.

Alice was standing in the middle of the pavement, in the rush hour, embracing an aluminium saucepan large enough to cook a small shrub, staring and apparently in a state of shock.

She was remembering her mother’s parties. They had gone on all through her childhood and adolescence. After Alice had departed to university, seldom to return home, they had gone on still; she would hear about them from someone, probably Theresa. “One of your mother’s parties, you know—it was marvellous.” They always happened the same way. Her mother would remark, with a restless, harassed look, “It’s time we had a party; oh no, I can’t face it.” Then she would start, asking this person and that, for a date a month ahead. Her reluctance towards the party vanished, and she began to shine with energy. She asked Cedric’s political colleagues, all the people working in C. Mellings, Printers and Stationers, the innumerable people she knew, who always seemed to be floating in and out of the house anyway. She knew everyone in the street, and they were all invited. She asked a woman met at the grocer’s with whom she got into conversation, the man who came to mend the roof, a new
au pair
from Finland (met on a bus) who must be lonely. By the day of the party, which started at midday, as many as a hundred people were jostling one another all over the house, and half of them were probably still there at midnight, being fed out of Dorothy’s saucepan, the size of a hip bath. They were wonderful parties. Everyone said so. Alice said so. “Oh, good,” she would cry, “are we going to have another party,” and at once began fretting to help. When she was older, after ten or so, she could tell she was being useful, but as a small child she was tolerated (only just, she knew) by this whirlwind of efficiency that was her mother organising a party. Still, she insisted on arranging fruit on a dish, or disposing ashtrays around the house, while her mother reduced her pace to Alice’s. At least while “helping,” Alice did not feel quite so much as if she were a tiny creature on top of a great wave, frantically and hopelessly signalling to her mother, who stood indifferently on the shore, not noticing her.