“I’m off, Alice,” she said, quickly, hardly allowing her eyes to meet Alice’s.
“You’re through with Bert?”
Tears filled Pat’s eyes. She turned away. “Some time I’ve got to break it. I’ve got to.”
“Well, it’s not for any outsider to say,” remarked Alice. Her heart was sick with loss, surprising her. It seemed she had become fond of Pat.
“I’ve got to, Alice. Please understand. It’s not Bert. I mean, I love him. But it’s the politics.”
“You mean, you don’t agree with our line about the IRA?”
“No, no, not that. I don’t have any confidence in Bert.”
At least, she did not say, as well, “in Jasper.”
She said, “Here is my address. I’m not fading out. I mean, I don’t want to make any dramatic breaks, that kind of thing. I’ll be working in my own way—the same sort of thing, but what I see as rather more … serious.”
“Serious,” said Alice.
“Yes,” she insisted. “Serious, Alice. I don’t
see
this tripping over to Ireland, on the word of somebody called Jack.” She sounded disgusted and fed up, and the word “Jack” was blown away like fluff. “It’s all so damned amateur. I don’t go along with it.”
“I thought you’d be off.”
Pat swiftly turned away. It was because she was crying.
“We’ve been together a long time.…” Her voice went thick and inarticulate.
“Never mind,” said Alice dolefully.
“I do mind. And I mind about leaving you, Alice.”
The two women embraced, weeping.
“I’ll be back,” said Pat. “You were talking about a CCU Congress. I’ll be back for that. And for all I know, I won’t be able to stand breaking with Bert. I did try once before.”
She went out, running, to leave her emotion behind.
The two men came back on Sunday night. Alice knew at once they had failed. Jasper had a limp look, and Bert was morose even before he read the letter Pat had left for him.
She made supper for Jasper, who at once went up to his sleeping bag on the top floor. Bert said he was tired, but she followed him, and found him standing alone in the room he had shared with Pat. She went in and, though he was not thinking of Ireland, said, “I want to ask some questions. Jasper’s sometimes funny when he has had a disappointment.”
“So am I,” said Bert, but softened and, standing where he was, hands dangling down, said, “We didn’t get anywhere.”
“Yes, but why?”
She was thinking that rejection brought out the best in Bert. Without his easy affability, the constant gleam of his white teeth amid red lips and dark beard, he seemed sober and responsible.
He shook his head, said, “How do I know? We were simply told no.”
She was not going to leave until he told her everything, and at last he did go on, while she listened carefully, to make a picture for herself that she could trust.
“Jack,” in Dublin, had been to bars and meeting places, had made enquiries, had met this man and then that, reporting back to Bert and Jasper that things were going on as they should. Then Bert and Jasper—but not Jack, a fact that had to give her food for thought—met a certain comrade in a certain private house in a suburb. There they had been questioned for a long time, in a way that—Alice could see, watching Bert’s face as he recited the tale-had not just impressed but sobered the two. Frightened them, judged Alice, pleased this had been so, for she did feel that Jasper was sometimes a bit too casual about things.
Towards the end of this encounter, or interview, a second man had come in, and sat without saying a word, listening. Bert said with a short laugh and a shake of the head, “He was a bit of a character, that one. Wouldn’t like to get across
him.”
At last, the man who had done all the talking said that while he, speaking for the IRA, was grateful for the support offered, they—Bert and Jasper—must realise that the IRA did not operate like an ordinary political organisation, and recruitment was done very carefully, and to specific requirements.
Jasper had cut in to say that of course he understood this: “Everyone did.”
Then the comrade had repeated, word for word, what he had just said. He went on to say that it was helpful to the Republican cause to have allies and supporters in the oppressing country itself, and that Jasper, Bert, “and your friends” could play a useful part, changing public opinion, providing information. They could be supplied, for instance, with pamphlets and leaflets.
Jasper had apparently become excited and expostulatory, and made a long speech about fascist imperialism. To this speech both men, the talking man and the silent one, listened without comment, and without expression.
Then the silent man simply walked out of the room, with a nod and a smile. The smile apparently had impressed Bert and Jasper. “He did smile, in the end,” Bert repeated, with the ruefulness that was the note, or tone, of his account. You could even say that Bert was embarrassed. For him and for Jasper? For Jasper? Alice hoped it was not on account of Jasper, though, clearly, to make that emotional speech had not been too clever.
Alice would have liked to go on, but Bert said, “Look, I’ve had enough for today. This business with Pat …”
“I’m sorry,” said Alice. “And I know she is.”
“Thanks,” he said, dryly, “oh,
thanks!,”
and began stripping off his jersey, as though she were already gone.
Alice decided to sleep in the sitting room again, because to choose herself a room would be a final separation. Just as she was settling in, Jim appeared. He had spent the weekend jubilantly with friends. These were friends not seen for a long time, visited now because there was something to celebrate. She saw that already, after only three days, there was an alertness and competence coming into Jim; he had been dulled and slowed by unemployment. Well—of course!—everyone knew that, but to see the results so soon …
Delighted about Jim, apprehensive for Jasper, Alice lay for a long time awake in the silent room. On this side of the house the traffic from the main road could not be heard.
She knew that neither Jasper nor Bert would be up early, but made herself get up in time to join Jim for tea and cornflakes. She thought she was rather like a mother, making sure a child had eaten before going off to school, and did not scruple to say, “Are you sure you’ve had enough? There’s no canteen there, you know. You’d better take some sandwiches.” And he, like a son with an indulged mother, “Don’t worry, Alice. I’m all right.” Then in came Philip, and the question of the new water tank was discussed. Rather, a good second-hand one. Did Alice have any idea what a new one would cost? No, but she could guess! Philip would go this morning to his source for such things, talk it over; if one was available, did she want him to buy it, and if so, did she have the money? She empowered him to get the tank, the section of drainpipe, the guttering. Quickly in and out of the sitting room, she slid three hundred pounds from out of her sleeping bag, not wanting Philip to know how much was there—but only because she did not want anyone to know. A disconcerting, even shameful thought had taken possession. It was that when this final list of necessities had been bought, she should put some money into the post office. For herself. Money no one should know about. She should have, surely, a little put away? Yes, she would open a new post-office account, and not tell Jasper.
Philip and Jim were out. Roberta and Faye were asleep or at their women’s place. Mary and Reggie had gone away for a long weekend, and would not be back until evening. Bert and Jasper slept, or were very silent, in their respective rooms. Alice sat on at the end of the table, in the quiet kitchen. The cat, absent for days, reappeared on the window sill, was let in, accepted cornflakes and milk, carefully licked up every little smear from the dish, miaowed, and went away again.
Alice was full of woe. This business of the IRA had been Jasper’s impetus for months. Long before the dramatic exit from her mother’s, it had been the IRA … the IRA … every day. She had not at first taken it seriously. But then had had to. Now all that had collapsed. Distributing pamphlets and leaflets was not going to satisfy Jasper. Nor, she was sure, Bert, whom she had seen yesterday for the first time as a potentially responsible comrade. Never once had it crossed Jasper’s or Bert’s mind that they might be refused. Would not be found good enough. The IRA had not taken Jasper and Bert seriously? Making herself examine this thought, slowly and properly turning it around in her mind, re-creating the scene she could see so vividly of Jasper and Bert with the two IRA, she had to admit that Jasper and Bert had made a bad impression. Well, it could happen! It did happen, with Jasper, all the time.
Another possibility was that they, Jasper and Bert and the others—herself included—would be tested. Yes, that could be it. An eye would be kept on them, without their knowing. (Comrade Andrew here appeared powerfully before Alice, and she smiled at the image.) But certainly Jasper and Bert had not thought this; and the Irish comrades had not given them anything specific to do.
This meant—Alice faced it—a bad few days with Jasper. She would not be seeing much of him. He would be gone from here, perhaps returning briefly at night for some food, then off again. Once, in a very bad patch, Jasper had been
like that
for weeks, over a month, and she had lived in terror for the knock of the police at the door, and news about Jasper she had been dreading since she had first met him. When he was
like that
, he was not careful about much.
The only hope was his link with Bert. Steadying. Bert might save the situation without ever knowing that one existed.
A couple of hours passed, her spirits sinking lower, and then Philip came in, pleased, to say that his chum at the yard, with contacts where demolition work was going on, had all that 43 needed, and it was in a van outside. But Philip had spent the three hundred pounds and needed money to pay for delivery. Just as he was saying all this, while he and she crossed the hall, Jasper appeared, running lightly down the stairs. Alice stood still to watch him, her heart lifting. She always forgot, when she had not seen him for some time, how he affected her. That lightness of his—each step as though he might take off altogether!—and then how he stood there, at the foot of the stairs, straight and slender; you’d think he was from another world, he was so pale and fine, with his glistening cropped hair.… But he was scowling most horribly. Under his gaze she had to go to the sitting room where she had slept, while he knew why she went and knelt by the sleeping bag, which was only just out of his line of sight. She was risking that he might come in; and she had the disconnected, breathless, out-of-control feeling that was fatal with Jasper. He would realise she had come here for money. What was she to do? She quickly thrust what remained of the one package, together with the fat whole package, down her shirt, where it was visible. She put on a jacket, though he would know why she had the jacket on, and went out under his cold, furious, dissecting gaze. Bert had appeared on the stairs, looking tired and demoralised. What a contrast, Jasper and Bert: one like an avenging angel—the thought came compulsively into her mind—the other so brought down and weakened.
Philip said cheerfully to the two men, “Could you give me a hand?” Jasper did not move. Bert did not move.
Ashamed for them, Alice said, “I’ll come,” and ran out with Philip. The driver, Philip, and she wrestled with the tank. It was heavy, and large—“The size of a small skip!” she joked—but they got it out of the van and up the path and into the house. There the driver said his responsibility ended. Philip ran out to fetch the guttering and the pipe and came in again. Bert and Jasper were in the kitchen, and the door was shut against her. She went straight in and said to them, “For shit’s sake, can’t you help us take the things up the stairs?”
They had been communicating disapproval, anger behind that closed door. Now Jasper said, “Alice, you’ve gone crazy, do you know that? What do you think you are doing? What is all that junk?” She made herself stand up to him: “The water tank up there is rotten, it’s rusting. Do you want God knows how many gallons of water cascading down all over us?”
“I don’t care,” said Jasper. “If it does we’ll just move on, as we always do.”
This cold cruel treachery reached her guts, made her eyes go dark. When she recovered, she was holding on to the edge of the table for balance. She looked at him, ignoring Bert, who was putting on the kettle, cutting bread. “You know you like a decent place, somewhere nice. Of course you do.…”
“Oh, bullshit,” he said, melodramatic because she was destroying the image he liked to present to Bert. “Well, I’m not having anything to do with it. And what is it costing? What have we spent this time?” His little blue bright eyes, hard and round, which seemed this morning to be protruding out of the shallow creamy lakes around them, were full of hate for her. She knew what she had to expect the moment they were alone.
She appealed to Bert: “Please help. Philip and I can’t manage. I mean, look at Philip!”
Slowly, with no change of expression, Bert buttered bread, then sat down. Then, glancing up and seeing her face, unexpectedly got up, as quick and full of energy as he had just been lethargic (but it was the energy of anger) and came out with her into the hall, where Philip, frail as a leaf, was standing by the great dark-grey water tank. Without a word, Bert bent and lifted, leaving Alice and Philip to fit themselves in, and, with him banging and bumping because he was so angry, the white teeth now showing between red lips stretched in a grimace of effort, the tank was raced upstairs, with much damage to the banisters. On the top floor, Bert simply dumped the tank, and ran down again. She and Philip heard the kitchen door slam again, excluding both of them. She looked apologetically at Philip. He was not looking at her. The tank had to go at the end of the little landing. The existing tank was in the attic. There was no way this tank could get through the trap door into the attic. Mystery! How did the first builders think a new tank would get itself up there, when the original tank, presumably put in before the roof went on, reached its natural end? They could only have believed that tanks had eternal lives.