The Good Terrorist

by Doris Lessing

  Alice did not speak until she heard Joan Robbins coming back. She said quickly, “Someone has cut her wrists.”

  There was no time for more. Joan arrived with two mugs of hot tea.

  Alice picked up hers at once, knowing how badly she needed it. She stood trying to drink the boiling liquid, listening, listening. “You must get your friend to hospital. As quickly as you can. Call the ambulance. Call nine-nine-nine. It’s a matter of life and death. You really must.”

  “Suppose I don’t?” said Alice at last, choosing her words because of Joan, who stood helplessly by, urging her with smiles and looks to drink up.

  “Then, if you don’t—but you really should—the main thing is to keep your friend awake and get as much liquid into her as possible. Can she drink?”

  “Yes,” said Alice, and went on listening as if she heard some impossible, far-off music that beguiled and comforted, soothed and offered infinite, unfailing support.

  After some minutes, she simply put down the receiver, letting that gentle, sensible voice disappear into the realm of the unreachable. She adjusted her face to her usual bright, good-girl’s smile, and said to Joan Robbins, “Thank you. Thanks a lot. That was the Samaritans. Do you know about them?”

  “I have heard of them, yes.”

  “They are very good, really,” said Alice, vaguely. “Well, I had better get back. I’ve left someone coping and I don’t think he’s much used to people being ill.”

  Joan followed Alice to the door, with the look of someone who feels that everything has not been said, and who hopes that it might be said even now.

  “Thank you,” said Alice politely. Then, wildly and gratefully, “Thank you, thank you.” And she ran away into the dark. Joan Robbins waited to see her go in at the door of number 43. Then she went back into her kitchen, where she examined the smears of blood on the telephone directories and on the table. She wiped the table and stood thinking for some minutes. Then she decided not to call the police, and went quietly to her bed.

  Alice found Philip and Faye exactly as she had left them. But Faye’s eyes were open, and she stared, expressionless, at the ceiling.

  “I’ve rung Roberta,” said Alice.

  Then she searched around for a clean nightie or something, found pyjamas, fetched hot water and cloths. She and Philip stripped Faye. They peeled off her soaked sleeping bag, lifted off blankets, and slid away the foam-rubber mattress, which was filled with blood like a sponge. Then Faye was washed and dressed. Through all this she was limp and meek. But Alice was not deceived. She knew that Faye was waiting for the moment when she and Philip turned their backs, when the strapping would be off those wrists.

  Alice’s sleeping bag was brought, and more blankets. A hot-water bottle was found in a drawer. It took a long time, but finally Faye was lying clean and tucked into warmth and comfort.

  It was well after three.

  Alice was thinking: If Roberta was at the hospital, she will have had the message, she will be on her way, she might be here by morning.

  Meanwhile, she and Philip must sit up, in case one fell asleep.

  No one slept. Faye lay where she had been put, her face like a little ghost’s. She did not close her eyes. She did not look at them. She said nothing.

  Philip knelt at Faye’s feet, and Alice sat at her side. From time to time Alice lifted Faye up and put the cup to her lips and Faye swallowed.

  Philip went off to make more of this mixture of salt and sugar and water, and to make tea for himself and Alice. But he did not look at Alice, would not meet her eyes.

  He had been so badly shocked by her, by the situation, that he was simply divorcing himself from it.

  She thought, defiantly, even mockingly: That defines Philip, then! That’s what he’s like!

  Morning soon came, it being halfway through May. With the prickly, hollow feeling that accompanies exhaustion, Alice listened to the dawn chorus, thinking that she would like to hear it more often; tried to catch Philip’s eye, to share this moment of renewal, or promise, with him, but he knelt there, like a little devotee, patient, modest, ready to be useful. And absolutely cut off from her.

  At last she said, “If you go and sleep, Philip, I’ll make myself stay awake. And then, when I can’t stay awake, I’ll shout up the stairs.” Meaning, I can’t leave her, we can’t, not for a second. He heard this, understood, nodded, and went out.

  Faye slipped off to sleep, or was pretending to sleep—Alice did not know which, but was taking no chances. She sat on, from time to time flicking water onto her own face, slapping her cheeks. When she did this she thought she saw a flicker of something that could be amusement, or at least comment, on Faye’s passive face. The sounds of a normal Saturday morning, the milkman, children playing in the street, voices from the gardens. What a lot of sounds there were that she never ordinarily listened to.…

  The bloodstained pile in the corner was beginning to sicken Alice. But she could not, must not move. She knew Faye was not asleep.

  Time passed … passed. More than once she had caught herself as she dropped off, even jerking awake. Once when she did this, she saw Faye open her eyes; they exchanged looks. Alice: I’m not going to let you; and Faye: You can’t stop me if I want to.

  Then, at last, steps bounded up the stairs, the door opened, and Roberta was kneeling by Faye, whose eyes were now open. She said in a voice that mingled passionate love, anger, exasperation, incredulity: “Faye, oh, Faye darling, how could you, how could you!”

  Alice stood up, and watched how Roberta gently, tenderly, gathered Faye to her, kissed her, cradled her, then bent down to kiss the wounded wrists, one after the other.

  Faye turned her face into the bosom of her friend, and lay there, at home.

  Roberta looked at Alice over Faye. Her face was running tears.

  As well it might, thought Alice.

  Roberta said, “My mother’s in a coma, so it’s all right.”

  “That’s all right, then.”

  Alice gathered up the stained things and said matter-of-factly, “Philip has been asleep for some hours, so he can come and help when you want help, but I have to sleep now.”

  She went to her room, where she did not sleep, not for a long time. She was replaying the scene over and over again in her mind, of Roberta’s infinite tenderness with Faye, the passion of love in her face as she looked at Alice, Faye’s face pressed to her breast.

  When she woke, she was determined to leave. It was all enough, it was too much. If Jasper wanted her he would have to come and find her. And, no, she would not be leaving an address. She would have breakfast, then go.

  But, of course, it wasn’t morning. She had slept through the day. Downstairs she found Philip disposing of the remains of a pot of her soup. She could see in him last night’s hostility softened, modified. After all, Faye had lived. Yes, Alice knew Faye might easily not have lived. But at least she had kept Faye out of the hands of Authority.

  She waited, indifferently, while he explained something he had been planning to say, probably working on it all day in his mind.

  Half listening, her mind on trains for tonight, or tomorrow, and where to, she heard herself sigh, and this brought her attention fully back to Philip.

  Yes, he looked awful. Worse than was warranted by not sleeping last night.

  Working from eight in the morning till late in the evening, and over weekends, he still had not been able to keep up with what he had promised. The date he had given for finishing was passed, and there was painting still to be done, several days of it. The Greek said he had been tricked by Philip: never would he have employed one person alone to do that big job of conversion and decoration, let alone a sparrow like Philip. If Philip could not finish the job in a couple of days, he—the Greek—would consider it a breach of contract, and Philip would not be paid the second half of the money. (Yes, Philip had been in this position before, but had not expected to be this time.)

  What Philip wanted was help from the com
mune. Reggie wasn’t working! What did Reggie do with himself all day? Philip demanded hotly of Alice. He wasn’t even trying for a job. He went around salesrooms and auctions, picking up bargains. Did Alice know that the attic was filling with Mary and Reggie’s furniture, let alone the room next to the one they slept in? What would it cost Reggie to help Philip for a couple of days?

  “But can he paint well enough?” asked Alice, almost mechanically, and Philip’s conscious look chimed with the conviction that suddenly came into her: of course, Philip wanted her, Alice, to go down and help. It was she who had painted most of this big house—painted it fast, and very well. They had joked, these communards, that a professional could not have done it better. And, in fact, at this or that time in her past she had done it professionally, and no one had complained.

  His dislike of her, which she had felt so strongly last night, was partly that he had been thinking like this for some time: Alice was the one who could solve all his difficulties, and yet she did not seem to see it, refused to recognise his need.

  Alice sat there quietly, eyes lowered, shielding herself from Philip, thinking. Why should he expect this? What right had he? The answer was plain enough: he had done all the work on this big house, for wildly inadequate pay. It was Alice who had wanted it; the others hadn’t really cared. Now it was Alice who should make it up to him. Oh yes, she could see it all, the logic of it, the justice. But she wanted to leave, to get out and away. This house, for which she had fought, she now felt as a trap, ready to redeliver her back to Jasper, from whom she must escape. (Even if only for a little while, her sad heart hastily added.) Yet she knew she was going to help Philip, because she had to. It was only fair.

  She said she would, and saw Philip’s whole body, that sparrow’s body, convulse briefly with sobs. His face was illuminated, prayerful.

  She went with him down the road to look at the premises. They were enormous, not one of these little cubbyholes off the street with a counter over which a few pies or sandwiches were passed. Along the middle of the room ran a broad counter, finished but unpainted, and there was a large area behind that for the cooking and preparation. Stoves, refrigerators, deep freezes had already been delivered and stood waiting to be put in place. But the walls at the back needed plaster. The walls on three sides were not bad, but should be cleaned down before painting. Alice, from Philip’s look, knew that he had intended to do more to these walls than he now did. Paint would go on before paint, ideally, should. Philip watched her, waited for her verdict.

  But as she hesitated, knowing that if an employer was looking for an excuse not to pay, or to pay less, he would find one here, she heard that someone else was with them in the great empty place, and turned to see the Greek, Philip’s employer. At one glance she knew that Philip was going to be cheated, no matter what he did, or how she helped him.

  He was a nasty little piece of work, all right. His little black eyes were full of the exaggerated anger that goes with defending a false position, and when he saw her, he shouted, “I said another workman, not your girlfriend!”

  Alice said, in her best cold voice, “You are making a mistake. I have done this kind of work often.”

  “Yes,” sneered the Greek, using the sneer with a conscious theatricality, “I suppose you’ve put a coat of paint on your kitchen.”

  “In any case,” said Alice, “you are grossly underpaying. For the kind of money you are paying for this job, you are not in a position to take that line.”

  She did not know what Philip was being paid, though, having seen this man, she did know it was not enough. And she knew that with this type of man you had to be as bad a bully.

  She turned her back and went to stand in front of a wall, examining it. Philip followed her lead and stood beside her. The Greek pretended to fuss about by the counter, then said, “I’ll give you two days.” And he went out.

  But Alice knew it was hopeless. Yes, because of her, Philip would not be cheated out of as much; but that man had no intention of paying in full.

  Therefore, she did not say to Philip that these walls should be properly scraped and cleaned. She said that if Philip had spare overalls, she would start in now; it was only ten o’clock. He went to work on the plastering, and she painted. They worked all night. Twice a pair of policemen, neither of whom Alice knew, went past and looked in. Once the Greek sauntered by, thinking he was not noticed.

  By morning Philip had done the plastering. Alice had put a first coat on the three walls and the ceiling.

  She knew that the Greek would be in the moment they left and would find fault.

  She and Philip went back to number 43; and there were Jasper and Bert, eating bacon and eggs. There was a look to both of them she did not like—this was the first impression, before all of them exploded into smiles and embraces. For, of course, the sight of Jasper melted away everything Alice had felt; she was happy, she was herself, she had been half a person without him. And he was as pleased; he even kissed her, his dry lips light on her cheek, his arms like a circle of bone, but meaning warmth, meaning love.

  Philip did not stay, said he must get two hours of sleep. This was the amount he had allowed himself, after two nights and two days of sleeplessness. He imploringly looked at Alice, for she had said that was all she would need before starting in again.

  But here was Jasper! Philip, from the door, glanced back at Jasper, and there on his face was the recognition of inevitability, Jasper as doom, for of course now Alice would not keep her word.…

  But Alice would keep her word, although she knew that this moment, now, when Jasper was just back and the pressures on him from her, which he had to resist, had not yet begun to build, was when she could hear about his adventures—and once the moment had passed, she would get nothing, only curt yeses and noes.

  There was something about these two men—a feverishness in their eyes, some bad kind of excitement—what was it? Well, it wasn’t to do with Jasper’s sex life, for Bert did not share that; but Bert had the same look. Anger, was it? Restlessness, certainly. Only exhaustion? Perhaps. They said the crossing on the boat had been bad, and that they had not slept for some nights. They would go up to sleep now.

  Alice explained what she was doing; the conventions of commune or squat life ensured that they would commend her for helping a fellow.

  They said nothing about coming to help themselves.

  Up the stairs they went together, a pair, a unit, welded by all their experiences, about which they had been prepared to say only that the tour wasn’t bad, the Soviet Union’s trouble was bureaucracy; if the comrades could sort that out, it might even be a pleasure to go there.

  And after the Soviet Union? They had left the tour at Moscow, and gone to Holland. It hadn’t stopped raining.

  Bert went to his sleeping bag on the other side of the wall from Alice. Jasper found his room upstairs occupied by Jocelin’s things. Great crashes and bangs from up there: Jasper was heaving out the furniture from the room next to Mary and Reggie’s, onto the landing. Alice knew this was happening, could hear from the noise that Jasper was in one of his rages, when he could shift cupboards and packing cases as if he were ten men. She slept, with her internal alarm set for two hours’ time.

  And woke again, doleful, desperate; there was no way she could see out of helping Philip, yet she could not really help Philip. And she wanted to be with Jasper.

  The Greek’s premises were done by midnight. Two coats on everything. Even on the plaster, though it was too soon. Everything, too quick, rushed. Done adequately. Done, as far as Alice was concerned, with no pleasure.

  At midnight, the three again stood together under the glaring working lights, this time surrounded by primrose-yellow walls, which the Greek stared at, one after another, despising them.

  Everything happened as Alice had known it must.

  The work was not up to standard; Alice was only an amateur and Philip a crook. He, the Greek, would have to pay someone else to come in and finish the j
ob. (Of course, all three knew that this was a lie; customers would see only a fresh and charming yellow—which would soon, however, begin to flake.) Philip could go to the police if he liked, but not another penny … And so he went on, shouting, putting on theatre, pointing rejecting forefingers at ceilings, at plaster, shrugging shoulders that despaired of the human race, rolling hot bitter little black eyes.

  Alice came in with words, cold and hot. They fought. Philip, white as an egg, stutteringly intervened. The end of it was that Philip got two-thirds of what had been contracted.

  At one in the morning, Alice and Philip shouldered ladders, trestles out of the shop, knowing that these would be confiscated if they were left. Alice stood guard while little Philip staggered the half mile up the road with a ladder three times his height, and came back with Bert and Jasper, who were helping him because they had to. Bert had been pulled out of his sleeping bag.

  Philip’s gear was got safely into the downstairs room, Jim’s room, and Philip stayed there with it, in a state of angry despair.

  Bert went back to bed. Smiling and gentle, like a bride, Alice said to Jasper that it would be nice if he would sit with her while she ate. She had scarcely eaten that day. He said, curtly, yes, there was something he wanted to discuss with her. But tomorrow would do. Off he went upstairs, to sleep.

  Without eating, so did Alice; she felt as though she were being dragged over a waterfall, or into an abyss, but did not know why.

  Awake early because she was hungry, she was in the kitchen eating when Philip came in. He was red-eyed and beside himself. Mad, Alice judged. Simply not himself.

  He probably had not slept but had been awake with thoughts he had been marshalling, ready for presentation the moment he could get her alone.

  He sat himself down, but so lightly that he could jump up again on the crest of any wave of the argument. His fists rested side by side before him.

  He knew of another job, a shop just opening up. He could get it, but it would have to be within the next day or so. It was no use working by himself. He had to have a partner—Alice could see that for herself, surely? Alice ought to come in with him! They would make a fine team. She was such a good painter, so neat and quick. Between them there was no job they couldn’t tackle. After all, Alice wasn’t doing anything with her time!