The Good Terrorist

by Doris Lessing

  It took her an hour or so to do the carpet. They carried it, heavy with water and detergent, smelling now of chemicals, out to the dustbins.

  “I suppose some night owl will be up and watching, as usual,” said Alice, bitter and very tired, standing carefully in the very middle of the hall floor.

  Faye said she was going to bed. Roberta took her up, then came back and got another pail and helped with washing down the woodwork and the walls. All the others went to bed.

  As Roberta worked, she swore steadily in her other voice, the rough, clumsy, labouring voice of her upbringing, not the slow, easy, comfortable voice of the everyday Roberta they knew. She did not swear loudly, but only just audibly: a steady quiet stream of hatred against the police, the world, God; on her own behalf, on Faye’s.

  When they had finished, both women took baths. Then Roberta went out for the Sunday papers. But there was nothing in the Sundays, not a word.

  Alice and Roberta slept for some hours. Faye, awake at midmorning, was angry with Roberta for “getting herself involved.” To pay her out, she went up to talk to Jocelin, at work on her bombs. First, as apprentice, she helped Jocelin; then, it turning out she had a real aptitude, she tried out a tricky little number on her own account. She came down for a cup of tea and brought her instruction manual with her. At the same moment, Reggie and Mary returned from work on their new flat. It was an awful mess, they said: but, having seen Alice at work, they knew what could be done with chaos. The way they said this told the others that they were determined to be “nice” for as long as they had to stay there. Then Mary picked up from the table The Use of Explosives in an Urban Environment and leafed through it, first casually, then slowly, taking her time. She handed it to Reggie with a look that was far from “nice.” In the kitchen at that stage were Caroline, Jasper, Bert, and Faye, and suddenly they were all tense, determined not to look at one another, trying to appear indifferent. Reggie studied the manual, and then laid it on the table. He had not looked at the others, sat thinking. Next he and Mary had a long eye-consultation, and he said that they had decided to move into the new flat, ready or not, at once. Only a few moments before, Mary had been saying that they would be here until their flat at least had hot water.

  The couple went upstairs, leaving half-finished cups of tea.

  “That wasn’t very clever, comrade,” said Bert to Faye, showing a lot of his white teeth.

  Faye tossed her head. She was breathing fast, smiling and frowning and biting her lips. “It doesn’t matter,” she stated. “Once they are rid of us, they’ll never want to think of us again. We’re just shit to them, that’s all.”

  “All the same,” said Bert, making an effort to be severe, as the occasion demanded, “that was stooo-pid!” He laughed, as at a joke. She laughed wildly, eyeing him with resentment. Then she scrambled up out of her chair and ran upstairs to Roberta. They could hear, over their heads, Robert’s low maternal voice, Faye’s angry raucousness; her complaints to Roberta were being made in her “other” voice, that of her upbringing; Roberta answered in her everyday voice.

  The three sat on uneasily. Then Jasper said, laughing, “I don’t see why Alice should sleep all day,” and went up to wake her. Which he did by banging on the door of the room she slept in, where he had slept but now would not. No response. He stepped delicately in, saw the huddled bundle that was Alice turned to the wall, and, finding the dark of the room unlikable, sharply dragged back the curtains. Alice shot up in her bag, eyes screwed up because of the afternoon glare. She saw a black spiky menacing figure outlined against the light, and screamed.

  “For fuck’s sake,” he said, disgusted with her.

  “Oh, it’s you.” She lay down, as she had before, back to him.

  He could not stand this. He knelt by her, at her back, and saw sandy eyelashes tremble on her freckled creamy skin.

  “Alice,” he said, quite politely, but firmly. “You do have to wake up. Something has happened.”

  She opened her eyes. Did not say, “What?” They remained in that position for quite a time, more than a minute. It was as if, for her, getting up on his order and coming downstairs was going to commit her more than she wanted, commit her again, when she had made a decision.

  At her back knelt Jasper. She could feel his warmth on her shoulders, felt in that warmth the determination of his need for her.

  She muttered, sounding indifferent, “All right, I’ll be down in a moment.”

  He stayed a bit, hoping she would turn and smile. But she looked at the wall, waiting for him to go. He got up off his knees and went out, quietly shutting the door.

  “Oh no,” said Alice, breathless, to the wall. “Oh no, I can’t.” But she suddenly got up, dragged on her jeans and jersey, and went down.

  Around the table now were Jasper and Bert, Caroline. Jocelin had been summoned from above.

  Alice made herself tea, silent, taking her time. She sat down. She listened to what had happened. Then she said, confirming Faye, “It doesn’t matter. They’ll never want to think about us again, once they are gone. Anyway, there’s no reason to connect anything that happens with us. Lots of people have these how-to-be-a-terrorist books.” She did not put this into inverted commas, a joke, as it had been in this house till now. The joke had been worn into ordinariness.

  “But they are such bloody law-lovers,” said Caroline. “They’ll probably think it’s their bloody duty to inform, when they connect one thing with another.”

  There was a bad moment, during which they looked at one another, acknowledging the truth of it. But Bert dismissed it, laughing. “Connect what with what? We haven’t even decided.”

  “This is as good a time as any to talk it over,” said Jocelin.

  “We’ll have to call down Roberta and Faye, then,” said Jasper, uneasily. He involuntarily looked up at the ceiling, immediately beyond which Roberta and Faye, presumably reconciled, lay or sat. At any rate, silently.

  “Perhaps it isn’t the right time,” said Bert. From his grimace Alice deduced that Faye was in one of her moods.

  She said vaguely, “Perhaps we should do it without Faye.”

  They all looked at her, ready to be censorious. All, however, were thinking, as she could see, that there was something in what she said.

  It was Jocelin, who had been working with Faye for some hours that day, who remarked, “But she’s very clever. And she’s got some good ideas about where.”

  “Where?” asked Bert, laughing again. “Tell us. She hasn’t patented her thoughts on the subject.”

  Jocelin said seriously, “I agree with you that Faye is emotional. But I got the impression this morning that she’d be good in an emergency.”

  “Who is going up to call them down?” said Jasper, facetiously.

  They all looked at Alice.

  Alice did not move, but stirred her tea.

  “Well, what’s wrong with you, then?” demanded Jasper.

  “I’m tired,” she said.

  She got up, in a way that seemed both impulsive and mechanical. She seemed surprised she had got up and was going to the door. Jasper was after her and had her by the wrist. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going for a walk,” she said.

  “But we’re discussing whether to have a regular meeting or not. A meeting to decide what venue we are going to use.”

  Again, it was like the moment when he had knelt behind her as she lay in her sleeping bag. A long pause, and she came back to her chair, went on stirring her tea as if she had not left.

  “I’m going to call Faye and Roberta,” said Jocelin, and she went upstairs decisively.

  They could hear a little descant of voices, Faye shrill, Roberta full and positive, Jocelin coming in like a response. Jocelin had the last word. She came down, announced that it was all right. They waited for half an hour, being humorous about it.

  Then they were all together. It went on for hours. They discussed the merits of railway stations, restaurants, pu
blic monuments. The Albert Memorial was favourite for a few minutes, and then Faye said no, she adored it; she wouldn’t harm a hair of its head. Hotels. Number 10. The Home Office. MI-5’s information computer. The War Office.

  It went on. As when a group of people are choosing the name for something among many possibilities, the suggestions became wilder and more imaginative, became funnier; the whole thing turned into comedy. From time to time, one of them would say that they must be serious, but it seemed that seriousness was not on the agenda. They were all weak with laughter when they finally decided where. And were restored to seriousness by Faye’s imperious demand that it was she who should actually place the explosives. It was her turn, she said. Alice and Jocelin and Bert had had all the fun last time.

  The decision was taken that “the real thing” would be conducted by Faye, Jasper, and Jocelin as mistress of explosives, the others assisting. The meeting broke up at about eight. They celebrating by going to the Indian restaurant. Then Faye and Roberta went to the pictures. Bert and Jasper and Caroline—Bert wanted Alice to come, too—went to visit the South London squat. Jocelin had some last finishing touches to make.

  Alice said no, she was all right, she wanted to go for a walk. Yes, she did want to go walking; she didn’t understand why they made such a fuss. She liked walking by herself.

  This was the first time some of them had heard about this proclivity of Alice’s, and jocular remarks ensued.

  She set off, frowning, into the dark streets. She stopped after a hundred yards or so and stood looking into a garden where only the outlines of flowers, a shrub, were visible, all colour drained from them. She came to herself with a sigh and walked towards her mother’s flat. There she briskly rang the bell, almost at once rang it again, and said when she heard her mother’s voice, “It’s Alice.” A pause. “It’s Alice,” she said, peremptory, peevish.

  Another pause. A long one. Then the door buzzed and Alice rushed up the bare ugly stairway. It seemed that she expected, when her mother opened the door, to enter the pleasant large room of the Mellingses’ old house, for she charged in as if into a big room and had to pull herself up short in front of her mother, who stood with her back to the armchair she had obviously just left. It was a quite decent little room, but Alice thought it paltry and ugly. The two armchairs, on either side of the little gas fire, which had in the old house had so much space around them, now were like too-large, shabby prisoners, made to face each other. They needed re-covering; Alice had not noticed it before.

  She said in a scandalised, hostile voice, “What do you think you are doing, in this place?”

  The room was chilly. Alice did not mind this, but Dorothy was wearing a thick jersey and woollen stockings, winter clothes. Alice knew that baggy yellow sweater and the full brown skirt. They were old. Her mother’s hair, quite white now, was in an untidy chignon. Her haggard, handsome face, unsmiling, confronted Alice in a frown that showed no signs of softening.

  As always when Alice was actually with her mother, pleasant and kindly emotions took over from the angry ones she felt when she was away from her.

  The suffering and aggressive face she had brought in with her was already gone, and she smiled. It was the timid, anxious-to-please smile of the good daughter. She looked to see whether she might sit down. The armchair her mother had been in had books stacked up beside it to the level of the arm. On the shelf above the gas fire was a bottle of whisky and a glass, a third full.

  The armchair opposite her mother had had someone in it. Alice even looked sharply around to see if this person was hiding somewhere. The cushions of the chair were pressed in, with a look of long and intimate occupancy. There was an empty teacup on the floor by this chair. Alice suddenly imagined Zoë Devlin and her mother sitting opposite each other, and heard their strong, relishing laughter, which seemed to exclude everyone else. A sharp pain went through her, and her look at her mother was again all resentment.

  “Why are you bundled up like this? Are you ill?”

  A pause. Dorothy said carefully, still frowning, “As you know, I feel the cold. Unlike you.”

  “Then why don’t you light the gas fire?”

  A pause. “As you might have been able to work out for yourself, I have to be careful with money.”

  She spoke in a wary, almost hushed voice, afraid of what a tone of voice, a wrong movement, might provoke. Rather like a nurse with an intractable patient.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” cried Alice. “It can’t be so bad that you can’t afford to have the fire on if you are cold.”

  Dorothy Mellings sighed. She turned away. Not to the two armchairs, which now seemed a promise of a long friendly talk that was owed to Alice, but to a small oblong table against the wall, where it seemed she ate her meals. There was a plate on it with one apple and one banana. Alice let out a furious exclamation, and rushed to the small refrigerator in the cooking recess that called itself a kitchen. In the refrigerator was a bottle of milk, some cheese, four eggs, half a loaf of white bread.

  Alice whirled round on her mother, but before she could say anything, Dorothy said, “Alice, are you going to want tea or something? Are you hungry?”

  “No, I am not hungry,” said Alice, sounding accusing.

  Dorothy sat down on one of the chairs at the small table, indicating that Alice should sit opposite, but Alice could not bring herself to acknowledge the rights of that petty little table in her mother’s life, and she sat on the arm of the chair that had had her mother’s friend in it.

  “Has Zoë Devlin been here?”

  “No, she hasn’t. As you know, Alice, we aren’t getting on all that well at the moment.”

  “Oh, don’t be so bloody ridiculous. You’ve known her forever.”

  “As you know, we quarrelled.”

  “Well, has Theresa been?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve quarrelled with Theresa?”

  “There is no reason why I should tell you anything at all,” said Dorothy. She half got up—she did not need to do more—reached over for her glass of whisky, and took a firm ration of it, her mouth a bit twisted. Grant’s whisky. Oh yes, Dorothy might be poor, thought Alice bitterly, but she wasn’t going to drink anything but her brand of Scotch.

  Alice was looking anxiously at that stern face, which seemed as if it had been set forever into a frown, the brows pulled together.

  Alice felt she did not know her mother. Dorothy Mellings, in the good old days, the days that could fill Alice’s memory for hours at a time, had been a tall, striking woman with reddish-gold hair in a chignon, creamy, delicately freckled skin, greeny-blue eyes. Rather pre-Raphaelite, really, they had used to joke, all of them. But since Dorothy never lolled or languished or rolled her eyes about, the comparison did not go far. Now she was a tall, strong, elderly woman with all that untidy white hair. Her eyes were like squarish lumps of green stone. When she was with other people—Zoë Devlin, for instance—she was all vitality and laughter.

  “Who’s been here visiting you, then?”

  “Mrs. Wood from downstairs.”

  Alice stood up, stared, sat down again. “Mrs. Wood! What do you mean, Mrs. Wood! Why, she’s …”

  “Are you suggesting she isn’t good enough for me?”

  “But …” Alice was literally unable to speak. All that splendour of hospitality, the big house, the people coming in and out, the meals, the … “Mrs. Wood,” she stammered.

  “I didn’t know you knew her.”

  “But you can’t …”

  “You mean that she’s working-class? Surely, Alice, you can’t hold that against her? As for me, I’ve reverted to my proper level. And who is it that boasts all the time about her working-class grandfather?” Dorothy, for the first time this evening, was smiling, was really looking at Alice, those greenish eyes cold, angry. “Or is it that you think she’s not intelligent enough for me?”

  “But you have nothing in common—she’s never read anyth
ing in her life, for a start, I bet.”

  “A sudden reverence for literature?” she enquired. And took another mouthful of whisky. “I can tell you, I find the company of Mrs. Wood just as rewarding as … a good many people I might mention. She’s not all full of rubbish and pretensions.”

  This, reminding Alice of that inexplicable movement of her mother towards savage criticism of things she had held dear all her life, filled her eyes with tears, and she thought: It’s all been too much for her; oh, how awful, poor thing. She cried out, “You should simply never have said you’d leave home. You should have said you wouldn’t go. Then you wouldn’t have had to come here.”

  This sounded like an appeal, as if her mother might even now say, “Yes, it was all a mistake,” and go back to her own house.

  Dorothy was looking surprised. Then the cautious look was back, with the frown.

  “But, Alice, you know what happened.”

  “What does it matter, what happened? What is going to happen now, that’s the point?”

  “Well, I do rather despair of talking to you lot about … necessity. It’s no use. You’ve all had it so easy all your lives, you simply do not understand. If you want something, then you take it for granted you can have it.…” Alice let out a little protesting sound, meaning to say that as far as she was concerned, her mother had gone off the point entirely. But Dorothy went on, “I know it is no use. I have been thinking hard about you, Alice. And I have come to one simple conclusion. You’re all spoiled rotten. You’re rotten. And Zoë’s children are the same.”

  This was said without emotion. Almost indifferently. All passion spent.

  Alice let this go by her, as part of Dorothy’s new persona, or craziness. It was best ignored. Would go away, probably, like this nonsense over living here.

  “I think you should tell Cedric that you won’t live here; he must give you more money.”

  Dorothy sighed, shifted about on her hard little chair, seemed to want to droop away from sheer weariness, pulled herself together, sat up.