The Good Terrorist

by Doris Lessing

  “My name is Peter Cecil,” he said.

  “Peter Cecil?” she said, and might have laughed again. “Well, your accent is really perfect. Bloody marvellous. Congratulations.” She did give a little laugh here, girlish and merry, and though she did not really take him in, because of her pounding heart, her general overstimulation, she looked at him enough to see that he really did seem the essence of an Englishman, to match his name.

  “Thank you,” he said, pleasantly. “Perhaps you would care to have lunch?”

  “Yes. But I was going to say, you don’t seem able to take it in, but we are British, you understand? British communists.” She hesitated and added, since the situation seemed to demand elucidation: “Freeborn British communists.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Well, where can we meet? Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow? Well, why not? Tomorrow’s all right. Do you know the Taj Mahal? That restaurant in the High Street?”

  “Very good. Tomorrow. At one. Thank you for your time, Miss Mellings.”

  “Not at all,” said she, forgetting him entirely, as she ran in to the others, who were saying: “For God’s sake, Alice, come on, will you. We’ve got to go. Get a move on.”

  It was twenty to three. At the station they waited ten minutes for a train, much longer than they expected. At Baker Street they sat in the train, the doors open, with people drifting in, taking their time, for another seven. They joked they could not remember waiting for so long before. At Green Park they waited again. They were frantic with suspense; felt like bombs themselves, which could go off. Coming out of the Underground at three-thirty, Bert burst into a run, and the other two ran after him, to slow him down. “Stop it,” said Roberta, irritable. “We have to be unnoticed, remember.”

  No one looking at Roberta was likely not to notice her.

  She was very pale, was sweating, her face was tragic with seriousness.

  They walked rapidly round the hotel, past the people on the pavements. The three did not look at one another or, very much, at the possible victims. Alice was thinking: But people might be killed.… Oh no, that couldn’t happen! Inside her chest, however, a pressure was building up, painful, like a cry—but she could not let it be heard. Like the howl of a beast in despair, but she could not reach it, to comfort it.

  What were the others thinking? Roberta—well, that was easy, she thought only of Faye. Bert? He seemed not much different from his genial self; but surely he must be wondering, like Alice, Will this girl be killed? This old woman? Perhaps this one, or that one?

  There was no sign of Jasper and Faye. Having circumambulated the hotel twice, Roberta said, “There’s no point in this. And we shouldn’t be together.” Without even looking at them, she walked off by herself and stood on the opposite pavement, from which she could see the side of the hotel in front of her, and on her left the street along which Faye and Jasper could reasonably be expected to drive.

  Bert went off, without looking at Alice, to stand on the pavement opposite the front of the hotel. Alice, then, logically, could have gone to stand on the side where Roberta was not, but decided that the front was best, and stood near Bert.

  It was a quarter to four.

  No sign of the car.

  A bus very slowly went by. Jocelin sat downstairs near the window, looking at them. She mouthed at them, “A—quarter—to—five.” Then she briefly held up her left hand with its five fingers spread, lowered it, held it up again, this time with four fingers showing, bent down the forefinger, quickly again mouthed, “A—quarter—to—five,” and then stared ahead of her.

  “I think,” said Bert facetiously, “that it will be a quarter to five.”

  Four o’clock.

  The great hotel, with its look of sedate luxury, brooded massively there with people teeming about it. Alice thought, Well, perhaps something has gone wrong and they won’t come. It’ll be all right.

  “Shall we tell Roberta it’ll be a quarter to five?” she asked Bert. He said, “No, we can’t draw attention to ourselves.” Then he changed his mind and ran across the street, in and out of the traffic. Roberta was standing on the very edge of the pavement, absolutely still. Alice watched Bert go up to her, say something, then take her by the arm, apparently urging her to stand in a less noticeable place. Roberta shook off his hand on her arm, and stayed exactly where she was. Bert stood beside her for a minute, then slowly came back, this time waiting for the lights to change.

  Alice could see his face clearly. She had not seen him like this, not ever. Would not, perhaps, have recognised him. He had about him a look of isolation, separateness; as if nothing could bridge the distance between him and the people who streamed with him across the road, as if he were cursed or cast out. He had a leaden, sickly colour, like a corpse.

  The howl, or cry, in Alice’s chest forced itself out of her mouth in a yelp, and she found she was dashing off away from Bert and into the hotel. She was looking for a telephone. Two booths, back to back; and one was empty. She thought: Oh my God, if the right directory isn’t here! But it was, and she found the Samaritans’ number and dialled it, while the little whimpering yelping cries came out of her, uncontrollably, as though the animal lodged inside her were being beaten.

  The friendly, nonjudging Samaritan voice.

  Alice said, “Oh, quick, quick, there’s a bomb, it’s going to go off, come quickly, it’s going to be in a car.”

  “Where is this car?” enquired the Samaritan, in no way discomposed. When Alice did not at once answer, “You must tell us. We can’t get someone there until you tell us.”

  Alice was thinking: But the car isn’t even there yet. How do I know it will get there at all? Then she thought of those people, all those poor people, and she said despondently, “Well, perhaps it will be too late, anyway.”

  “But where? The address, do tell us the address?”

  Alice could not bring herself to give the address. “It’s in Knightsbridge,” she said. She was going to ring off, and added, as an afterthought, “It’s the IRA. Freedom for Ireland! For a united Ireland and peace to all mankind!” She rang off.

  Alice started to run back, then walked. She went straight up to Bert, so that he could turn that face towards her, and she could see that it was normal. But when he did look at her she saw a dead, awful face; and then he winked at her, slowly, and the wink dislodged that other vision of him as a corpse, and he became his ordinary self, a bit pale and tense, but that was all.

  It’s not too late to stop, she was thinking. It’s all a mistake. We should plan it all more carefully. Perhaps Faye and Jasper have decided to call it off. They have disconnected the bombs. That is why they are late.

  Four-fifteen.

  In all that time there had been only three spaces available for parking.

  And then Alice saw that Bert was standing facing away from her, very still, staring, Presumably it was the car. A white Escort went past Bert and then Alice, with Jasper and Faye in front, Faye driving. They looked exalted, but scared. The rear mudguard on the side nearest the pavement was bashed in. That was why they were late. She went up to Bert, and he agreed with her diagnosis.

  There was no parking place anywhere. The car, confined by traffic, turned right, slowly, and crawled round down the side street, where cars were almost stationary, vanished for a while round the back, came into view again, and, rather faster, drove up past Roberta, who, unable to stop herself, raised her arms as Faye went past, but dropped them slowly, presumably when the couple in the car took no notice of her. That they could have that much sense comforted Alice. The white Escort went past Bert and Alice again. It was four-twenty-five. No traffic wardens; that was something.

  They had not discussed what should be done in the event of there being no parking places. Presumably as the time ran out the two would find somewhere to park and just run?

  This time Faye did not turn to drive up the side street by the hotel, but went on for another block and then turned. Inexplicably. While the car wa
s out of sight, two cars drove away in that side street next to the hotel, leaving quite a long empty space. Would Faye see this when she came back into position again, at the far end of the hotel?

  When Faye did reappear, it was after half past.

  By then Alice was sick with tension, with misery. She knew that she was sniffling and snuffling, but she couldn’t help it.

  Faye was driving again past Roberta, who this time did not move, only stood. Despair. People were noticing her.

  As the car passed Bert he signalled, pointing to the empty space. Faye and Jasper looked like two blocks of wax with eyes fixed in them. At first they did not look at Bert; then Jasper glanced at him, and tugged at Faye’s arm.

  Just in time, Faye turned to drive into the side street.

  As she did, a car slid into the empty space from the other direction, but leaving quite enough room for Faye to park. Cars were already behind her. In order for her to park, she had to hold up the traffic, looking for a way through, to get to the other side of the street. The car, others hooting at it, waited, then forced its way across the flow of traffic, to a chorus of hoots and shouts. Faye inserted the car in the space on the diagonal and, it seemed, was ready to leave it, for her door opened, but it shut again, and she drove the Escort violently up on the pavement. A long pause, then the car reversed hastily, so that it was better parked, but not much.

  The other cars were still hooting.

  Roberta, seeing from Bert’s and Alice’s rigid, attentive poses and how they stared that Faye was parking, came hastening across to join them. Oblivious of any previous decisions not to stand together so as not to make themselves conspicuous, the three stood in a tight group, staring at the delinquent car. Now, however, it could be said that they were people censorious of a bit of very bad parking.

  “For God’s sake,” Roberta was saying, in a harsh, sick, loud voice, “for God’s sake, move. Get out.”

  Jasper got out of the car, opening the door against the flow of the traffic, and stood inside the half-opened door, bending down to look into the car and at Faye.

  “For God’s sake,” prayed Roberta.

  Then Jasper straightened, shut the door, and came away down the side of the car, meaning to go round it, onto the pavement, and to open the door for Faye. At least, that was how it seemed to the three who watched. For there was no reason at all, if the door was not jammed in some way, for Faye’s not opening it, and just as quickly as she could. Time was running out. There were five minutes to go. But time had run out, for then came the explosion, and it seemed that the windows of all the world were crashing in, while the car flew apart.

  “Faye, Faye,” Roberta was sobbing, as she ran across the street, not looking to see whether there were cars or not; and “Jasper,” whimpered Alice, running after her.

  All down the side of the hotel, it was a scene of disaster; bodies on the pavement, some lying still, some struggling to sit or rise; bits of metal, of shattered glass, handbags, masonry, blood.

  When Alice got to the scene, Jasper was not there. Then she saw him running away down the other side of the street, hands to his head. Blood was all over him.

  Idiot, she was thinking. Don’t run away, much better wait here, there are a lot of people hurt; you’d just be one of the hurt people.

  Roberta was standing among the bodies, staring at the wreck of the car, which seemed to have sunk into itself; a low tangle of metal. Roberta, moaning, turned away from the car, and, bending, began to peer into the faces of the wounded and—-as Alice had just realised—the dead on the pavement.

  Suddenly, Roberta cried out, and was sitting on the pavement, cradling a bloody mess that, Alice reasoned, could only be Faye. Yes, she could see an arm, white, pretty, whole, with a tangle of coloured bangles on the wrist.

  Alice stepped up to Roberta and said, “Stop it. There’s nothing you can do, you know. We have to get out.”

  Roberta, her eyes not seeing Alice, or anything, stared at Alice, then down at the red bundle. She was sobbing, in a dry, breathless, frantic way.

  “Roberta,” said Alice again, reasonably, and even managed a companionable, persuasive smile. “Please get up.”

  And at this moment, into this scene of disorder, of destruction, which had remained more or less the same for the last five minutes since the explosion, erupted Society, erupted Law and Order, in the shape of a wailing of ambulance sirens, and the police, who suddenly were everywhere, hundreds of them, it seemed. The ambulances, parked nose to tail up the street, began their sober, careful job of collecting casualties and corpses from the pavement. But the police were in a state of panic, out of control, rushing about, shouting orders, hustling the onlookers, who of course had arrived by now, and who were generally adding to the confusion.

  To the ambulance man who bent over Roberta, Alice said, “She’s not hurt, I don’t think. But she”—for some reason Alice could not bring herself to use Faye’s name of this mess of blood and flesh—“she was right in the way of the explosion.”

  “And where were you?” asked the ambulance man, gently assisting poor Roberta to her feet.

  “I was over there, on that pavement,” said Alice truthfully. “No, I’m not hurt.”

  By now two of them were crouching beside Faye, and Roberta and Alice stood upright, Alice holding Roberta.

  “She’s dead,” Alice said reasonably to Roberta.

  “Yes, I know,” said Roberta in a normal voice.

  At this point a policeman charged up and ordered, “What are you doing here, are you hurt? Then move along.”

  Alice put her arm round Roberta and walked her away. She did not want the policeman to come to his senses and start questioning Roberta, who, on casual inspection, did not look abnormal, though she was soaked with blood from the waist down.

  She had not thought what she would do with Roberta, blood-soaked and in a state, away from the crowds and the police; but they were stopped by another policeman, this time in control of himself, who said that Roberta looked as if she needed attention.

  “She’s in shock,” said Alice.

  “Then get her into the ambulance,” said the policeman, turning away to join with others in pushing away onlookers.

  There was nothing for it. Alice went with Roberta in the ambulance, together with ten others, all of them shocked or slightly hurt. The badly wounded were being loaded into other ambulances.

  Theirs was one of the first away. Alice and Roberta were silent, listening to people who wept, who complained, or who excitedly told their stories; how they were peacefully going along the street, or in or out of the hotel, and then …

  Cut faces and arms, possible fractures, bruises. One woman had had her clothes torn off her by the blast and was wrapped in a blanket. Another had been flung right through the window that at that moment had been in the process of shattering. She was covered with small deep cuts and seemed the worst off.

  They were in the hospital in a few minutes.

  Roberta was examined and pronounced unharmed.

  Alice explained to a sympathetic policeman that Roberta and she had been going into the hotel when it happened. They got into a taxi and were driven home. The taxi man said it was a shocking thing; probably those Arabs again; they had no sense of the sacredness of life, not like the Westerners; if he had his way he would stop the Arabs from coming here.

  Roberta and Alice said nothing.

  It was seven when they reached home. In the kitchen was Bert, attending to Jasper, who had a great many cuts on his face and his head, but was otherwise all right. Bert said he should get the cuts stitched up; some of them were deep. Jasper said no. And Jasper was right. He should have stayed, instead of running away, Jocelin argued, and then he could have told some story and got himself stitched up with the others in hospital. Now, he must on no account go near a hospital, or even a doctor. But one of the women in the squat in South London had been a nurse; it would be all right to go down there.

  “I don’t think it
would be all right,” said Jasper. “The fewer people involved, the better.”

  Alice thought this was sensible, and tried to examine the cuts. He shook her off. They didn’t seem too bad to her; perhaps they wouldn’t leave scars. Well, there was always plastic surgery.

  The five of them finally sat round the table.

  Jasper told them, in a businesslike, formal way, how, as he had turned the car out of the street where it had been left, he had misjudged a distance and scraped the front mudguard of a parked car. He would have driven off, but now there was a car immediately blocking his way, and a man who had seen the incident from a first-floor window came running out to say that Jasper need not think he was just going to escape and get away with it. Jasper had said that no such thought had been in his mind. The man said he was lying. They had had quite a little shouting match before they reached the point of exchanging insurance companies: Jasper, of course, had had to say he would supply the address of his later. Then it turned out that the dented mudguard was pressing on the back wheel, and they had to get out of the car and use a heavy spanner to hit the mudguard until it was free of the wheel. The man from the house was standing over them, as if they were criminals who had to be watched. To reach the dent in the mudguard, Jasper had to lie full-length in the road, and hit it from below, and at an angle. It was awkward and took time, and they were holding up the traffic.

  When they at last got into the stream of traffic again, they were so late they thought of calling the whole thing off. Faye could easily disconnect the bombs, but the trouble was that this time the work would be in full view of all the people in the cars and the passers-by on the pavement. Besides, said Faye, do or die; she was game. A pity to have gone to all this trouble and give up.

  When Faye had turned, the second time, not immediately up past the hotel but on the next turning, it was because they had not seen any parking places, had decided to stop the car anywhere they could find a place so that, regardless of who was watching, Faye could wrench the connections off the bombs. They then had only twelve minutes to go. But there were no parking places anywhere along that street.