Doris Lessing - The Good Terrorist

‘Oh. Oh, I see.’

Mary sat contemplating this perspective: skilled and dangerous revolutionaries on the run, in concealment. But seemed unable to take it in. She said, huffily, ‘Well, I suppose the decision could be adjusted. I must say, I think it is just as well the Council don’t know about this!’

‘Oh, you mean you can get the decision changed?’ Alice, reprieved, the house restored to her, sat smiling, her eyes full of tears. ‘Oh, good, that’s all right then.’

Mary stared at Alice. Alice, bashful, because of the depth of her emotion, smiled at Mary. This was the moment when Mary, from her repugnance for anything that did not measure up against that invisible yardstick of what was right, suitable and proper that she shared with Reggie, could have got up, stammered a few stiff, resentful apologies, and left. To tell Bob Hood that the Council had made a mistake, those people in No. 43…

But she smiled, and said, ‘I’ll have a word with Bob. I expect it will be all right. So everyone will chip in? I’ll get them to send the bills monthly, not quarterly. It will be easier to keep up with the payments.’ She chattered on for a bit, to restore herself and the authority of the Council, and then remarked that something would have to be done about No. 45. There were complaints all the time.

‘I’ll go next door and see them,’ said Alice.

Again the official reacted with, ‘It’s not your affair, is it? Why should you?’ Seeing that Alice shrugged, apparently indifferent, Mary said quickly, ‘Yes, perhaps you should…’

She went upstairs, with a look as irritated as Alice’s. Both women were thinking that it would not be easy, this combination of people, in the house.

Soon Mary went off with Reggie. He would drop her back at work, and they both would return later with another load. They were bringing in some furniture too, if no one minded. A bed, for instance.

Alice sat on, alone. Then Philip came to be given the money for the glass, and went off to buy it.

Alice was looking at herself during the last four days, and thinking: Have I been a bit crazy? After all, it is only a house…and what have I done? These two, Reggie and Mary – revolutionaries? They were with Militant? Crazy!

Slowly she recovered. Energy came seeping back. She thought of the others, on the battlefront down at Melstead. They were at work for the Cause; and she must be too! Soon she slipped out of the house, careful not to see whether the old lady was waving at her, and went into the main road, walked along the hedge that separated first their house from the road, and then No. 45. She turned into the little street that was the twin of theirs, and then stood where yesterday she had seen Bob Hood stand, looking in that refuse-filled garden.

She walked firmly up the path, prepared to be examined by whoever was there and was interested. She knocked. She waited a goodish time for the door to open. She caught a glimpse of the hall, the twin of theirs, but it was stacked with cartons and boxes. There was a single electric bulb. So they did have electricity.

In front of her was a man who impressed her at once as being foreign. It was not anything specific in his looks; it was just something about him. He was a Russian, she knew. This gave her a little frisson of satisfaction. It was power, the idea of it, that was exciting her. The man himself was in no way out of the ordinary, being broad – not fat, though he could easily be; not tall – in fact not much taller than herself. He had a broad blunt sort of face, and little shrewd grey eyes. He wore grey twill trousers that looked expensive and new; and a grey bush shirt that was buttoned and neat.

He could have been a soldier.

‘I am Alice Mellings. From next door.’

He nodded, unsmiling, and said, ‘Of course. Come in.’ He led the way through the stacks of boxes into the room that in their house was the sitting-room. Here it had the look of an office or a study. A table was set in the bay window; his chair had its back to the window, and that was because, Alice knew, he wanted to know who came in and out of the door; he did not want his back to it.

He sat down in this chair, and nodded to another, opposite it. Alice sat.

She was thinking, impressed: This one, he’s the real thing.

He was waiting for her to say something.

The one thing she knew now she could not say was: Have you been telling Jasper and Bert what to do? – which was what she wanted to know.

She said, ‘We have just got permission from the Council, we are short-term housing, you know.’ He nodded. ‘Well, we thought you should do the same. It makes life much easier, you see. And it means the police leave you alone.’

He seemed to relax, sat back, pushed a packet of cigarettes towards her, lit one himself as she shook her head, sat holding a lungful of smoke which he expelled in a single swift breath and said, ‘It’s up to the others. I don’t live here.’

Was that all he was going to say? It seemed so. Well, he had in fact said everything necessary. Alice, confused, hurried on, ‘There’s the rubbish. You’ll have to pay the dustmen…’ she faltered.

He had his eyes intent on her. She knew that he was seeing everything. It was a detached, cold scrutiny. Not hostile, not unfriendly, surely? She cried, ‘We’ve been given a year. That means, once the place is straight, we can give all our attention to – ‘ she censored ‘the revolution’, but said, ‘politics.’

He seemed not to have heard. To be waiting for more? For her to go? Floundering on, she said, ‘Of course not everyone in our squat…for instance, Roberta and Faye don’t think that…but why should you know about them. I’ll explain…’

He cut in, ‘I know about Roberta and Faye. Tell me, what are those two new ones like?’

She said, giving Reggie and Mary the credit due, ‘They were once members of Militant, but they didn’t like their methods.’ Here she dared to offer him a smile, hoping he would return it, but he said, ‘She works for the Council? On what sort of level?’

‘She doesn’t take decisions.’

He nodded. ‘And what about him? A chemist, I believe?’

‘Industrial chemist. He lost his job.’

‘Where?’

‘I didn’t ask.’ She added, ‘I’ll let you know.’

He nodded. Sat smoking. Sat straight to the table, both forearms on it, in front of him a sheet of paper on which his eyes seemed to make notes. He was like Lenin!

She thought: His voice. American. Yes, but something funny for an American voice. No, it was not the voice, the accent but something else, in him.

He didn’t say anything. The question, the anxiety, that were building up in her surfaced. ‘Jasper and Bert have gone down to Melstead. They went early.’

He nodded. Reached for a neatly-folded newspaper, and opened it in front of him, turning the pages. ‘Have you seen today’s Times ?’

‘I don’t read the capitalist press.’

‘I think perhaps that is a pity,’ he commented after a pause. And pushed across the paper, indicating a paragraph.

Asked whether they welcomed these reinforcements to the picket line, Crabit, the strikers’ representative, said he wished the Trotskyists and the rent-a-picket crowd would keep away. They weren’t wanted. The workers could deal with things themselves.

Alice felt she could easily start crying again.

She said, ‘But this is a capitalist newspaper. They’re just trying to split the democratic forces, they want to disunite us.’ She was going to add: Can’t you see that? but could not bring it out.

He took back the paper and laid it where it had been. Now he was not looking at her.

‘Comrade Alice,’ he said, ‘there are more efficient ways of doing things, you know.’