Doris Lessing - The Good Terrorist

He stood up. ‘I’ve got work to do.’ She was dismissed. He came out from behind the table and walked with her to the door and back through the hall to the front door.

‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ he said.

She stammered, ‘Would there be a room in this house we could use for a – discussion? You see, some of us are not sure about – some of the others.’

He said, ‘I’ll ask.’ He had not reacted as she had feared he would. Bringing it out had sounded so feeble…

He nodded, and at last, gave her a smile. She went off in a daze. She was telling herself, But he’s the real thing, he is.

He had not told her his name.

She walked along the short stretch of main road slowly, because in front of her, in the middle of the pavement, was a girl with a small child in a pushchair. The child looked like a fat plastic parcel with a pale podgy spotty face coming out of the top. He was whining on a high persistent note that set Alice’s teeth on edge. The girl looked tired and desperate. She had lank unwashed-looking pale hair. Alice could see from the set angry shoulders that she wanted to hit the child. Alice was waiting to walk faster when she could turn off into her own road, but the girl turned, still in the middle of the pavement. There she stopped, looking at the houses and, in particular, at No. 43. Alice went past her and in at her gate. She heard the girl say, ‘Do you live here? In this house?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Alice, without turning, in a curt voice. She knew what was coming. She walked on up the path. She heard the wheels of the pushchair crunch after her.

‘Excuse me,’ she heard, and knew from the stubborn little voice that she could not get out of it. She turned sharply, blocking the way to the front door. Now she faced the girl squarely, with a No written all over her. This was not the first time, of course, that she had been in this position. She was feeling: It is unfair that I have to deal with this.

She was a poor thing, this girl. Probably about twenty. Already worn down with everything, and the only energy in her the irritation she was containing because of her grizzling child.

‘I heard this house is short-term housing now,’ she said, and she kept her eyes on Alice’s face. They were large grey rather beautiful eyes, and Alice did not want the pressure of them. She turned to the front door, and opened it.

‘Where did you hear that?’

The girl did not answer this. She said, ‘ I’m going mad. I’ve got to have a place. I’ve got to find somewhere. I’ve got to.’

Alice went into the hall, ready to shut the door, but found that the girl’s foot stopped her. Alice was surprised, for she had not expected such enterprise. But her own determination was made stronger by her feeling that if the girl had that much spirit, then she wasn’t in such a bad way after all.

The door stood open. The child was now weeping noisily and wholeheartedly inside his transparent shroud, his wide-open blue eyes splashing tears on to the plastics. The girl confronted Alice, who could see she was trembling with anger.

‘I’ve got as much right here as you have,’ she said. ‘If there’s room I’m coming here. And you have got room, haven’t you? Look at the size of this place, just look at it!’ She stared around the large hall with its glowing carpet that gave an air of discreet luxury to the place, and to the various doors that opened off it to rooms, rooms, a treasury of rooms. And then she gazed at the wide stairs that went up to another floor. More doors, more space. Alice, in an agony, looked with her.

‘I’m in one of those hotels, do you know about them? Well, why don’t you, everyone ought to. The Council shoved us there, my husband and me and Bobby. One room. We’ve been there seven months.’ Alice could hear in her tone, which was incredulous, at the awfulness of it, what those seven months had been like. ‘It’s owned by some filthy foreigners. Disgusting, why should they have a hotel and tell us what to do? We are not allowed to cook. Can you imagine, with a baby? One room. The floor is so filthy I can’t put him to crawl.’ This information was handed out to Alice in a flat, trembling voice, and the child steadily and noisily wept.

‘You can’t come here,’ said Alice. ‘It’s not suitable. For one thing there’s no heating. There isn’t even hot water.’

‘Hot water,’ said the girl, shaking with rage. ‘Hot water! We haven’t had hot water for three days, and the heating’s been off. You ring up the Council and complain, and they say they are looking into it. I want some space. Some room. I can heat water in a pan to wash him. You’ve got a stove, haven’t you? I can’t even give him proper food. Only rubbish out of packets.’

Alice did not answer. She was thinking, Well, why not? What right have I got to say no? And, as she thought this, she heard a sound from upstairs, and turned to see Faye, standing on the landing, looking down. There was something about her that held Alice’s attention; some deadliness of purpose, or of mood. The pretty, wispy, frail creature, Faye, had again disappeared; in her place was a white-faced, malevolent woman, with punishing cold eyes, who came in a swift rush down the stairs as though she would charge straight into the girl, who stood her ground at first and then, in amazement, took a step back with Faye right up against her, leaning forward, hissing, ‘Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out.’

The girl stammered, ‘Who are you, what…’ While Faye pushed her, by the force of her presence, her hate, step by step back towards the door. The child was screaming now.

‘How dare you,’ Faye was saying. ‘How dare you crash in here, no one said you could. I know what you’re like. Once you are in, you’d take everything you could get, you’re like that.’

This insanity kept Alice silent, and had the girl staring open-eyed and open-mouthed at this cruel pursuer, as she retreated to the door. There Faye actually gave her a hard shove, which made her step back on to the pushchair, and nearly knock it over.

Faye crashed the door shut. Then, opening it, she crashed it shut again. It seemed she would continue this process, but Roberta had arrived on the scene. Even she did not dare touch Faye at that moment, but she was talking steadily in a low, urgent, persuasive voice:

‘Faye, Faye darling, darling Faye, do stop it, no, you must stop it. Are you listening to me? Stop it, Faye…’

Faye heard her, as could be seen from the way she held the door open, hesitating before slamming it again. Beyond could be seen the girl, retreating slowly down the path, with her shrieking child. She glanced round in time to see Faye taken into Roberta’s arms and held there, a prisoner. Now Faye was shouting in a hoarse, breathless voice, ‘Let me go.’ The girl stopped, mouth falling open, and her eyes frantic. Oh no , those eyes seemed to say, as she turned and ran clumsily away from this horrible house.

Alice shut the door, and the sounds of the child’s screams ceased.

Roberta was crooning, ‘Faye, Faye, there darling, don’t, my love, it’s all right.’ And Faye was sobbing, just like a child, with great gasps for breath, collapsed against Roberta.

Roberta gently led Faye upstairs, step by step, crooning all the way, ‘There, don’t, please don’t, Faye, it’s all right.’

The door of their room shut on them, and the hall was empty. Alice stood there, stunned, for a while; then went into the kitchen and sat down, trembling.

In her mind she was with the girl on the pavement. She was feeling, not guilt, but an identification with her. She imagined herself going with the heavy awkward child to the bus-stop, waiting and waiting for the bus to come, her face stony and telling the other people in the queue that she did not care what they thought of her screaming child. Then getting the difficult chair on to the bus, and sitting there with the child, who if not screaming would be a lump of exhausted misery. Then off the bus, strapping the child into the chair again, and then the walk to the hotel. Yes, Alice did know about these hotels, did know what went on.