Doris Lessing - Doris Lessing

There, she said number 43 Old Mill Road was an agreed tenancy, Mary Williams of Belstrode Road would confirm; electricity was being supplied, Mrs. Whitfield of the Electricity Board would confirm; and her brother, now in Bahrein, would guarantee payments. She had waited until this sympathetic-looking man, elderly, fatherly, was free, and now she pleaded, "Can we have the gas on now, please, it is so cold... no hot water... it's awful...." His concerned, shocked face! This man could not easily imagine life without hot water, at least not for people like himself and Alice.

A deposit?

She laid down twenty pounds and fixed on him girlish, friendly eyes.

He took up the money. Accepted. But he was unhappy about the situation. Like Mrs. Whitfield at the first interview, he was not sure why he was being compelled by Alice.

"We do have to have a guarantor," he remarked, as much to himself, and said, "Very well, you said your brother would be back in a month? Good."

It was done. Alice went off, demurely grateful.

She was going to have to get some money. Had to. Where?

Sobered, she went back home, told Philip that the gas would be on. If they could lay hands on a second-hand boiler, did he know enough to fix it?

They squatted opposite each other on the top floor, on the landing, in the bright April light, which came, slightly dimmed by dirt, through the window on the stairs. He was smiling, pleased with her, with this house, with his place in it; ready to go on working. But, she knew, sorrow and resentment were there, only just subdued; and soon she must find more money for him. For the boiler. For new floorboards in the hall, in a corner where water had dripped from a leaky pipe. For... for... for...

She said, "Philip, I know that if you had taken on this job on a business basis you would have had to charge hundreds. Well, don't worry... but wait a bit. I'll have it."

He nodded, he smiled, he went on with his work, sitting in a tangle of new black cable like some kind of leprechaun among urban roots. Frail - you could blow him away, thought Alice, her heart aching for him.

And where was Jasper? He had not been in court that morning after all? Or he had been, had been silly, was bound over again?

Worry, worry, worry; she felt bruised with it.

She sat in a heap at the kitchen table. She thought, looking at the pleasant room: I'm taking it for granted already!

Forcing herself, she worked for an hour or two on the great heap of stuff purloined from the skips that lay in a corner of the hall; fitting a curtain here, laying a rug there. Everything needed a good scrub! Well, she would take down all these curtains when there was time and get them to the laundrette, but meanwhile... She found a nice solid little stool, thrown away only because a leg was loose. She glued it back in, put the stool in the corner of the kitchen, went out into the garden to the forsythia bush, cut some branches. The old woman was asleep in her chair under the tree. Joan Robbins was only a yard away through the fence. She was glad to see Alice, began talking in a heavy tired voice about how the old woman had her running up and down the stairs, even got her up in the middle of the night. What was she to do? She was sick and tired of it.

Alice, familiar with this situation from somewhere in her well-stocked past, knew there was little that could be done; in fact, it would get worse. She asked whether Mrs. Robbins knew about the services available for the old. Yes, but she didn't like the idea of all these people in and out all day; who were they? She'd have no check on them.

She went on and on, digging viciously into the soil of her border. For years the house had been civilised and orderly; she and her husband downstairs, with the garden; Mrs. Jackson, a widow, keeping herself to herself in the flat above. But now she might just as well be living with Mrs. Jackson! You'd think she was her daughter! The old woman certainly seemed to think so.

Alice, with all the time in the world and nothing better to do, stood with the branches of forsythia blazing yellow in her arms, listening and advising. Surely it would be better to have Home Helps, Meals on Wheels, all that, and a social worker to advise and take on responsibility, than have to do it all yourself?

Joan Robbins agreed that perhaps it might, she would think.... With a smile at Alice of real gratitude, neighbourliness, she said that she was glad Alice was there, glad that decent people were in poor Number 43 at last.

Alice went in, stacked the forsythia in a jug on the stool in the corner of the kitchen, sat down.

Where was Jasper?

This was the night they were going spray-painting. She had the paint - two cans, in scarlet and black - ready in the corner of the hall.

At the kitchen table, she pencilled slogans on an envelope.

What was the message they wanted to convey? The full message, exact - that was where she must start.

The Use of Supergrasses Unmasks the True Nature of British Democracy. One Law for England, Another for Northern Ireland, England's Colony.

That was it. Possibly they'd find a good space, like a bridge, or a long low wall, to get all that in.

She must work out something shorter.

Supergrasses Threaten Democracy!

No, too abstract.

Supergrasses - Unfair!

Supergrasses a Shameful Blot on Britain!

Supergrasses - Shame on Us!

She sat still, with the blaze of the forsythia in her eyes. She shut her eyes, and the yellow blurred and danced on black. She was smiling, remembering the last time she and Jasper had gone out together. Only two weeks ago. In scarlet and black they had written "Support the Women of Greenham Common" on the dull grey-green paint of a bridge two hundred yards from a police station. She had sprayed; Jasper kept watch, from the other side of the station. She had finished when she heard his signal, a yell he had perfected to sound like a car hooting. She had thrust the spray paint in her carrier bag. Not looking back, she strolled along the pavement, thinking that Jasper was sauntering past the police station. Between him and her, probably two policemen. But the footsteps that came up beside her were Jasper's - light and urgent. That meant the police had gone up the other way - but could see them by turning. Jasper and she stood looking into each other's faces, alive and tingling and delighted, knowing that anyone looking at them could guess, simply from the waves of energy that danced from them. Jasper's eyes said, Let's...

She raced back to the smooth green paint that was evenly lit by a street lamp ten yards away. The policeman and a woman sedately progressed away from them. Jasper waited where he was. She took out the red spray and, in letters a foot high, began "Greenham Common Women..."

She kept her attention half on what she did, half on Jasper, who suddenly raised his arms. Without looking round she sped toward him, hearing the heavy feet running behind her. Now she was spitting: Filthy beasts, fascists, pigs, pigs, pigs.... She had come up to Jasper, who caught her wrist in his bony grip, and they ran together up towards the Underground. But before they reached it, they turned into a side street and then, they hoped before the police reached that street, into another. They knew someone living in a house there. But their blood was racing, they were inspired, and she was not surprised that Jasper panted, "Let's chance it...." They tore down that street and into a main road that was crowded with people - fish-and-chip shops, take-aways, a disco, a supermarket, still open. Again, they could have gone into the supermarket, but they thought the police had had a good look at them, so they sprinted through the crowds, who took as little notice as they expected, and across the street just after the lights had changed, so that the traffic, beginning to move, hooted.