Doris Lessing - Doris Lessing

"Hitler Invades..."

"The Battle of El Alamein..."

If the Irish comrades could see him now! thought Alice, watch- ing this deft, swift, accomplished work; and then how he, with Philip and herself, lifted the great tank, as if it weighed nothing, onto the top of the papers....

He had not looked at her. She was half fainting with the power of her beating heart. Oh, it was a dangerous thing, to threaten Jasper. Suppose he left her? Oh no, he would not, she knew that absolutely. He could not.

He ran off down the stairs, without a smile or a look, and she was left again with Philip. Who was distressed. By the atmosphere he had been in, which, she knew, was pure poison.

She knew he was thinking: If I had not put so much of myself into this house, perhaps I'd leave. Besides, he was upset about Pat's going.

She left Philip to his work, thinking that this time she had given him the money for the materials but none for his labour. Almost, she went back up the stairs to give him what she had.... She took a few steps down... almost went back up, hesitated, then - luck being on her side - she did it. She gave him what was left of the already denuded packet - not quite two hundred pounds, it was true, and nothing like what it should be - and went down into the kitchen, whose door she boldly opened, not caring that it had been shut to bar her out.

Bert had gone.

Jasper was waiting for her.

"Where did you get that money?"

"It's not your money, so shut up," she said.

"You are making us all sick," he said. "We all think you've gone rotten. All you care about is your comfort."

"Too bad," said she, sitting down. In the bright mid-morning light he looked, standing there, rather commonplace and even ugly - so thought Alice, who a few moments before had been melting in a familiar ecstasy of admiration for him.

He was staring at her midriff. The jacket, hastily put on, was open. At the front, inside the thick cotton shirt, was the flat protuberance of the packet.

For a moment she feared he would simply step over, grab her wrist, pull out the money. He did not, but went to stand at the window, looking out.

He said, "You needn't think I'm just going to give up, that I'm just going to take their word for it!"

It took a moment for it to penetrate: he was talking about his rejection by the Irish comrades.

She said companionably, "No, of course not."

She believed, and with what a lightening and easing of her poor heart, that now could begin the real, the responsible, discussion she loved so much to have with Jasper. But the door opened and she looked up to see Jim. Who at first she thought was not Jim. The brown glossy skin was ashy and rough, and his eyes stared.

"What's wrong, what is wrong?" And she went to him.

He shook her off. "They gave me the sack."

"Oh no," she said at once, decisively. "Oh no, he couldn't have."

He stood, breathing in, breathing out in a big gasp, breathing in. A loud, painful sound. "They said I stole money."

"Oh no," said Alice. And then again, but differently, "Oh no."

Meanwhile Jasper stood taking all this in.

"What's the point?" demanded Jim, of the heavens, not of her, and it sounded histrionic, but was not; for the question had behind it his whole life. Then he did look properly at Alice, seeing her, and said, "Well, thanks, Alice, I know you tried. But there's no point." And he went stumbling out, crying.

She went after him. "Wait. You wait. I'm going right over there. I'll fix it, you'll see."

He shook his head, went into his room, shut the door.

Alice remained outside, thinking. Jasper appeared from the kitchen. He was grinning complicity, even congratulation. The whole truth of course he had not sussed out, for who could possibly imagine that luck of hers, which had caused the telephone to ring at precisely the right moment. But he had grasped, being so quick, the bones of it.

She said, "I'm going over to my father."

"You'd better not go over with that on you," he said, looking at her middle. He spoke nicely, like a comrade at a tricky moment. Without thinking, as though there were nothing else she could do, she slipped her hand in under her thick shirt. The package of notes had got caught in her jacket waistband and she stood fumbling. Her fingers were sliding over the satiny warmth of her skin, and in a sweet intimate flash of reminder, or of warning, her body (her secret breathing body, which she ignored for nearly all of her time, trying to forget it) came to life and spoke to her. Her fingers were tingling with the warm smoothness, and she stood there looking puzzled or undecided, the packet of notes loose in her hand. She looked as if she were trying to remember something. Jasper neatly took the packet from her, and it disappeared into the heart pocket of his bomber jacket.

"I'm going to my father's," she said again, slowly, still puzzling over that message from her buried self, which sang in her fingertips and up her arm.

She went slowly down the path to the gate, turned into the main road for the Underground, still dreamwalking, still caught in a web of intimations, reminders, promptings. She even put her seduced fingers to her nose and sniffed them, seeming even more puzzled and dismayed. She understood she was standing on the pavement with people walking past, the traffic rushing up and down - had been standing there, stock-still, for how long? She could not help glancing back at number 43, in case Jasper was spying on her. He was. She caught a glimpse of his paleness at the window of the bathroom on the first floor. But he at once disappeared.

Her energies came back at her in a rush, with the thought that now, having all that money, Jasper would be off somewhere, and if she wanted to catch him, she must hurry.

At C. Mellings, Printers and Stationers, she went straight through the shop and upstairs, and into her father's room. He sat behind his big desk, and Jill the secretary sat at her table opposite him across the room. Alice stood in front of her father and said, "Why did you sack Jim? Why did you? That was a shitty bloody fascist thing to do. It was only because he was black, that's all."

Cedric Mellings, on seeing his daughter, had gone red, had gone pale. Now he sat forward, weight on his forearms, hands clenched.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"What? Because you sacked Jim, how dare you do it? It was unfair!" And Alice kicked the front of the desk, hard, several times.

"I gave Jim Mackenzie a job, because it has always been our policy to employ blacks, Indians, anyone. We have always operated a nonracial policy here. As you know very well. But I should have known better than to accept anyone recommended by you."

His voice was now low and bitter, and he looked ill. "Just go away, Alice. Just get out, will you, I've had all I can take of you."

"Will you listen," she shrieked. "Jim didn't take that money. I took it. How can you be so stupid?" This last she addressed to Jill. "I was in this office, wasn't I? Are you blind or stupid or something?"

Jill stood up, and papers, biros, went flying. She stared, as pale as her employer, and dumb.

"Don't speak to Jill like that," said Cedric Mellings. "How dare you just come in here and... What do you mean, you took the money, how could you..." Here he put his head into his hands and groaned.

Jill made a sick sort of noise and went out to the lavatory.

Alice sat down in the chair opposite her father's and waited for him to recover.

"You took that money?" he asked at last.

"Well, of course I took it. I was here, wasn't I? Didn't Jill tell you?"

"It didn't cross my mind. And it didn't hers. Why should it?"

Now he sat back, eyes closed, trying to pull himself together. His hands trembled, lying on the desk.