Doris Lessing - Doris Lessing

"No, no, no," screamed Alice, "you mustn't."

"Why not, she's going to die."

"No, no, no, she won't. Don't you see? She mustn't go to hospital."

"Why not?"

"Roberta would never forgive us, she wouldn't want that. The police, don't you see? The police..."

Philip was staring at Alice as at a madwoman.

"Have we got any elastic bandage in the place?"

"Why should we have any?" he said, distressed.

"I know. Your masking tape. The tape you use for your electrics."

He had already gone to get it. Alice knelt by Faye, who seemed to have become as light and empty as a dead leaf. How can you take the pulse of a woman whose wrists are butchered? Where else is there a pulse, wildly wondered Alice, peering here and there. She held her cheek to Faye's nostrils and felt a slight breath. She wasn't dead. But so much blood lost, so much... Everything was soaked with it. Faye was lying in a thick red pool.

Philip ran in, with a roll of black tape. Alice fitted her hand, like a bracelet, around one wrist, to stop the blood from bubbling and spurting, while Philip strapped up the wound. Then she held the other wrist, and they cut the scarf away.

"She's lost so much blood," said Alice.

"She ought to have a transfusion," said Philip, obstinately. His face was full of criticism of Alice.

"We've got to get liquid into her. No, wait...."

Down ran Alice to the kitchen. She made a mixture of warm water and salt and sugar, glucose not being available. Up she ran with it.

"She's unconscious, Alice," said Philip, still with that look of dislike, hostility. "How can she drink if she's unconscious?"

Alice knelt down, slid her arm under Faye's lolling head, so that she was well propped up, and began trying to pour the liquid into Faye.

"It'll go into her lungs, you are drowning her," said Philip.

And then, miraculously, Faye swallowed.

"Faye," commanded Alice, "Faye, drink, you've got to drink."

Faye seemed to want to shake her head, but swallowed. It was because she was in the habit of taking orders, commands from Roberta. Alice knew that, so she made her voice soft and full and loving like Roberta's and said, "Drink, you must drink."

Slowly, over twenty minutes, Alice got a pint or so of the mixture into Faye.

Then she rested. She was running with sweat. The sweat was from terror, she knew that.

Philip knelt at Faye's feet, watching. His look of disapproval, even of horror, had not abated. It was Alice who horrified him, and she knew and could not care.

"She's not going to die," she said, loudly, for Faye's benefit as well as Philip's.

She said, "You stay here. Make her drink some more, if you can. She must have done it only a minute before we came in. I'm going to telephone Roberta."

Philip took her place, his arm under Faye's head. He reached for the jug full of liquid.

Alice thought, seeing them like that - frail white Faye, frail pale Philip - that they were two of a kind, victims, born to be trampled over and cut down. There was a flash of vindictiveness in this thought, as far as Philip was concerned, for she knew that he still hated her.

She ran next door to Joan Robbins. The house was in darkness, and Alice put her finger on the bell and kept it there. She could hear it shrilling. A window went up above her head, and she heard Joan Robbins's voice, sharp, "What is it? Who is it?"

"Let me in, let me in," cried Alice, her voice like a child's, or like Faye's. "It is Alice," she wept, since Joan Robbins did not at once leave the window. "Alice from next door."

The lights went on in the hall, and Joan Robbins stood there in a flowered dressing gown and bright-red mules, looking angry, puzzled, and afraid.

"I must ring someone - I must - someone's ill," she stammered, and Joan Robbins stood aside.

At the telephone, she fumbled for the books, which Joan took out from a plastic cover and gave to her.

She found "Directory Enquiries," got the number, rang the hospital in Bradford, left a message for Roberta. "Tell her her friend is ill, she must come at once."

Then she started turning the pages over, looking for another number, and it was not until she saw "Samaritans" that she knew what she wanted.

"Don't you want nine-nine-nine?" asked Joan Robbins curiously. Alice shook her head and stood, eyes shut, breathing irregularly, as if she might faint, and Joan padded off to her kitchen to make her a nice cup of tea.

Alice rang the Samaritans. A pleasant, steady voice spoke. Alice did not hear the words, only the tone. She stood silent, listening. She was going to have to say something, or this voice would stop, go away.

She said, "I want your advice, that's all, your advice."

"What's the trouble?"

She said nothing, but stood listening to the sensible, helpful voice. Which went on, saying that Alice should not ring off, that no one would put any pressure on Alice or on anyone else, no one would report Alice, no matter what she or anyone else had done.

Alice did not speak until she heard Joan Robbins coming back. She said quickly, "Someone has cut her wrists."

There was no time for more. Joan arrived with two mugs of hot tea.

Alice picked up hers at once, knowing how badly she needed it. She stood trying to drink the boiling liquid, listening, listening. "You must get your friend to hospital. As quickly as you can. Call the ambulance. Call nine-nine-nine. It's a matter of life and death. You really must."

"Suppose I don't?" said Alice at last, choosing her words because of Joan, who stood helplessly by, urging her with smiles and looks to drink up.

"Then, if you don't - but you really should - the main thing is to keep your friend awake and get as much liquid into her as possible. Can she drink?"

"Yes," said Alice, and went on listening as if she heard some impossible, far-off music that beguiled and comforted, soothed and offered infinite, unfailing support.

After some minutes, she simply put down the receiver, letting that gentle, sensible voice disappear into the realm of the unreachable. She adjusted her face to her usual bright, good-girl's smile, and said to Joan Robbins, "Thank you. Thanks a lot. That was the Samaritans. Do you know about them?"

"I have heard of them, yes."

"They are very good, really," said Alice, vaguely. "Well, I had better get back. I've left someone coping and I don't think he's much used to people being ill."

Joan followed Alice to the door, with the look of someone who feels that everything has not been said, and who hopes that it might be said even now.

"Thank you," said Alice politely. Then, wildly and gratefully, "Thank you, thank you." And she ran away into the dark. Joan Robbins waited to see her go in at the door of number 43. Then she went back into her kitchen, where she examined the smears of blood on the telephone directories and on the table. She wiped the table and stood thinking for some minutes. Then she decided not to call the police, and went quietly to her bed.

Alice found Philip and Faye exactly as she had left them. But Faye's eyes were open, and she stared, expressionless, at the ceiling.

"I've rung Roberta," said Alice.

Then she searched around for a clean nightie or something, found pyjamas, fetched hot water and cloths. She and Philip stripped Faye. They peeled off her soaked sleeping bag, lifted off blankets, and slid away the foam-rubber mattress, which was filled with blood like a sponge. Then Faye was washed and dressed. Through all this she was limp and meek. But Alice was not deceived. She knew that Faye was waiting for the moment when she and Philip turned their backs, when the strapping would be off those wrists.

Alice's sleeping bag was brought, and more blankets. A hot-water bottle was found in a drawer. It took a long time, but finally Faye was lying clean and tucked into warmth and comfort.