Doris Lessing - Doris Lessing

"Joan Robbins," said Faye. "That filthy fascist cow. I'll kill her." But it was in her cockney, not her other, true, voice, that she spoke. She sat up, freed herself from solicitous Roberta, and lit another cigarette. She did not look at the others.

"No, you won't," said Roberta, softly. She reasserted her rights to Faye by putting her arm around her. Faye submitted, with her pert little toss of the head and a smile.

"Well, it is disgusting," said Alice.

"It was all right till you came," said Jim. This was not a complaint or an accusation, more of a question. He was really saying: How is it so easy for you, and so impossible for me?

"Don't worry," said Alice, smiling at him. "When we've got the place cleaned up, we will be just like everyone else in the street, and after a bit no one will notice us. You'll see."

"If you want to waste your money," said Faye.

"We do have to pay at least the first instalment of electricity and gas. If we can persuade them to supply us," said Bert.

"Of course we can," Alice said, and Pat said, "The meters are still here."

"Yes, they forgot to take them away," said Jim.

"And what are we going to pay with?" asked Faye. "We are all on Unemployment, aren't we?"

There was a silence. Alice knew that, if they were living on very low rent, there would be plenty of money. If people had any sense of how to use it, that is. She and Jasper, living with her mother and paying nothing, had about eighty pounds a week between them, on Social Security. But none of it was saved, because Jasper spent all his, and most of hers, too, always coming to demand it. "For the party," he said - or whatever Cause they were currently aligned with. But she knew that a lot of it went on what she described to herself, primly, as "his emotional life."

She knew, too, that in communities like this there were payers and the other kind, and there was nothing to be done about it. She knew that Pat would pay; that Pat would make Bert pay - as long as she was here. The two girls would not part with a penny. As for Jim - well, let's wait and see.

She said, "There's something we can do now, and that is, get the lavatories unblocked."

Roberta laughed. Her laugh was orchestrated, meant to be noticed.

Faye said, "They are filled with concrete."

"So they were in one of the other houses I knew. It isn't difficult. But we need tools."

"You mean tonight?" asked Pat. She sounded interested, reluctantly admiring.

"Why not? We've got to start," said Alice, fierce. In her voice sounded all the intensity of her need. They heard it, recognised it, gave way. "It's not going to be nearly as difficult as you think now. I've looked at the lavatories. If the cisterns had been filled with concrete, it would be different - they'd have cracked, probably - but it isn't difficult to get it out of the bowls."

"The workmen concreted over the tap from the main," said Bert.

"Illegal," said Alice bitterly. "If the Water Board knew. Are there any tools?"

"No," said Bert.

"You said you have a friend near here? Has he got tools?"

"She. Felicity. Her boyfriend has. Power tools. Everything. It's his job."

"Then we could pay him. He could get the electricity right, too."

"With what do you pay 'im," asked Faye, singing it. "With what do we pay 'im, dear Alice, with what?"

"I'll go and get the fifty pounds," said Alice. "You go and see your friend." She was at the door. "Tell him, plumbing and electricity. Plumbing first. If he's got a big chisel and a heavy hammer, we can start on this lavatory here in the hall. We really need a kango hammer. I'll be back," she cried, and heard Jasper's "Bring in something to eat, I'm starving."

On the wings of accomplishment Alice flew to the Underground, and on the train she thought of the house, imagining it clean and ordered. She ran up the avenue to Theresa. Only when she heard Anthony's voice did she remember Theresa would be late.

"Alice," she said into the machine. "It's Alice."

"Come in, Alice."

Anthony's full, measured, sexy voice reminded her of the enemies that she confronted, and she arrived outside their door wearing, as she knew, her look.

"Well, Alice, come in," said Anthony, heartily but falsely, for it was Theresa who was her friend.

She went on, knowing she was unwelcome. Anthony had on a dressing gown, and there was a book in his hand. An evening off was what he was looking forward to, she thought. Well, he can spare me ten minutes of it.

"Sit down, do. A drink?"

"No, Anthony, I never drink," she said, and went straight on, "Theresa said this morning I could have fifty pounds."

"She's not here. She's got one of her conferences."

"I thought you could give it to me. I need it." This was fierce and deadly, an accusation, and the man looked carefully at the young woman, who stood there in the middle of his sitting room, dressed in clothes he thought of as military, swollen with tears and with hostility.

"I haven't got fifty pounds," he said.

A lie, Alice recognised, and she was staring at him with such hate that he murmured, "My dear Alice, do sit down, do. I'm going to have to drink, if you won't." He was trying to make it humorous, but she saw through it. She watched, standing, while the big dark bulky man turned from her and poured himself whisky from a decanter. All her life, it seemed to her, she had had moments when she thought that he, and her friend Theresa, were naked at nights in bed together, and she felt sick.

She knew from her mother that the sex life of these two was vivid, varied, and tempestuous, in spite of Anthony's heavy, humorous urbanities, Theresa's murmuring, smiling endearments. Dear Alice, darling Alice, but at night... She felt sick.

And she thought, as she had done when she was little, And they are so old! Watching the man's broad back, grey thick silk, his smooth head - dark as oil, small for that body - she thought, They have been sexing all night and every night for all those years.

He turned to her in a swift movement, glass in his hand, having thought what he should do, and said, "I'll ring Theresa. If she's not actually in conference..." And he went swift and deadly to the telephone.

Alice looked around the big expensive room. She thought: I'll take one of those little netsukes and run out, they'll think it was the Spanish woman. But just then he came back and said, "They say they've called it a day. She's on her way home. Well, I'll get some supper on, then. Theresa's too tired to cook at conference times. Excuse me." Glad to be able to turn his back, she thought, and as he disappeared into the kitchen, the door opened. It was Theresa. For a moment Alice did not recognise her, thought it was some tired middle-aged woman, and then thought, But she looks so worn out.

Theresa stood heavily, her face in dragging lines, and she wore dark glasses, which left her eyes blinking and anxious when she took them off.

"Oh, Alice," she said, and walked fast to the chair near the drinks and collapsed. She fumbled as she poured herself a drink, and sat nursing the glass on her bosom, breathing slowly. Eyes shut. "Just a minute, Alice, just a minute, Alice dear," and as Anthony came in, moving his large bulk quickly to kiss her, she lifted her cheek to his lips, eyes shut, and said, "Thank God we closed early. Thank God, one more evening till eleven and I'd be done for."

He laid his hand on her shoulder and pressed down. She smiled, with small pouting kissing movements, eyes tight-closed, and he went back to the kitchen, saying: "I've done some soup and a salad."

"Oh, darling Anthony," said Theresa, "thank you - soup - it's just what I need."

What Alice felt then was a slicing cold pain - jealousy; but she did not know it was that, and she said, to be rid of the scene, rid of them, "You said I could have fifty pounds. Can I have it, Theresa?"