The Good Terrorist (32 page)

But he was there when she woke, squatting lightly beside her, a cup of coffee in his hand. He was beaming, like a boy conscious of behaving well.

“Oh, what is it, Jasper?”

“Clever Alice,” he said gently. “It was wonderful, what you did.”

But she lay straight in her sleeping bag, arms by her side, feet stretched out. She was not thinking of Jasper, or of the Congress, or of the weekend’s fun and games. There was an empty place in her, a pit, a grave; she had been dreaming, she knew, of the house, now boarded up, with the “For Sale” notice outside. And she knew that she must be glistening all over with pale, unshed tears.

“Alice,” said Jasper, “I want to tell you something.”

“I’m listening,” she said, severe and remote, and saw him hesitate, wince. He felt snubbed. She should have cared, but could not.

“Bert and I—we are going to the Soviet Union.”

Having taken this in, she said, “The Irish comrades won’t have you, but the Soviet comrades will?” This was not derisive in the least—only a statement of the position—but she earned a look of hatred. He was on his feet, hovering above her, a furious angel, ready to throw revengeful bolts.

“Look, I don’t want any negative and destructive attitudes from you, Alice.”

Pause. She neither moved nor spoke.

Indecisive, he squatted down again, ready to win her.

“How are you going so quickly? You can’t go just like that to the Soviet Union.”

“On Saturday night one of the comrades from Manchester said that he knew of a tourist group going to Moscow, this week. There are some empty places, because some people fell out, with flu. But we can get visas through the tour organiser. We have sent in our passports, and we’ll get them by the time we leave.”

“Good.”

A pause.

“Alice,” he began tentatively, and stopped. He had been going to ask her for money, but now felt its uselessness.

She said, “You have taken every fucking penny off me already. I’ve spent last week’s dole money on the party. It’s no good trying to get any out of me.” Seeing his face beginning to gather into an avid, cruel look, she said, indifferently, “And it is impossible for me to get money out of Dorothy, or out of my father.”

He remained there, lightly squatting, one hand on the floorboards, studying her face. Then, as lightly, he got up and went to the door. As he left she said, “If Pat comes back before you two leave, Bert won’t go with you.” He slammed the door; she did not turn her head to watch him go, but remained still, like a stone or a corpse, no life in her, looking at the window, now framed by the beautiful brocade curtains, green and gold, that had hung in the sitting room of her mother’s house.

She slept. In the late afternoon she woke in an empty house, bathed, put on a skirt that had been her mother’s, of soft wool that had great pink roses on a soft brown background, and a pink sweater Pat had given her.

She walked straight out of the house and over to 45, where she went in without knocking: the weekend had made the two houses one. Out of the kitchen—a dreary hole, not nice and bright and decorated with flowers, like 43’s—came goose-Muriel, who offered strictly rationed postparty smiles.

“If Andrew is here, I want to see him.”

To prevent any more coy scratchings at the door, Alice went to it with Muriel, and knocked.

“Come in,” she heard, and Alice went in, shutting the door on Muriel.

Comrade Andrew lay, stretched out like a soldier, as Alice had just been doing, on his low bed, but with his arms crossed on his chest.

He swung his legs over and down, sat, made a place for Alice to sit by him.

She did so, at a proper distance. “I have to know some things,” she announced.

“Very well.”

But she sat on there, in a droop, listless, and did not continue.

He studied her for a while, openly, not hiding it, then lay down again, but farther over on the narrow bed, near the wall. He pulled her by her arm; and, without resisting, she lay down next to him, stretched out. There were a good six inches between them. He did not touch her.

“Did you know Bert and Jasper are going to Moscow?”

“Yes.”

A pause. She was thinking. As she always did: a slow, careful working out of the possibilities latent in everything.

“But you didn’t suggest it.”

“No, I certainly did not.”

“No.”

The silence prolonged itself. He even wondered whether she had dropped off to sleep—she had seemed so pale and exhausted. He studied her, turning his head a little, then took her right wrist gently with his left hand. She tensed up, then relaxed: this was very different from the killing grip Jasper used.

“Alice, you should really get free of this riffraff.”

“Riffraff!” she expostulated, with as much energy as she had left. “These are
people.”

He said deliberately, “Riffraff.”

She drew in her breath; but let it out quietly.

“What did Muriel tell you, then?”

“What do you suppose she told me? You aren’t stupid, Alice.”

She could feel herself swelling and oozing. Tears ran down her cheeks, she supposed.

“And what about the party,” she almost sobbed. “You weren’t there.”

He remained silent.

Then, gently, he put his arm under her neck, and his left hand on her left upper arm, on the side away from him. He seemed, at the same time, to be lightly supporting her and holding her so as to make sure she would not slide away from him.

“Alice, you must separate yourself from them.”

“From Jasper, you mean.”

“From Jasper, Bert, and the rest. They are just playing little games.”

“They don’t think so.”

“No, but you do, I believe.”

A silence again. She had now at last almost relaxed in his hold, and he reached over with his right hand to lay it on her waist under her breasts. But she wouldn’t, couldn’t have this, and irritably shook him off.

“They are playing, Alice, like little children with explosives. They are very dangerous people. Dangerous to themselves and to others.”

“And you aren’t dangerous.”

“No.”

She gave a little laugh, derisive but admiring.

“No, Alice. If you do things properly and carefully, then only the people get hurt who should get hurt.”

She thought about this for a long time, and he did not interrupt her. She said, “Who do you take orders from?”

“I take orders. And I give them.”

She thought.

“You were trained in the Soviet Union?”

“Yes.”

“You are Russian,” she stated.

“Half Russian: I had an Irish father. And, no, I am not going to bore you with my interesting history.”

Now a long time went by, about ten minutes. She could easily have been asleep, for she breathed slowly and deeply, but her eyes were open.

He turned slightly towards her, and she instantly clenched up and moved away from him, though still inside his arm.

“You are a very pure, good woman,” said Comrade Andrew softly. “I like that in you.”

This, it seemed, she could have contemplated for even longer than his previous remarks. What he could see on her face was an abstracted, bemused look due to exhaustion, but there was a demureness, too, which almost incited him to further efforts. Almost: something stopped him, perhaps the fact that the demureness was masking a surprisingly violent reaction to the word “pure.” Was she, Alice, pure? Was that what she had been all this time without knowing it? Well, perhaps she would have to think about it; if pure was what she was, then she would have to live with it!
It was the word!
You couldn’t use the word “pure” like that in Britain now, it simply wasn’t on, it was just silly. If he didn’t know that, then … How were they trained, people like Andrew? Perhaps it didn’t matter that he was so alien, so different; after all, Britain was full of foreigners. Had it mattered here, in 43 and 45? Well, that depended on what he wanted to achieve. Carrying on like Lenin hadn’t upset anyone (except Faye and Roberta), but then, she, Alice, knew only part of the picture. What else was he up to?

At last he broke the silence with, “Alice, I think you should take a holiday.”

This so amazed her that she tried to sit up, and he pulled her down.

Now she lay close beside him, and his hot strong body began to send waves of sensation right through her. She was fascinated and disgusted. She kept her eyes straight up at the ceiling, for she knew what she would see if she looked down along his body. She wasn’t going to get involved with
that
, “pure” or not!

She said, “I don’t understand why you are always wanting me to do such middle-class things.”

“What’s middle-class about a holiday? Everyone has to have holidays. Modern life is very bad for everyone.” She thought he was teasing her, but a glance showed him to be serious.

“Anyway, where could I go? You despise all the people I know.”

“I didn’t say all of them. Of course not.”

“You don’t mind Pat, I seem to remember. Did you know she’s left Bert because she doesn’t think he is serious, either?”

“Yes, I did know.
She
is a serious person. Like you, Alice.”

“Well, you yourself were wanting Bert to do something or other.”

“I have changed my mind about him,” he said severely. “That was an error of judgement on my part.”

“Well, I don’t know,” she said drearily at last. She began a small childish snuffling.

“I do. You are tired, Comrade Alice. You work and you work, and most of these people aren’t worth it.”

At this she let out a real wail, like a child, turned to him, and was held, like a child, against him, while he made consoling, soothing noises. She cried herself out.

“Poor Alice,” he said at last. “But it is no good crying. You are going to have to make a decision. Look, these two Errol Flynns are going to Moscow. Why don’t you leave before they come back?”

“Errol Flynn!”

“Don’t you like Errol Flynn? I have always enjoyed his films.”

“There is a great difference in our two cultures,” she said, dreamily, speaking into his chest. They were lying in such a way that his hard protrusion was kept away from her, so she didn’t mind it.

“That is very true. But surely people like Errol Flynn? Why, otherwise, is he a famous star?”

“Well,” she said, “I’m going to think about all this.”

“Yes, you must.”

“And when are you coming back?”

“How did you know I was going away?”

“Oh, I just thought you might be.”

He hesitated. “You are right, as it happens. I shall be away, probably, for some weeks—” He felt her seem to shrink, and he said, “Or perhaps only for a week or two.” Another pause. “And, Alice,” he said, “you must, you
must
separate yourself. Believe me, Alice, I’m not without experience of … this type of person. Where they are, there is always trouble.”

After some minutes, she sat up, putting aside his hands in a tidy, housewifely way.

She said, “Thank you, Comrade Andrew. I shall think carefully about everything you have said.”

“And thank you, Comrade Alice. I am sure you will.”

From the door, she turned to give him an awkward smile, and went out, hurrying so as not to have to talk to Muriel, who, though a serious person, was not one Alice was prepared to like, even at the behest of Comrade Andrew.

The few days that followed were the happiest she had known.

Usually, when Jasper was in tow—a phrase other people had used, not she—to a brother figure, like Bert, she saw little of him. But they were asking her to accompany them in everything they did. The cinema, more than once. The National Theatre—Bert said that Shakespeare had many lessons for the struggle, and they must learn to use every weapon life offered them if they were not to be primitive Marxists. They spent an evening in a pub that Alice knew was chosen carefully by Jasper so as not to show her even a whisker of that other life of his. And not to show Bert, either …

But best of all, though they did not go slogan-painting, which was Alice’s favourite, Jasper suggested a day’s demonstrating. This he did, she knew, to please her, and to make up for his being away.

The discussions about where, and against whom, they would demonstrate were as agreeable as the expedition itself. Of course, in this fascistic stage of Britain’s history, there could not be any lack of something to protest about; but it happened that the coming weekend would be rich in choice. The Defence Secretary was to speak in Liverpool, the Prime Minister in Milchester, and a certain fascistic American professor in London. His “line”—that the differences between human beings were genetically, not culturally determined—incensed, as was to be expected, the Women’s Movement, and Faye became hysterical at the mention of his name. On the Friday evening, they sat around, after a good supper of Alice’s soup and pizza, and talked about the next day.

The kitchen was mellow, alive. The jug on the little stool held tulips and lilacs. Reggie and Mary had contributed two bottles of red wine, about which Reggie—
naturally
—talked knowledgeably.

Although tomorrow it would be May, they seemed enclosed by a steady cold rain, and that made this scene, this company, even pleasanter. So Alice thought, smiling and grateful, although her heart ached. Her poor heart seemed to live a life of its own these days, refusing to be brought to heel by what she thought. But to linger there all evening, with good friends, was agreeable. For, since the party which had made them one, many of the stresses seemed to have gone.

Even Philip, who would be working all weekend and could not demonstrate with them, contributed useful thoughts. For instance, that the Greenpeace demo would have been his choice: it was only because of the efforts of Greenpeace that the government had had to admit the extent of the radioactive pollution; otherwise it would certainly have gone on lying about it. Reggie and Mary, bound tomorrow for Cumberland, liked this: what they felt had been said. For they—they could not prevent it from showing that they felt this—believed that demonstrating on specific issues, such as the spoiling of a coastline, was more effective than a general protest, like “shouting and screaming at Maggie Thatcher.”