“Well, that’s true enough,” said Reggie, but he said it carefully, as though he could have said other things; and Alice thought: He and Mary are going to exchange glances.… They didn’t, but only with an effort so obvious she thought contemptuously: People are so amazing. They exchange glances as if no one can see them, and they don’t know how they give themselves away.… Anyone can read what people are thinking.
Reggie: “The CCU—the Communist Centre Union?”
“Centre, because we wanted to show we were not left deviants or revisionists.”
“Union—two parties joined, two groups?”
“No, a union of viewpoints, you see. No hairsplitting. We didn’t want any of that.”
“And you started the CCU?”
“I was one of them. And Jasper Willis. Have you heard of him?” As Reggie and Mary shook their heads, Alice thought, But you will. “Several of us. It was up in Birmingham. We have a branch there. And a comrade wrote last week to say he had started a branch in Liverpool. He has four new members. And there’s the branch here in London.”
Here Mary and Reggie were finally unable to prevent their eyes from meeting. Alice felt a flush of real contempt, like hatred. She said, “All political parties have to start, don’t they? They start with only a few members. Well, we’ve only been going a year and we have thirty members here in London. Including the comrades in this house.” She resisted the temptation to say: And of course there are some next door.
“And your policy?” asked Reggie, still in the same careful way that means a person is not going to allow a real discussion to start because his opinion has to be kept in reserve.
All right! thought Alice again, you just wait, you’ll hear of the CCU. Anyway, you are going to join, because you want to live here. Opportunist! She was thinking at the same time, We’ll educate you. Raw material is raw material. It’s what you’ll be like in a year that counts. If you haven’t saved up enough to move out before then. Well, at least you two will be in no hurry to see this squat come to an end. She said, “We’ve got a policy statement. I’ll give you one. But we are going to have a proper conference next month and thrash out all the details.”
But they weren’t listening, Alice could see. They were thinking about how soon they could move in.
They asked whether they could bring in some furniture, and offered pots and pans and an electric kettle.
“Gratefully accepted,” said Alice, and so they chatted on until Jasper and Bert came back from next door, and Alice knew that there was no problem at all about these two staying. Not from that quarter, anyway, whatever it might turn out to be; though Roberta and Faye were another thing.
Reggie sat quietly, leaning back in the chair, summing up Jasper, summing up Bert. Alice knew that he warmed to Bert. Well, they were two of a kind. He did not much like Jasper. Oh, she knew that look when people first met Jasper. She remembered how she, too, when she had first seen Jasper all those years ago, had felt some instinctive warning, or shrinking. And look how mistaken she had been.
At eleven, Mary and Reggie went off; they were afraid to miss the last trains back to Muswell Hill and Fulham, where they respectively lived, so far apart.
Philip said he was tired and went to bed.
Jim went into his room, and they heard soft music from his record player, accompanied by his softer drums.
“What’s happened to Faye and Roberta?” asked Alice, and Bert said, “There’s a women’s commune in Paddington, they go there a lot.”
“Why don’t they move in there?”
“They like it here,” said Bert, with a grimace that said, Ask no questions and …
Bert went up to sleep. Jasper and Alice were alone in the kitchen.
“All right,” said Jasper. “I’ll tell you, give me a chance.”
They went up to their room; Jasper had not said she must move out, or that he would; and Alice slid down into the sleeping bag the way a dog slinks, eyes averted, into a favourite place, hoping no one will notice.
They could hear Bert moving about next door. Jasper said, “Bert and Pat are going away for the weekend.” His voice was painful to hear.
“Only for the weekend,” Alice comforted him for the loss of Bert. As for her, her saddened heart told her how much she would miss Pat, even for the weekend. “Where are they going?”
“They didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.”
They lay companionably by their wall, their feet not far from each other. They had not yet found curtains for this room, and the lights from the traffic still chased across the ceiling, and the whole house shook softly with the heavy lorries going north, giving Alice a comforting sense of familiarity, as if they had been living here for months, not days; she seemed to have lived all her life in houses that shook to heavy traffic.
“Would you like to come down to the picket tomorrow?”
“But I really have to be here,” mourned Alice.
“Well, Saturday night we could go and paint up a few slogans.”
She steadied her voice so that it would not betray her surge of delight, of gratitude. “That’d be nice, Jasper.”
“Yes. Get some spray paint.” He turned to the wall. She was not going to hear anything about next door tonight. But tomorrow, tomorrow night … she might. And on Saturday …
She woke when Jasper did, at seven, but lay still, watching him from nearly closed eyes. His wiry body was full of the energy of expectation. Everything from his gingery hair (which she thought of privately as cinnamon-coloured) to his small deft feet, which she adored because they were so white and slender, was alive. He seemed to dance his way into his clothes, and his pale face was innocent and sweet when he stood momentarily at the window, to see what the weather was like for the day’s picketing. There was an exalted, dreamy look to him as he went past the apparently sleeping Alice to the door. He did not look at her.
She relaxed, lay on her back, and listened. He knocked next door, and she heard Bert’s reluctant response, and Pat’s prompt “Right, we’re awake.” Then the knock on Roberta and Faye’s door. Philip? Oh, not Philip, she needed him here! But there was no other knock, and then she began worrying: I hope Philip won’t feel left out, despised? A knock on the door of the room immediately below this one—the big room that was Jim’s, though it was really a living room, and should perhaps be used as such … No, that was not fair. A startled shout from Jim; but she could not decide whether he was pleased to be aroused, or not.
The sounds of the house coming to life. She could go down if she wanted, could sit with the cheerful group and send them on their way with smiles, but her mouth was dry and her eyes pricked. For some reason—a dream, perhaps?—she wanted to weep, go back to sleep. To give up. She distrusted what she felt; for it had been with her since she could remember: being excluded, left out. Unwanted. And that was silly, because all she had to do was to say she was going, too. But how could she, when their fate, the fate of them all, would be decided that morning at the Council, and it was by no means certain the house was theirs. When Mary had gone off saying, “I’ll do my best,” it meant no more than that. Alice brought Bob Hood to life in her mind’s eye and, staring at the correct, judicious young man, willed him to do what she wanted. “Put our case,” she said to him. “Make them let us have it. It’s our house.” She kept this up for some minutes, while listening to how the others moved about the kitchen. Almost at once, though, they were out of the house. They were going to breakfast in a café. That was silly, raged Alice: wasting all that money! Eating at home was what they would have to learn to do. She would mention it, have it out with them.
Oh, she did feel low and sad.
For some reason she thought of her brother, Humphrey, and the familiar incredulous rage took hold of her. How could he be content to play their game? A nice safe little job—aircraft controller, who would have thought anyone would choose to spend his life like that! And her mother had said he had written to announce a child. The first, he had said.
Suddenly Alice thought: That means I am an aunt. It had not occurred to her before. Her rage vanished, and she thought, Well, perhaps I’ll go and see the baby. She lay smiling there for some time, in a silent house, though the din from the traffic encompassed it. Then, consciously pulling herself together, with a set look on her face, she rolled out of the sleeping bag, pulled on her jeans, and went downstairs. On the kitchen table were five unwashed coffee cups—they had taken time for coffee, so that meant they hadn’t gone to the café; they would have a picnic on the train again; no, don’t think about that. She washed up the cups, thinking, I’ve got to organise something for hot water—it used to come off the gas, but of course the Council workmen stole the boiler. We can’t afford a new one. A second-hand one? Philip will know where and how.… Today he will fix the windows, if I get the glass. He said he needed another morning for the slates. Seven windows—what is that going to cost, for glass!
She took out the money that was left: less than a hundred pounds. And with everything to be bought, to be paid for … Jasper had said he would get her unemployment money, but of course she couldn’t complain, he worked really hard yesterday, getting all that good stuff from the skips. At this moment she saw, on the window sill, an envelope with “Alice” scribbled on it, and under that “Have a nice day!” And under that “Love, Jasper.” Her money was in it. She quickly checked: he had been known to keep half, saying, We must make sacrifices for the sake of the future. But there were four ten-pound notes there.
She sat at the table, soft with love and gratitude. He did love her. He did. And he did these wonderful, sweet things.
She sat relaxed, at the head of the great wooden table. If they wanted to sell it, they could get fifty for it, more. The kitchen was a long room, not very wide. The table stood near a window that had a broad sill. From the table she could see the tree, the place where she and Jim had buried the shit, now a healthy stretch of dark earth, and the fence beyond which was Joan Robbins’s house. It was a tall wood fence, and shrubs showed above it, in bud. A yellow splodge of forsythia. Birds. The cat sneaked up the fence, and opened its mouth in a soundless miaow, looking at her. She opened the window, which sparkled in the sun, and the cat came in to the sill, drank some milk and ate scraps, and sat for a while, its experienced eyes on Alice. Then it began licking itself.
It was in poor condition, and should be taken to the vet.
All these things that must be done. Alice knew that she would do none of them until she heard from Mary. She would sit here, by herself, doing nothing. Funny, she was described as unemployed, she had never had a job, and she was always busy. To sit quietly, just thinking, a treat, that. To be by oneself—nice. Guilt threatened to invade with this thought: it was disloyalty to her friends. She didn’t want to be like her mother—selfish. She used to nag and bitch to have an afternoon to herself: the children had to lump it. Privacy. That lot made such a thing about privacy; 99 percent of the world’s population wouldn’t know the word. If they had ever heard it. No, it was better like this, healthy, a group of comrades. Sharing. But at this, worry started to nibble and nag, and she was thinking: That’s why I am so upset this morning. It’s Mary, it’s Reggie. They are simply not one of us. They will never really let go and meld with us, they’ll stay a couple. They’ll have private viewpoints about the rest of us. Well, then, that was true of Roberta and Faye, a couple: they made it clear they had their own attitudes and opinions; they did not like what was happening now, with the house. And Bert and Pat? No, they did not have a little opinion of their own, set against the others; but Pat was only here at all because she actually enjoyed being screwed (the right word for it!). Jim? Philip? She and Jasper?
When you got down to it, she and Jasper were the only genuine revolutionaries here. Appalled by this thought, she nevertheless examined it. What about Bert? Jasper approved of him. Jasper’s attachments to men who were like elder brothers had nothing to do with their politics but with their natures; they had always been the same type. Easygoing. Kind. That was it. Bert was a good person. But was he a revolutionary? It was unfair to say Faye and Roberta are not real revolutionaries just because I don’t like them, thought Alice.… Where were these thoughts getting her? What was the point? The group, her family, lay in its parts, diminished, criticised out of existence. Alice sat alone, even thinking, Well, if we don’t get the house, we’ll go down to the squat in Brixton.
A sound upstairs, immediately above. Faye and Roberta: they had not gone with the others. Alice listened to how they got themselves awake and up: stirrings, and the slithering sound the sleeping bags made on the bare boards; a laugh, a real giggle. Silence. Then footsteps and they were coming into the kitchen.
Alice got up to put the saucepan on the heat, and sat down. The two smelled ripe—sweaty and female. They were not going to wash in cold water, not these two!
The two women, smiling at Alice, sat together with their backs to the stove, where they could look out of the window and see the morning’s sun.
Knowing that she was going to have to, Alice made herself tell about last night, about Mary and Reggie. She did not soften it at all. The other two sat side by side, waiting for their coffee, not looking at each other, for which Alice was greatful. She saw appear on their faces the irony that she heard in her own voice.
“So the CCU has two recruits?” said Roberta, and burst out laughing.
“They are good people,” said Alice reprovingly. But she laughed, too.
Faye did not laugh; little white teeth held a pink lower lip, her shining brown brows frowned, and the whole of her person announced her disapproval. Roberta stopped laughing.
Hey, thought Alice, I’ve seen this before: you’d think it was Roberta who was the strong one—she comes on so butch-motherly, she’s like a hen with one chick—but no, it’s Faye who’s the one, never mind about all her pretty bitchy little ways. And she looked carefully and with respect at Faye, who was about to pronounce. And Roberta waited, too.
“Listen, Alice, now you listen, you listen carefully, for I am about to say my piece.…” And Alice could see it was hard for her to assert herself, that this was why she had so many little tricks and turns, little poutings and hesitations and small wary glances and little smiles at Roberta and at herself, but underneath she was iron, she was formidable. “Once and for all, I do not care about all this domestic bliss, all the house and garden stuff.…” Here she waited, politely, while first Roberta and then Alice—seeing that Roberta did—laughed. “Well, for me it is all pretty classy stuff,” said Faye. “This house would have seemed a palace to me once. I’ve lived in at least a thousand squats, dens, holes, corners, rooms, hovels, and residences, and this is the best yet. And I don’t care.” Here she pettishly, humorously, wagged a finger at Alice. Roberta had her eyes on her love’s face, exactly like an elder sister: Is she going to go too far? Too far, Alice knew, with all this presentation, the manner, the means that enabled Faye to say her piece. Roberta did not want Alice to think that this girl was frivolous or silly.
Well, she certainly did not.
“Any minute now we are going to have hot running water and double glazing, I wouldn’t be surprised. For me this is all a lot of shit, do you hear? Shit!”
Alice got up, poured boiling water into the three mugs that already had coffee powder in them, set the mugs on the table, put the milk bottle and the sugar near Faye. She did this as something of a demonstration and saw that as Faye stretched out her hand for the coffee, which she was going to drink black and bitter, she knew it, and even appreciated it, judging from her quick shrewd little smile. But she was going on, with determination. She had also lost her cockney self, and the voice that went with it.
It was in all-purpose BBC English that she went on, “I don’t care about that, Alice. Don’t you see? If you want to wait on me, then do. If you don’t, don’t. I don’t care, either way.”
Roberta said quickly, protectively, “Faye has had such a terrible life, such an awful shi
tty terrible life.…” And her voice broke and she turned her face away.
“Yes, I did,” said Faye, “but don’t make a thing of it. I don’t.” Roberta shook her head, unable to speak, and put her hand, tentatively, ready to be rejected, on Faye’s arm. Faye said, “If you are going to tell Alice about my ghastly childhood, then tell her, but not when I am here.”
She drank gulps of the bitter coffee, grimaced, reached for a biscuit, took a neat sharp bite out of it, and crunched it up, as if it were a dose of medicine. Another gulp of caffeine. Roberta had her face averted. Alice knew that she was infinitely sorrowful about something; if not Faye’s past, then Faye’s present: her hand, ignored by Faye, had dropped off Faye’s arm and crept back into her own lap, where it lay trembling and pitiful, and her lowered head with its crop of black silvered curls made Alice think of a humbly loving dog’s. Roberta was radiating love and longing. At this moment, at least, Faye did not need Roberta, but Roberta was dying of need for Faye.
Faye probably has times when she wants to be free of Roberta, finds it all too much—yes, that’s it. Well, I bet Roberta never wants to be free of Faye! Oh, God, all this personal stuff, getting in the way of everything all the time. Well, at least Jasper and I have got it all sorted out.
Faye was going on. Christ, listen to her, she could get a job with the BBC, thought Alice. I wonder when she learned to do it so well. And what for?
“I’ve met people like you before, Alice. In the course of my long career. You cannot let things be. You’re always keeping things up and making things work. If there’s a bit of dust in a corner you panic.” Here Roberta let out a gruff laugh, and Alice primly smiled—she was thinking of all those pails. “Oh, laugh. Laugh away.” It seemed she could have ended there, for she hesitated, and the pretty cockney almost reclaimed her, with a pert flirtatious smile. But Faye shook her off, and sat upright in a cold fierce solitude, self-sufficient, so that Roberta’s again solicitous and seeking hand fell away. “I care about just one thing, Alice. And you listen to me, Roberta, you keep forgetting about me, what I am, what I really am like. I want to put an end to this shitty fucking filthy lying cruel hypocritical system. Do you understand? Well, do you, Roberta?”