“It seems to me we did the responsible and the hygienic thing. Nature will take care of it soon enough.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” said the policeman.
“We won’t have any need to, will we?” said Alice sweetly. “What I came to say was, if you check with the Council, you will have confirmation: number forty-three is now an agreed squat. An agreed short-term tenancy.”
The policewoman reached for a form. Her colleague went back to join his mates. Soon there was a burst of loud scandalised laughter. Then another. The policewoman, diligently filling in her form, tightened her lips; Alice could not make out whether in criticism or not.
“Small things amuse small minds,” said Alice.
The policewoman shot her a look that said it was not for her to say so, even if she, herself, had been thinking it.
Alice smiled at her, woman to woman. “And so,” she said, “that’s it. Number forty-three is now legal, and in order. Any more raids and you’ll be stepping well over the line.”
“That’s for us to say, I think,” said the policewoman, with a tight little smile.
“No,” said Alice. “As it happens, no. I think not. There will certainly be no further complaints from the neighbours.”
“Well, we’ll have to hope not,” and the policewoman retreated to join her own in the back room.
Alice, satisfied, went out, and home, directing herself to pass 45. No one in the garden now. But in the deep shade in the angle of the two hedges she could just make out that a pit had been dug. She could not resist. For the second time that night, she slid silently in at a garden gate. Forty-five looked deserted; all the windows were dark. The pit was about four feet deep. There was a strong sweet earthy smell from the slopes of soil around its edges. The bottom looked very flat—water? She bent to make sure. A case, or carton, something like that, had been placed at the bottom. She swiftly straightened, looked around. Consciously enjoying her condition, the sense of danger, of threat, she thought: They will be watching from those curtains or upstairs—I would be, in their position. What a risky thing to do, though; she turned to examine the strategy of the operation. No, perhaps it was all right. Whereas the digging of their own pit on the other side of the fence could have been observed by the occupants of three houses and by anyone about in Joan Robbins’s house, here two sides were tall fence and hedge, the third the house. Between here and the gate were shrubs and bushes. Joan Robbins’s upper windows were dark. Over the road, set back in its own garden, a house; and certainly anyone could see what they liked from the upstairs windows. Which were still dark; the people had not yet gone upstairs to bed. She had seen what she needed to see. She would have liked to stay, the sweet earthy smells and the impetus of risk firing her blood, but she moved, swift as a shadow, to the front door and knocked, gently. It was opened at once. By Andrew.
“I knew you must be watching,” she said. “But I’ve come to say that I told the police station forty-three is an agreed squat. So they will be quite prepared to accept it when you say you are.”
Her pulse was beating, her heart racing, every cell dancing and alert. She was smiling, she knew; oh, this was the opposite of “her look,” when she felt like this, as if she’d drunk an extra-fine distilled essence of danger, and could have stepped out among the stars or run thirty miles.
She saw the short, powerful figure come out of the dark of the hall, to where she could see his face in the light from the street lamps. It was serious, set in purpose, and the sight of it gave her an agreeable feeling of submission to higher powers.
“I’ve buried something—an emergency,” he said. “It will be gone in a day or two. You understand.”
“Perfectly,” smiled Alice.
He hesitated. Came out farther. She felt powerful hands on her upper arms. Did she smell spirits? Vodka? Whisky.
“I am asking you to keep it to yourself.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“I mean, no one else.” She nodded, thinking that if only one person was to know in 43, nevertheless in this house surely several must?
He said, “I am going to trust you completely, Alice.” He allowed her his brief tight smile. “Because I have to. No one in this house knows but myself. They have all gone out. I took the opportunity to … make use of a very convenient cache. A temporary cache. I was going to fill in another layer of earth, and then put in some rubbish.”
Alice stood smiling, disappointed in him, if not in her own state; she was still floating. She thought that what he had said was likely to be either partly or totally untrue, but it was not her concern. He still gripped her by her upper arms, which, however, were on the point of rejecting this persistent, warning, masculine pressure. He seemed to sense this, for his hands dropped.
“I have to say that I have a different opinion of you than of some of the others from your house. I trust you.”
Alice did not say anything. She simply nodded.
He went indoors, nodding at her, but did not smile.
She was going to have to think it out. Better, sleep on it.
Her elation was going, fast. She thought, “But tomorrow Jasper and I are going out together, and then …” It would be a whole evening of this fine racing thrilling excitement.
But poor Jasper, no, he would not feel like it, probably, if he had spent the night in the cells. What was Enfield Police Station like? She could not remember any reports of it.
From the main road, she saw outside number 43’s gate a slight drooping figure. An odd posture, bent over—it was the girl of this afternoon, and she was going to throw something at the windows of the living room. A stone! Alice thought: Throwing underhand, pathetic; and this scorn refuelled her. Alive and sparkling, she arrived by the girl, who turned pathetically to face her, with an “Oh.”
“Better drop that,” advised Alice, and the girl did so.
In this light she had a washed-out look: colourless hair and face, even lips and eyes. Whose pupils were enormous, Alice could see.
“Where’s your baby?” hectored Alice.
“My husband is there. He’s drunk,” she said, and wailed, then stopped herself. She was trembling.
Alice said, “Why don’t you go to the short-term-housing people? You know, there are people who advise on squats.”
“I did.” She began weeping, a helpless, fast, hiccupping weeping, like a child who has already wept for hours.
“Look,” said Alice, feeling in herself the beginnings of an all-too-familiar weight and drag. “You have to do something for yourself, you know. It’s no good just waiting for people to do something for you. You must find a squat for yourself. Move in. Take it over. Then go to the Council.… Stop it,” she raged, as the girl sobbed on.
The girl subdued her weeping and stood, head bent, before Alice, waiting for her verdict, or sentence.
Oh, God, thought Alice. What’s the use? I know this one inside out! She’s just like Sarah, in Liverpool, and that poor soul Mabel. An official has just to take one look, and know she’ll give in at once.
An official … Why, there was an official here, in this house; there was Mary Williams. Alice stood marvelling at this thought: that only a couple of days ago Mary Williams had seemed to hold her own fate—Alice’s—in her hands; and now Alice had difficulty in even remembering her status. She felt for Mary, in fact, the fine contempt due to someone or to an institution that has given way too easily. But Mary could be appealed to on behalf of this … child. Alice again took in the collapsed look of her, the passivity, and thought: What is the use, she’s one of those who …
It was exasperation that was fuelling her now.
“What is your name?”
The drooping head came up, the drowned eyes presented themselves, shocked, to Alice. “What do you think I’m going to do?” demanded Alice. “Go to the police and tell them you were going to throw a stone through our window?” And suddenly she began to laugh, while the girl watched her, amazed; and took an involunt
ary step back from this lunatic. “I’ve just thought of something. I know someone in the Council who might perhaps—it is only a perhaps …” The girl had come to life, was leaning forward, her trembling hand tight on Alice’s forearm.
“My name is Monica,” she breathed.
“Monica isn’t enough,” said Alice, stopping herself from simply walking away out of impatience. “I have to know your full name, and your address, don’t I?”
The girl dropped her hand and began a dreary groping in her skirts. From a pocket she produced a purse, into which she peered.
“Oh, never mind,” said Alice. “Tell me, I’ll remember.”
The girl said she was Monica Winters, and the hotel—which Alice knew about, all right—was the such-and-such, and her number, 556. This figure brought with it an image of concentrated misery, hundreds of couples with small children, each family in one room, no proper amenities, the squalor of it all. All elation, excitement gone, Alice soberly stood there, appalled.
“I’ll ask this person to write to you,” said Alice. “Meanwhile, if I were you, I’d walk around and have a look at what empty houses you can see. Take a look at them. You know. Nip inside, have a look at the amenities—plumbing and …” She trailed off dismally, knowing that Monica was not capable of flinging up a window in an empty house and climbing in to have a look, and that, very likely, her husband was the same.
“See you,” said Alice, and turned away from the girl and went in, feeling that the 556—at least—young couples with their spotty, frustrated infants had been presented to her by Fate, as her responsibility.
“Oh, God,” she was muttering, as she made herself tea in the empty kitchen. “Oh, God, what shall I do?” She could easily have wept as messily and uselessly as Monica. Jasper was not here!
She toiled up the stairs and saw that a light showed on the landing above. She went up. Under the door of the room taken by Mary and Reggie a light showed. She forgot it was midnight and this was a respectable couple. She knocked. After stirrings and voices came “Come in.”
Alice looked in at a scene of comfort. Furniture, pretty curtains, and a large double bed in which Mary and Reggie lay side by side, reading. They looked at her over their books with identical wary expressions that said, “Thus far and no further!” A wave of incredulous laughter threatened Alice. She beat it down, while she thought, These two, we’ll see nothing of them, they’ll be off.…
She said, “Mary, a girl has just turned up here, she’s desperate; she’s in Shaftwood Hotel, you know.…”
“Not in our borough,” said Mary instantly.
“No, but she’s …”
“I know about Shaftwood,” said Mary.
Reggie was examining his hand, back and front, apparently with interest. Alice knew that it was the situation he was examining; he was not used to this informality, to group living, but he was giving it his consideration.
“Don’t we all? But this girl—her name is Monica—she looks to me as if she’s suicidal, she could do anything.”
Mary said, after a pause, “Alice, I’ll see what there is tomorrow, but you know that there are hundreds, thousands of them.”
“Oh yes, I know,” said Alice, added, “Good night,” and went downstairs thinking, I am being silly. It isn’t as if I don’t know the type. If you did find her a place, she’d muck it all up somehow. Remember Sarah? I had to find her a flat, move her in, go to the Electricity Board, and then her husband.… Monica’s one of those who need a mother, someone who takes her on.… An idea came into Alice’s head of such beauty and apt simplicity that she began laughing quietly to herself.
Now she was in their bedroom, Jasper’s and hers. Alone. His sleeping bag was a dull blue tangle, and she straightened it. She thought: It has been lovely, sharing a room with Jasper. Then she thought: But he’s only here because Bert is just through that wall there. She listened: silence. Pat and Bert were asleep. This thought, of why Jasper consented to let her sleep here, instead of going up to another room or asking her to go, made her mind swirl, as if it—her mind—were nauseated. She sat down on her sleeping bag, stripped off her sweater, her jeans, pulled on an old-fashioned nightdress in scarlet Viyella that had been her mother’s. She felt comfortable and comforted in it.
Again she began to laugh: her mother liked looking after people!
She was inside the sleeping bag. Lights from the traffic fled across the ceiling. She thought with envy of Jasper in his cell. He would be with this mysterious new contact of his.… Well, she would hear about it all tomorrow. He would be here by lunchtime.
Alice slept late. When she went down to the kitchen, eight mugs on the draining board said that someone had washed up; she was the last. On the table a note addressed to her: “We’re off for the weekend. Back Sunday night. Jasper knows.” Pat had signed, “Pat and Bert.”
Philip was working on the electrical wiring of the top floor with the easy-paced, contemplative manner of a workman. Alice, helpfully squatting by him, thought: This one would never make a boss; he’s an employee; he can’t work without somebody holding his hand. Philip was being obliging, feeling that yesterday he had not been. He talked of all that remained to be done, of how he would do it all, bit by bit; said that first of all the attic should be examined, for so much rain soaking in must have affected the beams. Alice said she would go up there with him, but first of all she must quickly ring Electricity. And where was Jim? He could help in the attics. Alice was thinking: Jim’s so big and strong, Philip isn’t; together they’d need half the time. But Philip said he had asked Jim, only that morning. Jim was a moody sort of individual, wasn’t he? He hadn’t liked being asked. In Philip’s opinion there was more to Jim than met the eye. Here Alice and Philip exchanged, with their eyes, feelings about Jim; exactly as people looked, but did not speak, apprehensions over Faye—as if something there was too dangerous for words, or at least volatile, to be set off like a risky electronic device by an injudicious combination of sounds.
“Perhaps I’ll have a chat with him,” said Alice vaguely, and went downstairs to survey her territory before going to the telephone.
Mary, of course, was at work. Reggie? As she wondered, in he came with more cartons of gear. He looked exultant, as befits a man who has conquered territory, but abashed, too, because of all these evidences of concern for the material. He would have preferred, in short, not to have run into Alice. But now said that although he and Mary were already filling a second room with their bits of furniture and stuff, of course they would move it all out at once if that room were needed by anyone to live in.
“There’s the attic,” said Alice. “Or there will be. It has to be cleared out.” She waited for him to offer to help clear it, but that did not occur to him. He went off at once to fetch another load.
Alice thought she would get the business of ringing Electricity over with. She resented having to run out to the telephone, in the middle of this useful busyness, wasting time over something that was just a routine.
But as soon as she heard Mrs. Whitfield’s voice she knew she must pay out more of her time and attention to the situation than she thought. Mrs. Whitfield was, if not hostile, stiff with reproach. She said that in her opinion it would be desirable if Alice came in, as soon as possible. Alice said she would come now, it was only just down the road, in a bright chatty voice that insisted there was no real problem, nothing wrong. And put down the receiver gently, in a way that went with the voice. But she was being attacked by one of her rages. Her father! What had he said? It must have been pretty bad for Mrs. Whitfield to change like this.
She was too angry to run down at once to Electricity, had to calm herself by walking briskly around the streets, postponing thoughts about her father till later. But she would show him, he needn’t think she wouldn’t.
In the anteroom at Electricity she smiled and waved to Mrs. Whitfield: Here I am, a good girl! But Mrs. Whitfield looked away. Four people went in before Alice. What a waste of time.
She sat in front of the official, in the large light office, and knew that Mrs. Whitfield would not cut off the electricity. At least, she did not want to. It was up to Alice. Who began talking about her father. He was rich, he owned a printing firm. Of course he could easily pay the bills if there was need. But he was, Alice admitted, in a bad phase at the moment.
“He’s had a lot of trouble,” breathed Alice, on her face the look of one who compassionately contemplates human misery, absolving it from blame. And at that moment, it was what she felt. “The breakup with my mother … then all kinds of problems … his new wife, she’s nice, she’s a good friend of mine, but she’s not a coper, you know what I mean? He’s got a lot on his back.” She burbled on like this, feeling dismally she was not helping herself, while Mrs. Whitfield sat, eyes lowered, pricking out a pattern with the tip of her ballpoint on the top left-hand corner of Alice’s form.
“Your father,” she remarked at last, “was quite definite about not being prepared to guarantee payment.”
She did not want to look at Alice. Alice was trying to make her raise her eyes, take her in. What could Cedric Mellings have said?
She said, “There are ten of us in the house now. That’s a lot of money coming in every week.”
“Yes, but is some of it going to come this way?” Mrs. Whitfield was too dry to relent, yet. “Aren’t any of you in work?”
“One is.” She added, on an inspiration, “But she is a Council employee. She works in Belstrode Road, and she doesn’t want to give her address as a squat. She couldn’t find a place; she was desperate.”
Mrs. Whitfield sighed, said, “Yes, I know how bad things can be.” But now she raised her eyes and did look differently at Alice, the housemate of a Council official who worked at the main office for this area. She said, “Well, what are we going to do?”
That was it, she had won! Alice could hardly prevent herself from openly exulting.
She said humbly, “I have a brother. He works for Ace Airways. I’ll ask him.” Mrs. Whitfield nodded, accepting the brother. “But he’s in Bahrein at the moment.”