Doris Lessing

Round about four in the afternoon the kitchen was scrubbed, not a smear of dust or grit anywhere. The big table stood where it ought, with its heavy wooden chairs around it, and on it a glass jam jar with some jonquils out of the garden. Only the poor cooker lay on its side, a reminder of disorder. Alice thought that she would get on a train and go down to the others - she had a right to it, she was the veteran of a hundred battles - but sat down for a rest in the sitting room and fell asleep, and woke to find the others noisily crowding in, laughing and talking, elated and full of accomplishment.

Alice, a sleepy creature in the big chair, was humble, even apologetic, as she struggled up to greet them. She felt she had no right to it when food and drink were spread about the floor and she was invited to join.

Then she remembered. She pulled out her thick roll of notes and, laughing, gave £150 to Philip. "On account," she said.

A silence. They stared. Then they laughed, and began hugging her and one another. Even Jasper put his arm around her briefly as he laughed, and seemed to show her off to the others.

"Better not ask where," said Roberta, "but congratulations."

"Honestly gained, I hope," said Faye primly, and they started again, embracing and laughing, but this was as much, Alice knew, out of the exuberant excesses of emotion from the day's energetic confrontations with Authority as because they were pleased with her.

"All the same," said Faye, "we have to come to a group decision," and Roberta said, "Oh, balls, Faye, come off it. It's all right...."

The two women exchanged a look; and Alice knew: they had been discussing it down there, and had disagreed. Bert said briefly, as though it really didn't matter, and had not mattered: "Yes, as far as I am concerned it is all right." Jasper echoed, "Yes, I agree."

Pat said, "Of course it is all right."

Philip could not speak, for he would have wept; he was shining with relief, with happiness. And Jim: well, he was taking it, Alice could see, as a reprieve; she knew that nothing could ever seem, to Jim, more than a temporary good. But he was pleased enough. There was a warm, good feeling in the room. A family...

The good feeling lasted through the meal, and while Alice took them to the kitchen to show them its cleanliness.

"A wonder, she is," sang Faye. "Alice the Wonder, the wondrous Alice..." She was tipsy and exhilarated, and everyone enjoyed looking at her.

Without Alice's asking, Bert and Jasper lifted the cooker upright to stand in its place against the wall.

"I'll get it properly fixed tomorrow," said Philip, contentedly.

They went together up the stairs, reluctant to separate for the night, so much of a group did they feel.

Lying along the wall, in the dark, her feet a yard from Jasper's feet, Alice remarked dreamily, "What have you and Bert decided, then?"

A quick movement from Jasper, which she noted, thinking, I didn't know I was going to say that.

He was lying stiffly, found out; that was how he had experienced what she had said.

"Oh, I don't mind, Jasper," she said, impatient but conciliatory. "But you did discuss it, didn't you?"

After a pause, "Yes, we did."

"Well, it does affect us all."

A pause. Grudgingly, "We thought it mightn't be a bad thing, having other people here. But they have to be CCU. Jim will have to join."

"You mean, Philip and Jim will be a cover."

He said nothing. Silence means consent. She said, "Yes, and of course there'll be more people coming in, and..."

He said fussily, "You aren't to let just anyone come, we can't have just anybody."

"I didn't say, just anybody. But the others needn't ever know we are IRA."

"Precisely," said Jasper.

And then she remarked, in her dreamy voice and to her own surprise, "With the comrades in the other house, I wonder..." She stopped. Interested in what she had said. Respectful of it.

But he had shot up on his elbow and was staring at her in the half-dark, where headlamps from the road moved light across the ceiling, the walls, the floor, so they were both irregularly illumi- nated. He was silent. He did not ask, "How do you know about the other house?," or say, "How dare you spy on me?" - things that had been said often enough in the past, until he had learned that she could do this: know, without being told.

She was thinking fast, listening to what she had said. So, Bert and Jasper had been next door, had they? There are comrades there? Yes, that's it!

She said, "Did you just go there, on the off-chance, or - what happened?"

He replied stiffly, after a pause, "We were contacted. They sent a message."

"To you? To you and Bert?"

From his hesitation she knew that she had been included, but she did not intend to make an issue of it.

"A message came," he said, and lay down.

"And you and Bert and - the comrades there decided we should have more people in, as a cover."

Silence. But she knew he was not asleep. She let a few minutes go by, while she thought. Then she changed the subject, saying, "Quite soon people are going to have to start making a contribution. So far I've paid for everything."

"Where did you get that money?" he asked at once, reminded about it, as she had intended.

She had it ready for him; she leaned over in the dark and handed him some notes.

"How much?" he demanded.

"Fifty."

"How much did you get?"

"Ask no questions," she said, though she would have told him had he asked; but he only said, "That's right, squeeze the last blood out of them."

She said, "Tomorrow I've got to tackle the Council. Will you get my Social Security?"

"Right."

They were both waiting for the sounds of lovemaking from next door, but Bert and Pat must have dropped off. Jasper and Alice had been lying tense; now they relaxed and lay companionably silent, and Alice was thinking: We are together.... This is like a marriage: talking together before going to sleep. I hope he starts telling me what happened today.

She did not want to ask, but she knew that he knew she craved to hear it all. And soon he was kind; he began to talk. She loved him like this. He told her everything, right from the begi

"That was nice," said Alice softly, smiling in the dark.

And so they talked, quietly, Jasper telling everything, for he was good at this, building up word pictures of an event, an occasion. He ought to be a journalist, thought Alice, he is so clever.

She could have talked all night, because of course she had slept a long time. But he fell asleep quite soon; and she was content to lie there, in the quiet, arranging her plans for the next day, which, she knew, would not be easy.

When she woke, Jasper was not there. She ran to the top of the house, and looked into the four rooms where she had left all the windows open. The two rooms where the horrible pails had been were already only rooms in which people would soon be living. But she had not come for that. On two of the ceilings were sodden brown patches, and, having located on the landing the trap door to the attic, she stood on a window sill to reach. She could, just, and felt the trap door lift under her fingers. No problem there!

Down she ran to the kitchen, where there were voices. What she saw made her eyes fill with tears. They were sitting round the table: Bert and Pat, these two close together; Jasper; Jim smiling and happy; and Philip, already working on the cooker, bending over behind it, a cup of coffee on its top. Bert had gone to his friend Philip's girlfriend, Felicity, the Thermos had been filled, he had bought croissants and butter and jam. It was a real meal. She slid into her place at the head of the table, opposite Bert, and said, "If this room had some curtains..." They all laughed.