Doris Lessing

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 ci

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 cafe. 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 a

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.