Doris Lessing

Roberta, convinced that Alice was not going to listen, sat silent. She drank tea noisily, and Alice felt herself wince.

There was something coarse and common about Roberta, Alice was thinking, too disturbed and riled up to censor her thoughts. She hadn't washed yet, even though water was ru

Alice shut her eyes, retreated inside herself to a place she had discovered long years ago - she did not know when, but she had been a small child. Inside here she was safe, and the world could crash and roar and scream as much as it liked. She heard herself say, and it was in her dreamy, abstracted voice: "Well, I suppose Faye will die of it one of these days. She has tried to commit suicide, hasn't she?"

Silence. She opened her eyes to see Roberta in tears.

"Yes, but not since I..."

"All those bracelets," murmured Alice. "Scars under bracelets."

"She's got one tiny scar," pleaded Roberta. "On her left wrist."

Alice had shut her eyes again, and was sipping tea, feeling that her nerves would soon begin to stand up to life once more. She said, "One of these days I'll tell you about my mother's unhappy childhood. She had a mad mum, and a peculiar dad. 'Peculiar' is the word. If I told you!" She had not meant to mention her mother. "Oh, never mind about her," she said. She began to laugh. It was a healthy, even jolly laugh, appreciative of the vagaries and richnesses of life. "On the other hand, my father - now, that was a different kettle of fish. When he was a child he was happy the whole day long, so he says, the happiest time in his life. But do we believe him? Well, I am inclined to, yes. He is so bloody thick and stupid and awful that he wouldn't have noticed it if he was unhappy. They could have battered him as much as they liked, and he wouldn't even have noticed."

She opened her eyes. Roberta was examining her with a small shrewd smile. Against her will, Alice smiled in response.

"Well," said Alice, "that's that, as far as I am concerned. Have you got any brandy? Anything like that?"

"How about a joint?"

"No, doesn't do anything for me. I don't like it."

Roberta went off and came back with a bottle of whisky. The two sat drinking in the kitchen, at either end of the big wooden table. When Philip came staggering in under the heavy panes of glass, ready to start work, he refused a drink, saying he felt sick. He went upstairs, back to his sleeping bag. What he was really saying was that Alice should be working along with him, not sitting there wasting time.

Roberta, having drunk a lot, went up to Faye, and there was silence overhead.

Alice decided to have a nap. In the hall was lying an envelope she thought was junk mail. She picked it up to throw it away, saw it was from the Electricity Board, felt herself go cold and sick; decided to give herself time to recover before opening it. She went to the kitchen. By hand. Mrs. Whitfield had said she came past on her way to and from work. She had dropped this in herself, on her way home. That was kind of her.... Alice briskly opened the letter, which said:

Dear Miss Mellings, I communicated with your father about guaranteeing payment of accounts for No .43 Old Mill Road, in terms of our discussion. His reply was negative, I am sorry to say. Perhaps you would care to drop in and discuss this matter in the course of the next few days?

Yours sincerely, D. Whitfield.

This pleasant, human little letter made Alice feel supported at first; then rage took over. Luckily, there was no one to see her as she exploded inwardly, teeth grinding, eyes bulging, fists held as if knives were in them. She stormed around the kitchen, like a big fly shut in a room on a hot afternoon, banging herself against walls, corners of table and stove, not knowing what she did, and making grunting, whining, snarling noises - which soon she heard. She knew that she was making them and, frightened, sat down at the table, perfectly still, containing what she felt. Absolute quiet after such violence, for some minutes. Then she whirled into movement, out of the kitchen and up the stairs, to knock sharply on Philip's door. Stirrings, movements, but no reply, and she called, "Philip, it's me, Alice."

She went in as he said, "Come in," and saw him scrambling up out of his sleeping bag and into his overalls. "Oh, sorry," said she, dismissing his unimportant embarrassment and starting in at once.

"Philip, will you guarantee our electricity bill?" As he stared, and did not understand: "You know, the bill for this house? My mother won't, my father won't, bloody bloody Theresa and bloody bloody Anthony won't...."

He was standing in front of her, the late-afternoon light strong and yellow behind him, a little dark figure in a stiff awkward posture. She could not see his face and went to the side of the room, so that he turned toward her, and she saw him confronting her, small, pale, but obstinate. She knew she would fail, seeing that look, but said sharply, "You have a business, you have a letterhead, you could guarantee the account."

"Alice, how can I? I can't pay that money, you know I can't." Talking as though he would have to pay, thought Alice, enraged again. But had he heard her joke that the first payment would be the last?

She said, bossy, "Oh, Philip, don't be silly. You wouldn't have to, would you? It's just to keep the electricity on."

He said, trying to sound humorous, "Well, Alice, but perhaps I would have to?"

"No, of course not!"

He was - she saw - ready to laugh with her, but she could not.

"What can I do?" she was demanding. "I don't know what to do!"

"I don't think I believe that, Alice," he said, really laughing now, but nicely.

In a normal voice, she said, "Philip, we have to have a guarantor. You are the only one, don't you see?"

He held his own, this Petrouchka, this elf, with, "Alice, no. For one thing, that address on the letterhead is the place I was in before Felicity - it's been pulled down, demolished. It isn't even there."

Now they stared at each other with identical appalled expressions, as if the floorboards were giving way; for both had been possessed, at the same moment, by a vision of impermanence: houses, buildings, streets, whole areas of streets, blown away, going, gone, an illusion. They sighed together, and, on an impulse, embraced gently, comforting each other.

"The thing is," said Alice, "she doesn't want to disco

"I thought you would," he said, and she nodded and said excitedly, "Yes. It's my brother. I'll tell Electricity he will guarantee, but that he's away on a business trip in... Bahrein, it doesn't matter where. She'll hold it over, I know she will...."

And, making the thumbs-up sign, she ran out, laughing and exultant.

Too late to ring Mrs. Whitfield now, but she would tomorrow, and it would be all right.

No need to tell Mary and Reggie anything about it. Of course, if Mary was any good, she would be prepared to guarantee the account; she was the only one among them in work. But she wouldn't, Alice knew that.

She needed sleep. She was shaky and trembling inside, where her anger lived.