Doris Lessing

And former lovers were meeting, too: Pat and Bert's interrupted relationship was not the only one. It was nearly three when they reassembled; and, again, Bert, Roberta, and this time Pat had to go shouting up and down the house to break up the many conversations in progress, so that the Congress could go on.

The goose-girl did not come in for the afternoon session - in fact, had disappeared before lunch. It was clear that she had approved of Pat's speech as much as she had disapproved of Jasper's, and Alice mourned secretly over this. Muriel would have felt quite different, Alice was sure, if she could only have heard Jasper speak in his proper place at the end, when he could have exemplified, have summed up, everybody's emotions.

After lunch (though it was nearly teatime), point one of the agenda was discussed: what trends in the current British scene showed the way to the future? The chosen trends were: one, dissatisfaction over unemployment, "which has to be exploited"; two, "the mass disgust of the British people for the government's policy over nuclear armaments"; and, three, "the budding and still-unexpressed rejection of the British people for the Tory policy in Northern Ireland."

After tea, which did not take place until five, ways were discussed in which these three trends could be emphasised and exploited. But they had hardly settled before more people came from various parts of London, who had heard of the Congress and were interested - and had heard, too, of the party afterwards. Comrades arrived from Liverpool and Birmingham who for one reason or another could not come earlier. And a group arrived from number 45 (not, however, Comrade Andrew). There were suddenly sixty people in the room, and it was uncomfortable. Some retreated to the hall, where they sat talking, with much laughter and noise. The Congress was ended early, before seven, and with point two on the agenda not reached. Point two was: "The future of Britain: full socialism."

The evening's party started. Like an explosion. The din was amazing, even before daylight had gone. Gate crashers arrived, making serious political talk impossible. Alice and Jasper and Pat and Bert kept ru

Not until four in the morning did the exhausted comrades crawl into sleeping bags all over the two houses, and no one got up until midday, when it was time for some, at least, to leave for towns in the North. No one got up, that is, except Alice, who was clearing up.

Alice was busy serving soup and sandwiches and tea and coffee all afternoon and evening. A few revellers stayed over Sunday night and left early on Monday.

Pat left then, too. She was weeping. So was Bert.

Alice said irritably, "Oh, for shit's sake, why don't you just give in to it," and then felt she had to apologise. But she did not kiss Pat when she left; said, "Oh, God, I'm so fed up with everything!" and burst into tears. She left the washing up for others to do and went to bed, not caring whether Jasper was near or not.

But he was there when she woke, squatting lightly beside her, a cup of coffee in his hand. He was beaming, like a boy conscious of behaving well.

"Oh, what is it, Jasper?"

"Clever Alice," he said gently. "It was wonderful, what you did."

But she lay straight in her sleeping bag, arms by her side, feet stretched out. She was not thinking of Jasper, or of the Congress, or of the weekend's fun and games. There was an empty place in her, a pit, a grave; she had been dreaming, she knew, of the house, now boarded up, with the "For Sale" notice outside. And she knew that she must be glistening all over with pale, unshed tears.

"Alice," said Jasper, "I want to tell you something."

"I'm listening," she said, severe and remote, and saw him hesitate, wince. He felt snubbed. She should have cared, but could not.

"Bert and I - we are going to the Soviet Union."

Having taken this in, she said, "The Irish comrades won't have you, but the Soviet comrades will?" This was not derisive in the least - only a statement of the position - but she earned a look of hatred. He was on his feet, hovering above her, a furious angel, ready to throw revengeful bolts.

"Look, I don't want any negative and destructive attitudes from you, Alice."

Pause. She neither moved nor spoke.

Indecisive, he squatted down again, ready to win her.

"How are you going so quickly? You can't go just like that to the Soviet Union."

"On Saturday night one of the comrades from Manchester said that he knew of a tourist group going to Moscow, this week. There are some empty places, because some people fell out, with flu. But we can get visas through the tour organiser. We have sent in our passports, and we'll get them by the time we leave."

"Good."

A pause.

"Alice," he began tentatively, and stopped. He had been going to ask her for money, but now felt its uselessness.

She said, "You have taken every fucking pe

He remained there, lightly squatting, one hand on the floorboards, studying her face. Then, as lightly, he got up and went to the door. As he left she said, "If Pat comes back before you two leave, Bert won't go with you." He slammed the door; she did not turn her head to watch him go, but remained still, like a stone or a corpse, no life in her, looking at the window, now framed by the beautiful brocade curtains, green and gold, that had hung in the sitting room of her mother's house.

She slept. In the late afternoon she woke in an empty house, bathed, put on a skirt that had been her mother's, of soft wool that had great pink roses on a soft brown background, and a pink sweater Pat had given her.

She walked straight out of the house and over to 45, where she went in without knocking: the weekend had made the two houses one. Out of the kitchen - a dreary hole, not nice and bright and decorated with flowers, like 43's - came goose-Muriel, who offered strictly rationed postparty smiles.

"If Andrew is here, I want to see him."

To prevent any more coy scratchings at the door, Alice went to it with Muriel, and knocked.

"Come in," she heard, and Alice went in, shutting the door on Muriel.

Comrade Andrew lay, stretched out like a soldier, as Alice had just been doing, on his low bed, but with his arms crossed on his chest.

He swung his legs over and down, sat, made a place for Alice to sit by him.

She did so, at a proper distance. "I have to know some things," she a

"Very well."

But she sat on there, in a droop, listless, and did not continue.

He studied her for a while, openly, not hiding it, then lay down again, but farther over on the narrow bed, near the wall. He pulled her by her arm; and, without resisting, she lay down next to him, stretched out. There were a good six inches between them. He did not touch her.

"Did you know Bert and Jasper are going to Moscow?"

"Yes."

A pause. She was thinking. As she always did: a slow, careful working out of the possibilities latent in everything.