Doris Lessing

"She's unconscious, Alice," said Philip, still with that look of dislike, hostility. "How can she drink if she's unconscious?"

Alice knelt down, slid her arm under Faye's lolling head, so that she was well propped up, and began trying to pour the liquid into Faye.

"It'll go into her lungs, you are drowning her," said Philip.

And then, miraculously, Faye swallowed.

"Faye," commanded Alice, "Faye, drink, you've got to drink."

Faye seemed to want to shake her head, but swallowed. It was because she was in the habit of taking orders, commands from Roberta. Alice knew that, so she made her voice soft and full and loving like Roberta's and said, "Drink, you must drink."

Slowly, over twenty minutes, Alice got a pint or so of the mixture into Faye.

Then she rested. She was ru

Philip knelt at Faye's feet, watching. His look of disapproval, even of horror, had not abated. It was Alice who horrified him, and she knew and could not care.

"She's not going to die," she said, loudly, for Faye's benefit as well as Philip's.

She said, "You stay here. Make her drink some more, if you can. She must have done it only a minute before we came in. I'm going to telephone Roberta."

Philip took her place, his arm under Faye's head. He reached for the jug full of liquid.

Alice thought, seeing them like that - frail white Faye, frail pale Philip - that they were two of a kind, victims, born to be trampled over and cut down. There was a flash of vindictiveness in this thought, as far as Philip was concerned, for she knew that he still hated her.

She ran next door to Joan Robbins. The house was in darkness, and Alice put her finger on the bell and kept it there. She could hear it shrilling. A window went up above her head, and she heard Joan Robbins's voice, sharp, "What is it? Who is it?"

"Let me in, let me in," cried Alice, her voice like a child's, or like Faye's. "It is Alice," she wept, since Joan Robbins did not at once leave the window. "Alice from next door."

The lights went on in the hall, and Joan Robbins stood there in a flowered dressing gown and bright-red mules, looking angry, puzzled, and afraid.

"I must ring someone - I must - someone's ill," she stammered, and Joan Robbins stood aside.

At the telephone, she fumbled for the books, which Joan took out from a plastic cover and gave to her.

She found "Directory Enquiries," got the number, rang the hospital in Bradford, left a message for Roberta. "Tell her her friend is ill, she must come at once."

Then she started turning the pages over, looking for another number, and it was not until she saw "Samaritans" that she knew what she wanted.

"Don't you want nine-nine-nine?" asked Joan Robbins curiously. Alice shook her head and stood, eyes shut, breathing irregularly, as if she might faint, and Joan padded off to her kitchen to make her a nice cup of tea.

Alice rang the Samaritans. A pleasant, steady voice spoke. Alice did not hear the words, only the tone. She stood silent, listening. She was going to have to say something, or this voice would stop, go away.

She said, "I want your advice, that's all, your advice."

"What's the trouble?"

She said nothing, but stood listening to the sensible, helpful voice. Which went on, saying that Alice should not ring off, that no one would put any pressure on Alice or on anyone else, no one would report Alice, no matter what she or anyone else had done.

Alice did not speak until she heard Joan Robbins coming back. She said quickly, "Someone has cut her wrists."

There was no time for more. Joan arrived with two mugs of hot tea.

Alice picked up hers at once, knowing how badly she needed it. She stood trying to drink the boiling liquid, listening, listening. "You must get your friend to hospital. As quickly as you can. Call the ambulance. Call nine-nine-nine. It's a matter of life and death. You really must."

"Suppose I don't?" said Alice at last, choosing her words because of Joan, who stood helplessly by, urging her with smiles and looks to drink up.

"Then, if you don't - but you really should - the main thing is to keep your friend awake and get as much liquid into her as possible. Can she drink?"

"Yes," said Alice, and went on listening as if she heard some impossible, far-off music that beguiled and comforted, soothed and offered infinite, unfailing support.

After some minutes, she simply put down the receiver, letting that gentle, sensible voice disappear into the realm of the unreachable. She adjusted her face to her usual bright, good-girl's smile, and said to Joan Robbins, "Thank you. Thanks a lot. That was the Samaritans. Do you know about them?"

"I have heard of them, yes."

"They are very good, really," said Alice, vaguely. "Well, I had better get back. I've left someone coping and I don't think he's much used to people being ill."

Joan followed Alice to the door, with the look of someone who feels that everything has not been said, and who hopes that it might be said even now.

"Thank you," said Alice politely. Then, wildly and gratefully, "Thank you, thank you." And she ran away into the dark. Joan Robbins waited to see her go in at the door of number 43. Then she went back into her kitchen, where she examined the smears of blood on the telephone directories and on the table. She wiped the table and stood thinking for some minutes. Then she decided not to call the police, and went quietly to her bed.

Alice found Philip and Faye exactly as she had left them. But Faye's eyes were open, and she stared, expressionless, at the ceiling.

"I've rung Roberta," said Alice.

Then she searched around for a clean nightie or something, found pyjamas, fetched hot water and cloths. She and Philip stripped Faye. They peeled off her soaked sleeping bag, lifted off blankets, and slid away the foam-rubber mattress, which was filled with blood like a sponge. Then Faye was washed and dressed. Through all this she was limp and meek. But Alice was not deceived. She knew that Faye was waiting for the moment when she and Philip turned their backs, when the strapping would be off those wrists.

Alice's sleeping bag was brought, and more blankets. A hot-water bottle was found in a drawer. It took a long time, but finally Faye was lying clean and tucked into warmth and comfort.

It was well after three.

Alice was thinking: If Roberta was at the hospital, she will have had the message, she will be on her way, she might be here by morning.

Meanwhile, she and Philip must sit up, in case one fell asleep.

No one slept. Faye lay where she had been put, her face like a little ghost's. She did not close her eyes. She did not look at them. She said nothing.

Philip knelt at Faye's feet, and Alice sat at her side. From time to time Alice lifted Faye up and put the cup to her lips and Faye swallowed.

Philip went off to make more of this mixture of salt and sugar and water, and to make tea for himself and Alice. But he did not look at Alice, would not meet her eyes.

He had been so badly shocked by her, by the situation, that he was simply divorcing himself from it.

She thought, defiantly, even mockingly: That defines Philip, then! That's what he's like!

Morning soon came, it being halfway through May. With the prickly, hollow feeling that accompanies exhaustion, Alice listened to the dawn chorus, thinking that she would like to hear it more often; tried to catch Philip's eye, to share this moment of renewal, or promise, with him, but he knelt there, like a little devotee, patient, modest, ready to be useful. And absolutely cut off from her.

At last she said, "If you go and sleep, Philip, I'll make myself stay awake. And then, when I can't stay awake, I'll shout up the stairs." Meaning, I can't leave her, we can't, not for a second. He heard this, understood, nodded, and went out.