Doris Lessing

Jasper and Bert flung themselves in and Alice drove off. As far as they knew, no one had seen them.

They drove back towards the centre of London, and into a pub at Shepherds' Bush. It was about half past twelve. They positioned themselves where they could see the television, and sat drinking and eating. They were ravenous, all of them. There was nothing on the news, and the minute it was over, they left the pub and went home. They were all still hungry, and ready to drop with sleep. They bought a lot more take-away and ate it round the kitchen table with Faye, with Roberta, with Jocelin. There was a feeling of anticlimax. But they did not want to part; they needed one another, and to be together. They began drinking. Jasper and Bert, Alice and Caroline went off for a couple of hours' sleep, at different times, but all felt, when alone in their rooms, a strong pull from the others to come back down. They drank steadily through the evening and then the night, not elated now but, rather, depressed. Not that they confessed it; though Faye was tearful, once or twice.

As soon as the Underground was open, Jasper sprinted off to get the newspapers. He came back with them all, from the Times to the Sun. The kitchen was suddenly flapping with sheets of newsprint, which were turning more and more wildly.

There was nothing there about their exploit! Not a word. They were furious. At last Faye found a little paragraph in the Guardian that said some hooligans had blown up the corner of a street in West Rowan Road, Bilstead.

"Hooligans," said Jocelin, cold and deadly and punishing, her eyes glinting. And she did not say - and there was no need, for it was in all their minds - We'll show them.

And so they went to bed. Saturday morning. Six o'clock.

They slept through the day, and woke with that pleasantly abstracted feeling that comes after going without sleep and then enjoying long, restoring sleep.

They discussed what was to be the scene of their next attempt. Various possibilities, but Jocelin said she needed more time to be sure of her means. Besides, Alice said, Philip would probably be buried on Monday or Tuesday; they should get that over first. She knew, from the silence that followed, from how they did not look at her - at least, not at once - that it had occurred to no one to go to Philip's funeral. She said in the polite, indifferent voice she used at her most hurt, most betrayed, "I am going, if no one else is." Jasper knew that voice, and said that he would go with her. He was pleased and even bashful, like a boy, at the grateful look she gave him. Faye said she loathed funerals, had never been to one. When people were dead, they were dead, she said. Caroline pointed out she had scarcely known Philip. Jocelin agreed.

Somebody going out to buy cigarettes came back with the local Advertiser - the sheets given away on the streets or put through letter boxes or under doors. In it they found this piece:

A bomb exploded at the corner of West Rowan Road early on Friday morning. A cement post was destroyed and another chipped. The blast damaged the brickwork of nearby houses, and blew the windows out of four of them. Mrs. Murray, a widow of 87, said she was sitting by her upstairs window and had seen three youths near the cement post. It was not yet light, and she could not see them properly. She thought they were having a bit of a lark. She went to lie on her bed, still dressed.

"I sleep badly these days," she said. She heard the explosion, and glass flying into her room. "Lucky I wasn't still sitting at the window," she confided to our reporter. Mrs. Murray sustained minor injuries from the glass and was treated for shock.

"Oh, poor old thing," quavered Alice. She did not look at Jocelin, for she knew the look would be reproachful.

"Silly old cow," said Faye. "Pity we didn't do her in properly. We'd have done 'er a favour, we would. These old crones, their life isn't worth living. 'Alf dead with boredom, they are, years before they go."

They decided to laugh, to placate her. Faye was in the grip of one of her violent, reminiscent moods - but provoked by what?

They never knew. She only sat and trembled a little defiantly, not looking at them, not looking even at Roberta, who was sitting rather hunched, her silvered poll lowered, eyes down, suffering for her.

"Well," said Jocelin, "I think I know what to do. I'll get it right this time."

She sounded angry, even bitter. They were all bitter with frustration. A paragraph in the local Advertiser! They felt it was a snub of them, another in a long series of belittlings of what they really were, of their real capacities, that had begun - like Faye's violences - so long ago they could not remember. They were murderous with the need to impose themselves, prove their power.

They went on drinking. Alice was sober, as usual, and apprehensive. It was Saturday, after all. And at eleven o'clock, as she had half expected, there was a loud knocking at the front door. She was up at once, sliding out of her seat, and at the kitchen door before the others had come to. She said to Jasper, "Keep out of sight, d'you hear? Don't you come out, don't...." To Bert, "Keep Jasper here. Don't let him come out." To Jocelin, "Is there anything they can find?" Jocelin ran past her and up the stairs. "It's that little fascist. I knew he'd come back. He's come to pay us back. I knew he would."

The knocking went on. She opened the door, saying crisply, using all her resources to be in command, to be Miss Mellings, "You'll wake everyone in the street."

It was he, the fair, vicious young man, with cold baby eyes, the fluffy moustache. He was gri

Alice had some idea of what was coming, knew that nothing could be done to stop him. But the main thing was that Jasper should not come out, not in the mood he was in - there would be a fight, she knew it.

Behind the policeman stood another. Both had schoolboy sniggers on their faces; neither looked at Alice - a bad sign.

She said, "What do you want?"

"It's what you want," said the little pig, and at this he and his colleague both guffawed, actually holding their hands to their mouths, like stage comedians.

"It's what you fancy," said the second policeman, in a strong Scottish accent.

"A little of what you fancy does you good," said Alice's enemy. Oh, how she loathed him, how she knew him, through and through! Oh, she knew what went on in police cells when he had someone helpless and at his mercy. But it mustn't be Jasper.

To provoke him, to draw his fire, she allowed herself to say in a weak, quavering girlish voice, "Oh, please, please go away...." It was enough. It was just right.

"This is what you like, isn't it?" guffawed the little fascist, and flung, in a strong underarm action, a filled plastic bag into the hall.

"Shit to shit," said the other.

The smell filled the hall, filled the house, as they ran away, laughing.

Of course, it was everywhere, had splashed all over the place.

The main thing was, Jasper had stayed inside.

Stepping delicately, she went to the kitchen door, said, "If I were you I'd stay exactly where you are."

But they did not, appeared in a noisy, raging group, full of imprecations and threats. Jasper would go up to the police station now. He would kill that fascist. He would burn down the police station. He would blow the place up.

Faye was retching into the kitchen sink, aided by Roberta. Jocelin appeared on the landing, stood looking down, like a figure of Judgement or something, thought Alice, sick of them all. She knew who was going to clear up.

"Shut up," she said. "You don't understand. This is good, it isn't bad. He was going to get his own back for being made to look a fool the other day. We are lucky he's done this. He could have come in and smashed everything up, couldn't he? We've all seen that done before!"