Doris Lessing

And that was that. Philip's sister said a hurried good-bye. Her eyes were red. Her husband only nodded from a distance. The four drove back. The van stood again outside number 43, having made the journey once and returned. "We had no idea we had so much stuff," called Mary gaily, standing in the back of the van, her arms loaded with a carton of china bought by Reggie in a house sale.

"Well, we did," said Bert, loud and jolly and false, and the antagonism that was the truth of what they felt for each other-Mary and Reggie for them, they for Mary and Reggie - was on the surface, and they all knew it, and their hostile faces showed it. Briefly. The smiles and good will set in again.

"Whew," said Bert, as the good-byes were being said. "I'm for a bath and a kip. That's done me in."

"I'm for a bath," said Faye daintily, looking at Roberta, who would scrub her back and dry her afterwards.

"Well, good-bye, all you lot," cried Reggie, cried Mary, jump- ing into the front of the van with many smiles and waves, and they drove off, leaving behind the reassuring picture of the group waving to them from the garden.

Of course they had paid, before leaving, the exact amount they owed, down to the last greasy pe

And then, almost hysterical with suppressed laughter, the others raced into the kitchen, for tea, for sandwiches. It was one o'clock. Just the right time. Precisely and accurately correct.

Everything was going so well. Had gone well, events slotting into place, luck almost ostentatiously on their side: that the Council should have decided to bury Philip this morning; that Mary and Reggie should have chosen today for moving - the comrades could not have wished for better. And then the car: at the other squat, someone had mentioned - she could not have known how fortuitously - that the man in the next house had gone on holiday with his family, and that the car, an Escort, had been standing outside the house for a week, with another week to go. "He's asking for it," she had remarked. Of course the car was locked, but to Jasper - it was one of his talents - this was no obstacle.

Late last night, after coming back from Diva and the Indian restaurant, Bert and Jasper and Jocelin had slipped out of 43, and had gone by Underground back to the other squat. Not inside it: they did not want to involve any more people in this enterprise. Of course, they took the chance that their friends might be coming back from somewhere and see them. But three of them were away; they had said they would be. To open the car, start it, and drive off had taken Jasper and Bert a minute. They drove around Pimlico and Victoria, but did not find anything they liked the look of. They needed a safe place where they could fit in the explosives. They were watching the level of petrol: less than half a tank, and they did not want to have to go into a petrol station. At last, farther away from "the scene of the crime" than they wanted, they found a street of semidetached houses, and one of them was being modernised and rebuilt; at any rate, there were "For Sale" notices, and builders' equipment. In front of each house was a garden, crammed with shrubs, and a shallow drive, not much more than a place to park. The three discussed this place while they drove around and about the streets. It wasn't ideal, but they hadn't seen anything better. The house that was the twin of the one they had in mind was presumably occupied, and although it was by then three in the morning, as usual there was this problem of insomniacs and night owls. Not to mention patrolling policemen. But it would soon be getting light.... Jocelin remarked that it was a pity they couldn't wait until winter: a long dark night was just what they needed. They even suffered a low moment, thinking that the whole enterprise was misconceived, or at least being too hastily executed. Everything was so improvised! But it was precisely this quality that seemed to be aiding them - and which appealed to them, adding to their secret, rising excitement, making them want to laugh for no particular reason, and to make jokes, the sillier the better.

In the end this mood of theirs triumphed, and they drove back into the street, and turned into the little "drive" in front of the empty house. Jocelin needed about twenty minutes to insert the explosives into the car. Jasper ran to one end of the street, Bert to the other, to keep watch for the police. Jocelin was in fact concealed by shrubs from the street, if not from the higher windows of the occupied house. But its windows continued dark; she could not see anyone up there. She inserted the four devices, neatly, precisely, in their allotted places. She was listening for any signal from Bert and Jasper, but none came. She felt, as she worked, a good-natured contempt for these careless citizens, who could be so easily tricked, fooled.

At the end of twenty minutes, Jasper and Bert appeared again; she had not heard them come, though they were breathing heavily from ru

They had then gone into an all-night cafe and eaten a meal together, though prudence should have said no: they were a noisy, noticeable group. "To hell with it," had said Jocelin, and "Fuck that," had said Bert.

They had come home in full daylight, at about five. No, Mary and Reggie were not yet up, which was the one thing they had been afraid of; luck stayed with them, they could not do wrong!

All this Alice learned now, while they ate her soup and some good wholemeal toast, because she had not woken until eight, and by then Mary and Reggie were up, and in the kitchen.

She felt as if she were not really a participant in this great enterprise, not considered a partner. Yet she could not say this, or even suggest it, for there was nothing specific she could take hold of to complain about. But as the six sat around that table, telling the story of the past night, or early morning, she noticed they scarcely looked at her. They were giving one another attention exactly in accordance with the roles each played: Faye and Jasper, Jocelin and Bert. Then Roberta, who was nearly as much on the outside as she, Alice, was.

Alice heard that it was Jasper who was going to drive the car into position. This did frighten her. He was not a good driver, tending to panic in an emergency. She had been taking it for granted, for some reason, that she would drive the car. She was a good driver, modest and skilful. At the least she wanted to say, "No, not Jasper, he shouldn't do it; why not Faye? why not Roberta?" Both of them were good drivers. But her situation on the periphery of events seemed to bar her from this.

Everything had been decided, it seemed, that morning, while Mary and Reggie were out of the house fetching their van and she was at the funeral.

Jasper would drive the car. Faye would be with him because - so it seemed to Alice - she had demanded it as her right. Jocelin would go down with them now, to where the car was parked in the side street, and set the devices to go off at a time that would be chosen then, when she did it. For they were not to know exactly how long it would take them to get there, nor yet the state of the traffic. A quarter to five, they thought.