Doris Lessing

"Five people have been killed, and twenty-three injured, some seriously, this afternoon, when a car exploded outside the Kubla Khan hotel, breaking all the windows down that side and damaging several parked cars. This monstrous and callous crime illustrated yet again the total lack of ordinary feeling by the IRA, who had claimed responsibility for the crime."

"Well, what about that," said Jocelin. "What a fucking nerve."

"Absolutely," said Alice, not co

Suppose Bert remembered that she had been gone off that pavement near to him for what must have been a good five minutes?

It seemed he did not.

At about ten o'clock Caroline came back. She was distant, even cold. She said she wouldn't sit down; she was tired and wanted to sleep.

She had heard the news, she said, when it seemed that Jasper was about to start the story.

She made herself coffee, drank it standing, not looking at them.

"Where's Faye?" she asked, and they realised there was no possible way she could know.

Roberta said, "Faye's dead," and began to cry. At first it was quiet, helpless weeping, and then she began to wail and moan.

"Well, that was due," said Bert, briskly.

"Was she in the car, then?" asked Caroline, but she didn't want to sound interested.

Roberta began to howl, a sound like that which Alice seemed to carry about with her, in her chest; a raw, dismal sound.

They checked that the windows were shut. They gave Roberta yet another sedative pill, and Jocelin and Alice assisted her upstairs. She was heavy, almost inert. They had to push her, support her, even order her to move her legs. Alice ran into the room first to make sure the windows were tight shut. Too late, when Roberta was already lying in the cosy heap of flowered stuffs and cushions that she had shared with Faye, did they remember that another room would have been better. They left her there, hoping that sleep would soon silence that awful weeping.

When the two women returned to the kitchen, they joined Bert and Jasper at the table. Caroline sat on the window sill, keeping her distance from them. They were silent, trying not to be affected by that terrible noise just over their heads. Roberta was howling now, and didn't sound human. They could have believed it was an animal up there: a wounded animal, or a dying one.

They were all pale, and tense. Bert's forehead had beads of sweat on it. On Jasper's face was a cold little smile. Caroline seemed ill. Jocelin was the least disturbed of them.

Bert kept sending appealing looks at Caroline, who would not look at him. Suddenly he pulled out of his top pocket, where it had been buttoned in over his heart, a piece of much-folded paper that had words scribbled on it. They all knew what the words were, for Bert had made sure they had the benefit of them, more than once. Now, having looked at each of them, one after another, carefully, to claim their attention - but Caroline still would not respond - he read, "The law should not abolish terror; to promise that would be self-delusion or deception; it should be substantiated and legalised in principle, clearly, without evasion or embellishment. The para- graph on terror should be formulated as widely as possible, since only revolutionary consciousness of justice and revolutionary conscience can determine the conditions of its application in practice." A silence. They were not looking at him. "Lenin," said Bert. "Lenin," he insisted, with confidence.

Alice had been watching him as he read, interested to see if that vision of him she had had outside the hotel would reappear - the leaden-faced corpselike Bert; but, on the contrary, the reading strengthened him, and he smiled as he read, his white teeth showing between healthy red lips.

Jocelin said, "Thanks," as a matter of form, but she was listening to Roberta. She lit a cigarette, and her hands were shaking. Seeing that they noticed this, she muttered, "Reaction, that's all."

Jasper continued to smile. He might have been listening to distant music. Alice knew he was controlling the need to be sick. She thought he looked like a wounded soldier, with his bloodstained bandages.

Then Caroline got off the window sill and said, "What has Russia's Criminal Code got to do with us? Or Lenin, for that matter," she added, daring them. "All amateur rubbish, if you ask me," she said, angrily, and to Alice, "There was a message for you. A man came this afternoon. An American. He said he would be back to see you tomorrow. About four. Gordon O'Leary."

She did not look at Bert, but went out, without saying good-bye.

"Gordon O'Leary again," remarked Jocelin, as if it didn't matter very much.

"Bloody cheek," said Alice mechanically, thinking she was in for a busy day, lunch with Peter Cecil, and then Gordon O'Leary in the afternoon.

No one else said anything.

Then Bert said, "I'm off, too. No point in hanging around."

"Me, too," said Jasper.

"You're leaving?" said Alice, incredulously, to Jasper.

"But we said we were going, the moment it was done," said Jasper, not looking at her.

She thought, Surely he can't be pla

Why, the moment Bert gets another woman, he'll be a spare part again.

She said nothing, and this made Jasper uneasy. Truculent, he asked her, "Well, how about you? Coming?"

"I don't think I'm going to leave," she said, vaguely.

"But you'll have to. Mary said this house was on the agenda again."

"Oh, they are always saying that," said Alice.

"Don't be so bloody stupid," said Jasper. "If not this month, then next, or the month after."

"Well, in the meantime, I'll stay. And someone has to stay with Roberta."

This being unarguable, Jasper was silent for a little, and then, overcome again by Alice's intransigence, he said, amazed, scandalised at her, "But, Alice, we agreed to scatter. It was a unanimous decision." And he even grasped her wrist in the old bony urgent grip, and bent to stare into her face.

That grip told her that she would not be without him for long. She smiled tranquilly up at that face, with its blue eyes in the creamy shallow lakes where the tiny blond freckles were, and said, "Let me know where you are, and we'll keep in touch. Anyway, does anyone know where Roberta's relatives are? She does have some, doesn't she?"

They knew only the hospital where Roberta's mother was dying.

"She won't stay here," said Jocelin, and Alice knew she was right.

Bert went up to get his canvas sack with clothes in it, and some books. Jasper fetched his belongings. He had even less than Bert.

Alice sat listlessly at the table, thinking of this house, this home she had made, deserted, empty, and the Council builders coming in.

Jocelin said she would leave in the morning. Said she thought the bag full of explosive components would be safe enough until they were needed. Laughed. Went upstairs.

Bert and Jasper lingered about the kitchen, at this last moment not wanting to leave. Not wanting to leave her, or the comfort she had made for them all? She did not choose to think about that. She remarked that she thought Roberta was quietening down.

And certainly the howling from overhead was less. It stopped. The house was silent.

Jasper bent quickly, and darted a kiss onto Alice's cheek, as in a game of "last touch."

"See you," he said, and went out, not looking to see if Bert was following. It wasn't easy for him to leave her, thought Alice gratefully.

Alice was alone in the kitchen.

She listened to the news again. Well, they certainly were getting enough coverage; they had made their mark, all right.