watching him from nearly-closed eyes. His wiry body was full of the energy of expectation. Everything from his gingery hair (which she thought of privately as cinnamon-coloured) to his small deft feet, which she adored, because they were so white and slender, was alive. He seemed to dance his way into his clothes, and his pale face was innocent and sweet, when he stood momentarily at the window, to see what the weather was like for the day’s picketing. There was an exalted dreamy look to him, as he went past the apparently sleeping Alice to the door. He did not look at her.
She relaxed, lay on her back, and listened. He knocked next door, and she heard Bert’s reluctant response, and Pat’s prompt, ‘Right, we’re awake.’ Then the knock on Roberta’s and Faye’s door. Philip? Oh, not Philip, she needed him here! But there was no other knock, and then she began worrying: I hope Philip won’t feel left out, despised? A knock on the door of the room immediately below this one; the big room that was Jim’s, though it was really a living-room, and should perhaps be used as such…No, that was not fair. A startled shout from Jim; but she could not decide whether he was pleased to be roused, or not.
The sounds of the house coming to life. She could go down if she wanted, could sit with the cheerful group and send them on their way with smiles, but her mouth was dry and her eyes pricked. For some reason – a dream perhaps? – she wanted to weep, go back to sleep. To give up. She distrusted what she felt; for it had been with her since she could remember: being excluded, left out. Unwanted. And that was silly, because all she had to do was to say she was going too. But how could she, when their fate, the fate of them all, would be decided that morning at the Council, and it was by no means certain the house was theirs. When Mary had gone off saying, ‘I’ll do my best,’ it meant no more than that. Alice brought Bob Hood to life in her mind’s eye, and, staring at the correct, judicious young man, willed him to do what she wanted. ‘Put our case,’ she said to him. ‘Make them let us have it. It’s our house.’ She kept this up for some minutes, while listening to how the others moved about the kitchen. Almost at once, though, they were out of the house. They were going to breakfast in a café. That was silly, raged Alice: wasting all that money! Eating at home was what they would have to learn to do. She would mention it, have it out with them.
Oh, she did feel low and sad.
For some reason she thought of her brother Humphrey, and the familiar incredulous rage took hold of her. How could he be content to play their game? A nice safe little job – aircraft controller, who would have thought anyone would choose to spend his life like that! And her mother had said he had written to announce a child. The first, he had said. Suddenly Alice thought: That means I am an aunt. It had not occurred to her before. Her rage vanished, and she thought, Well, perhaps I’ll go and see the baby. She lay smiling there for some time, in a silent house, though the din from the traffic encompassed it. Then, consciously pulling herself together, with a set look on her face, she rolled out of the sleeping-bag, pulled on her jeans, and went downstairs. On the kitchen table were five unwashed coffee-cups – they had taken time for coffee, so that meant they hadn’t gone to the café; they would have a picnic on the train again; no, don’t think about that. She washed up the cups, thinking, I’ve got to organize something for hot water – it used to come off the gas, but of course the Council workmen stole the boiler. We can’t afford a new one. A second-hand one? Philip will know where and how…today he will fix the windows, if I get the glass. He said he needed another morning for the slates. Seven windows – what is that going to cost, for glass!
She took out the money that was left: less than a hundred pounds. And with everything to be bought, to be paid for…Jasper said he would get her Social Security, but of course, she couldn’t complain, he worked really hard yesterday, getting all that good stuff from the skips. At this moment she saw, on the windowsill, an envelope with ‘Alice’ scribbled on it, and under that ‘Have a nice day!’ And under that ‘Love, Jasper’. Her money was in it. She quickly checked: he had been known to keep half, saying: We must make sacrifices for the sake of the future. But there were four ten-pound notes there.
She sat at the table, soft with love and gratitude. He did love her. He did. And he did these wonderful, sweet things.
She sat relaxed, at the head of the great wooden table. If they wanted to sell it, they could get fifty for it, more. The kitchen was a long room, not very wide. The table stood near a window that had a broad sill. From the table she could see the tree, the place where she and Jim had buried the shit, now a healthy stretch of dark earth, and the fence beyond which was Joan Robbins’s house. It was a tall wood fence, and shrubs showed above it, in bud. A yellow splodge of forsythia. Birds. The cat sneaked up the fence, and opened its mouth in a soundless miaow, looking at her. She opened the window that sparkled in the sun, and the cat came in to the sill, drank some milk and ate scraps, and sat for a while, its experienced eyes on Alice. Then it began licking itself.
It was in poor condition, and should be taken to the vet.
All these things that must be done. Alice knew that she would do none of them, until she heard from Mary. She would sit here, by herself, doing nothing. Funny, she was described as unemployed, she had never had a job, and she was always busy. To sit quietly, just thinking, a treat, that. To be by oneself – nice. Guilt threatened to invade with this thought: it was disloyalty to her friends. She didn’t want to be like her mother who was selfish. She used to nag and bitch to have an afternoon to herself: the children had to lump it. Privacy. That lot made such a thing about privacy; 99 per cent of the world’s population wouldn’t know the word. If they had ever heard it. No, it was better like this, healthy, a group of comrades. Sharing. But at this, worry started to nibble and nag, and she was thinking: That’s why I am so upset this morning. It’s Mary, it’s Reggie. They are simply not like us. They will never really let go and meld with us, they’ll stay a couple. They’ll have private viewpoints about the rest of us. Well then, that was true of Roberta and Faye, a couple; they made it clear they had their own attitudes and opinions. They did not like what was happening now, with the house. And Bert and Pat? No, they did not have a little opinion of their own set against the others; but Pat was only here at all because she actually enjoyed being screwed (the right word for it!). Jim? Philip? She and Jasper? When you got down to it, she and Jasper were the only genuine revolutionaries here. Appalled by this thought, she nevertheless examined it. What about Bert? Jasper approved of him. Jasper’s attachments to men who were like elder brothers had nothing to do with their politics but with their natures; they had always been the same type, easy-going. Kind. That was it. Bert was a good person. But was he a revolutionary? It’s unfair to say that Faye and Roberta are not real revolutionaries just because I don’t like them, thought Alice…where were these thoughts getting her? What was the point? The group, her family, lay in its parts, diminished, criticized out of existence. Alice sat alone, even thinking, Well, if we don’t get the house, we’ll go down to the squat in Brixton.
A sound upstairs, immediately above. Faye and Roberta: they had not gone with the others. Alice listened to how they got themselves awake and up: stirrings, and the slithering sound the sleeping-bags made on the bare boards; a laugh, a real giggle. Silence. Then footsteps and they were coming into the kitchen.
Alice got up to put the saucepan on the heat, and sat down. The two smelled ripe; sweaty and female. They were not going to wash in cold water, not these two!
The two women, smiling at Alice, sat together with their backs to the stove, where they could look out of the window and see the morning’s sun.
Knowing that she was going to have to, Alice made herself tell about last night, about Mary and Reggie. She did not soften it at all. The other two sat side by side, waiting for their coffee, not looking at each other, for which Alice was grateful. She saw appear on their faces the irony that she heard in her own voice.
‘So the CCU has two recruits?’ said Roberta, and burst out laughing.
‘They are good people,’ said Alice reprovingly. But
