But she knew the right things to say. Now she remarked about the book Pat was reading: ‘He’s a very fine humanist writer.’
Pat let Laughter in the Dark close and sat thoughtfully regarding Alice.
‘Nabokov, a humanist?’ she asked, and Alice saw that there was serious danger of what she dreaded more than anything, literary conversation.
‘Well, I think so,’ Alice insisted, with a modest smile and the air of one who was prepared to defend an unpopular position reached after long thought. ‘He really cares about people.’
Somebody – some comrade, at some time, in some squat or other, had said as a joke, ‘When in doubt classify them as humanists.’
Pat’s steady, interested, thoughtful look was reminding Alice of something. Of someone. Yes, Zoë Devlin. Thus she would regard Alice when the subject of literature came up and Alice had had no alternative but to make a contribution.
Suddenly, Alice remembered something. Zoë Devlin. Yes.
A quarrel, or at least an argument between Dorothy Mellings and Zoë Devlin. Recently. Not long before Alice left.
Alice was concentrating so hard on what she remembered that she slowly sat down, hardly noticing what she did, and forgetting about Pat.
Her mother had wanted Zoë to read some book or other and Zoë had said no, she thought its view of politics was reactionary.
‘How do you know when you haven’t read it?’ Dorothy had asked, laughing.
‘There are lots of books like that, aren’t there,’ Zoë had said. ‘Probably written by the CIA.’
‘Zoë,’ Dorothy had said, no longer laughing, ‘is that you? Is that Zoë Devlin speaking? My good friend, the fearless, the open-minded, the incorruptible Zoë Devlin?’
‘I hope it is,’ said Zoë, laughing.
‘I hope it is, too,’ said Dorothy, not laughing. ‘Do we still have anything in common, do you think?’
‘Oh go on, Dorothy, let up, do. I don’t want to quarrel even if you do.’
‘You are not prepared to quarrel about anything so unimportant as a book? As a view of life?’
Zoë had made a joke of it all. Had soon left. Had she been back to the house again? Of course, she must have, she had been in and out of that house for – since before Alice was born.
Zoë was one of Alice’s ‘aunties’, like Theresa.
Why had Alice not thought of going to her for money? Wait, there was something there, at the back of her mind – what? Yes, there had been this flaming row, terrible, between Dorothy and Zoë. Yes, recently, good Christ, not more than a week or so ago. Only one row? No, more. A lot.
Dorothy had said Zoë was soft-centred, like a cream chocolate.
They had screamed at each other. Zoë had gone running out. She – Alice – had screamed at her mother, ‘You aren’t going to have any friends, if you go on like this.’
Alice was feeling sick. Very. She was going to vomit if she wasn’t careful. She sat, very still, eyes squeezed tight, concentrating on not being sick.
She heard Pat’s voice. ‘Alice. Alice. What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, in a hurried, low voice, still concentrating, ‘it’s all right.’ In a minute or two she opened her eyes and said, normally, and as though nothing at all had happened, ‘I am afraid of the police crashing in suddenly.’ This was what she had come to say.
‘The police? Why, what do you mean?’
‘We’ve got to decide. We have to make a decision. Suppose they come crashing in.’
‘We’ve survived it before.’
‘No, I mean, those pails, all those pails. We daren’t empty them into the system. Not all at once. We daren’t. God knows what the pipes are like down there where we can’t see them. If we empty them one at a time, one a day let’s say, it’ll take for ever. But if we dug a pit…’
‘The neighbours,’ said Pat at once.
‘I’ll talk to the woman next door.’
‘I can’t see Joan Robbins being mad with joy.’
‘But it will be the end of it, won’t it? And they would all be pleased about that.’
‘It would mean you, me and Jim.’
‘Yes, I know. I’ll go across to the Robbins woman. You ask Jim.’
A pause, Pat yawned, wriggled around in her chair, lifted her book, let it drop again, and then said, ‘I suppose so.’
In the next garden, which was wide, divided by a crunching gravel path, Joan Robbins worked on a border with a fork. Under a tree on the other side sat a very old woman, staring at the sky.
Joan Robbins stood up when Alice appeared, looking defensive and got at. But Alice did not give her time for grievance. She said, ‘Mrs Robbins, can we keep the tools for a bit? We want to dig a pit. A big one. For rubbish.’
Joan Robbins, who had withstood the annoyances of this dreadful No. 43 for so long, looked as if she would say no, say she had had enough of it all. Her pleasant face was irritable, and flushed.
But now the old woman under the tree sat up in the chair, leaned forward, staring. Her face was gaunt and purplish, with white woolly hair sticking out around it. She said in a thick, old, unsteady voice, ‘You dirty people.’
‘No,’ said Alice steadily. ‘No, we’re not. We’re cleaning it all up.’
‘Nasty dirty people,’ said the old woman, less certain of herself, having taken in Alice, such a nice girl, standing on the green lawn with daffodils behind her.
Alice said, ‘Your mother?’
‘Sitting tenant. Upstairs flat,’ said Mrs Robbins, not moderating her voice, and Alice understood the situation in a flash. She went over to the old woman, and said, ‘How do you do? I’m Alice Mellings. I’ve just moved in to 43 and we’re fixing the place up, and getting the rubbish out.’
The old woman sank back, her eyes seeming to glaze with the effort of it all.
‘Goodbye,’ said Alice. ‘See you again soon,’ and went back to Mrs Robbins, who asked sullenly, ‘What are you going to bury?’ indicating the ranks and ranks of filled shiny black sacks.
She knew!
Alice said, ‘It’ll get rid of all the smell all at once. We thought, get the pit dug this afternoon, and get rid of everything tonight…Once and for all.’
‘It’s terrible,’ said Mrs Robbins, tearful. ‘This is such a nice street.’
‘By this time tomorrow the rubbish will be all gone. The smell will be gone.’
‘And what about the other house. What about 45? In summer, the flies! It shouldn’t be allowed. The police got them out once but…they are back again.’
She could have said you; and Alice persisted, ‘If we start digging now…’
Joan Robbins said, ‘Well, I suppose if you dig deep enough…’
Alice flew back home. In the room where she had first seen him, Jim was tapping his drums. He at first did not smile, then did, because it was his nature, but said, ‘Yes, and the next thing, they’ll say, Jim, you