Alice was silent. She was thinking, But Jasper and Bert have been discussing things next door, surely? She said, carefully, ‘I understood that a comrade at 45 had indicated that…’
‘What comrade?’ demanded Roberta, coming to life again. ‘We know nothing about that.’
‘Oh,’ said Alice. ‘I thought…’
‘It’s just amateurish rubbish,’ said Faye. ‘Suddenly some unknown authority next door says this and that.’
‘I didn’t realize,’ said Alice. She had nothing to say. She was thinking: Was it Bert who led Jasper into…? Was it Jasper who…? I don’t remember Jasper doing anything like this before…
After some time, while no one said anything, but sat separate, thinking their own thoughts, Alice said, ‘Well, I agree. It is time we all got together and discussed it. Properly.’
‘Including the two new comrades?’ inquired Faye bitter.
‘No, no, just us. Just you and Roberta and Bert and Jasper and Pat and me.’
‘Not Philip and not Jim,’ said Roberta.
‘Then the six of us might go to a café or somewhere for a discussion,’ said Alice.
‘Quite so,’ said Faye. ‘We can’t have a meeting here, too many extraneous elements. Exactly.’
‘Well, perhaps we could borrow a room in 45,’ said Alice.
‘We could go and have a lovely picnic in the park, why not?’ said Faye, fiercely.
‘Why not?’ said Roberta, laughing. It could be seen that she was coming back into the ascendant, sat strong and confident, and sent glances towards Faye which would soon be returned.
Another silence, companionable, no hard feelings.
Alice said, ‘I have to ask this, it has to be raised. Are you two prepared to contribute anything to expenses?’
Faye, as expected, laughed. Roberta said quickly, reprovingly of Faye – which told Alice everything about the arguments that had gone on about this very subject – ‘We are going to pay for food and suchlike. You tell us how it works out.’
‘Very cheaply, with so many of us.’
‘Yes,’ said Faye. ‘That’s fair. But you can leave me out of all the gracious living. I’m not interested. Roberta can do what she likes.’ And she got up, smiled nicely at them both, and went out. Roberta made an instinctive movement to go after her but stayed put. She said, ‘I’ll make a contribution, Alice. I’m not like Faye – I’m not indifferent to my surroundings. You know, she really is,’ she said urgently, smiling, pressing on Alice Faye’s difference, her uniqueness, her preciousness.
‘Yes, I know.’
Roberta gave Alice two ten-pound notes, which she took, with no expression on her face, knowing that that would be it, and thanked Roberta, who fidgeted about, and then, unable to bear it, got up and went after Faye.
It was not yet ten. Mary had said, ring at one. Persuaded by the odours left on the air of the kitchen by Faye, by Roberta, she went up to the bathroom and forced herself into a cold bath where she crouched, unable actually to lower her buttocks into it, scrubbing and lathering. In a glow she dressed in clean clothes, bundled what she had taken off with Jasper’s clothes that needed a wash – determined by sniffing at them; and was on her way out to the launderette when she saw the old woman sitting under the tree in the next garden, all sharp jutting limbs, like a heap of sticks inside a jumble of cardigan and skirt. She urgently gesticulated at Alice, who went out into the street and in again at the neat white gate, smiling. She hoped that neighbours were watching.
‘She’s gone out and left me,’ said the old woman, struggling to sit up from her collapsed position. ‘They don’t care, none of them care.’ While she went on in a hoarse angry voice about the crimes of Joan Robbins, Alice deftly pulled up the old dear, thinking that she weighed no more than her bundle of laundry, and tidied her into a suitable position for taking the air.
Alice listened, smiling, until she had had enough; then she bent down, to shout into possibly dear ears, ‘But she’s very nice to bring you out here to sit in the garden, she doesn’t have to do that, does she?’ Then, as the ancient face seemed to struggle and erupt into expostulation, she said, ‘Never mind, I’ll bring you a nice cup of coffee.’
‘Tea, tea,’ urged the crone.
‘You’ll have to have coffee. We’re short of a teapot. Now you just sit there and wait.’
Alice went back, made sweet coffee, and brought it to the old woman. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Mrs Jackson, Jackson, that’s what I am called.’
‘My name is Alice and I live at 43.’
‘You sent away all those dirty people, good for you,’ said Mrs Jackson, who was already slipping down in her chair again, like a drunken old doll, the mug sliding sideways in her hand.
‘I’ll see you in a few minutes,’ said Alice, and ran off.
The launderette used up three-quarters of an hour. She collected her mug from Mrs Jackson, and then stood listening to Joan Robbins, who came out of her kitchen to tell Alice that she should not believe the old lady, who was wandering; there was not one reason in the world why she, Joan Robbins, should do a thing for her let alone help her down the stairs to the garden and up again and make her cups of coffee and…the complaints went on, while Mrs Jackson gesticulated to both of them that her tale was the right one. This little scene was being witnessed by several people in gardens and from windows and Alice let them have the full benefit of it.
With a wave she went back into her own house.
It was eleven, and a frail apparition wavered on the stairs: Philip, who said, ‘Alice, I don’t feel too good, I don’t feel…’
He arrived precariously beside her, and his face, that of a doleful but embarrassed angel, was presented to her for diagnosis and judgment, in perfect confidence of justice. Which she gave him: ‘I am not surprised, all that work on the roof. Well, forget it today, I’d take it easy.’
‘I would have gone with the others, but…’
‘Go into the sitting-room. Relax. I’ll bring you some coffee.’
She knew this sickness needed only affection, and when Philip was settled in a big chair, she took him coffee and sat with him, thinking: I have nothing better to do.
She had known that at some time she would have to listen to a tale of wrongs: this was the time. Philip had been promised jobs and not given them; had been turned off work without warning; had not been paid for work he had done; and this was told her in the hot aggrieved voice of one who had suffered inexplicable and indeed malevolent bad luck, whereas the reason for it all – that he was as fragile as a puppet – was not mentioned; could never, Alice was sure, be mentioned. ‘And do you know, Alice, he said to me, yes, you be here next Monday and I’ll have a job for you – do you know what that job was? He wanted me to load great cases of paint and stuff on to vans! I’m a builder and decorator, Alice! Well, I did it, I did it for four days and my back went out. I was in hospital for two weeks, and then in physio for a month. When I went to him and said he owed me for the four days he said I was the one in the wrong and…’ Alice listened and smiled, and her heart hurt for him. It seemed to her that a great deal had been asked of her heart that morning, one poor victim after another. Well, never mind, one day life would not be like this; it was capitalism that was so hard and hurtful and did not care about the pain of its victims.
At half-past twelve, when she was just thinking that she could go to the telephone booth,