The Good Terrorist

Jasper came home on the Sunday night. As always after these excursions, he looked ill. He had lost weight, and was more than usually thin. There was a dull spotty look to his creamy skin, his eyes were bloodshot, he had a shredded, weak appearance as though his essential self had been attacked or depleted. He found Alice at once, and she fed him her soup, good bread, and glass after glass of cold milk: milk that she had made certain to have in the refrigerator for him. Nothing was said about the money.

Told about the Congress, he was at first indifferent, and soon asked for Bert, who joked about his appearance, and said his brother could not have given him anything to eat. Jasper joked that his brother wasn't, like Alice, a cook. Although it was evident he should be in bed, he insisted on going with Bert up to the top of the house to talk. Some plan or decision had been maturing in him, even while he pursued the excitements of the homosexual scene. He had to talk about it at once.

When he did decide to go to bed, he went back to the room on the top floor, as Alice had expected.

As for her, she was again sleeping in the room she had shared with Jasper, next to Bert's. For one thing, she knew that if Pat came back, then Jasper would be back, too.

On that Monday, Philip said he had had one serious answer to all his advertising. But he wanted help. The trouble was that time after time he went along to offer his services, and people took one look at him and made excuses. Yet he could do the job perfectly well - as everyone in number 43 could verify. He wanted Bert to go with him as his mate. He could remain silent if he wanted; it was just for the first interview. Once the thing had been agreed, it would not be easy for the clients to turn him, Philip, down, even though he would arrive for work without Bert. This plan caused a lot of good humour around the supper table. Bert agreed, and the plan succeeded. The work in number 43 was deemed finished, even though in the attic were two rotten beams that were spreading their infection through the house. Philip said he would attend to them when he had done this job, for which he would be properly paid. He had refused to start without a good sum down in advance, and would not complete the work unless paid step by step. It was at a new take-away restaurant half a mile away.

The first delegates arrived in midweek, Molly and Helen from the Liverpool branch. They were militants in the Women's Movement, and had written to say they would be prepared to organise a creche. If there were no creche, mothers with small children would not be able to come; it was a question of principle. It must be understood, though, that they would cater only for girl children; that, too, was their principle, successfully applied, apparently, in all the creches they undertook.

Alice had vaguely supposed that there would be children coming with parents; but now, reminded of the thorns and snags of the thickets of principle and, too, of Faye's probable reactions, sent off a second batch of messages and letters in all directions to say that children could not come. Molly and Helen had a good deal to say about this when they arrived; and Alice was relieved when they decided to make the most of their stay in the capital, with its amenities, and went off at once for a day with the pickets in Melstead. They spent another day visiting Faye and Roberta's women's commune, followed by a late-night porno movie with Faye and Roberta, from which they returned laughing, restless with vitality - much better not ask what kind - and very hungry. Offering their two pounds each, they said they would not go shopping with Alice tomorrow, for they needed to buy clothes, but they would help her cook later.

Meanwhile, four comrades had arrived from Birmingham: two men, two women who, as a matter of course, spent a day with the pickets, and a night in jail. Because every penny brought with them had gone on fines, they were unable to contribute to the weekend's expenses. Two more comrades would come on Friday night from Liverpool - they had jobs and could not arrive earlier. There would be six more from Birmingham, also on Friday, also in work. Four people from Halifax thinking of starting a branch would come on Friday.

All the thirty-odd London members would arrive on Saturday morning, and would sleep where they could, in either 43 or 45, on Saturday night.

Alice was evolving her soup. But she needed, and did not want to buy, an extra-large saucepan. Her mother had such a saucepan. Leaving her assistants chopping vegetables and soaking lentils, she took the Underground, and then walked until she found herself standing in front of the "For Sale" sign. She had forgotten her mother had moved. This made her impatient and angry; she was again angry with her mother. The new address was competently filed away in her mind. It brought with it a feeling of shame, of regret. Not a very nice area; it could just - Alice supposed - be called Hampstead, by someone charitable. Soon she was standing outside a four-storey block of flats, with a small dirty garden in front. Surely her mother was not living here? Yes, her name was on a scrap of paper inserted in a slot opposite number 8: Mellings. An entry phone. Alice was in the grip of an inexplicable panic, could not make herself ring it. But an old woman was standing next to her, putting a key in the door. "Excuse me," Alice improvised, "I'm looking for a Mrs. Forrester. Number two."

"You wouldn't find a Mrs. Forrester in number two, love. I'm number two. And I am Mrs. Wood."

"That's funny," said Alice, all bright and chattyr every granny's dream. "Do you know if there's a Mrs. Forrester in this building at all?"

"No, I am sure not, no Forresters here," and the old girl laughed at her joke. Alice laughed. Then, as Alice had prayed she would, she said, "I'm going to put the kettle on. Would you like a cup of tea?" Oh yes, wouldn't she; and in went Alice, pushing the shopping trolley, opening the door into number 2, and going into the little kitchen to help with the disposal of the shopping. Part of her mind was sternly chiding: What do you think you are doing, letting just anybody in? Why, I might be a mugger. Another screamed: My mother can't be living here, she can't. Still another was saying: I'm going to blow this place down, I am, it shouldn't be allowed.

Mrs. Wood's flat, and presumably Dorothy Mellings's flat, contained two not very large rooms, with a kitchen just big enough to take a little table, at which Mrs. Wood and Alice sat close to each other, side by side, staring at a dingy yellow wall, drinking tea and eating two biscuits each. Mrs. Wood was on the pension. Working-class. She had a son in Barnet who visited on Sundays. She did not like her daughter-in-law, God forgive her. She had a grandson, aged five.

Dorothy Mellings had no family to visit her at weekends; this thought brushed the surface of Alice's mind, but was rejected with a gust of emotion: if her mother had decided to live in a place like this, then she must have gone mad!

By the time Alice left, she knew to the last inch of cupboard space what her mother, three floors up, would have; and there certainly would not be room for an enormous aluminium saucepan.

Alice stayed a good hour or more, and left with promises to return. She went to the hardware shop and bought the necessary saucepan, thinking that after all there would be many more congresses and meetings at number 43, and if she had to move, the saucepan would go with her.

But she had received a blow; her heart whimpered and hurt her; she had no real home now. There was no place that knew her, could recognise her and take her in.

Suddenly a whole army of recollections invaded her.

Alice was standing in the middle of the pavement, in the rush hour, embracing an aluminium saucepan large enough to cook a small shrub, staring and apparently in a state of shock.

She was remembering her mother's parties. They had gone on all through her childhood and adolescence. After Alice had departed to university, seldom to return home, they had gone on still; she would hear about them from someone, probably Theresa. "One of your mother's parties, you know - it was marvellous." They always happened the same way. Her mother would remark, with a restless, harassed look, "It's time we had a party; oh no, I can't face it." Then she would start, asking this person and that, for a date a month ahead. Her reluctance towards the party vanished, and she began to shine with energy. She asked Cedric's political colleagues, all the people working in C. Mellings, Printers and Stationers, the innumerable people she knew, who always seemed to be floating in and out of the house anyway. She knew everyone in the street, and they were all invited. She asked a woman met at the grocer's with whom she got into conversation, the man who came to mend the roof, a new au pair from Finland (met on a bus) who must be lonely. By the day of the party, which started at midday, as many as a hundred people were jostling one another all over the house, and half of them were probably still there at midnight, being fed out of Dorothy's saucepan, the size of a hip bath. They were wonderful parties. Everyone said so. Alice said so. "Oh, good," she would cry, "are we going to have another party," and at once began fretting to help. When she was older, after ten or so, she could tell she was being useful, but as a small child she was tolerated (only just, she knew) by this whirlwind of efficiency that was her mother organising a party. Still, she insisted on arranging fruit on a dish, or disposing ashtrays around the house, while her mother reduced her pace to Alice's. At least while "helping," Alice did not feel quite so much as if she were a tiny creature on top of a great wave, frantically and hopelessly signalling to her mother, who stood indifferently on the shore, not noticing her.

When there were parties, when there were people in the house, it seemed Alice became invisible to her mother, and had no place in her own home.

People always stayed the night after the parties: drunks, or those who didn't want to drink and drive, or some who had come from other towns. And then Dorothy would say to Alice, casually, in the full ringing confident voice that went with being so successfully in control of this great gathering of people which had made the whole house - not to mention the street - explode with noise and music for hours and hours, "Alice, you'll just have to give up your room. Can you go down the road and sleep with Anne?" (Alice's best friend during most of her childhood). "No, why not? Oh, go on, Alice, don't be difficult. Then you'd better bring your sleeping bag into our room."

Alice always protested, complained, sulked, made a scene - manifestations that of course scarcely got noticed, so many other things were going on by that stage of the party: women guests in the kitchen washing up, intimate conversations between couples up and down the stairs, the last tipsy dancers circling around the hall. Who could possibly have time to care that Alice was sulking again? Sleeping in her parent's bedroom made her violently emotional, and she could not cope with it.

Four in the morning, and she was in her sleeping bag on a foam-rubber pad along the wall under the window. Cedric Mellings, in his dashing pyjamas, dark red, dark blue, was drunk or tight; at any rate expansive. He loved his wife's parties and was proud of her. He always did the drinks, hired the glasses - coped with all that. Dorothy Mellings wore one of the beautiful things she used for sleeping in, a "Mother Hubbard" perhaps, or a kimono, or a kanga from Kenya wrapped around her in one of innumerable ways. She was tight, not much, but did not need to be, for she was high, she was exalted, she was floating, she could not stop smiling as she slid into bed by Cedric and lay there groaning theatrically, "My God, my feet."

He would put his arm round her, she snuggled up - a glance, a quick reminder from one or the other that Alice was in the room - some sleepy kisses, and they would be off, asleep. But Alice was not asleep. She lay there tense, in the - at last - silent house, in that room which was far from silent because... how much noise two sleeping people did make! It was not just their breathing, deep and unpredictable, coming regularly, then changing on a gulp, or a snort. Cedric tended to snore, but, apparently becoming aware of this himself, would turn over on his side, and thereafter sleep more becomingly. Not silently, though.

That breathing of theirs going on up there in the dark, she could not stop listening, for it seemed that something was being said that she ought to be understanding - but she could not quite reach it, grasp it. The two different breathings, in and out, in and out, went on and went on, had to go on - yet could stop unpredictably for what seemed like minutes; though of course Alice knew that was nonsense, it was only because she was straining her ears with such fury of concentration that time slowed down. While one of them, Dorothy or Cedric, was in lull of breath, the other went on breathing, in and out, keeping life going, and the silent one took a breath and came back into the dialogue that seemed to be going on between them. A conversation, that was what it seemed like to the child listening there, as if her parents talked to each other still, not in words now, but in a language Alice did not know. In and out, in and out, with many little halts and hesitations and changes of pitch, they might have been questioning each other - and then (and Alice waited for it) the stage where the breathing became regular, deep and far off, further away every minute.

Those two people there, the two great powerful people in that large bed which was the other focus of the house (the great table in the kitchen being the first) - why, it was like sleeping in the same room as two creatures that were hardly human, so alien and secretly dangerous did they seem to Alice as a child, and then growing older, at eleven or twelve, and then older still, at fifteen or so. She changed, grew up, or at least grew older, but it seemed that they did not. Nothing changed. It was always the same, that scene after the party, with the two of them, her parents, sliding into that bed of theirs, arms around each other, and then willingly sliding into the sleep which took them so far from Alice that she was always lifting herself up on her elbow to strain her eyes through the dark of the room towards the two mounds, long, heavy, that were her parents. But were not now her parents, had become impersonal, had gone away from her. Could not be reached. Not unless she crept out of her sleeping bag and went to touch one of them awake. At which Cedric, or Dorothy, would indeed come awake, return to being himself, herself; as if impostors, dark and frightening and mysterious, had inhabited those sleeping bodies but had been chased away by Alice's touch. But then Dorothy, or Cedric, would say, sleepy and startled, "What is the matter, Alice? Go to sleep." And they would have already turned away from her, have gone swiftly off into that other country - and the impostors were back, not Dorothy, not Cedric. And then Alice would lie awake, listening to the breathings, the snufflings, thick inarticulate mutterings coming out of that sleep that was going on above her, on the plateau of the bed; and listening to her own blood pumping and swishing through her body, and thinking how gallons of blood were swirling around up there in those two bodies.... She could not sleep; or slept, coming awake with anxiety, and, the moment there was any light behind the silent, listening curtains, which hung there all night, witnesses with her of the absence of Dorothy and Cedric from their bed, their room, their home, their children, she crept out of the room. The house, of course, was in chaos. Everywhere in it people still slept, so that she could hardly dare open a door for fear of what she would see. But in the kitchen it was safe, and there she worked away. She would have liked some help - her brother, Humphrey, for instance. But he was only too happy to accept his parents' invitation to find some other roof to sleep under, and he was seldom there.

After the age of about twelve, Humphrey was less and less at home, staying not just down the street for a night, but with friends all over the country, sometimes for weeks at a time. To Alice it seemed that it was the parties that began this process. Feeling the way she had done (not that they had ever talked about it, but she just knew), like some small sea creature clinging for dear life to a rock but then being battered and bashed by great waves and washed off, he had drifted away. As she had done, later. But separately; they scarcely saw each other. Asked whether she had brothers and sisters, Alice had to remind herself she had a brother.

Alice had not thought of this for years; it was her arms stretched round the great silvery saucepan that brought it all back. And she could have gone on standing there, but someone touched her on the shoulder: a man, a workman, for he was in white overalls and carried a bag of tools - yes, the shop she stood outside was being done over - and he said, "Are you all right, love?"

"Yes," said Alice, "yes." As if to say, "Why ever should you think I wasn't?"

"We were beginning to wonder about you," said he. "You'd taken root, from the look of it!" He laughed, hoping she would; his kindly face - almost certainly a father's, not to mention a husband's - was concerned for her. And she laughed, and went on to number 43, where she carried in her saucepan to applause because of its magnificence and scope and potential, and she smiled as she stood in the kitchen working at her soup while comrades came in and out to sample it, or to make sandwiches, or sit down to eat take-away. She was, quite simply, dissolved in grief because of the loss of her real, her own home, and because of what she had been remembering as she stood there on the pavement. Good Christ, she was thinking as she stood in the kitchen smiling away (everyone's Alice, dependable, helpful, a treat), how could they have done that to me? They took my room away from me, just like that, as if it wasn't my room at all, as if they had only lent it to me - "Alice, you'll just have to give up your room again." It went on for years. What the fucking hell did they think they were doing? Why, every time she had felt that it was not really her home at all, she had no right to a place in it, and at any moment her parents would simply throw her out altogether....

But this is all silly, Alice was thinking, chopping, slicing, mixing, smiling. Most of the people in the world don't have half what I had, and as for their own rooms...

Never mind, the Congress would be such hard work, she would have to stop thinking about it all, thank goodness.

On the Friday night, when everyone had arrived, and there were twenty-four people crowding in, the amazing soup pot fed them all, and was stocked again, at one in the morning, when everyone went to bed, to be ready for next day.

By half past nine next morning, all the London comrades had arrived. They went over the house, exclaiming, as well they might, at its size, its comfort, its amenities. More than one, from less well endowed squats, took baths at once. The stacks of bread in the kitchen were immediately depleted, and Alice quickly ran out for some more. This weekend was going to cost... she did not want to think about it.

Everyone praised, too, the decoration of the sitting room.

Over the mantelpiece was an enormous red flag, with the emblem of the CCU in one corner, embroidered last night by two of the girls from Birmingham. In one corner of the soft living red was a hammer and sickle in gold, and in another a rooster and a rose, in green.

A picture of Lenin was on the wall opposite the flag. Next to Lenin, and several times the size, was a poster of a whale: "Save the Whales!" On other walls were posters saying "Save Britain from Pollution!,"

"Save Our Countryside!,"

"Remember the Women of Greenham Common!," and an IRA poster with a picture of a British soldier hitting a young boy whose arms were tied. On a table in the hall were pamphlets: The Case for the IRA, all the Greenpeace pamphlets, several books about Lenin, a long poem in free verse about Greenham Common, a large variety of pamphlets from the Women's Movement, and on antivivisection, vegetarianism, the use of chemicals in foodstuffs, Cruise, Trident, the dumping of radioactive waste in the sea, the ill-treatment of calves and chickens, and the conditions inside Britain's prisons.

In the familiar, heady, but comforting atmosphere that attends the opening of such events, forty-odd people crowded into the sitting room, seating themselves as they found places, on the floor, or on the window sills. Outside was a fitfully sunny day. Inside, the new heating was too much for some, and windows had to be opened.

Nearly all were under thirty. Alice, she believed, was by far the oldest. Except, that is, for Roberta, who only laughed when asked her age.

It was to Bert and Jasper that everyone looked, though it had been agreed that if Pat did in fact come, she would give the opening address.

Bert had been listening and watching for her for days, as all the residents in number 43 knew.

Now Bert stood at ease by the fireplace, in which was a great jar of daffodils and narcissus, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece to show informality, and said, "This is the first National Congress of the Communist Centre Union. From small seeds grow great trees." Energetic applause. Smiles, pleased laughter. Mary Williams and Reggie were clapping, sober but emphatic. Muriel was in a corner, on the floor. She was here as a spy, Alice reminded herself.

Bert did not laugh. Or smile. His problem with Pat had fined him down, giving him a look of suffering restrained by thought. His easy affability had gone. He nodded briefly at the applause, and went on to say that the CCU proposed to be a nonsectarian party, taking the best from the existing socialist parties, learning from their mistakes and failures. It was determined to base itself on the great traditions of the British working class, working for radical social change towards a revolution "if needs be - and every day teaches us that the class that controls this country of ours is not going to let itself be dislodged without force...." Applause and laughter and jeers. A revolution that would learn from the experience of the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, and, if necessary, the French Revolution, for it was not too much to say that the lessons of the French Revolution had by no means been exhausted. The Congress this weekend had not been called with the aim of formulating a detailed policy, for much more work would have to be done; but to lay down broad principles. And now he, Bert Barnes, would stand down and let a much more accomplished and developed revolutionary, Comrade Willis, take the floor.

Jasper took Bert's place. He did not lean on the mantelpiece, but stood like an arrow, arms down by his sides, his reddish-gold crest of hair glistening, and his eyes fixed on the portrait of Lenin. He began his speech in a voice higher than his usual one, which made it sound to Alice rather strained. But, then, she was used to his platform style, and judged him by other criteria: for instance, she knew he had hardly slept last night, for he had been engaged in passionate and voluble discussion, and going without sleep did not suit him.

His style was to use the familiar phrases of the socialist lexicon, but as though he had only just that moment discovered them, so that when he began, there was often a moment when people showed a tendency to laugh. This stopped at once, because of his desperate, even ecstatic seriousness.

"Comrades! Welcome to you all, comrades. This is for all of us a historic moment. There are very few of us in this room today, but we are a chosen few - chosen by the time we live in, chosen by history itself! - and there is nothing we cannot achieve if we set ourselves to do it." Here, if Bert or anyone else had been speaking, there would have been applause. There was a tense silence. The truth was, the comrades had not expected this note of high seriousness; or, at least, not so early in the proceedings.

"We all know the criminal, the terrible condition of Britain. We all know the fascist-imperialistic government must be forcibly overthrown! There is no other way forward! The forces that will liberate us all are already being forged. We are in the vanguard of these forces, and the responsibility for a glorious future is with us, in our hands."

He went on like this for about twenty minutes. Alice listened to every word, with a sweet, trustful, even beautiful smile; this was the Jasper she loved best, and it was wonderful for her to see how other people responded to him. Even people whom she knew to be critical of him, at such moments admired him. Or, at any rate, recognised that here was something extraordinary and much more than that after all not exactly rare phenomenon, the natural speaker, the orator. No, here was a leader. The real thing.

Alice stood by the door, ready to nip out quickly when it was time to get the tea making started. She was listening, and she was watching the faces: how they responded, how the levels of their attention were being raised by him, by Jasper. This thing that often happened when Jasper began to speak - a nervousness, even a tendency to titter, or perhaps to interject the odd deflating sardonic remark - was because his style was not the common-or-garden British style, a bit homespun, humorous by preference, down to earth. And, of course, Alice in the usual way would be the first to admire this Britishness. It was ours! National characteristics were precious. But Jasper was a special case. He had to impose his own exaltation on them from the start; and today there were no titterers instantly suppressed by others who were on a worthier, higher level. The strained expressions she saw were not because of criticism, far from it; rather, they did not trust themselves to believe some beautiful message or gift that was being offered to them by Jasper, did not feel themselves to be worthy. She had learned long ago that when Jasper spoke people did not clap or shout approval. They remained absolutely silent - after the tricky first few moments, that is; and when he had finished speaking, there would be a silence lasting perhaps as long as fifteen seconds, more. Then there would be applause, sudden, fervent, even violent; people would stand up and shout and cheer. The applause would go on like this, and then suddenly stop.

And this is what happened today. The final applause was as though something had been liberated in them. Some of the women were in tears. Everyone seemed deeply moved. (Not everyone; Alice noted that the goose-girl sat as if part of another audience, not this one, and she didn't applaud at all. Her eyes encountered Alice's but moved on, as if she had not seen Alice, did not want to be called to account for this lapse in real feeling, let alone ordinary good manners.) Then everyone stood up, those not already on their feet, in the need to applaud more passionately, so inspired and fired by Jasper had they been, this emissary from what he had been apostrophising as "the future, our glorious future." They could not, in fact, bear to sit down again, and although the tea break had not been envisaged for another hour, tea was set in motion then and there.

The tea break took a long time, because so many people were busy with conversations. These were not, in fact, about the CCU, or, indeed, about anything Jasper had said; his opening speech was hardly mentioned. When the tea break was ending - Comrades Alice, Roberta, and Bert having to shout above the din with all kinds of dire threats and warnings, all humorous, of course, to get people back to the sitting room - Pat appeared. Quite frankly, she looked terrible. Just like Bert, in fact. She was pale and thin and had lost her glossy-cherry look. Bert and she embraced quickly, in a convulsive and even guilty way; but she would not look at him, and from this Alice saw that Pat would not stay long.

Scheduling Pat, not Jasper, to make the opening speech had been a sensible decision. Her style was very different from Jasper's, being low-key, humorous, informative. She did not know about Jasper's inspirational speech, of course. She told how the CCU had come into being - not in a way that appealed to emotion, but saying it was because of dissatisfactions with the existing socialist parties, which she then analysed. In fact, she was giving a short but rather competent analysis of the existing economic situation in Britain. People were listening attentively, though not at all as they had to Jasper. They were chipping in with facts and figures, they laughed sarcastically at particularly telling points, and there were little ripples of applause. It was a tragedy, Alice knew, that Pat had not arrived in time to make the opening speech, so that Jasper could have made his, as had been planned, at the end of the day. As things were, it was almost as though Jasper's speech had not been made at all; it was all wasted; nothing seemed to have flowed from it.

When Congress broke up early for soup and sandwiches and whatever food the London comrades had brought with them, the talk during the long break, when it was about politics, was prompted by Pat's remarks. But in fact most of the discussion was not about politics at all. People were meeting who had not been together for some time, years perhaps. Like-minded people were encountering one another for the first time in the beginning of friendships or love affairs. News was being demanded of the comrades still in Birmingham, Liverpool, Halifax who had not been able to come.

And former lovers were meeting, too: Pat and Bert's interrupted relationship was not the only one. It was nearly three when they reassembled; and, again, Bert, Roberta, and this time Pat had to go shouting up and down the house to break up the many conversations in progress, so that the Congress could go on.

The goose-girl did not come in for the afternoon session - in fact, had disappeared before lunch. It was clear that she had approved of Pat's speech as much as she had disapproved of Jasper's, and Alice mourned secretly over this. Muriel would have felt quite different, Alice was sure, if she could only have heard Jasper speak in his proper place at the end, when he could have exemplified, have summed up, everybody's emotions.

After lunch (though it was nearly teatime), point one of the agenda was discussed: what trends in the current British scene showed the way to the future? The chosen trends were: one, dissatisfaction over unemployment, "which has to be exploited"; two, "the mass disgust of the British people for the government's policy over nuclear armaments"; and, three, "the budding and still-unexpressed rejection of the British people for the Tory policy in Northern Ireland."

After tea, which did not take place until five, ways were discussed in which these three trends could be emphasised and exploited. But they had hardly settled before more people came from various parts of London, who had heard of the Congress and were interested - and had heard, too, of the party afterwards. Comrades arrived from Liverpool and Birmingham who for one reason or another could not come earlier. And a group arrived from number 45 (not, however, Comrade Andrew). There were suddenly sixty people in the room, and it was uncomfortable. Some retreated to the hall, where they sat talking, with much laughter and noise. The Congress was ended early, before seven, and with point two on the agenda not reached. Point two was: "The future of Britain: full socialism."

The evening's party started. Like an explosion. The din was amazing, even before daylight had gone. Gate crashers arrived, making serious political talk impossible. Alice and Jasper and Pat and Bert kept running out to get more supplies of food and drink. Reggie and Mary contributed a gallon of Devon cider. The police arrived at eleven o'clock, found no evidence of wrongdoing, and were dealt with efficiently and calmly by Alice; among them was the policewoman who by now seemed almost like an old friend. Some neighbours banged on the door at one in the morning and complained they could not sleep. Alice said that they were sorry, but there were seventy people in the house, and with so many there had to be a noise. Perhaps they would like to come in and join the party?

Not until four in the morning did the exhausted comrades crawl into sleeping bags all over the two houses, and no one got up until midday, when it was time for some, at least, to leave for towns in the North. No one got up, that is, except Alice, who was clearing up.

Alice was busy serving soup and sandwiches and tea and coffee all afternoon and evening. A few revellers stayed over Sunday night and left early on Monday.

Pat left then, too. She was weeping. So was Bert.

Alice said irritably, "Oh, for shit's sake, why don't you just give in to it," and then felt she had to apologise. But she did not kiss Pat when she left; said, "Oh, God, I'm so fed up with everything!" and burst into tears. She left the washing up for others to do and went to bed, not caring whether Jasper was near or not.

But he was there when she woke, squatting lightly beside her, a cup of coffee in his hand. He was beaming, like a boy conscious of behaving well.

"Oh, what is it, Jasper?"

"Clever Alice," he said gently. "It was wonderful, what you did."

But she lay straight in her sleeping bag, arms by her side, feet stretched out. She was not thinking of Jasper, or of the Congress, or of the weekend's fun and games. There was an empty place in her, a pit, a grave; she had been dreaming, she knew, of the house, now boarded up, with the "For Sale" notice outside. And she knew that she must be glistening all over with pale, unshed tears.

"Alice," said Jasper, "I want to tell you something."

"I'm listening," she said, severe and remote, and saw him hesitate, wince. He felt snubbed. She should have cared, but could not.

"Bert and I - we are going to the Soviet Union."

Having taken this in, she said, "The Irish comrades won't have you, but the Soviet comrades will?" This was not derisive in the least - only a statement of the position - but she earned a look of hatred. He was on his feet, hovering above her, a furious angel, ready to throw revengeful bolts.

"Look, I don't want any negative and destructive attitudes from you, Alice."

Pause. She neither moved nor spoke.

Indecisive, he squatted down again, ready to win her.

"How are you going so quickly? You can't go just like that to the Soviet Union."

"On Saturday night one of the comrades from Manchester said that he knew of a tourist group going to Moscow, this week. There are some empty places, because some people fell out, with flu. But we can get visas through the tour organiser. We have sent in our passports, and we'll get them by the time we leave."

"Good."

A pause.

"Alice," he began tentatively, and stopped. He had been going to ask her for money, but now felt its uselessness.

She said, "You have taken every fucking penny off me already. I've spent last week's dole money on the party. It's no good trying to get any out of me." Seeing his face beginning to gather into an avid, cruel look, she said, indifferently, "And it is impossible for me to get money out of Dorothy, or out of my father."

He remained there, lightly squatting, one hand on the floorboards, studying her face. Then, as lightly, he got up and went to the door. As he left she said, "If Pat comes back before you two leave, Bert won't go with you." He slammed the door; she did not turn her head to watch him go, but remained still, like a stone or a corpse, no life in her, looking at the window, now framed by the beautiful brocade curtains, green and gold, that had hung in the sitting room of her mother's house.

She slept. In the late afternoon she woke in an empty house, bathed, put on a skirt that had been her mother's, of soft wool that had great pink roses on a soft brown background, and a pink sweater Pat had given her.

She walked straight out of the house and over to 45, where she went in without knocking: the weekend had made the two houses one. Out of the kitchen - a dreary hole, not nice and bright and decorated with flowers, like 43's - came goose-Muriel, who offered strictly rationed postparty smiles.

"If Andrew is here, I want to see him."

To prevent any more coy scratchings at the door, Alice went to it with Muriel, and knocked.

"Come in," she heard, and Alice went in, shutting the door on Muriel.

Comrade Andrew lay, stretched out like a soldier, as Alice had just been doing, on his low bed, but with his arms crossed on his chest.

He swung his legs over and down, sat, made a place for Alice to sit by him.

She did so, at a proper distance. "I have to know some things," she announced.

"Very well."

But she sat on there, in a droop, listless, and did not continue.

He studied her for a while, openly, not hiding it, then lay down again, but farther over on the narrow bed, near the wall. He pulled her by her arm; and, without resisting, she lay down next to him, stretched out. There were a good six inches between them. He did not touch her.

"Did you know Bert and Jasper are going to Moscow?"

"Yes."

A pause. She was thinking. As she always did: a slow, careful working out of the possibilities latent in everything.

"But you didn't suggest it."

"No, I certainly did not."

"No."

The silence prolonged itself. He even wondered whether she had dropped off to sleep - she had seemed so pale and exhausted. He studied her, turning his head a little, then took her right wrist gently with his left hand. She tensed up, then relaxed: this was very different from the killing grip Jasper used.

"Alice, you should really get free of this riffraff."

"Riffraff!" she expostulated, with as much energy as she had left. "These are people."

He said deliberately, "Riffraff."

She drew in her breath; but let it out quietly.

"What did Muriel tell you, then?"

"What do you suppose she told me? You aren't stupid, Alice."

She could feel herself swelling and oozing. Tears ran down her cheeks, she supposed.

"And what about the party," she almost sobbed. "You weren't there."

He remained silent.

Then, gently, he put his arm under her neck, and his left hand on her left upper arm, on the side away from him. He seemed, at the same time, to be lightly supporting her and holding her so as to make sure she would not slide away from him.

"Alice, you must separate yourself from them."

"From Jasper, you mean."

"From Jasper, Bert, and the rest. They are just playing little games."

"They don't think so."

"No, but you do, I believe."

A silence again. She had now at last almost relaxed in his hold, and he reached over with his right hand to lay it on her waist under her breasts. But she wouldn't, couldn't have this, and irritably shook him off.

"They are playing, Alice, like little children with explosives. They are very dangerous people. Dangerous to themselves and to others."

"And you aren't dangerous."

"No."

She gave a little laugh, derisive but admiring.

"No, Alice. If you do things properly and carefully, then only the people get hurt who should get hurt."

She thought about this for a long time, and he did not interrupt her. She said, "Who do you take orders from?"

"I take orders. And I give them."

She thought.

"You were trained in the Soviet Union?"

"Yes."

"You are Russian," she stated.

"Half Russian: I had an Irish father. And, no, I am not going to bore you with my interesting history."

Now a long time went by, about ten minutes. She could easily have been asleep, for she breathed slowly and deeply, but her eyes were open.

He turned slightly towards her, and she instantly clenched up and moved away from him, though still inside his arm.

"You are a very pure, good woman," said Comrade Andrew softly. "I like that in you."

This, it seemed, she could have contemplated for even longer than his previous remarks. What he could see on her face was an abstracted, bemused look due to exhaustion, but there was a de-mureness, too, which almost incited him to further efforts. Almost: something stopped him, perhaps the fact that the demureness was masking a surprisingly violent reaction to the word "pure." Was she, Alice, pure? Was that what she had been all this time without knowing it? Well, perhaps she would have to think about it; if pure was what she was, then she would have to live with it! It was the word! You couldn't use the word "pure" like that in Britain now, it simply wasn't on, it was just silly. If he didn't know that, then... How were they trained, people like Andrew? Perhaps it didn't matter that he was so alien, so different; after all, Britain was full of foreigners. Had it mattered here, in 43 and 45? Well, that depended on what he wanted to achieve. Carrying on like Lenin hadn't upset anyone (except Faye and Roberta), but then, she, Alice, knew only part of the picture. What else was he up to?

At last he broke the silence with, "Alice, I think you should take a holiday."

This so amazed her that she tried to sit up, and he pulled her down.

Now she lay close beside him, and his hot strong body began to send waves of sensation right through her. She was fascinated and disgusted. She kept her eyes straight up at the ceiling, for she knew what she would see if she looked down along his body. She wasn't going to get involved with that, "pure" or not!

She said, "I don't understand why you are always wanting me to do such middle-class things."

"What's middle-class about a holiday? Everyone has to have holidays. Modern life is very bad for everyone." She thought he was teasing her, but a glance showed him to be serious.

"Anyway, where could I go? You despise all the people I know."

"I didn't say all of them. Of course not."

"You don't mind Pat, I seem to remember. Did you know she's left Bert because she doesn't think he is serious, either?"

"Yes, I did know. She is a serious person. Like you, Alice."

"Well, you yourself were wanting Bert to do something or other."

"I have changed my mind about him," he said severely. "That was an error of judgement on my part."

"Well, I don't know," she said drearily at last. She began a small childish snuffling.

"I do. You are tired, Comrade Alice. You work and you work, and most of these people aren't worth it."

At this she let out a real wail, like a child, turned to him, and was held, like a child, against him, while he made consoling, soothing noises. She cried herself out.

"Poor Alice," he said at last. "But it is no good crying. You are going to have to make a decision. Look, these two Errol Flynns are going to Moscow. Why don't you leave before they come back?"

"Errol Flynn!"

"Don't you like Errol Flynn? I have always enjoyed his films."

"There is a great difference in our two cultures," she said, dreamily, speaking into his chest. They were lying in such a way that his hard protrusion was kept away from her, so she didn't mind it.

"That is very true. But surely people like Errol Flynn? Why, otherwise, is he a famous star?"

"Well," she said, "I'm going to think about all this."

"Yes, you must."

"And when are you coming back?"

"How did you know I was going away?"

"Oh, I just thought you might be."

He hesitated. "You are right, as it happens. I shall be away, probably, for some weeks - " He felt her seem to shrink, and he said, "Or perhaps only for a week or two." Another pause. "And, Alice," he said, "you must, you must separate yourself. Believe me, Alice, I'm not without experience of... this type of person. Where they are, there is always trouble."

After some minutes, she sat up, putting aside his hands in a tidy, housewifely way.

She said, "Thank you, Comrade Andrew. I shall think carefully about everything you have said."

"And thank you, Comrade Alice. I am sure you will."

From the door, she turned to give him an awkward smile, and went out, hurrying so as not to have to talk to Muriel, who, though a serious person, was not one Alice was prepared to like, even at the behest of Comrade Andrew.

The few days that followed were the happiest she had known.

Usually, when Jasper was in tow - a phrase other people had used, not she - to a brother figure, like Bert, she saw little of him. But they were asking her to accompany them in everything they did. The cinema, more than once. The National Theatre - Bert said that Shakespeare had many lessons for the struggle, and they must learn to use everv weapon life offered them if they were not to be primitive Marxists. They spent an evening in a pub that Alice knew was chosen carefully by Jasper so as not to show her even a whisker of that other life of his. And not to show Bert, either...

But best of all, though they did not go slogan-painting, which was Alice's favourite, Jasper suggested a day's demonstrating. This he did, she knew, to please her, and to make up for his being away.

The discussions about where, and against whom, they would demonstrate were as agreeable as the expedition itself. Of course, in this fascistic stage of Britain's history, there could not be any lack of something to protest about; but it happened that the coming weekend would be rich in choice. The Defence Secretary was to speak in Liverpool, the Prime Minister in Milchester, and a certain fascistic American professor in London. His "line" - that the differences between human beings were genetically, not culturally determined - incensed, as was to be expected, the Women's Movement, and Faye became hysterical at the mention of his name. On the Friday evening, they sat around, after a good supper of Alice's soup and pizza, and talked about the next day.

The kitchen was mellow, alive. The jug on the little stool held tulips and lilacs. Reggie and Mary had contributed two bottles of red wine, about which Reggie - naturally - talked knowledgeably.

Although tomorrow it would be May, they seemed enclosed by a steady cold rain, and that made this scene, this company, even pleasanter. So Alice thought, smiling and grateful, although her heart ached. Her poor heart seemed to live a life of its own these days, refusing to be brought to heel by what she thought. But to linger there all evening, with good friends, was agreeable. For, since the party which had made them one, many of the stresses seemed to have gone.

Even Philip, who would be working all weekend and could not demonstrate with them, contributed useful thoughts. For instance, that the Greenpeace demo would have been his choice: it was only because of the efforts of Greenpeace that the government had had to admit the extent of the radioactive pollution; otherwise it would certainly have gone on lying about it. Reggie and Mary, bound tomorrow for Cumberland, liked this: what they felt had been said. For they - they could not prevent it from showing that they felt this - believed that demonstrating on specific issues, such as the spoiling of a coastline, was more effective than a general protest, like "shouting and screaming at Maggie Thatcher."

Thus showing what he felt about much of their politics, or at least their methods, Reggie did slightly chill the good humour, which was strong enough to let them tease the Greenpeace couple in a robust chorus of "ohhh"s and groans.

"That's right," said Mary, putting her hand into Reggie's for support; "you aren't going to change her ideas with a few boos. But facts will unlodge them."

"I agree," said Philip. It was an effort for him to do this - challenge the real power holders of the commune (as they were now calling it, not a squat). But he did it. He looked even frailer and smaller than he had before he started this new job. There was a peaky, sharpedged look to him. His eyes were red. But there was a tough, angry little look, too; he was being given a bad time at his work, which, said the Greek, his employer, went too slowly.

Oh yes, all this love and harmony was precarious enough, Alice was thinking as she sat and smiled; just one little thing - puff! - and it would be gone. Meanwhile, she put both hands around her mug of coffee, feeling how its warmth stole through her, and thought: It is like a family, it is.

Faye was saying, her teeth showing as she bared them, in her characteristic cold excitement, "Boos! Screams! I'm going to kill him! What right has he got to come here with all the filthy poison of his about women. We have enough reactionaries of our own!"

Roberta said, "All creeping out of their little holes and showing their true colours. Are you coming with us, Jasper? Bert? Show solidarity with the women?"

A pause. It was to Milchester that Alice longed to go. To Mrs. Thatcher. But here was a lift to Liverpool, and that would cost nothing. Jasper knew she wanted Milchester. So did Bert. She had said she had no money. Which was true; only her Social Security. She was ready to go to Liverpool. She hated the Defence Secretary, and not only because of his policies - there was something about that sly, malevolent Tory face of his....

As for the fascist American professor, she could not see what Roberta and Faye and all the others were on about. She had never been able to see why the word "genetic" should provoke such rage.

She thought they were silly, and even frivolous. If that's how things were, then - they were. One had to build around that.

Once, long ago, during her student days, she had said - earnestly, enquiringly (in a genuine attempt at harmony based on shared views) - that women had breasts "and all that kind of thing," whereas men "were differently equipped," and surely that must be genetic? And if so, then the glands and hormones must be different? Genetically? This had caused such a storm of resentment that the commune had taken days to recover. All this sex business, she thought, was like that! Anything to do with sex! It simply made people unbalanced. Not themselves. One simply had to learn to keep quiet and let them all get on with it! Provided they left her out of it....

Twenty years ago, more, her mother, in her slapdash, friendly, loud, earth-motherish way, had informed Alice that she would shortly menstruate, but she was sure she knew all about that anyway. Of course Alice had known about it from school, but her mother's saying it put it on her agenda, so to speak, made it all real. She was angry, not with Nature, but with her mother. Thereafter, her attitude towards "the curse" - her mother insisted on using this jolly word for it, saying it was accurate - was one of detached efficiency. She was not going to let anything so tedious get in the way of living.

When people probed her about her attitudes towards feminism, sexual politics, it was always this beginning (as she saw it) that she went back to in her mind. "Of course people ought to be equal," she would say, starting already to sound slightly irritated. "That goes without saying." In short, she was always finding herself in a false position.

Now she sat silent, cuddling her rapidly cooling coffee, smiling away, and waiting for the subject of the fascist professor to pass.

It did, and Bert remarked, "I've always liked Milchester."

This seemed to various people thoroughly off the point. Was he drunk, perhaps? He certainly was drinking more than his share. Everyone was humouring him these days, because of Pat. Unconsciously, probably. His appearance, his condition claimed this from them. He was gaunt, morose, even absent-minded; it was as though other thoughts ran parallel to the ones he expressed.

He went on, "It's always been a garrison town."

Incredulous exclamations. Faye said, "God, you're mad, you like that? War, soldiers?"

Bert said, "But it's interesting. Why should towns go on being the same, century after century. Milchester was a garrison town under the Romans."

A silence. Thrown off balance by this note so different from their usual one, they remembered that he had done History at university.

"Countries, for that matter," said Bert. "Britain goes on being the same. Russia goes on being the same. Germany - "

"Any minute now we are going to have national characters, like genetic doom," said Faye, furious.

Bert, recalled to himself by her tone, shrugged, and sat silent.

"We'll go to Milchester," said Jasper, and, catching Alice's glance, smiled, then winked. Proudly: he was proud of being nice to her. This meant he would pay for her, the train fare. Weekend return. Eleven pounds. For the three of them, thirty-three pounds. With that they could buy... But that was silly; people had to have a break. Holidays. Comrade Andrew had said so.

She smiled intimately at Jasper, tears of gratitude imminent, but his eyes shifted away from the pressure of her emotion.

Faye said violently to Roberta, "It looks as if you and I will be on our own!"

"Hardly alone, darling. There'll be a good turnout, I'm sure."

Faye tittered, looking accusingly at her comrades, and then said, "Well, I'm for bed." She went out without saying good night. Roberta smiled at them all, asking toleration for Faye, and went after her. They could hear how Faye said on the stairs that they were all fascists and sexists. They smiled at one another.

Then Reggie and Mary said they were to be picked up tomorrow at five, so as to get to Cumberland in time for the demo, and they wanted an early night.

Philip went, too; he was starting work at eight in the morning.

Jasper, Bert, and Alice sat on discussing tomorrow. Alice saw that Jasper did not want her to throw eggs or fruit at Mrs. Thatcher. He did not say so, but it was obvious. That meant he wanted her here with him, not in prison. This made her wildly happy and grateful. Affectionate impulses kept attacking her arms; they yearned to embrace him. Sisterly kisses inhabited her smiles. He felt this, and, though he was explaining plans to her, addressed himself to Bert. He was not going to let himself be arrested, because he and Bert were so soon off to the Soviet Union. The visas might come any day, but if not in time for this trip, then there was another with vacancies in a week.

Alice was disappointed that she must stay in an orderly part of the crowd, but never mind, another time.

Bert said he was going to bed. At once Jasper got up and said he was, too. Alice understood he did not want to be alone with her, though she knew he was happy enough to have her there when Bert was. She went up into the room she had shared with him, next to Bert's. Bert was of course less noisy without Pat; but he was sleeping badly, as she could hear. And tonight, even with the door tight shut, she could hear that Faye was having one of her turns.

"Faye had one of her turns last night," Roberta might say, having forgotten that the old-fashioned phrase - Victorian? - once used humorously by Faye ("I was 'aving one of me turns, me dear") - was meant to be humorous, so that it had become ordinary speech. At the moments when Roberta used it, she acquired a workaday, bygone look, was like a servant or a lower-class person from a play on the box. Theatrical. When were Faye and Roberta themselves? Only when they had been beaten back, down, by some person or situation, into being the people who used those clumsy blurting labouring heavy voices, which made them seem as if they had been taken over by pitiful strangers who could not be expected to know Faye, know Roberta.