The Good Terrorist

She woke when Jasper did, at seven, but lay still, 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 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 aroused, 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 cafe. 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 cafe; 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 organise 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 had said he would get her unemployment money, 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 window sill, 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, which 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 - 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 percent 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 one of 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. Easygoing. Kind. That was it. Bert was a good person. But was he a revolutionary? It was unfair to say 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, criticised 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 1G3 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 greatful. 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 she laughed, too.

Faye did not laugh; little white teeth held a pink lower lip, her shining brown brows frowned, and the whole of her person announced her disapproval. Roberta stopped laughing.

Hey, thought Alice, I've seen this before: you'd think it was Roberta who was the strong one - she comes on so butch-motherly, she's like a hen with one chick - but no, it's Faye who's the one, never mind about all her pretty bitchy little ways. And she looked carefully and with respect at Faye, who was about to pronounce. And Roberta waited, too.

"Listen, Alice, now you listen, you listen carefully, for I am about to say my piece...." And Alice could see it was hard for her to assert herself, that this was why she had so many little tricks and turns, little poutings and hesitations and small wary glances and little smiles at Roberta and at herself, but underneath she was iron, she was formidable. "Once and for all, I do not care about all this domestic bliss, all the house and garden stuff...." Here she waited, politely, while first Roberta and then Alice - seeing that Roberta did - laughed. "Well, for me it is all pretty classy stuff," said Faye. "This house would have seemed a palace to me once. I've lived in at least a thousand squats, dens, holes, corners, rooms, hovels, and residences, and this is the best yet. And I don't care." Here she pettishly, humorously, wagged a finger at Alice. Roberta had her eyes on her love's face, exactly like an elder sister: Is she going to go too far? Too far, Alice knew, with all this presentation, the manner, the means that enabled Faye to say her piece. Roberta did not want Alice to think that this girl was frivolous or silly.

Well, she certainly did not.

"Any minute now we are going to have hot running water and double glazing, I wouldn't be surprised. For me this is all a lot of shit, do you hear? Shit!"

Alice got up, poured boiling water into the three mugs that already had coffee powder in them, set the mugs on the table, put the milk bottle and the sugar near Faye. She did this as something of a demonstration and saw that as Faye stretched out her hand for the coffee, which she was going to drink black and bitter, she knew it, and even appreciated it, judging from her quick shrewd little smile. But she was going on, with determination. She had also lost her cockney self, and the voice that went with it.

It was in all-purpose BBC English that she went on, "I don't care about that, Alice. Don't you see? If you want to wait on me, then do. If you don't, don't. I don't care, either way."

Roberta said quickly, protectively, "Faye has had such a terrible life, such an awful shitty terrible life...." And her voice broke and she turned her face away.

"Yes, I did," said Faye, "but don't make a thing of it. I don't." Roberta shook her head, unable to speak, and put her hand, tentatively, ready to be rejected, on Faye's arm. Faye said, "If you are going to tell Alice about my ghastly childhood, then tell her, but not when I am here."

She drank gulps of the bitter coffee, grimaced, reached for a biscuit, took a neat sharp bite out of it, and crunched it up, as if it were a dose of medicine. Another gulp of caffeine. Roberta had her face averted. Alice knew that she was infinitely sorrowful about something; if not Faye's past, then Faye's present: her hand, ignored by Faye, had dropped off Faye's arm and crept back into her own lap, where it lay trembling and pitiful, and her lowered head with its crop of black silvered curls made Alice think of a humbly loving dog's. Roberta was radiating love and longing. At this moment, at least, Faye did not need Roberta, but Roberta was dying of need for Faye.

Faye probably has times when she wants to be free of Roberta, finds it all too much - yes, that's it. Well, I bet Roberta never wants to be free of Faye! Oh, God, all this personal stuff, getting in the way of everything all the time. Well, at least Jasper and I have got it all sorted out.

Faye was going on. Christ, listen to her, she could get a job with the BBC, thought Alice. I wonder when she learned to do it so well. And what for?

"I've met people like you before, Alice. In the course of my long career. You cannot let things be. You're always keeping things up and making things work. If there's a bit of dust in a corner you panic." Here Roberta let out a gruff laugh, and Alice primly smiled - she was thinking of all those pails. "Oh, laugh. Laugh away." It seemed she could have ended there, for she hesitated, and the pretty cockney almost reclaimed her, with a pert flirtatious smile. But Faye shook her off, and sat upright in a cold fierce solitude, self-sufficient, so that Roberta's again solicitous and seeking hand fell away. "I care about just one thing, Alice. And you listen to me, Roberta, you keep forgetting about me, what I am, what I really am like. I want to put an end to this shitty fucking filthy lying cruel hypocritical system. Do you understand? Well, do you, Roberta?"

She was not at all pretty, or appealing, then, but pale and angry, and her mouth was tight and her eyes hard, and this - how she looked - took sentimentality away from what she said next. "I want to put an end to it all so that children don't have a bad time, the way I did."

Roberta sat there isolated, repudiated, unable to speak.

Alice said, "But, Faye, do you think I'm not a revolutionary? I agree with every word you say."

"I don't know anything about you, Comrade Alice. Except that you are a wonder with the housekeeping. And with the police. I like that. But just before you came, we took a decision, a joint decision. We decided we were going to work with the IRA. Have you forgotten?"

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 next door 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 realise," 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 they all 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?" enquired 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 cafe 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 forty-five," 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 Alice with 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 to 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 laundrette 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." When she went on in a hoarse 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 deaf 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 forty-three."

"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 laundrette used up three-quarters of an hour. She collected her cup 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 judgement, 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 warnings; 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 into 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, she heard someone coming in, and flew to intercept the police, the Council - who this time?

It was Reggie, who, smiling, was depositing cases in the hall. He said that Mary had slipped out from the meeting to telephone him the good news. And she would be over with another load in the lunch hour. The relief of it made Alice dizzy; then she wept. Standing against the wall by the door into the sitting room, she had both hands up to her mouth as if in an extreme of grief, and her tight-shut eyes poured tears.

"Why, Alice," said Reggie, coming to peer into her tragic face, and she had to repel friendly pats, pushes, and an arm around her shoulders.

"Reaction," she muttered, diving off to the lavatory to be sick. When she came out, Philip and Reggie stood side by side, staring at her, ready to smile, and hoping she would allow them to.

And, at last, she smiled, then laughed, and could not stop.

Philip looked after her; and Reggie, embarrassed, sat by.

And she was embarrassed: What's wrong with me? I must be sick too.

But Philip was no longer sick. He went off to measure up the broken windows for new glass, and Reggie climbed the stairs to look over the rooms. Alice stayed in the kitchen.

There Mary came to her with a carton of saucepans, crockery, no and an electric kettle. She sat herself down at the other end of the table. She was flushed and elated. Alice had heard her laughing with Reggie in the same way Faye and Roberta laughed; and, sometimes, Bert and Pat. Two against the world. Intimacy.

Alice asked at once, "What are the conditions?"

"It's only for a year."

Alice smiled, and, on Mary's look, explained, "It's a lifetime."

"But of course they could extend. If they don't decide to knock it down after all."

"They won't knock it down," said Alice confidently.

"Oh, don't be so sure." Now Mary was being huffy on behalf of her other self, the Council.

Alice shrugged. She waited, eyes on Mary, who, however, really did not seem to know why. At last Alice said, "But what has been decided about paying?"

"Oh," said Mary, airily, "peanuts. They haven't fixed the exact sum, but it's nothing, really. A nominal amount."

"Yes," said Alice, patient. "But how. A lump sum for the whole house?"

"Oh no," said Mary, as though this were some unimaginably extortionate suggestion - such is the power of an official decision on the official mind - "Oh no. Benefit will be adjusted individually for everyone in the house. No one's in work here, you said?"

"That isn't the point, Mary," said Alice, hoping that Mary would get the point. But she didn't. Of course not; what in her experience could have prepared her for it?

"Well, I suppose it would be easier if it was a lump sum, and people chipped in. Particularly as it is so small. Enough to cover the rates, not more than ten or fifteen pounds a week. But that is not how it is done with us." Again spoke the official, in the decisive manner of one who knows that what is done must be the best possible way of doing it.

"Are you sure," enquired Alice carefully, after a pause, "that there really is no possibility of changing the decision?"

"Absolutely none," said Mary. What she was in fact saying was: This is such a petty matter that there is no point in wasting a minute over it. m And so unimportant was it to Mary that she began to stroll around the kitchen, examining it, with a happy little smile, as if unwrapping a present.

Meanwhile Alice sat adjusting. Faye and Roberta would not agree, would leave at once. Jim, too. Jasper wouldn't like it - he would demand that both he and Alice should leave. Well, all right, then they would all go. Why not? She had done it often enough! There was that empty house down in Stockwell.... Jasper and she had been talking for months of squatting there. It would suit Faye and Roberta, because their women's commune was somewhere down there. God only knew what other places, refuges, hideouts they used. Alice had the impression there were several.

A pity about this house. And as Alice thought of leaving, sorrow crammed her throat, and she closed her eyes, suffering.

She said, sounding cold and final, because of the stiffness of her throat, "Well, that's it. I'm sorry, but that's it."

"What do you mean?" Mary had whirled round, and stood, a tragedienne, hand at her throat. "I don't know what you mean!" she exclaimed, sounding fussy and hectoring.

"Well, it doesn't matter to you, does it? You and Reggie can stay here by yourselves. You can easily get friends in, I am sure."

Mary collapsed into a chair. From being the happiest girl in the world, she had become a poor small creature, pale and fragile, a suppliant. "I don't understand! What difference does it make? And of course Reggie and I wouldn't stay here by ourselves."

"Why not?"

Mary coloured up, and stammered, "Well, of course... it goes without saying... they can't know I am living here. Bob Hood and the others can't know I am in a squat."

"Oh well, that's it, then," said Alice, vague because she was already thinking of the problems of moving again.

"I don't understand," Mary was demanding. "Tell me, what is the problem."

Alice sighed and said perfunctorily that there were reasons why some of them did not want their presence signposted.

"Why," demanded Mary, "are they criminals?" She had gone bright pink, and she sounded indignant.

Alice could see that this moment had been reached before, with Militant. Methods!

Alice said, sounding sarcastic because of the effort she was making to be patient, "Politics, Mary. Politics, don't you see?" She thought that with Jim it was probably something criminal, but let it pass. Probably something criminal with Faye and Roberta, for that matter. "Don't you see? People collect their Social Security in one borough, but live somewhere else. Sometimes in several other places."

"Oh. Oh, I see."

Mary sat contemplating this perspective: skilled and dangerous revolutionaries on the run, in concealment. But seemed unable to take it in. She said, huffily, "Well, I suppose the decision could be adjusted. I must say, I think it is just as well the Council don't know about this!"

"Oh, you mean you can get the decision changed?" Alice, reprieved, the house restored to her, sat smiling, her eyes full of tears. "Oh, good, that's all right, then."

Mary stared at Alice. Alice, bashful, because of the depth of her emotion, smiled at Mary. This was the moment when Mary, from her repugnance for anything that did not measure up against that invisible yardstick of what was right, suitable, and proper that she shared with Reggie, could have got up, stammered a few stiff, resentful apologies, and left. To tell Bob Hood that the Council had made a mistake, those people in number 43...

But she smiled, and said, "I'll have a word with Bob. I expect it will be all right. So everyone will chip in? I'll get them to send the bills monthly, not quarterly. It will be easier to keep up with the payments." She chattered on for a bit, to restore herself and the authority of the Council, and then remarked that something would have to be done about number 45. There were complaints all the time.

"I'll go next door and see them," said Alice.

Again the official reacted with, "It's not your affair, is it? Why should you?" Seeing that Alice shrugged, apparently indifferent, Mary said quickly, "Yes, perhaps you should...."

She went upstairs, with a look as irritated as Alice's. Both women were thinking that it would not be easy, this combination of people, in the house.

Soon Mary went off with Reggie. He would drop her back at work, and they both would return later with another load. They were bringing in some furniture, too, if no one minded. A bed, for instance.

Alice sat on, alone. Then Philip came to be given the money for the glass, and went off to buy it.

Alice was looking at herself during the last four days, and thinking: Have I been a bit crazy? After all, it is only a house... and what have I done? These two, Reggie and Mary - revolutionaries? They were with Militant? Crazy!

Slowly she recovered. Energy came seeping back. She thought of the others, on the battlefront down at Melstead. They were at work for the cause; and she must be, too! Soon she slipped out of the house, careful not to see whether the old lady was waving at her, and went into the main road, walked along the hedge that separated first their house from the road, and then number 45. She turned into the little street that was the twin of theirs, and then stood where yesterday she had seen Bob Hood stand, looking in that refuse-filled garden.

She walked firmly up the path, prepared to be examined by whoever was there and was interested. She knocked. She waited a goodish time for the door to open. She caught a glimpse of the hall, the twin of theirs, but it was stacked with cartons and cases. There was a single electric bulb. So they did have electricity.

In front of her was a man who impressed her at once as being foreign. It was not anything specific in his looks; it was just something about him. He was a Russian, she knew. This gave her a little frisson of satisfaction. It was power, the idea of it, that was exciting her. The man himself was in no way out of the ordinary, being broad - not fat, though he could easily be - and not tall; in fact not much taller than herself. He had a broad, blunt sort of face, and little shrewd grey eyes. He wore grey twill trousers that looked expensive and new, and a grey bush shirt that was buttoned and neat.

He could have been a soldier.

"I am Alice Mellings. From next door."

He nodded, unsmiling, and said, "Of course. Come in." He led the way through the stacks of cartons into the room that in their house was the sitting room. Here it had the look of an office or a study. A table was set in the bay window; his chair had its back to the window, and that was because, Alice knew, he wanted to know who came in and out of the door; he did not want his back to it.

He sat down in this chair, and nodded to another, opposite it. Alice sat.

She was thinking, impressed: This one, he's the real thing.

He was waiting for her to say something.

The one thing she now knew she could not say was, "Have you been telling Jasper and Bert what to do?," which was what she wanted to know.

She said, "We have just got permission from the Council; we are short-term housing, you know." He nodded. "Well, we thought you should do the same. It makes life much easier, you see. And it means the police leave you alone."

He seemed to relax, sat back, pushed a packet of cigarettes towards her, lit one himself as she shook her head, sat holding a lungful of smoke, which he expelled in a single swift breath, and said, "It's up to the others. I don't live here."

Was that all he was going to say? It seemed so. Well, he had in fact said everything necessary. Alice, confused, hurried on, "There's the rubbish. You'll have to pay the dustmen...." She faltered.

He had his eyes intent on her. She knew that he was seeing everything. It was a detached, cold scrutiny. Not hostile, not unfriendly, surely? She cried, "We've been given a year. That means, once the place is straight, we can give all our attention to" - she censored "the revolution" - "politics."

He seemed not to have heard. To be waiting for more? For her to go? Floundering on, she said, "Of course not everyone in our squat... For instance, Roberta and Faye don't think that... But why should you know about them? I'll explain...."

He cut in, "I know about Roberta and Faye. Tell me, what are those two new ones like?"

She said, giving Reggie and Mary the credit due, "They were once members of Militant, but they didn't like their methods." Here she dared to offer him a smile, hoping he would return it, but he said, "She works for the Council? On what sort of level?"

"She doesn't take decisions."

He nodded. "And what about him? A chemist, I believe?"

"Industrial chemist. He lost his job."

"Where?"

"I didn't ask." She added, "I'll let you know."

He nodded. Sat smoking. Sat straight to the table, both forearms on it, in front of him a sheet of paper on which his eyes seemed to make notes. He was like Lenin!

She thought: His voice. American. Yes, but something funny for an American voice. No, it was not the voice, the accent, but something else, in him.

He didn't say anything. The question, the anxiety that were building up in her surfaced. "Jasper and Bert have gone down to Melstead. They went early."

He nodded. Reached for a neatly folded newspaper and opened it in front of him, turning the pages. "Have you seen today's Times?"

"I don't read the capitalist press."

"I think perhaps that is a pity," he commented after a pause. And pushed across the paper, indicating a paragraph.

Alice felt she could easily start crying again.

She said, "But this is a capitalist newspaper. They're just trying to split the democratic forces, they want to disunite us." She was going to add, "Can't you see that?," but could not bring it out.

He took back the paper and laid it where it had been. Now he was not looking at her.

"Comrade Alice," he said, "there are more efficient ways of doing things, you know."

He stood up. "I've got work to do." She was dismissed. He came out from behind the table and walked with her to the door and back through the hall to the front door.

"Thank you for coming to see me," he said.

She stammered, "Would there be a room in this house we could use for a... discussion. You see, some of us are not sure about... some of the others."

He said, "I'll ask." He hadn't reacted as she had feared he would. Bringing it out had sounded so feeble....

He nodded and, at last, gave her a smile. She went off in a daze. She was telling herself, But he's the real thing, he is.

He had not told her his name.

She walked along the short stretch of main road slowly, because in front of her, in the middle of the pavement, was a girl with a small child in a pushchair. The child looked like a fat plastic parcel with a pale podgy spotty face coming out of the top. He was whining on a high persistent note that set Alice's teeth on edge. The girl looked tired and desperate. She had lank unwashed-looking pale hair. Alice could see from the set angry shoulders that she wanted to hit the child. Alice was waiting to walk faster when she could turn off into her own road, but the girl turned, still in the middle of the pavement. There she stopped, looking at the houses and, in particular, at number 43. Alice went past her and in at her gate. She heard the girl say, "Do you live here? In this house?"

"Yes, I do," said Alice, without turning, in a curt voice. She knew what was coming. She walked on up the path. She heard the wheels of the pushchair crunch after her.

"Excuse me," she heard, and knew from the stubborn little voice that she could not get out of it. She turned sharply, blocking the way to the front door. Now she faced the girl squarely, with a no written all over her. This was not the first time, of course, that she had been in this position. She was feeling: It is unfair that I have to deal with this.

She was a poor thing, this girl. Probably about twenty. Already worn down with everything, and the only energy in her the irritation she was containing because of her grizzling child.

"I heard this house is short-term housing now," she said, and she kept her eyes on Alice's face. They were large, grey, rather beautiful eyes, and Alice did not want the pressure of them. She turned to the door, and opened it.

"Where did you hear that?"

The girl did not answer this. She said, "I'm going mad. I've got to have a place. I've got to find somewhere. I've got to."

Alice went into the hall, ready to shut the door, but found that the girl's foot stopped her. Alice was surprised, for she had not expected such enterprise. But her own determination was made stronger by her feeling that if the girl had that much spirit, then she wasn't in such a bad way after all.

The door stood open. The child was now weeping noisily and wholeheartedly inside his transparent shroud, his wide-open blue eyes splashing tears onto the plastic. The girl confronted Alice, who could see she was trembling with anger.

"I've got as much right here as you have," she said. "If there's room I'm coming here. And you have got room, haven't you? Look at the size of this place, just look at it!" She stared around the large hall, with its glowing carpet that gave an air of discreet luxury to the place, and to the various doors that opened off it to rooms, rooms, a treasury of rooms. And then she gazed at the wide stairs that went up to another floor. More doors, more space. Alice, in an agony, looked with her.

"I'm in one of those hotels, do you know about them? Well, why don't you, everyone ought to. The Council shoved us there, my husband and me and Bobby. One room. We've been there seven months." Alice could hear in her tone, which was incredulous at the awfulness of it, what those seven months had been like. "It's owned by some filthy foreigners. Disgusting, why should they have a hotel and tell us what to do? We are not allowed to cook. Can you imagine, with a baby? One room. The floor is so filthy I can't put him to crawl." This information was handed out to Alice in a flat, trembling voice, and the child steadily and noisily wept.

"You can't come here," said Alice. "It's not suitable. For one thing there's no heating. There isn't even hot water."

"Hot water," said the girl, shaking with rage. "Hot water! We haven't had hot water for three days, and the heating's been off. You ring up the Council and complain, and they say they are looking into it. I want some space. Some room. I can heat water in a pan to wash him. You've got a stove, haven't you? I can't even give him proper food. Only rubbish out of packets."

Alice did not answer. She was thinking, Well, why not? What right have I got to say no? And as she thought this, she heard a sound from upstairs, and turned to see Faye, standing on the landing, looking down. There was something about her that held Alice's attention; some deadliness of purpose, or of mood. The pretty, wispy, frail creature, Faye, had again disappeared; in her place was a white-faced, malevolent woman, with punishing, cold eyes, who came in a swift rush down the stairs as though she would charge straight into the girl, who stood her ground at first and then, in amazement, took a step back, with Faye right up against her, leaning forward, hissing, "Get out. Get out. Get out. Get out."

The girl stammered, "Who are you, what..." while Faye pushed her, by the force of her presence, her hate, step by step back towards the door. The child was screaming now.

"How dare you," Faye was saying. "How dare you crash in here? No one said you could. I know what you're like. Once you were in, you'd take everything you could get, you're like that."

This insanity kept Alice silent, and had the girl staring open-eyed and open-mouthed at her cruel pursuer as she retreated to the door. There Faye actually gave her a hard shove, which made her step back onto the pushchair and nearly knock it over.

Faye crashed the door shut. Then, opening it, she crashed it shut again. It seemed she would continue this process, but Roberta had arrived on the scene. Even she did not dare touch Faye at that moment, but she was talking steadily in a low, urgent, persuasive voice: "Faye, Faye darling, darling Faye, do stop it, no, you must stop it. Are you listening to me? Stop it, Faye...."

Faye heard her, as could be seen from the way she held the door open, hesitating before slamming it again. Beyond could be seen the girl, retreating slowly down the path, with her shrieking child. She glanced round in time to see Faye taken into Roberta's arms and held there, a prisoner. Now Faye was shouting in a hoarse, breathless voice, "Let me go." The girl stopped, mouth falling open, and her eyes frantic. Oh no, those eyes seemed to say, as she turned and ran clumsily away from this horrible house.

Alice shut the door, and the sounds of the child's screams ceased.

Roberta was crooning, "Faye, Faye, there, darling, don't, my love, it's all right." And Faye was sobbing, just like a child, with great gasps for breath, collapsed against Roberta.

Roberta gently led Faye upstairs, step by step, crooning all the way, "There, don't, please don't, Faye, it's all right."

The door of their room shut on them, and the hall was empty. Alice stood there, stunned, for a while; then went into the kitchen and sat down, trembling.

In her mind she was with the girl on the pavement. She was feeling, not guilt, but an identification with her. She imagined herself going with the heavy awkward child to the bus stop, waiting and waiting for it to come, her face stony and telling the other people in the queue that she did not care what they thought of her screaming child. Then getting the difficult chair on the bus, and sitting there with the child, who if it wasn't screaming would be a lump of exhausted misery. Then getting off the bus, strapping the child into the chair again, and walking to the hotel. Yes, Alice did know about these hotels, did know what went on.

After a while she made herself strong tea, and sat drinking it as if it were brandy. Silence above. Presumably Roberta had got Faye off to sleep?

Some time later Roberta came in, and sat down. Alice knew how she must look, from Roberta's examination of her. She thought: What she really is, is just one of these big maternal lezzies, all sympathy and big boobs; she wants to seem butch and tough, but bad luck for her, she's a mum.

She did not want to be bothered with what was going to come.

When Roberta said, "Look, Alice, I know how this must look, but..." she cut in, "I don't care. It's all right."

Roberta hesitated, then made herself go on: "Faye does sometimes get like this, but she is much better, and she hasn't for a long time. Over a year."

"All right."

"And of course we can't have children here."

Alice did not say anything.

Roberta, needing some kind of response she was not getting, got up to fuss around with teabags and a mug, and said in a low, quick, vibrant voice, "If you knew about her childhood, if you knew what had happened to her..."

"I don't care about her fucking childhood," remarked Alice.

"No, I've got to tell you, for her sake, for Faye's.... She was a battered baby, you see...."

"I don't care," Alice shouted suddenly. "You don't understand. I've had all the bloody unhappy childhoods I am going to listen to. People go on and on.... As far as I am concerned, unhappy childhoods are the great con, the great alibi."

Shocked, Roberta said, "A battered baby - and battered babies grow up to become adults." She was back in her place, sitting, leaning forward, her eyes on Alice's, determined to make Alice respond.

"I know one thing," Alice said. "Communes. Squats. If you don't take care, that's what they become - people sitting around discussing their shitty childhoods. Never again. We're not here for that. Or is that what you want? A sort of permanent encounter group. Everything turns into that, if you let it."

Roberta, convinced that Alice was not going to listen, sat silent. She drank tea noisily, and Alice felt herself wince.

There was something coarse and common about Roberta, Alice was thinking, too disturbed and riled up to censor her thoughts. She hadn't washed yet, even though water was running in the taps. There was the sharp metallic tang of blood about her. Either she or Faye, or both, were menstruating.

Alice shut her eyes, retreated inside herself to a place she had discovered long years ago - she did not know when, but she had been a small child. Inside here she was safe, and the world could crash and roar and scream as much as it liked. She heard herself say, and it was in her dreamy, abstracted voice: "Well, I suppose Faye will die of it one of these days. She has tried to commit suicide, hasn't she?"

Silence. She opened her eyes to see Roberta in tears.

"Yes, but not since I..."

"All those bracelets," murmured Alice. "Scars under bracelets."

"She's got one tiny scar," pleaded Roberta. "On her left wrist."

Alice had shut her eyes again, and was sipping tea, feeling that her nerves would soon begin to stand up to life once more. She said, "One of these days I'll tell you about my mother's unhappy childhood. She had a mad mum, and a peculiar dad. 'Peculiar' is the word. If I told you!" She had not meant to mention her mother. "Oh, never mind about her," she said. She began to laugh. It was a healthy, even jolly laugh, appreciative of the vagaries and richnesses of life. "On the other hand, my father - now, that was a different kettle of fish. When he was a child he was happy the whole day long, so he says, the happiest time in his life. But do we believe him? Well, I am inclined to, yes. He is so bloody thick and stupid and awful that he wouldn't have noticed it if he was unhappy. They could have battered him as much as they liked, and he wouldn't even have noticed."

She opened her eyes. Roberta was examining her with a small shrewd smile. Against her will, Alice smiled in response.

"Well," said Alice, "that's that, as far as I am concerned. Have you got any brandy? Anything like that?"

"How about a joint?"

"No, doesn't do anything for me. I don't like it."

Roberta went off and came back with a bottle of whisky. The two sat drinking in the kitchen, at either end of the big wooden table. When Philip came staggering in under the heavy panes of glass, ready to start work, he refused a drink, saying he felt sick. He went upstairs, back to his sleeping bag. What he was really saying was that Alice should be working along with him, not sitting there wasting time.

Roberta, having drunk a lot, went up to Faye, and there was silence overhead.

Alice decided to have a nap. In the hall was lying an envelope she thought was junk mail. She picked it up to throw it away, saw it was from the Electricity Board, felt herself go cold and sick; decided to give herself time to recover before opening it. She went to the kitchen. By hand. Mrs. Whitfield had said she came past on her way to and from work. She had dropped this in herself, on her way home. That was kind of her.... Alice briskly opened the letter, which said: