The Good Terrorist Read Free Page B

Alice’s “guest.” After all, it was only because of Alice’s efforts that the place had become a student house: it had been a squat. And Jasper did not leave. She knew he had become dependent on her. But then and since he had complained she was nothing but a servant, wasting her life on other people. As they moved from squat to squat, commune to commune, this pattern remained: she looked after him, and he complained that other people exploited her.
    At her mother’s he had said the same. “She’s just exploiting you,” he said. “Cooking and shopping. Why do you do it?”
    “We’ve got four days,” said Alice now. “I’m going to get moving.” She did not look at him, but walked steadily past him and into the hall. She carried her backpack into the room whereJim was drumming and said, “Keep an eye on this for me, comrade.” He nodded. She said, “If I get permission from the Council for us to live here, will you share expenses?”
    His hands fell from the drums. His friendly round face fell into lines of woe and he said,
“They
say I can’t stay here.”
    “Why not?”
    “Oh, shit, man, I’m not into politics. I just want to live.” Now he said, incredulously, “I was here first. Before any of you. This was my place. I found it. I said to everyone, Yes, come in, come in, man, this is Liberty Hall.”
    “That’s not fair,” said Alice, at once.
    “I’ve been here eight months, eight months; Old Bill never knew, no one knew. I’ve been keeping my nose clean and minding my own business, and suddenly …” He was weeping. Bright tears bounced off his black cheeks and splashed on the big drum. He wiped them off with the side of his palm.
    “Well,” said Alice, “you just stay put and I’ll get it on the agenda.”
    She was thinking as she left the house: All those buckets of shit up there; I suppose Jim filled them, nearly all. She thought: If I don’t pee I’ll … She could not have brought herself to go up and use one of those buckets. She walked to the Underground, took a train to a station with proper lavatories, used them, washed her face and brushed her hair, then went on to her mother’s stop, where she stood in line for a telephone booth.
    Three hours after she had left home screaming abuse at her mother, she dialled her mother’s number.
    Her mother’s voice. Flat. At the sound of it, affection filled Alice, and she thought, I’ll ask if she wants me to do some shopping for her on the way.
    “Hello, Mum, this is Alice.”
    Silence.
    “It’s Alice.”
    A pause. “What do you want?” The flat voice, toneless.
    Alice, all warm need to overcome obstacles in behalf of everyone, said, “Mum, I want to talk to you. You see, there’s this house.I could get the Council to let us stay on a controlled-squat basis—you know, like Manchester? But we need someone to guarantee the electricity and gas.”
    She heard a mutter, inaudible, then, “I don’t believe it!”
    “Mum. Look, it’s only your signature we want. We would pay it.”
    A silence, a sigh or a gasp, then the line went dead.
    Alice, now radiant with a clear hot anger, dialled again. She stood listening to the steady buzz-buzz, imagining the kitchen where it was ringing, the great warm kitchen, the tall windows, sparkling (she had cleaned them last week, with such pleasure), and the long table where, she was sure, her mother was sitting now, listening to the telephone ring. After about three minutes, her mother did lift the receiver and said, “Alice, I know it is no use my saying this. But I shall say it. Again. I have to leave here. Do you understand? Your father won’t pay the bills any longer. I can’t afford to live here. I’ll have trouble paying my own bills. Do you understand, Alice?”
    “But you have all those rich friends.” Another silence. Alice then, in a full, maternal, kindly, lecturing voice, began, “Mum, why aren’t you like us? We
share
what we have. We help each other out when we are in