The Good Terrorist Read Online Free
Author: Doris Lessing
trouble. Don’t you see that your world is finished? The day of the rich selfish bourgeoisie is over. You are doomed.…”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Alice’s mother, and Alice warmed into the purest affection again, for the familiar comforting note of irony was back in her mother’s voice, the awful deadness and emptiness gone. “But you have at some point to understand that your father is not prepared any longer to share his ill-gotten gains with Jasper and all his friends.”
“Well, at least he is prepared to see they are ill-gotten,” said Alice earnestly.
A sigh. “Go away, Alice,” said Alice’s mother. “Just go away. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear from you. Try to understand that you can’t say the things to people you said to me this morning and then just turn up, as if nothing had happened, with a bright smile, for another handout.”
The line went dead.
Alice stood, in a dazzle of shock. Her head was full of dizzyingshadow and light. Someone behind her in the queue said,
“If
you’ve finished …,” pushed in front of her, and began to dial.
Alice drifted onto the pavement and wandered aimlessly around the perimeter of that area, now fenced off with high, corrugated iron, where so recently there had been a market, full of people buying and selling. She had had a pitch there herself last summer; first she sold cakes and biscuits and sweets, then hot soup, and sandwiches. Proper food, all wholemeal flour and brown sugar, and vegetables grown without insecticides. She cooked all this in her mother’s kitchen. Then the Council closed the place down. To build another of their shitty great enormous buildings, their
dead
bloody white elephants that wouldn’t be wanted by anyone but the people who made a profit out of building them. Corruption. Corruption everywhere. Alice, weeping out loud, blubbering, went stumbling about outside the enormous iron fence like a fence around a concentration camp, thinking that last summer …
A whistle shrieked. Some factory or other … one o’clock. She hadn’t
done
anything yet.… Standing on the long shallow steps that led to the public library, she wiped her face, and made her eyes look out instead of in. It was a nice day. The sun was shining. The sky was full of racing white clouds, and the blue seemed to dazzle and promise.
She went back to the telephones in the Underground and rang her father’s office on the private number.
He answered at once.
“This is Alice.”
“The answer is no.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Say it.”
“I want you to guarantee our expenses, electricity and gas, for a squat.”
“No.”
She hung up, the burning anger back. Its energy took her to the pavement, and walked her up the avenue to a large building that was set back a bit, with steps. She raced up them and pressed a bell, holding it down until a woman’s voice, not the one she expected, said
“Sí?”
“Oh, fucking Christ, the maid,” said Alice, aloud. And “Where’s Theresa?”
“She at work.”
“Let me in. Let me come in.”
Alice pushed open the door on the buzzer, almost fell into the hall, and thumped up four flights of heavily carpeted stairs to a door where a short, dumpy dark woman stood, looking out for her.
“Just let me
in
,” said Alice, fiercely pushing her aside, and the Spanish woman said nothing but stood looking at her, trying to find the right words to say.
Alice went into the sitting room where she had so often been with her friend Theresa, her friend ever since she, Alice, had been born, kind and lovely Theresa. A large, calm, ordered room, with great windows, and beyond them gardens … She stood panting. I’ll tear down those pictures, she was thinking, I’ll sell them, I’ll take those little netsukes, what are they worth? I’ll smash the place up.…
She tore to the telephone and rang the office. But Theresa was in conference.
“Get her,” she commanded.
“I don’t doubt it,” said Alice’s mother, and Alice warmed into the purest affection again, for the familiar comforting note of irony was back in her mother’s voice, the awful deadness and emptiness gone. “But you have at some point to understand that your father is not prepared any longer to share his ill-gotten gains with Jasper and all his friends.”
“Well, at least he is prepared to see they are ill-gotten,” said Alice earnestly.
A sigh. “Go away, Alice,” said Alice’s mother. “Just go away. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear from you. Try to understand that you can’t say the things to people you said to me this morning and then just turn up, as if nothing had happened, with a bright smile, for another handout.”
The line went dead.
Alice stood, in a dazzle of shock. Her head was full of dizzyingshadow and light. Someone behind her in the queue said,
“If
you’ve finished …,” pushed in front of her, and began to dial.
Alice drifted onto the pavement and wandered aimlessly around the perimeter of that area, now fenced off with high, corrugated iron, where so recently there had been a market, full of people buying and selling. She had had a pitch there herself last summer; first she sold cakes and biscuits and sweets, then hot soup, and sandwiches. Proper food, all wholemeal flour and brown sugar, and vegetables grown without insecticides. She cooked all this in her mother’s kitchen. Then the Council closed the place down. To build another of their shitty great enormous buildings, their
dead
bloody white elephants that wouldn’t be wanted by anyone but the people who made a profit out of building them. Corruption. Corruption everywhere. Alice, weeping out loud, blubbering, went stumbling about outside the enormous iron fence like a fence around a concentration camp, thinking that last summer …
A whistle shrieked. Some factory or other … one o’clock. She hadn’t
done
anything yet.… Standing on the long shallow steps that led to the public library, she wiped her face, and made her eyes look out instead of in. It was a nice day. The sun was shining. The sky was full of racing white clouds, and the blue seemed to dazzle and promise.
She went back to the telephones in the Underground and rang her father’s office on the private number.
He answered at once.
“This is Alice.”
“The answer is no.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Say it.”
“I want you to guarantee our expenses, electricity and gas, for a squat.”
“No.”
She hung up, the burning anger back. Its energy took her to the pavement, and walked her up the avenue to a large building that was set back a bit, with steps. She raced up them and pressed a bell, holding it down until a woman’s voice, not the one she expected, said
“Sí?”
“Oh, fucking Christ, the maid,” said Alice, aloud. And “Where’s Theresa?”
“She at work.”
“Let me in. Let me come in.”
Alice pushed open the door on the buzzer, almost fell into the hall, and thumped up four flights of heavily carpeted stairs to a door where a short, dumpy dark woman stood, looking out for her.
“Just let me
in
,” said Alice, fiercely pushing her aside, and the Spanish woman said nothing but stood looking at her, trying to find the right words to say.
Alice went into the sitting room where she had so often been with her friend Theresa, her friend ever since she, Alice, had been born, kind and lovely Theresa. A large, calm, ordered room, with great windows, and beyond them gardens … She stood panting. I’ll tear down those pictures, she was thinking, I’ll sell them, I’ll take those little netsukes, what are they worth? I’ll smash the place up.…
She tore to the telephone and rang the office. But Theresa was in conference.
“Get her,” she commanded.