She said, "Mary, a girl has just turned up here, she's desperate; she's in Shaftwood Hotel, you know...."
"Not in our borough," said Mary instantly.
"No, but she's..."
"I know about Shaftwood," said Mary.
Reggie was examining his hand, back and front, apparently with interest. Alice knew that it was the situation he was examining; he was not used to this informality, to group living, but he was giving it his consideration.
"Don't we all? But this girl - her name is Monica - she looks to me as if she's suicidal, she could do anything."
Mary said, after a pause, "Alice, I'll see what there is tomorrow, but you know that there are hundreds, thousands of them."
"Oh yes, I know," said Alice, added, "Good night," and went downstairs thinking, I am being silly. It isn't as if I don't know the type. If you did find her a place, she'd muck it all up somehow. Remember Sarah? I had to find her a flat, move her in, go to the Electricity Board, and then her husband.... Monica's one of those who need a mother, someone who takes her on.... An idea came into Alice's head of such beauty and apt simplicity that she began laughing quietly to herself.
Now she was in their bedroom, Jasper's and hers. Alone. His sleeping bag was a dull blue tangle, and she straightened it. She thought: It has been lovely, sharing a room with Jasper. Then she thought: But he's only here because Bert is just through that wall there. She listened: silence. Pat and Bert were asleep. This thought, of why Jasper consented to let her sleep here, instead of going up to another room or asking her to go, made her mind swirl, as if it - her mind - were nauseated. She sat down on her sleeping bag, stripped off her sweater, her jeans, pulled on an old-fashioned night- dress in scarlet Viyella that had been her mother's. She felt comfortable and comforted in it.
Again she began to laugh: her mother liked looking after people!
She was inside the sleeping bag. Lights from the traffic fled across the ceiling. She thought with envy of Jasper in his cell. He would be with this mysterious new contact of his.... Well, she would hear about it all tomorrow. He would be here by lunchtime.
Alice slept late. When she went down to the kitchen, eight mugs on the draining board said that someone had washed up; she was the last. On the table a note addressed to her: "We're off for the weekend. Back Sunday night. Jasper knows." Pat had signed, "Pat and Bert."
Philip was working on the electrical wiring of the top floor with the easy-paced, contemplative manner of a workman. Alice, helpfully squatting by him, thought: This one would never make a boss; he's an employee; he can't work without somebody holding his hand. Philip was being obliging, feeling that yesterday he had not been. He talked of all that remained to be done, of how he would do it all, bit by bit; said that first of all the attic should be examined, for so much rain soaking in must have affected the beams. Alice said she would go up there with him, but first of all she must quickly ring Electricity. And where was Jim? He could help in the attics. Alice was thinking: Jim's so big and strong, Philip isn't; together they'd need half the time. But Philip said he had asked Jim, only that morning. Jim was a moody sort of individual, wasn't he? He hadn't liked being asked. In Philip's opinion there was more to Jim than met the eye. Here Alice and Philip exchanged, with their eyes, feelings about Jim; exactly as people looked, but did not speak, apprehensions over Faye - as if something there was too dangerous for words, or at least volatile, to be set off like a risky electronic device by an injudicious combination of sounds.
"Perhaps I'll have a chat with him," said Alice vaguely, and went downstairs to survey her territory before going to the telephone.
Mary, of course, was at work. Reggie? As she wondered, in he came with more cartons of gear. He looked exultant, as befits a man who has conquered territory, but abashed, too, because of all these evidences of concern for the material. He would have preferred, in short, not to have run into Alice. But now said that although he and Mary were already filling a second room with their bits of furniture and stuff, of course they would move it all out at once if that room were needed by anyone to live in.
"There's the attic," said Alice. "Or there will be. It has to be cleared out." She waited for him to offer to help clear it, but that did not occur to him. He went off at once to fetch another load.
Alice thought she would get the business of ringing Electricity over with. She resented having to run out to the telephone, in the middle of this useful busyness, wasting time over something that was just a routine.
But as soon as she heard Mrs. Whitfield's voice she knew she must pay out more of her time and attention to the situation than she thought. Mrs. Whitfield was, if not hostile, stiff with reproach. She said that in her opinion it would be desirable if Alice came in, as soon as possible. Alice said she would come now, it was only just down the road, in a bright chatty voice that insisted there was no real problem, nothing wrong. And put down the receiver gently, in a way that went with the voice. But she was being attacked by one of her rages. Her father! What had he said? It must have been pretty bad for Mrs. Whitfield to change like this.
She was too angry to run down at once to Electricity, had to calm herself by walking briskly around the streets, postponing thoughts about her father till later. But she would show him, he needn't think she wouldn't.
In the anteroom at Electricity she smiled and waved to Mrs. Whitfield: Here I am, a good girl! But Mrs. Whitfield looked away. Four people went in before Alice. What a waste of time.
She sat in front of the official, in the large light office, and knew that Mrs. Whitfield would not cut off the electricity. At least, she did not want to. It was up to Alice. Who began talking about her father. He was rich, he owned a printing firm. Of course he could easily pay the bills if there was need. But he was, Alice admitted, in a bad phase at the moment.
"He's had a lot of trouble," breathed Alice, on her face the look of one who compassionately contemplates human misery, absolving it from blame. And at that moment, it was what she felt. "The breakup with my mother... then all kinds of problems... his new wife, she's nice, she's a good friend of mine, but she's not a coper, you know what I mean? He's got a lot on his back." She burbled on like this, feeling dismally she was not helping herself, while Mrs. Whitfield sat, eyes lowered, pricking out a pattern with the tip of her ballpoint on the top left-hand corner of Alice's form.
"Your father," she remarked at last, "was quite definite about not being prepared to guarantee payment."
She did not want to look at Alice. Alice was trying to make her raise her eyes, take her in. What could Cedric Mellings have said?
She said, "There are ten of us in the house now. That's a lot of money coming in every week."
"Yes, but is some of it going to come this way?" Mrs. Whitfield was too dry to relent, yet. "Aren't any of you in work?"
"One is." She added, on an inspiration, "But she is a Council employee. She works in Belstrode Road, and she doesn't want to give her address as a squat. She couldn't find a place; she was desperate."
Mrs. Whitfield sighed, said, "Yes, I know how bad things can be." But now she raised her eyes and did look differently at Alice, the housemate of a Council official who worked at the main office for this area. She said, "Well, what are we going to do?"
That was it, she had won! Alice could hardly prevent herself from openly exulting.
She said humbly, "I have a brother. He works for Ace Airways. I'll ask him." Mrs. Whitfield nodded, accepting the brother. "But he's in Bahrein at the moment."
Mrs. Whitfield sighed. Not from irritation, but because she knew it was a lie, and felt sorrowful because of Alice. She had lowered her eyes again. A second tricky little pattern was appearing beside the first on Alice's form.