She raced back to the smooth green paint that was evenly lit by a street lamp ten yards away. The policeman and a woman sedately progressed away from them. Jasper waited where he was. She took out the red spray and, in letters a foot high, began "Greenham Common Women..."
She kept her attention half on what she did, half on Jasper, who suddenly raised his arms. Without looking round she sped toward him, hearing the heavy feet running behind her. Now she was spitting: Filthy beasts, fascists, pigs, pigs, pigs.... She had come up to Jasper, who caught her wrist in his bony grip, and they ran together up towards the Underground. But before they reached it, they turned into a side street and then, they hoped before the police reached that street, into another. They knew someone living in a house there. But their blood was racing, they were inspired, and she was not surprised that Jasper panted, "Let's chance it...." They tore down that street and into a main road that was crowded with people - fish-and-chip shops, take-aways, a disco, a supermarket, still open. Again, they could have gone into the supermarket, but they thought the police had had a good look at them, so they sprinted through the crowds, who took as little notice as they expected, and across the street just after the lights had changed, so that the traffic, beginning to move, hooted.
Down they went into the Underground. They had not looked to see whether the police had come into the main road in time to see. Again, Jasper's eyes demanded they chance it; they walked smartly up out of the Underground on the other side, and saw two policemen - different ones - coming towards them. Cool and indifferent, Alice and Jasper walked past. Then down again into the Underground. They went two stops, to where Alice had seen a long low bridge along a main road over railway lines. By then it was ten, and raining a little. Here the police station was a good way off. On the other hand, cars were passing regularly. On the bridge was already written, in white letters that had run and streaked, "Women Are Angry."
They stood arm in arm, backs to the traffic, as though looking over the railway lines, and Alice, holding the spray low down, wrote, "We Are All...," which is as far as she could go without having to move. They moved on a few steps, again stood together, and wrote, "Angry. Angry About..." Another move. "Ireland. About Sexism. About..." They moved. Then they heard - their ears alert for the slightest changes in the grind of the traffic - a car slowing down just behind them. They both shot looks over their shoulders: not a police car. But two men sat side by side in the front seat, staring.
"... Trident" - Alice finished. And they walked on, slowly, very close, knowing the car crawled behind. The intoxication of it, the elation: pleasure. There was nothing like it!
Now, remembering, Alice craved and longed. Oh, she did so hope that Jasper would not be late, would not be tired, would want to go out. He had promised....
... They had walked, perhaps 150 yards. Luck! A one-way street! The car, of course, did not follow. At the end of that street, they went back to the bus stop and to Kilburn, where they had worked before.
"No to Cruise! No to Trident!"
No one had so much as noticed them there.
Let down, their elation leaking away, they had decided to give up, and taken a taxi back to Alice's mother's house, where Alice made them both coffee and scrambled eggs.
Now it was six-thirty.
Mary came in, sat briefly with Alice, said she and Reggie were going to the pictures. She had had a word about this girl, Monica; there was really nothing, nothing at all. She had done her best, Alice must understand.
"Never mind," said Alice, "I've thought of something."
Mary saw the scribbled-over envelope, smiled, and said, "Reggie and I are going to the Greenpeace demo tomorrow."
"Good for you," said Alice.
"But it's shocking, it's terrible, the despoliation of our countryside...."
"I know," said Alice. "I've been on some of their demos."
"You have!" Mary was relieved, Alice could see, that they shared this; but Reggie "hahV'ed from the hall, and, with a smile, Mary went.
Where were Roberta and Faye? Probably at their women's-commune place. Where Philip? He might have been thrown out by his girlfriend, but he was going round there still for meals and baths, so Bert had said. Jim? Now, that was a serious question, where was he? The smiling face, the jokey mellow voice - but what was going on, really?
Apart from having his home, his place taken over like this.
Worry, worry, Alice sat worrying.
In came Jasper, smiling, jaunty, stepping like a dancer, and at once he said, "Oh, lovely," at the forsythia. There: people said this and that about him, but no one knew how sensitive he was, how kind. Now he bent and kissed her cheek; it was a thin papery kiss, but she understood that; understood when - rarely - she simply had to put her arms around him out of an exuberance of love, the instinctive shrinking, as though she held a wraith, something cold and wailing, a lost child. And he would try to stand up to it, the sudden blast of her love; she could feel a brave little determination to withstand it, and even an intention to return it. Which, of course, he could not - not the physical thing; she knew that what she felt as a warmth of affection was experienced by him as a demand for that.
He stood near her, beaming, positively dancing, with the excess of his pride and pleasure.
"So it was all right."
"Thirty pounds."
"A lot, surely?"
"They knew me," he said with pride.
"How was the cell?"
"Oh, not bad. They fed us - not bad. But I was with Jack-though it's an alias, you understand!"
"Yes, of course," she beamed back. "What I don't know..."
"... won't hurt you." He rubbed his hands, and began a light, smart quick-stepping about the kitchen: to the forsythia, which he touched delicately; to the window; and back to her. She put on the kettle, put coffee into a mug, and stood by the stove, so as to be standing, not sitting, while he moved so electrically and finely about.
"Bert doesn't know, either. Where is he? Bert?"
"But he told you, he's gone for the weekend with Pat."
"Oh yes... for the weekend - how long?" He was now standing still, threatened, frowning.
"Sunday night."
"Because we're going for a trip," he said. "He knew we were going, but not so soon. Jack says..."
"A fine Irish name," said Alice.
He chuckled, enjoying her teasing him. "Well, there are Jacks in Ireland." He went on, "And how did you know... But you always do, don't you," he said, with a flash of acid.
"But where else?" she wailed, humorously, as she always did when he was surprised by what to her was obvious. "You and Bert and Jack are going to Ireland, because Jack is IRA?"
"In touch. In contact. He can arrange a meeting."
"Well, then!" said Alice, handing him a mug of black coffee, and sat down again.
He stood silent, stilled a moment. Then he said, "Alice, I've got to have some money."