"If not, Bob over there will take the call."
But Alice knew that with Bob things would not go so well.
"It's routine," said Mary Williams. "Either they will pull the houses down at once, or they will postpone it. They have already postponed several times." Here she offered Alice the smile of their complicity, and added, "Good luck."
"Thanks. See you."
Alice left. It was only five o'clock. In one day she had done it. In eight hours.
In the soft spring afternoon everything was in movement, the pastel clouds, new young leaves, the shimmering surfaces of lawns; and when she reached her street it was full of children, cats, and gardeners. This scene of suburban affluence and calm provoked in her a rush of violent derision, like a secret threat to everything she saw. At the same time, parallel to this emotion and in no way affecting it, ran another current, of want, of longing.
She stopped on the pavement. From the top of her house a single yellow jet splashed onto the rubbish that filled the garden. Across the hedge from her, in the neighbouring house, a woman stood with a trowel loaded with seedlings, their roots in loose black earth, and she was staring at the shameful house. She said, "Disgusting, I've rung the Council!"
"Oh no," cried Alice, "no, please..." But, seeing the woman's hardened face and eyes, she said, "Look, I've just been to the Council. It will be all right; we are negotiating."
"And how about all that rubbish, then," stated, not asked, the woman. She turned her back on Alice, and bent to the fragrant earth of her flower bed.
Alice arrived at her door in a tumult of passionate identification with the criticised house, anger at whoever was responsible for the errant stream - probably Jasper - and a need to get the work of reconstruction started.
The door would not budge when she pushed it. The red heat of rage enveloped her, and she banged on the door, screaming, "How dare you, how dare you lock me out?," while she saw with her side vision how the woman gardener had straightened and was gazing at this scene over her neat little hedge.
Her anger went as she told herself, You must do something about her, soon; she must be on our side.
She offered the woman a quick little placatory smile and wave of the hand, rather like the wagging tail of an apologetic dog, but her neighbour only stared and turned away.
Suddenly the door opened and Jasper's fingers were tight around her wrist. His face had a cold grin on it which she knew was fear. Of whom?
As he dragged her in, she said, in a voice like a hushed shout, "Let me go. Don't be stupid."
"Where have you been?"
"Where do you think?"
"What have you been doing all day?"
"Oh, belt up," she said, shaking her wrist to restore it, as he released her on seeing that doors had opened and in the hall were Jim, Pat, Bert, and two young women dressed identically in loose blue dungarees and fluffy white cardigans, standing side by side and looking critical.
"We always keep this door locked and barred because of the police," said Bert, in a hurried, placating way, and Alice thought, Well, there's no need to bother much with him, as she said, "It wasn't locked this morning, when we came. And the police don't come at this hour, do they?" She said this because she had to say something: she knew her fit of rage outside the door was unfortunate.
The five were all staring at her, their faces shadowed by the dull light from the hurricane lamp, and she said, in her ordinary mild voice, "I've seen the Council, and it's all right."
"What do you mean, it's all right?" demanded Bert, asserting his rights.
Alice said, "Everyone's here, I want to discuss it. Why not now?"
"Anyone against?" said Jasper jocularly, but he was shielding Alice, as she saw with gratitude. The seven filed into the sitting room, which was still in full daylight.
Alice's eyes were anxiously at work on the two unknown girls. As if unable or unwilling to give much time to this affair, they perched on the two arms of a shabby old chair. They were sharing a cigarette. One was a soft-faced fair girl, with her hair in a ponytail, and little curls and tendrils all around her face. The other was a bulky girl, no, a woman, with short black curls that had a gleam of silver in them. Her face was strong, her eyes direct, and she looked steadily at Alice, reserving judgement. She said, "This is Faye. I am Roberta."
She was saying, too, that they were a couple, but Alice had seen this already.
"Alice. Alice Mellings."
"Well, Comrade Alice, you don't let the grass grow. I, for one, would have liked to discuss it all first."
"That's right," said Faye, "that goes for me, too. I like to know what's being said in my name." She spoke in a cockney voice, all pert and pretty, and Alice knew at once that she affected it, had adopted it, as so many others did. A pretty little cockney girl sat presenting herself, smiling, to everyone, and Alice was staring at her, trying to see what was really there.
This acute, judging inspection made Faye shift about and pout a little, and Roberta came in quickly with, "What are we being committed to, Comrade Alice?"
"Oh, I see," said Alice. "You're lying low."
Roberta let out a short amused snort that acknowledged Alice's acuity, and said, "You're right. I want to keep a low profile for a bit."
"Me, too," said Faye. "We are drawing Security over in Clap-ham, but better not ask how. Least said, soonest mended," she ended, prettily, tossing her head.
"And what you don't know don't hurt you," said Roberta.
"Ask no questions and get told no lies," quipped Faye.
"But truth is stranger than fiction," said Roberta.
"You can say that again," said Faye.
This nice little act of theirs made everyone laugh appreciatively. As good as a music-hall turn: Faye, the cockney lass, and her feed. Roberta was not speaking cockney, but had a comfortable, accommodating, homely voice with the sound of the North in it. Her own voice? No, it was a made-up one. Modelled on "Coronation Street," probably.
"That's another reason we don't want the police crashing in all the time," said Bert. "I am pleased Comrade Alice is trying to get this regularised. Go on with your report, Comrade Alice."
Bert had also modified his voice. Alice could hear in it at moments the posh tones of some public school, but it was roughened with the intention of sounding working-class. Bad luck, he gave himself away.
Alice talked. (Her own voice dated from the days of her girls' school in North London, basic BBC correct, flavourless. She had been tempted to reclaim her father's Northern tones, but had judged this dishonest.) She did not say that she had rung her mother and her father, but said she could get fifty pounds at short notice. Then she summed up her visit to the Council, scrutinising what she saw in her mind's eye: the expressions on the face of Mary Williams, which told Alice the house would be theirs, and because of some personal problem or attitude of Mary's. But all Alice said about this, the nub of the interview with Mary, was, "She's all right. She's on our side. She's a good person."
"You mean, you've got something to show the police?" said Jim, and when Alice handed over the yellow envelope he took out what was in it and pored over it. He was one whose fate, Alice could see, had always been determined by means of papers, reports, official letters. Jim's voice was genuine cockney, the real thing.
She asked suddenly, "Are you bound over?"
Jim's look at her was startled, then defensive, then bitter. His soft, open boyish face closed up and he said, "What about it?"
"Nothing," said Alice. Meanwhile, a glance at Faye and Roberta had told her that both of them were bound over. Or worse. Yes, probably worse. Yes, certainly worse. On the run?
"Didn't know you were," said Bert. "I was until recently."
"So was I," claimed Jasper at once, not wanting to be left out. Jasper's tones were almost those of his origins. He was the son of a solicitor in a Midlands town, who had gone bankrupt when Jasper was halfway through his schooling at a grammar school. He had finished his education on a scholarship. Jasper was very clever; but he had seen the scholarship as charity. He was full of hatred for his father, who had been stupid enough to go in for dubious invest- ments. His middle-class voice, like Bert's, had been roughened. With working-class comrades he could sound like them, and did, at emotional moments.