In her normal condition Alice at this point would have said: "Indeed? And who are you" - that kind of thing - but as it was she itched with the need for him to be gone, so that she and the others could leave. She was in a fever, a rage, of impatience. She said, "Well, what sort of information? I don't know anything much. Anyway, why don't you ask Gordon O'Leary, he seems to know everything."
A pause. If she had had her wits about her, she might not have liked the way this man suddenly focussed on her: narrowed eyes; a close, expert inspection.
"Well, perhaps I will," he remarked.
"Yes, and he can tell you about it all. Look, I do have to go in, I am so sorry...." She was about to go in, shutting the door on him, when "niceness," the hospitable person in Alice who could never bear to disappoint, or seem unfriendly, caused her to add, disastrously, "And when you see him, just tell him from me that if any other little consignment of materiel or anything else turns up here, we are going to throw it straight back into the street and leave it there." She said this quite brightly, even smiling, as if she had said, "When you see him, say hello from me."
She had turned away, was about to go in.
"Just a minute, Miss Mellings."
"Oh, God," she cried, "oh, please, I have to go."
"All right. So you have said. But there is something I have to discuss with you."
"Then let's discuss it, but not now. Anyway, I have already discussed it. I keep saying, we are not taking orders from Russians or anybody else. You don't seem to understand that, comrade... You didn't tell me your name."
"My name is Peter Cecil," he said.
"Peter Cecil?" she said, and might have laughed again. "Well, your accent is really perfect. Bloody marvellous. Congratulations." She did give a little laugh here, girlish and merry, and though she did not really take him in, because of her pounding heart, her general overstimulation, she looked at him enough to see that he really did seem the essence of an Englishman, to match his name.
"Thank you," he said, pleasantly. "Perhaps you would care to have lunch?"
"Yes. But I was going to say, you don't seem able to take it in, but we are British, you understand? British communists." She hesitated and added, since the situation seemed to demand elucidation: "Freeborn British communists."
"Ah," he said. "Well, where can we meet? Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow? Well, why not? Tomorrow's all right. Do you know the Taj Mahal? That restaurant in the High Street?"
"Very good. Tomorrow. At one. Thank you for your time, Miss Mellings."
"Not at all," said she, forgetting him entirely, as she ran in to the others, who were saying: "For God's sake, Alice, come on, will you. We've got to go. Get a move on."
It was twenty to three. At the station they waited ten minutes for a train, much longer than they expected. At Baker Street they sat in the train, the doors open, with people drifting in, taking their time, for another seven. They joked they could not remember waiting for so long before. At Green Park they waited again. They were frantic with suspense; felt like bombs themselves, which could go off. Coming out of the Underground at three-thirty, Bert burst into a run, and the other two ran after him, to slow him down. "Stop it," said Roberta, irritable. "We have to be unnoticed, remember."
No one looking at Roberta was likely not to notice her.
She was very pale, was sweating, her face was tragic with seriousness.
They walked rapidly round the hotel, past the people on the pavements. The three did not look at one another or, very much, at the possible victims. Alice was thinking: But people might be killed.... Oh no, that couldn't happen! Inside her chest, however, a pressure was building up, painful, like a cry - but she could not let it be heard. Like the howl of a beast in despair, but she could not reach it, to comfort it.
What were the others thinking? Roberta - well, that was easy, she thought only of Faye. Bert? He seemed not much different from his genial self; but surely he must be wondering, like Alice, Will this girl be killed? This old woman? Perhaps this one, or that one?
There was no sign of Jasper and Faye. Having circumambulated the hotel twice, Roberta said, "There's no point in this. And we shouldn't be together." Without even looking at them, she walked off by herself and stood on the opposite pavement, from which she could see the side of the hotel in front of her, and on her left the street along which Faye and Jasper could reasonably be expected to drive.
Bert went off, without looking at Alice, to stand on the pavement opposite the front of the hotel. Alice, then, logically, could have gone to stand on the side where Roberta was not, but decided that the front was best, and stood near Bert.
It was a quarter to four.
No sign of the car.
A bus very slowly went by. Jocelin sat downstairs near the window, looking at them. She mouthed at them, "A - quarter - to - five." Then she briefly held up her left hand with its five fingers spread, lowered it, held it up again, this time with four fingers showing, bent down the forefinger, quickly again mouthed, "A - quarter - to - five," and then stared ahead of her.
"I think," said Bert facetiously, "that it will be a quarter to five."
Four o'clock.
The great hotel, with its look of sedate luxury, brooded massively there with people teeming about it. Alice thought, Well, perhaps something has gone wrong and they won't come. It'll be all right.
"Shall we tell Roberta it'll be a quarter to five?" she asked Bert. He said, "No, we can't draw attention to ourselves." Then he changed his mind and ran across the street, in and out of the traffic. Roberta was standing on the very edge of the pavement, absolutely still. Alice watched Bert go up to her, say something, then take her by the arm, apparently urging her to stand in a less noticeable place. Roberta shook off his hand on her arm, and stayed exactly where she was. Bert stood beside her for a minute, then slowly came back, this time waiting for the lights to change.
Alice could see his face clearly. She had not seen him like this, not ever. Would not, perhaps, have recognised him. He had about him a look of isolation, separateness; as if nothing could bridge the distance between him and the people who streamed with him across the road, as if he were cursed or cast out. He had a leaden, sickly colour, like a corpse.
The howl, or cry, in Alice's chest forced itself out of her mouth in a yelp, and she found she was dashing off away from Bert and into the hotel. She was looking for a telephone. Two booths, back to back; and one was empty. She thought: Oh my God, if the right directory isn't here! But it was, and she found the Samaritans' number and dialled it, while the little whimpering yelping cries came out of her, uncontrollably, as though the animal lodged inside her were being beaten.
The friendly, nonjudging Samaritan voice.
Alice said, "Oh, quick, quick, there's a bomb, it's going to go off, come quickly, it's going to be in a car."
"Where is this car?" enquired the Samaritan, in no way discomposed. When Alice did not at once answer, "You must tell us. We can't get someone there until you tell us."
Alice was thinking: But the car isn't even there yet. How do I know it will get there at all? Then she thought of those people, all those poor people, and she said despondently, "Well, perhaps it will be too late, anyway."
"But where? The address, do tell us the address?"
Alice could not bring herself to give the address. "It's in Knightsbridge," she said. She was going to ring off, and added, as an afterthought, "It's the IRA. Freedom for Ireland! For a united Ireland and peace to all mankind!" She rang off.