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sounding neutral, so as not to provoke her friend. She was keeping an eye on Faye, unable to prevent herself from giving her quick nervous glances.
    “Oh, fuck it,” said Faye, really laying on the cockney bit, because, as they could see, she was afraid of her anger. “Yesterday, as far as I wuz concerned, everythink was going along just perfeck, and today, that’s it. I don’t like being organised, see what I mean?”
    “And she did it her way,” said Bert, in cold upper-class, smiling, as if in joke. He did not like Faye, and apparently did not care if he showed it.
    Pat quickly covered up with humour. “Well, if you don’t want to join in, then don’t, have it on us!” This was said without rancour. Pat even laughed, hoping Faye would; but Faye tossed her head, her face seemed to crumple up out of its prettiness, and her lips went white as she pressed them together. The cigarette in her hand trembled violently, ash scattered about.
    “Wait a minute,” said Roberta. “Just hold your horses.” This was addressed, apparently, to the five who were all looking at Faye. Faye knew it was meant for her. She made herself smile.
    “Was anything said about how we were to pay?” asked Roberta.
    “No, but I know of various ways they can do it,” said Alice. “For instance, in Birmingham there was a flat sum assessed for the whole house, to cover rates. And we paid electricity and gas separately.”
    “Electricity,” said Faye. “Who wants to pay electricity?”
    “You don’t pay at all, or you just pay the first instalment,” said Jasper. “Alice is good at that.”
    “We can all see what Alice is good at,” said Faye.
    “Look,” said Pat, “why don’t we postpone this discussion till we know? If they make an assessment for rent and rates and put it on all our Social on an individual basis, then that would suit some and not others. It would suit me, for instance.”
    “It wouldn’t suit me, see?” said Faye, sweet but violent.
    “And it wouldn’t suit me,” said Roberta. “I don’t want to become an official resident of this house. Nor does Faye.”
    “No, Faye certainly does not,” said Faye. “Yesterday I was free as a bird, coming and going. I didn’t live here, I came and went, and now suddenly …”
    “All right,” said Bert, exasperated. “You don’t want to be counted in, all right.”
    “Are you telling me to leave?” said Faye, with a shrill laugh, and her face again seemed to crumple up out of its self, suggesting some other Faye, a pale, awful, violent Faye, the unwilling prisoner of the pretty cockney.
    Jim laughed sullenly and said, “I’ve been told to leave. Why not Faye and Roberta, if it comes to that?”
    Faye turned the force of her pale awfulness on Jim, and Roberta came in quickly, with, “No one is leaving. No one.” She looked full at Jim. “But we have all to be clear about what we will or will not do. We have to be clear now. If a lump sum is assessed for this house, then we can discuss who is going to contribute what. If we are assessed individually, and our Social Security is adjusted individually, then no. No. No.” This was kept amiable, but only just.
    “I’m not going to contribute,” said Faye. “Why should I? I like things the way they were.”
    “How could you like them the way they were?” said Bert. “Putting up with them is one thing.”
    And suddenly they all knew why it was Faye they had been eyeing so nervously, Faye who had dominated everything.
    She sat straight up, straddling the chair arm, and glared, and trembled, and in a voice that in no way related to the pretty cockney, said, “You filthy bloody cuntish ’Itlers, you fascist scum, who are you telling what to do? Who are you ordering about?” This voice came out of Faye’s lower depths, some dreadful deprivation. It was raw, raucous, labouring, as though words themselves had been a hard accomplishment, and now could only be shovelled out, with difficulty, past God knew