The Sweetest Dream (17 page)

Frances had decided she did not want to listen to ‘revelations'
that she had absorbed decades ago, but crept into the back of the
room when it was full, and found herself sitting next to a man
she did seem to remember but who obviously remembered her
well, from his greeting. Johnny was in a corner, listening without
prejudice. His sons sat with Julia across the room, and did not
look at their father. On their faces was the strained unhappy
look she had been seeing there for years now. If they avoided
their father's eyes, they did send supportive smiles to her, which
were too miserable to be convincing as irony, which is what they
had intended. In that room were people who had been around
through their early childhoods, some whose children they had
played with.

When Reuben began his tale with, ‘I have come to tell you
the truth of the situation, as it is my duty to do . . .' the room
was silent, and he could not have complained that his audience
was not attentive. But those faces . . . they were not the expressions
usually seen at a meeting, responding to what is said, with smiles,
nods, agreement, dissent. They were polite, kept blank. Some
were still communists, had been communists all their lives and
would never change: there are people who cannot change once
their minds are made up. Some had been communists, might
criticise the Soviet Union, and even passionately, but all were
socialists, and kept a belief in progress, the ever-upwards-reaching
escalator to a happier world. And the Soviet Union had been so
strongly a symbol of this faith, that–as it was put decades later
by people who had been immersed in dreams–‘The Soviet Union
is our mother, and we do not insult our mothers.'

They were sitting here listening to a man who had done four
years' hard labour in a communist prison, been brutally treated,
a painfully emotional tale, so that at times Reuben Sachs wept,
explaining that it was because of ‘the sullying and dirtying of the
great dream of humankind', but what was being appealed to was
their reason.

And that was why the faces of the people who had come to
this evening's meeting, ‘to hear the truth', were expressionless, or
even stunned, listening as if the tale did not concern them. For
an hour and a half the emissary from ‘the truth of the situation'
talked, and then ended with a passionate appeal for questions, but
no one said anything. As if nothing at all had been said, the
meeting ended because people were getting up and having thanked
Frances, under the impression that she was the hostess, and nodded
to Johnny, drifted out. Nothing was said. And when they began
talking to each other it was on other subjects.

Reuben Sachs sat on, waiting for what he had come to London
for, but he might have been talking about conditions in medieval
Europe or even Stone Age Man. He could not believe what he
was seeing, what had happened.

Julia continued to sit in her place, watching, sardonic, a little
bitter, and Andrew and Colin were openly derisive. Johnny went
off, with some others, not looking at his sons or his mother.

The man next to Frances had not moved. She felt she had
been right not to have wanted to come: she was being attacked
by ancient unhappinesses, and needed to compose herself.

‘Frances,' he said, trying to get her attention, ‘that was not
pleasant hearing.'

She smiled more vaguely than he liked, but then saw his face
and thought that there was one person there at least who had
taken in what had been said.

‘I'm Harold Holman,' he said. ‘But you don't seem to
remember me? I was around a lot with Johnny in the old days . . . I
came to your place when all our kids were small–I was married
to Jane then.'

‘I seem to have blocked it all off.'

Meanwhile Andrew and Colin were watching: the room was
nearly empty now, and Julia was taking the miserably disappointed
truth-bringer out and up to her rooms.

‘Can I ring you?' Harold asked.

‘Why not? But better ring me at
The Defender
.' And she
lowered her voice, because of her sons. ‘I'll be there tomorrow
afternoon.'

‘Right,' he said, and off he went. This had been so casual that
she was only just taking it in that he was interested in her as a
woman, for she had got out of the habit of expecting it. And
now Colin came to ask, ‘Who's that man?'

‘An old friend of Johnny's–from the old days.'

‘What is he telephoning you about?'

‘I don't know. Perhaps we'll go and have a cup of coffee, for
old times' sake,' she said, lying casually, for already that aspect of
her self was re-emerging.

‘I'll get back to school,' said Colin, abrupt, suspicious, and he
did not say goodbye as he went off to catch his train.

As for Andrew, he said, ‘I'll go and help Julia with our guest,
poor man,' and left her with a smile that was both complicit and
a warning, though it was doubtful he was aware of this.

A woman who has shut a door on her amorous self as
thoroughly as Frances had, has to be surprised when suddenly it
opens. She liked Harold, that was obvious, from the way she was
coming to life, pulses stirring, animation seizing hold of her.

And yet why? Why him? He had got under her guard, all
right. How very extraordinary. The occasion had been
extraordinary, who could believe such a thing, if they hadn't seen it? She
wouldn't be at all surprised if this Harold was the only person
there who had allowed himself to
take in
what Reuben Sachs had
said. A good phrase, take in. You can sit for an hour and a half
listening to information that should shoot your precious citadel
of faith to fragments, or that doesn't match easily with what is
already in your brain, but you don't
take it in
. You can take a
horse to water . . .

Frances did not sleep well that night, and it was because she
was allowing herself to dream like a girl in love.

He telephoned next afternoon, and asked her to go with him
for a weekend to a certain little town in Warwickshire, and she
said she would, as easily as if she did this often. And she had to
wonder again what it was about this man who could turn a key
so easily in a door that she had kept shut.
He
was a solid, smiling,
fairish man, whose characteristic look was of cool, humorous
assessment. He was, or had been, an official in some educational
organisation. A trade union official?

She supposed the usual assortment of kids would arrive for
the weekend, and went up to Julia to say that she would like to
take the weekend off. Using those words.

Julia seemed to smile a little. Was that a smile? Not an unkind
one . . .‘Poor Frances,' she said, surprising her daughter-in-law.
‘You live a dull sort of life.'

‘Do I?'

‘I think you do. And the young ones can look after themselves
for once.'

And, as Frances went out she heard the low, ‘Come back to
us, Frances,' and this surprised her so much she turned, but found
that Julia had already picked up her book.

Come back to us . . . oh, that was perceptive of her,
uncomfortably so. For she had been seized with a rebellion against her
life, the relentless slog of it, and had wandered into a landscape
of feverish dreams, where she would lose herself–and never
return to Julia's house.

And there were her sons, and that was no joke. Told that
their mother would be away that weekend, both reacted as if she
had said she was off for a six-month jaunt.

Colin, from school, said on the telephone, ‘Where are you
going? Who are you going with?'

‘A friend,' said Frances, and there was a suspicious silence.

And Andrew gave her the bleakest smile, which was full of
fear, but he certainly did not know that.

She was the stable thing in their lives, always had been, and
it was no use saying both were old enough to allow her some
freedom. But at what age do such insecurely-based children no
longer need a parent to be there, always? This was their mother,
taking off for the weekend with a man, and they knew it. If she
had ever done anything like it before . . . but how obedient she
had always been to their situation, their needs, as if she was making
up for Johnny's lacks. ‘As if'?–she
had
tried to make up for
Johnny.

 • • •

On the Saturday Frances crept out of the house knowing that
Andrew would be on the look-out, for he was a restless sleeper,
and Colin might have decided to wake earlier than his usual
mid-morning. She glanced up at the front of the house, dreading
to see Andrew's face, Colin's–but there were no faces at the
windows. It was seven in the morning of a wonderful summer's
day, and her spirits, in spite of her guilt, were threatening to shoot
her up into an empyrean of irresponsibility, and here he was, her
beau, her date, smiling, obviously enjoying what he saw, this
blonde woman (she had had her hair done) in her green linen
dress, settling herself beside him, and turning to him to share a
laugh at this adventure.

They drove comfortably through the suburbs of London, and
were in the country, and she was enjoying his enjoyment of her,
and her pleasure in him, this handsome sandy man, and meanwhile
she combated thoughts of the helpless unhappy faces of her sons.

Dear Aunt Vera, I am divorced and I bring up two boys. I am
tempted to have an affair but I am afraid of upsetting my sons. They
watch me like hawks. What shall I do? I'd like to have some fun. Don't
I have any rights?

Well, if she, Frances, was in line for
some fun
then do it: and
she shut her sons firmly out of her thoughts. Either that, or say
to this man, Turn around and go back, I have made a mistake.

They stopped by the river near Maidenhead and had breakfast,
rested later in a town whose public gardens looked inviting, drove
on, were invited by an attractive pub, and had lunch in another
garden while sparrows hopped about them in the dust.

He said once, ‘Are you having difficulty suspending disbelief?'

‘Yes,' and stopped herself saying, It's the boys, you see.

‘I thought so. As for me, I am having no difficulty at all.' And
his laughter had enough triumph in it to make her examine him
for the reason. There was something in all this she was not
understanding–but never mind. She was quite recklessly happy. What
a dull life she did lead: Julia was right. They drove up side roads
to avoid the motorways, got themselves lost, and all the time their
looks and smiles promised, Tonight we are going to lie in each
other's arms. The day continued warm, with a silky golden haze,
and in the late afternoon they sat in another garden, by a river,
observed by blackbirds, a thrush, and a large friendly dog who sat
by them, until it gained its bit of cake from both of them, and
wandered off, its tail slowly swinging.

‘A fat dog,' said Harold Holman, ‘and that's what I shall be,
after this weekend.' Replete, yes, he looked that, but as well there
was this other ingredient, a pleasure in her, in the situation, which
made her say, without planning to, ‘Just what are you so pleased
with yourself about?' He at once understood, so that the
aggressiveness of it, which she regretted, for it contradicted the radiant
content she felt, was annulled as he said, ‘Ah, yes, you are right,
you are right,' and gave her a laughing look, and she thought that
he looked like a lazy lion, his paws crossed in front of him, lifting
a commanding head in a slow lazy yawn. ‘I'll tell you, I'll tell you
everything. But first, I want to get somewhere when the light is
like this.' And off they drove again, into Warwickshire, and he
parked outside their hotel, and came to open the door for her.
‘Come and look at this.' Across the street were trees, gravestones,
shrubs, an old yew. ‘I was looking forward to showing you this–no, you're wrong, I've not brought a woman here before, but
I had to stop in this town, months ago, and I thought, it's magic,
this place. But I was alone.'

They crossed the street hand in hand and stood in the old
graveyard where the yew seemed almost as tall as the little church.
It was an early summer dusk, and a moon was emerging bright into
a darkening sky. The pale gravestones leaned about and seemed to
want to speak to them. Breaths of warm summer air, wisps of
cool mist, brushed their faces, and they stood in each other's arms,
and kissed and then were close for a long time, listening to the
messages from each other's bodies. And then the pressure of
unshareable emotions made them step back from each other,
though they still held hands, and he said, ‘Yes,' with a quiet regret
she did not need to have explained. She was thinking, ‘I could
have married somebody like this, instead of . . .' Julia called him
an imbecile. Since Johnny did not telephone Julia after that little
meeting, ‘so that everyone could hear the truth', Julia had rung
him to find out what he thought, or rather, what he was prepared
to say. ‘Well?' she had enquired. ‘Surely that was worth thinking
about . . . what that Israeli said?' ‘You must learn to take a
long-term perspective, Mutti.' ‘
Imbecile
.'

The graveyard filled with dark, as the sky lightened, and the
gravestones shone bright and ghostly, and they leaned against
the yew in the blackness under it, and looked out, watching the
moonlight strengthen. Then they walked through the graves, all
old ones, no one here younger than the century, and soon were
in the room in the old-fashioned hotel where they had registered
as Harold Holman and Frances Holman.

She was actually thinking, Oh, why not, I could marry this
man, we could be happy, after all people do marry and are happy–but the thought of the weight and complexity of Julia's house
pushed aside this nonsense, and she banished that thought too, in
her intention to be happy for this one night.