The Sweetest Dream (29 page)

Sylvia had become a junior doctor, much younger than most,
and was working as hard as they do. When she did come home
she walked in a trance of exhaustion up the stairs, not seeing
anyone, or anything; she was already in her mind in her bed, able
to sleep at last. She might sleep the clock around, then take a bath
and was off. Often she did not even say hello to Julia, let alone
kiss her goodnight.

But there was something else. Sylvia's father, her real one,
Comrade Alan Johnson, had died and left her money, quite a bit.
The letter from the lawyer came accompanied by a letter from
him, obviously written when drunk, saying he had understood
that she, Tilly, was the only real thing in his life. ‘You are my
legacy to the world,' apparently considering the substantial legacy
a mere derisory material contribution. She did not remember ever
having seen him.

Sylvia dropped in to see Julia, to tell her the news and to say,
‘You've been so good to me, but I won't need any more
handouts.' Julia had sat silent, twisting her hands about in her lap, as
if Sylvia had hit her. The gracelessness was because of exhaustion.
Sylvia was simply not herself. She was not built for continuous
over-strain and stress, was still a wisp of a girl, her big blue eyes
always a little red. She had a bit of a cough, too.

Wilhelm met Sylvia as she came up the stairs after a week of
work and almost no sleep, and asked her advice about Julia as a
doctor, but Sylvia replied, ‘Sorry, haven't done geriatrics'–and
pushed past him to get to her bed, where she fell and was asleep.

Julia had overheard. She was listening from the upstairs
landing. Geriatrics. She brooded, suffered; everything was an affront
to her in her paranoid state–for it was that. She felt Sylvia had
turned against her.

Sylvia had read the lawyer's letter when she was hungering
for sleep like a prisoner under torture, or a young mother with a
new baby. She went down to Phyllida with the letter in her hand,
and found her looming about her flat in a kimono covered with
astral signs. She cut into Phyllida's sarcastic, ‘And to what do I
owe the honour . . .' with, ‘Mother, has he left you money?'

‘Who? What are you talking about?'

‘My father. He's left me money.'

At once Phyllida's face seemed to burst into anger, and Sylvia
said, ‘Just listen, that's all I ask, just listen.'

But Phyllida was off, her voice in the swell and fall of her
lament, ‘And so I count for nothing, of course I don't count, he's
left you the money . . .' But Sylvia had flung herself into a chair
and was asleep. There she lay, limp, quite gone away from the
world.

Phyllida was suspicious that this was a trick or a trap. She
peered down at her daughter, even lifted a flaccid hand and let it
drop. She sat down, heavily, amazed, shocked–and silenced. She
did know Sylvia worked hard, everyone knew about the young
doctors . . . but that she could go off to sleep, just like that . . .
Phyllida picked up the letter which had fallen on the floor, read
it, and sat with it in her hand. She had not had the opportunity
to sit and look at her daughter, really look, for years. Now she
did look. Tilly was so thin and pale and washed out–it was a
crime, what they expected of young doctors, someone should pay
for it . . .

These thoughts ran out into silence. The heavy curtains were
drawn, the whole house was quiet. Perhaps Tilly should be
woken? She would be late for work. That face–it was not at all
like hers. Tilly's mouth, it was her father's, pink and delicate. Pink
and delicate would do to describe him, Comrade Alan, a hero,
well let them think it. She had married two communist heroes,
first one, and then the other. What was the matter with her, then?
(This until now uncharacteristic self-criticism was soon to take
her into the Via Dolorosa of psychotherapy and from there into
a new life.)

When Tilly came down to tell her of the legacy, was that
boasting? A taunt? But Phyllida's sense of justice told her it was
not so. Sylvia was full of airs and graces and she hated her mother,
but Phyllida had never known her spiteful.

Sylvia woke with a start and thought she was in a nightmare.
Her mother's face, coarse, red, with wild accusing eyes, was just
above her, and in a moment that voice would start, as it always
did, talking at her, shouting at her. You have ruined my life. If
I hadn't had you my life would have been . . . You are my curse,
my millstone . . .

Sylvia cried out and pushed her mother away, and sat up. She
saw her letter in Phyllida's hand, and snatched it. She stood up
and said, ‘Now listen, mother, but don't say anything, don't say
anything,
please
, it's unfair he gave me all the money, I'll give you
half. I'll tell the lawyer.' And she ran out of the room, with her
hands over her ears.

Sylvia informed the lawyers, having consulted with Andrew,
and the arrangements were made. Giving Phyllida half meant that a
substantial legacy became a useful sum, enough to buy a good house,
insurance–security. Andrew told her to get financial advice.

Suddenly there was only one set of fees to pay–Andrew's.
Frances decided that the next time she was offered a good part
she would take it.

 • • •

Once again Wilhelm knocked on the kitchen door, but this time
Doctor Stein was all smiles, and as bashful as a boy. Again it was
Sunday evening, and Frances and the two young men were making
a family scene at the supper table.

‘I have news,' said Wilhelm to Frances. ‘Colin and I have
news.' He produced a letter and waved it about. ‘Colin, you
should read it aloud . . . no? Then I shall.'

And he read out a letter from a good publisher, saying that
Colin's novel,
The Stepson
, would be published soon, and that
great things were hoped for it.

Kisses, embraces, congratulations, and Colin was inarticulate
with pleasure. In fact, the letter had been expected. Wilhelm had
read and condemned Colin's two earlier attempts, but this one
had been approved by him, and he had found the publisher–a
friend. And Colin's long apprenticeship to his own patience
and stubbornness was over. While the humans kissed and
exclaimed and hugged, the scrap of a dog bounced and barked,
its tiny yaps ecstatic with the need to join in, and then it leaped
on to Colin's shoulder and stood there, its feather of a tail going
like a windscreen-wiper all over Colin's face, and threatening his
spectacles.

‘Vicious, down,' chided Colin, and the absurdity choked him
with tears and laughter and he jumped up, shouting, ‘Vicious,
Vicious . . .' and rushed up the stairs with the little dog in his
arms.

‘Wonderful,' said Wilhelm Stein, ‘wonderful,' and having
kissed the air above Frances's hand, departed, smiling, up to Julia,
who, when she had been told the news by her friend, sat silent
for some time, then said, ‘And so I was wrong. I was very wrong.'
And Wilhelm, knowing how Julia hated being in the wrong,
turned away, so as not to see the tears of self-criticism in her eyes.
He poured two glasses of madeira, taking his time over it, and
said, ‘He has a considerable talent, Julia. But more important, he
knows how to stick at it.'

‘Then I shall apologise to him, for I have not been kind.'

‘And perhaps tomorrow you will come with me to the Cosmo?
A little walk, Julia, that won't do you any harm.'

And so Julia apologised to Colin, who, because of her evident
emotional disarray, took time and trouble to reassure her. Then,
her arm in Wilhelm's, Julia descended the hill gently to the
Cosmo, where he courted her with cakes and compliments, and all
around them the flames of political debate leaped or smouldered.

Frances read
The Stepson
, and gave it to Andrew, who
remarked, ‘Interesting. Very interesting.'

Years before Frances had had to sit and hear Colin's criticism
of her, and his father, angry and merciless, so that she felt she was
being shrivelled up by rivers of lava. Here was all that anger
distilled. It was the tale of a small boy whose mother had married
a mountebank, a scoundrel with a magic tongue, who concealed
his crimes behind screens of persuasive words that promised all
kinds of paradises. He was unkind to the little boy, or ignored
him. Whenever the child thought this tormentor had disappeared,
he turned up again, and his mother succumbed to his charms. For
charming he was, in a sinister way. The tale was told by the child
to an imaginary friend, the lonely child's traditional companion,
and it was sad and funny, because the distorted vision of a child
could be interpreted by the adult reader as something exaggerated,
distorted: the almost nightmare scenes like candle-shadows on a
wall were in fact commonplace, and even tawdry. A publisher's
reader had described the book as a little masterpiece, and perhaps
it was. But the mother and older brother were seeing something
else, how frightful unhappiness had been distanced by the magic
of the tale: Colin showed himself in this book to be grown-up,
and Andrew said, ‘Do you know, I think my little brother has
outreached me: I don't think I could achieve anything like this
degree of detachment.'

‘Was it so bad?' Frances asked, afraid of his answer which was,
‘Yes, it was, I don't think you realise . . . I don't see how he
could have been a worse father, do you?'

‘He didn't beat you,' said Frances feebly, trawling for
something to make the history better.

Andrew said that there are worse things than beating.

But when it was decided to have a little dinner to celebrate
The Stepson
, Colin himself added his father's name to the list.

So the big table would again have ‘everyone' around it. ‘I've
asked everyone,' said Colin. Sophie was the first to be asked
and to accept. Geoffrey and Daniel and James, all habitués of
Johnny's place, said they would come but would be late–a
meeting. Johnny said the same. Jill, met by Colin in the street,
said she would come. Julia said that no one wanted a boring old
woman, and Wilhelm told her, ‘My dear one, you are talking
foolishly.' Sylvia said she would try to come, if her hours
permitted.

The table was laid for eleven. Wilhelm had donated a
wondrous and most un-English cake, in shape a plump blunt spiral,
with a surface like crisp glistening tulle–cream and meringue, in
fact. It was sprinkled with tiny gold flakes. Sophie said it should
be worn, not eaten.

They sat down to eat with half the places unoccupied, and
then Sophie rushed in, with Roland. The handsome young actor,
extending potent charm to each one of them, said, ‘No, no I'm
not going to sit down, I've just come to congratulate you, Colin.
As you know, I am an inveterate social climber, and if you are
going to be an important writer, then I have to be in on the act.'
He kissed Frances, then Andrew–who looked humorous, shook
Colin's hand, bowed over Julia's, and directed a sweeping bow
at Wilhelm. ‘See you later, my darling,' he said to Sophie, and
then, ‘I have to be on stage in twenty minutes.' And they sat
listening to the car go roaring away.

Sophie and Colin, seated next to each other, were kissing,
embracing, rubbing their cheeks together. Everyone permitted
themselves thoughts of how Sophie would at last leave Roland,
who made her so unhappy and that Colin and she might . . .

Toasts were drunk. The food was served. The meal was
halfway through when Sylvia came in. She was as always these days,
only half herself: she was ready to drop and they knew she soon
would. She had brought with her a young colleague whom she
described as a fellow victim of the system. Both sat down, accepted
glasses of wine, allowed food to be put on their plates, but they
were drifting off to sleep as they sat. Frances said, ‘You'd better
be off to bed,' and they rose like ghosts and stumbled out and
up.

‘A very strange system,' came Julia's harsh voice, which these
days sounded threatening, and sorrowful. ‘How is it they can treat
these young people so badly?'

Jill arrived late, and apologetic. She was now a large young
woman with her hair in a wide frizz of yellow, and clothes
designed to make her look public and competent–understood
when she said she was going to stand as councillor in the next
municipal election. She was effusive, kept saying how wonderful
it was to be here again: she lived a quarter of a mile away. She
volunteered, when no one asked, that Rose was a freelance
journalist and ‘politically very active'.

Julia enquired, ‘And may I ask what cause is claiming her
attention?'

Not understanding the question, since of course there was
only one possible cause, Revolution, Jill said that Rose was
involved ‘with everything'.

Towards the end of a cheerful meal, Johnny came in. These
days he was even more military, stern, unsmiling. He was wearing
a war surplus camouflage jacket, and under it a tight black
polo-neck and black jeans. His grey hair was half-inch stubble. He shot
out his hand to Colin, nodded, said, ‘Congratulations', and to his
mother, ‘Mutti, I hope you are well.' ‘Well enough,' said Julia.
To Wilhelm, ‘Ah, so you are here too. Excellent.' He nodded at
Frances. To Andrew he said, ‘I am glad you are doing international
law. That ought to come in useful.' He remembered Sophie, for
he did give her a little bow, and Jill, whom he knew well, got a
comradely salute.

He sat down and Frances filled his plate. Wilhelm poured
wine for him, and Comrade Johnny lifted his glass to the workers
of the world, and then continued with a speech he had just been
making to the meeting he had left. First, though, apologies from
Geoffrey, James and Daniel, who were sure that everyone would
understand the Struggle must come first. American imperialism
. . . the military–industrial machine . . . Britain's role as lackey . . .
the Vietnam War . . .