The Sweetest Dream (31 page)

‘It's the correct thing, now,' Wilhelm explained. ‘They speak
cockney.'

‘But what for, when it's so ugly?'

‘To get jobs. They are opportunists. If you want to get a
job in television or in films, you have to lose your educated
voice.'

Around them, cigarette smoke, and often angry voices. ‘Why
is it when it's politics, then there's always quarrelling?'

‘Ah, my dear, if we understood that . . .'

‘It reminds me of the old days, when I visited home, the
Nazis . . .'

‘And the communists.'

She remembered the fighting, the shouting, the flung stones,
the running feet–yes, waking at night to hear feet running,
running. After some atrocious thing, they ran through the streets
shouting.

Julia sat in her chair, surrounded by newspapers, until her
thoughts pushed her up to prowl around her rooms, clicking her
tongue with annoyance as she found an ornament out of place,
or a dress anyhow on the back of a chair. (What was Mrs Philby
thinking of?) All her sorrows were becoming focused on the
Vietnam War. She could not bear it. Wasn't it enough, that old
war, the first one, so terrible and then the second, what more did
they want, killing, killing, and now this war. And the Americans,
were they mad, sending their young men, no one cared about
the young men, when there was a war the young men were
herded up and driven off to be killed. As if they were good for
nothing but that. Again and again. No one learned anything,
it was a lie to say we learned from history, if any lessons had
been learned, the bombs would not be falling into Vietnam, and
the young men . . . Julia was dreaming about her brothers, for
the first time in years. She had nightmares about this war. On the
television she watched Americans fighting the police, Americans
not wanting the war, and she didn't want it, she was on the side
of the Americans who rioted in Chicago or at the universities,
and yet when she had left Germany to marry Philip she had chosen
America, she was on that side. Philip had wanted Andrew to go
to school in the States, and if he had, then by now he would
probably be part of that America that turned hoses and teargas on
the Americans who protested. (Julia knew Andrew was
conservative by nature, or perhaps better say, on the side of authority.)
Johnny's new woman, who apparently had abandoned him, was
fighting in the streets against the war. Julia hated and feared street
fighting, even now she had nightmares about what she had seen
in the Thirties, when she went home to visit, in Germany, which
was being destroyed by the gangs that rioted and smashed and
shouted and ran at nights through the streets. Julia's head and
mind and heart were whirling with violently opposing pictures,
thoughts, emotions.

And her son Johnny was constantly in the papers, speaking
against this war, and she felt he was right. Yet Johnny had
never been right, she was sure of that, but suppose he was right
now?

Julia, without telling Wilhelm, put on her hat, the one that
concealed her face best, with its close-meshed veil, and chose
gloves that would not show every mark–she associated politics
with dirt–and took herself off to hear Johnny speak at a meeting
to oppose the Vietnam War.

It was in a hall she thought of as communist. The streets
around it seethed with young people. The taxi put her down
outside the main entrance, and as she went in young people
dressed like gypsies or hoodlums stared at her. The ones who had
seen her arrive by taxi told each other she must be a CIA spy,
while others, seeing this old lady–there was not one person here
over fifty–said she must be here by mistake. Some said that with
that hat she must be the cleaning lady.

The hall was full. It seemed to heave and swell and sway. The
smell was horrible. Immediately in front of Julia were two heads
of greasy unwashed blonde hair–what girls could have so little
self-respect? Then she saw that they were men. And they stank.
The noise was so loud that she did not at once see that the speeches
had begun. Up there were Johnny, and Geoffrey, whose clean
well-ordered face she knew so well, but he had Viking's hair, and
stood with his feet apart, and his right hand pounding the air, as
if stabbing something, and he was sneering agreement with what
Johnny was saying, which was variations on what she had heard
so often, American imperialism . . . roars of agreement; the
industrial–military complex–groans and boos; lackeys, jackals, capitalist
exploiters, sell-outs, fascists. It was hard to hear, the roars of
agreement were so loud. And there was James, so much the public
man, large and affable, who had become a cockney, and there
was a black man beside Johnny she was sure she knew. A lot of
people up there on the platform. Every face was alive and elated
with conceit and self-righteousness and triumph. How well she
did know all that, how it frightened her. They swaggered about
up there, under strong lights, spilling out their phrases which she
could anticipate, each one, before it arrived. And the audience
was a unit, it was whole, it was a mob, it could kill or run riot,
and it was aflame with–hatred, yes that is what it was. Yet strip
off the stupid clichés, and she was agreeing with them, she was
on their side; how could she be, when they were foul, they were
frightful; yet the violence of war was everything she hated most.
She was finding it hard to keep upright–she was standing against
a wall, and surrounded by Yahoos who might as well be carrying
clubs. She took a long last look up at the platform, saw her son
had recognised her, and that his stare was both triumphant and
hostile. If she did not leave he might be making her a target for
his sarcasms. She pushed her way through the crowd back to the
door. Luckily she was not far away from it. Her hat was knocked
awry, Julia believed deliberately. She was right. The muttering
that she was a CIA spy was following her. She tried to hold her
hat on, and at the door saw a large young woman with a big face
reddened by excitement and by alcohol. She had a steward's badge.
Recognising Julia she said loudly for the benefit of her colleagues,
‘Well, what do you know? It's Johnny Lennox's ma.' ‘Let me get
past,' said Julia, who by now was beginning to panic. ‘Let me
out.'

‘What, can't you take it? Can't you take the truth?' sneered
a young man whose smell was literally making her sick. She held
her hand over her mouth.

‘Julia,' said Rose, ‘does Johnny know you're here? What are
you doing? Keeping a check on him?' She glanced around,
grinning, for approval.

Julia had got through the door, but the outer room was full
of people who had not got in.

‘Make way for Johnny Lennox's ma,' shouted Rose, and the
crowd opened. Out here, where the speeches were being relayed,
was less of the atmosphere of a mob, of imminent violence. Young
people were staring at Julia, at her hat, which was crooked, and
her distressed face. She got to the outer door. There, feeling faint,
she clung to the door frame.

Rose said, ‘Julia, do you want a taxi?'

‘I don't remember asking you to call me Julia,' said the old
woman.

‘Oh, I'm so sorry, Mrs Lennox,' said Rose, glancing around
for approval. And then, laughing, ‘What
shit
.'

‘The
ancien régime
, I guess,' said an American voice.

Julia had reached the edge of the pavement. She knew she
was going to faint. Rose stood on the steps behind her and said
loudly, ‘Johnny Lennox's ma. She's drunk.'

A taxi came, and Julia waved, but it was not going to stop
for this disreputable old woman. Rose ran after it, shouting, and
it did stop.

‘Thank you,' said Julia, climbing in. She still held the
handkerchief to her face.

‘Oh, don't mention it, please,' said Rose daintily, and looked
around for laughs, which she got. As Julia was driven away she
heard through the windows come bursts of applause, derision,
shouts, chanting, ‘Down with American imperialism. Down
with . . .'

Rose took this lucky opportunity, when Johnny made his way
out, to waylay Comrade Johnny the star and say to him, like an
equal, ‘Your mother was here.' ‘I saw her,' he said, not looking
at her: he always ignored her. ‘She was drunk,' she dared, but he
pushed past, not saying anything.

 • • •

Sylvia had not forgotten her promise. She had made an
appointment for Julia with a certain Doctor Lehman. Wilhelm knew him
and that he was a specialist in the problems of the old. ‘Our
problems, dear Julia.'

‘Geriatrics,' said Julia.

‘What's in a word? You can make an appointment for me
too.'

Julia sat in front of Doctor Lehman, a quite likeable man, she
thought, if so young–in fact he was middle-aged. German, like
her? With that name? Then, Jewish? A refugee from her kind?
It was remarkable how often she found herself thinking these
thoughts.

He had an impeccable English voice and accent: evidently
doctors did not have to talk cockney.

She knew he had taken in a great many facts about her from
watching her walk to the chair, and that he would have heard
more from Sylvia, and that since he had analysed her urine, taken
her blood pressure, and checked her heart, he knew more about
her than she knew herself.

He said, smiling, ‘Mrs Lennox, you have been sent to me
because of problems to do with old age.'

‘So it seems,' she said, and knew he had not missed the
resentment. He smiled a little.

‘You are seventy-five years old.'

‘That is so.'

‘That isn't very old, not these days.'

She succumbed with, ‘Doctor, I sometimes feel I am a hundred.'

‘You allow yourself to think you are.'

This was not what she had expected, and, reassured, she smiled
at this man who was not going to oppress her with her age.

‘There is nothing wrong with you, physically.
Congratulations. I wish I were in as good a shape. But there you are,
everyone knows doctors don't follow their own advice.'

Now she allowed herself to laugh, and nodded, as if to say,
Very well, now get on with it.

‘I see this quite often, Mrs Lennox. Somebody who has been
talked into feeling old when it is too early for them.'

Wilhelm? wondered Julia. Did he . . .

‘Or has talked themselves into feeling old.'

‘Have I done that? Well . . . perhaps I have.'

‘I am going to say something that may seem shocking.'

‘No, doctor, I don't shock easily.'

‘Good. You can decide to become old. You are at a crossroads,
Mrs Lennox. You can decide to get old and then you'll die. But
you can decide not to get old. Not yet.'

She sat thinking, and then she nodded.

‘I believe you have had a shock of some kind. A death? but
it doesn't matter what. You seem to me to be showing signs of
grief.'

‘You are a very clever young man.'

‘Thank you, but I am not so young. I am fifty-five.'

‘You could be my son.'

‘Yes, I could. Mrs Lennox, I want you to get up from that
chair, and walk away from–the situation you are now in. You
can decide to do it. You are not an old woman. You don't need
a doctor. I am going to prescribe you vitamins and minerals.'

‘Vitamins!'

‘Why not? I take them. And come back in five years time
and we'll discuss whether it is time for you to be old.'

***

Hazy golden clouds were throwing down brilliants that scattered
around and on the taxi, exploding into smaller crystals, or sliding
down the windows, and their shadows made dots and splodges
which imitated the theme of Julia's little spotted veil that was held
on the crown of her head with a serious jet clasp. The April sky
of sunshine and showers was a cheat, for in fact it was September.
Julia was dressed as she always was. Wilhelm had said to her, ‘My
dear, liebling, my dearest Julia, I am going to buy you a new
dress.' Protesting and grumbling, but pleased, she was taken around
the best shops, where he enlisted the aid of superior, but then
charmed, young women, and Julia ended up with a
claret-coloured velvet suit indistinguishable from those she had been
wearing for decades. Upright inside it she was supported by
thoughts of the tiny silk stitches on collar and cuffs and the
perfectly fitting pink silk lining which she felt as a defence against
barbarians. On the seat beside her Frances was doubled low in
the task of changing her stockings and sensible shoes for
high-heeled ones and black sheers. Otherwise, her working clothes–Julia had picked Frances up from the newspaper–were clearly
expected to be adequate. Andrew had said there would be a little
celebration, but they mustn't dress up. What could he mean?
Celebrate what?

They were making the inevitably slow progress towards
Andrew, side by side, in companionable and wary silence. Frances
was thinking that all the years of living in Julia's house had led
to occasions when they sat together in a cab so few she could list
them. And Julia was thinking that there was no intimacy between
them, and yet the young woman–come on, Julia, she was
certainly not that!–was able to strip off stockings, exposing solid
white legs, without a moment's embarrassment. It was likely no
one had seen Julia's naked legs except her husband and doctors
since she became adult. Had Wilhelm? No one knew.

They had gone so far as to agree that the celebration was
probably because Andrew had been offered a job in one of the
great international organisations that inhale and exhale money and
order the world's affairs. When he had gained his second degree
in law–he had done very well–he had left his grandmother's
house for the second time for a flat shared with other young
people, but he did not expect to be there for long.