The Sweetest Dream (40 page)

‘Well done,' said Rupert.

‘Well, was it?' said Frances, sitting limp, trembling, dismayed
at herself. She dropped her head on to her arms.

‘Yes, of course it was. There was bound to be a confrontation
at some point. And by the way, don't think I'm taking you for
granted. I wouldn't blame you if you simply left.'

‘I'm not going to leave,'–and she reached for his hand. It
was trembling. ‘Oh, God,' she said, ‘this is all so . . .' He reached
out for her and she pushed her chair up to his and they sat close,
with their arms around each other, sharing dismay.

A week later there was a repetition of the ‘You aren't our
mother, so why should we . . .' and so on.

Frances had been trying all day to get on with the heavy
sociological book which she was writing, interrupted by telephone
calls from the children's schools, Meriel's hospital, and Rupert
from his newspaper, asking what he should bring home for supper.
Her nerves were grumbling, they jangled and they swore. She
was feeling a reaction to the whole situation. What was she doing
here? What a trap she was in . . . did she even like these children?
That girl, with her virtuous prim little mouth, the boy (that poor
boy), so frightened by what was happening he could hardly look
at her, or his father, and who moved about like a sleepwalker,
with a scared smile that he tried to make sarcastic.

‘Right,' said she, ‘that's it, and got up from her place at the
table, pushing away her plate. She did not look at Rupert, for she
was doing the unforgivable–hitting him when he was down.

‘What do you mean?' asked the little girl–she was, after all,
still that.

‘What do you think? I'm going. I told you I would.'

And she went into the bedroom she shared with Rupert,
slowly, because her legs were stiff, not with indecision but because
she intended them to walk her away from Rupert. There she
brought clothes down from cupboards, stacked them on the bed,
found suitcases, and methodically began to pack. She was in a
state of mind opposite to anything she had felt for weeks now.
Like a bride or bridegroom who has been swept along on the
tide of events with only an occasional moment of misgiving, to
find themselves on the eve of the wedding wondering how they
could have been so mad, so now, a situation that had seemed
reasonable enough, if difficult, made her feel as if she were being
carried, wrists and ankles tied, into a prison. What on earth had
made her say she would take on his kids, even if only temporarily?
And how did she know it would be temporary? She must run
away now, before it was too late. The only part of her mind that
remained anywhere near what it had been was the thought of
Rupert. She could not give him up. Well, that was easy. She
would finally buy herself her own place,
her
place, and . . . the
door opened, just a little, then a little more, and the boy stood
there. ‘Margaret says, what are you doing?'

‘I'm leaving,' said Frances. ‘Shut the door.'

The door shut, in careful jerks, as if each little degree of closure
had been stopped by a change of mind: should he go in again?

The cases were packed and standing in a row when Margaret
came sidling in eyes lowered, the mouth half open, that prim pink
little mouth, but now it was swollen with tears.

‘Are you really leaving?'

‘Yes, I am.' And Frances, who was convinced she was, said,
‘Shut the door–quietly.'

Later she went out and found Rupert still sitting at the supper
table. She said, ‘That was badly done, I'm sorry.'

He shook his head, not looking at her. He was a solitary and
brave figure, and his pain shut him away from her. She could not
bear that. She knew she would not leave, at least, not like this.
She was thinking, in a wild last moment of rebellion, I'll get my
own place and he can deal with the mess of Meriel and the kids
and he can come and visit me and . . . ‘Of course I'm not going,'
she said. ‘How could I?'

He did not move, but then slowly held out the arm near to
her. She pushed a chair close and sat inside the arm, and he
inclined his head, so that their two heads rested together.

‘Well, at least they won't give you a bad time again,' he said.
‘That is, if you do decide to stay.'

The occasion demanded that they should cement their frailties
with love-making. He went off to their bedroom, and she prepared
to follow, switching off lights. She went to the girl's door, meaning
to go in and say goodnight, ‘Forget it, I didn't mean it.' What
she heard was sobbing, a dreadful low helpless sobbing which had
been going on for some time. Frances stood near the door, then
rested her head against it, in a flare of
Oh, no, I can't I can't
 . . .
but the sound of the child's misery was undoing her. She took a
breath and went into the room, and saw the girl start up from
her pillow, and then found her in her arms, ‘Oh, Frances, Frances,
I'm sorry, I didn't mean it.'

‘It's all right. I won't go. I did mean it then, but now I've
changed my mind.'

Kisses, hugs, and a new start.

With the boy, it was going to be harder. A hurt child, holding
himself inside an armature of pride, he refused tears, rejected
consoling arms, including his father's; he did not trust them.
He had watched his mother, so ill and silent, go so deep inside
herself she did not hear when he spoke to her, and it was this
sight that kept him company as he obediently did what he
was told, went to school, did homework, helped clear the table,
make his bed. If Frances and Rupert had known what went on
inside William, understood his wild solitary misery–but what
could they have done? They even were reassured by this
conforming boy, who was turning out–surely–to be easier than
Margaret?

 • • •

Sylvia stood in Senga airport's Arrivals, which accommodated the
luggage carousel, Immigration, Customs, and all the people off
the plane, who at one glance could be defined as black, and in
thick three-piece suits, and white, in jeans and T-shirts, with
sweaters they had left London in tied around their hips. The blacks
were exuberant, manoeuvring refrigerators, stoves, televisions and
furniture into positions where they could be offered to Customs'
approval, which was being given, for the officials were
congratulatory, only too happy to be generous with their scrawls of red
chalk as each vast crate arrived before them. Sylvia had a hold-all,
for her personal possessions, and two large suitcases for the medical
supplies and items Father McGuire had asked for: lists had been
arriving in London, each accompanied by: Don't feel yourself
obliged to bring these, if it is a trouble. On the plane Sylvia had
heard whites discuss Customs, its unpredictability, its partiality to
the blacks who were allowed to bring in whole households of
furniture. Next to Sylvia had been sitting a silent man, dressed
like others in jeans and T-shirt, but he had a silver cross on a chain
around his neck. Not knowing if this was a fashion statement, she
timidly enquired if he were a priest, heard he was Brother Jude
from the something mission–the unfamiliar name slid past her
ears–and asked if she might expect trouble with her big cases.
Hearing her story, where she was headed–he knew Father
McGuire–he said he would help her at Customs, where she
found him just ahead of her in the queue. He was hanging back,
letting others go past, because he was waiting for a young black
man who greeted him by name, asked if the cases were for the
mission, passed them, and then was introduced to Sylvia and her
cases. ‘This is a friend of Father McGuire's. She is a doctor. She
is taking supplies to the hospital at Kwandere.' ‘Oh, a friend of
Father McGuire,' said this youth, all smiling friendship, ‘please
give him my best, my very best.' And he scrawled the mystic red
sign on the cases. She did well at Immigration, with all the right
papers, and then they were outside on the steps of the airport
building, on a clear hot morning, and towards Sylvia came a young
woman wearing baggy blue shorts, a flowery T-shirt, and a large
silver cross. ‘Ah,' said Sylvia's saviour, ‘I see you are in good
hands. Hello there, Sister Molly,'–and he was off, to a group
waiting for him.

Sister Molly was going to drive her to St Luke's Mission. She
said there was no point hanging about in Senga, and they should
leave at once. And off they went, in a battered truck, straight into
the landscape of an Africa which Sylvia was prepared to admire
when she had got used to it. It was alien to her now. It was really
very hot. The wind blowing through the cab of the truck was
dusty. Sylvia gripped the door, and listened to Molly, who was
talking all the time, mostly about the male side of her religious
establishment, whom she complained were all male chauvinist
pigs. This phrase which had lost the relish of novelty in London,
came rolling new-minted from her smiling lips. As for the Pope,
he was reactionary, bigoted, bourgeois, too old and anti-woman,
and what a pity he seemed to be in good health. God forgive her
for saying that.

This was not what Sylvia had expected to be listening to. She
did not care much about the Pope, though as a Catholic she knew
she should, and she had never found the language of extreme
feminism matched up with her experience. Sister Molly drove
very fast over at first good roads, then increasingly bad ones until
an hour or so later the car stopped at a group of buildings which
it seemed was a farm. There Molly unloaded Sylvia and her cases,
saying, ‘I'll leave you here. And don't you let Kevin McGuire
push you around. He's a sweetie, I'm not saying he isn't, but all
those old-fashioned priests are the same.' She jolted off, waving
at Sylvia and anyone else who might be looking.

Sylvia found herself invited in to morning tea by Edna Pyne,
whose voice, all unfamiliar vowels, had above all a tang of self-pity
that Sylvia knew only too well. And the elderly face was
dissatisfied. Cedric Pyne had long, burned legs in the shortest shorts she
had ever seen, and his eyes, like his wife's, were blue, and
reddened. There was such a glare round the verandah where they
sat that Sylvia kept her eyes on this couple, avoiding the harsh
yellow light, and really saw nothing on this first visit but them.
It was clear that dropping off people and things at the Pynes' place
was part of a regular trafficking, for when they were again in a
car, this time a jeep, there were bundles of newspapers, letters for
Father McGuire, and two black youths, one of whom Sylvia saw
at once was very sick. ‘I'm going to the hospital,' said the sick
one and Sylvia said, ‘So am I.' The two were in the back and she
was with Cedric who drove, like Sister Molly, as if for a bet.
They jolted over a dirt road for ten miles or so, and were then
in dusty trees, and ahead was a low building, roofed with
corrugated metal, and beyond that on a ridge were more buildings
scattered about among more dusty trees.

‘Tell Kevin I can't wait,' said Cedric Pyne. ‘Come and visit
any time.' And with that he was off, leaving dust clouds drifting.
Sylvia's head ached. She was thinking that she had scarcely left
London in her life, and this had seemed to her until now quite
a normal thing, instead of the deprivation that she now suspected
it was. The two black youths went off to the hospital, and said,
‘See you by and by.' Which sounded relaxed enough but the sick
one's face was a plea for immediacy.

Sylvia went on to a tiny verandah, of polished green cement,
with her cases. Then into a smallish room that had in it a table
made of stained planks, chairs seated with strips of hide, shelves
of books filling all one wall, and some pictures, all but one of
Jesus, that one being a misty sunset view of the Mountains of
Mourne.

A thin little black woman appeared, all welcoming smiles,
said she was Rebecca, and that she would show Sylvia her
room.

Her room, off the main one, was large enough for a narrow
iron bed, a small table, a couple of hard chairs, and some wall
shelves for books. There were nails and hangers on the walls for
her clothes. A little chest of drawers, of the kind that once hotels
all had, had washed up here. Above her bed was a small crucifix.
The walls were of brick, the floors of brick, and the ceiling of
split cane. Rebecca said she would bring tea, and went off. Sylvia
sank on to a chair, in the grip of a feeling she did not know how
to identify. Yes, new impressions: yes, she had expected them,
had known she would feel alien, out of place. But what was this?–waves of bitter emptiness attacked her, and when she looked at
the crucifix, to get her bearings, felt only that Christ Himself must
be surprised to find Himself there. But surely she–Sylvia–was
not surprised to find Christ in a place of such poverty? What was
it then? Outside doves cooed, and chickens kept up their talk.
I'm just a spoiled brat, Sylvia told herself–the word surfacing
from somewhere deep in her childhood. Westminster Cathedral–yes; a brick shack, apparently, no. Dust was blowing past the
window. Judging from her outside view of it, this house could not
have more than three or four rooms. Where was Father McGuire's
room? Where did Rebecca sleep? She could make no sense of
anything, and when Rebecca brought the tea, Sylvia said she had
a headache, and would lie down.

‘Yes, doctor, you lie down, and you'll be better soon,' said
Rebecca, her cheerfulness recognisable as Christian: the children
of God smile and are ready for anything. (Like Flower Children.)
Rebecca was drawing the curtains, of black and white mattress
ticking, which Sylvia suspected would be found the last word in
chic in certain circles in London. ‘I'll call you for lunch.'