The Sweetest Dream (54 page)

The state of her mind could also be described clinically: it
was, in a hundred religious textbooks. The doctors of her Faith
would say to her, Disregard it, it is nothing, seasons of dryness
come to us all.

But she didn't need these experts on the soul, she did not
need Father McGuire, she could diagnose herself. So why then
did she need a spiritual mentor at all, if she was not going to tell
him, simply because she knew what he would say?

But the real question was, why would it be so easy for Father
McGuire to say ‘a season of dryness', but for her it was like a
sentence of self-excommunication? What she had brought to her
conversion was a hungry needful heart, and anger too, though
she had not recognised that until recently. She could see herself,
as she had been then, in Joshua, where anger burned always,
forced out of him in bitter accusations and demands. Who was
she ever to criticise Joshua? She had known what it was to be
angry to the point she was poisoned by it, though at the time she
had thought she was wanting comforting arms, Julia's. And now
was she criticising Julia, because her love had not been enough
to still that wanting, so that she had gone on to Father Jack? What
had stilled the wanting? Work, always, and only, work. And so
there she was, on a dry hillside in Africa, feeling that everything
she did or might ever do was as effective as pouring water from
a (tin) cup into the dust on a hot day.

She thought: There is no person in Europe (if they have not
been here and seen) who could comprehend this level of absolute
need, a lack of everything, in people who had been promised
everything by their rulers, and that was the point where a quiet
horror seemed to seep into her. It was like the horror of AIDS, the
silent secretive disease that had come from nowhere–monkeys, it
was said, perhaps even the monkeys that sometimes played about
in the trees here. The thief that comes in the night–that was
how she thought of AIDS.

Her heart hurt her . . . she must tell Zebedee and Clever to
tell the builders that there must be another good brick building
here and she would say yes to the demands from the village for
more classes.

Father McGuire heard that there would be more classes and
said that she looked tired, she must look after herself.

Here was where she could have mentioned her season of
dryness and even joked about it, but instead she said he must
remember to take his vitamins and why was he not taking his
nap? He listened to her strictures patiently, smiling, just as she
listened to him.

 • • •

Colin had been appealed to by Sylvia to ‘do something for Africa'–he saw how he had described this to himself and mocked–himself. ‘Africa!' As if he didn't know better. There was that
continent down there, imaged in most people's minds by a child
holding out a begging bowl. But what Sylvia had said was not
Africa, but Zimlia. It was his duty to help with Zimlia. And how
often had he joked that Dickens's Mrs Jellaby summed it all up,
people fussing over Africa when they might be attending to local
needs. Why Africa? Why not Liverpool? The Left in Europe as
usual concerning itself with events elsewhere: it had identified
itself with the Soviet Union and as a result had done itself in.
Now there was Africa, India, China, you name it, but particularly
Africa. It was his duty to do something about it. Lies–Sylvia had
said. Lies were being told. Well, what's new? What did anyone
expect? So Colin muttered and grumbled, a caged bear in rooms
that were too small now that the baby was born, a bit drunk, but
not much, because he had taken Sylvia's strictures to heart. And
what made her think he was equipped to write about Africa? Or
that he knew people who would care? He knew no one in that
world, newspapers, journals, television; he stuck pretty close to
his last, writing his books . . . but wait, he knew just the person,
yes, he did.

During that long time when he had frequented pubs and talked
to people on park benches, with the little dog, he had acquired
a crony, a boon companion. The Seventies: Fred Cope was
spending his young life as was
de rigueur
then, demonstrating, assaulting
policemen, shouting slogans and generally making himself noticed
but when with Colin, who despised all that, could be persuaded
at least sometimes to criticise it too. Both young men knew that
the other was an aspect of himself kept on a leash. After all, if his
judgement had not forbidden, Colin's temperament was one to
enjoy noisy confrontation. As for Fred Cope, he discovered
responsibility and sobriety in the Eighties. He married. He had a
house. Ten years before he had mocked Colin for living in
Hampstead: the word was being used as a pejorative by anyone aspiring
to be in tune with the times. The Hampstead socialists, the
Hampstead novel, Hampstead as a place, these were always good for a
sneer, but as soon as they could afford it, these critics bought
houses in Hampstead. And so had Fred Cope. He was now the
editor of a newspaper,
The Monitor
, and sometimes the two met
for a drink.

Has there ever been a generation that has not watched, amazed–though surely by now it has to be expected?–the roustabouts
and delinquents and rebels of their youth becoming mouthpieces
of considered judgement? Colin telephoned Fred Cope reminding
himself that the possessors of considered judgement often found
it hard to remember past follies. The two met in a pub, on a
Sunday, and Colin plunged in. ‘I have a sister–well, a kind of
sister, who is working in Zimlia, and she came to see me to say
we are all talking nonsense about dear Comrade President
Matthew: he's really a bit of a crook.'

‘Aren't they all?' murmured Fred Cope, back in his former
role of practised sceptic about any kind of authority, but added,
‘Surely he is one of the good ones?'

‘I'm in a false position,' said Colin. ‘This is the voice of Colin,
but they are the words of Sylvia. She came to see me. She was
in a state. I think it might be worth your while to . . . get a second
opinion.'

The editor smiled. ‘The trouble is, it doesn't do to judge
them by our standards. Their difficulties are immense. And it's a
completely different culture.'

‘Why doesn't it do? That's surely patronising. And haven't
we had our bellies full of not judging others by our standards?'

‘Yeeeees,' said the editor. ‘I see your point. Well, I'll look
into it.'

Having got over what both felt as an awkwardness, they tried
to regain the glorious irresponsibility of their earlier times, when
Colin's views had been such that he had scarcely dared voice them
outside the safety of his home, and Fred's young life now seemed
to him like a prolonged festival of licence and anarchy. But it was
no good. Fred was expecting a second baby. Colin as usual was
thinking only of the novel he was writing. He knew he probably
ought to be doing more about Sylvia, but when has being in the
middle of a novel not been the best of excuses? Besides, he always
felt guilty about her and did not understand why he did. He had
forgotten how much he had resented her coming to Julia's house,
and how he had railed at his mother. He looked back on that
time with pride now: he and Sophie, both, and anyone else who
had come and gone then, might talk affectionately about what
fun it had all been. But he did know he had always envied his
brother's ease with Sylvia. Now he found her religion and what
he saw as her neurotic need for self-sacrifice irritating. And this
last visit of hers which had ended in his scooping her up to sit
on his knee–what embarrassment for both of them! And yet he
was fond of her, yes he was, and he had been bound to do
something about Africa and he had done it.

But wait, there was Rupert, who heard him out, and said like
Fred Cope that they (meaning Africa, all of it?) shouldn't be judged
by our standards. ‘But what about the truth?' said Colin, knowing,
from such long and painful experience that truth was always going
to be a poor relation. Now, Rupert was not one of Comrade
Johnny's spiritual heirs: if he had been, then he might have found
aiding and abetting the truth a bit of a clarion call. Although ‘the
truth' had not yet emerged more than in drips and drops from
the Soviet Union, compared to the great dollops of it that would
be available in ten years' time; although that great empire still
existed (though no one even vaguely on the left would dream of
even thinking of describing it as an empire), enough had come
out, was coming out, to be a perpetual goad and reminder that
truth ought to be on everyone's agenda. But Rupert had never
been anything but a good liberal and now he said, ‘Wouldn't you
say that telling the truth sometimes does more harm than good?'

‘No, I most certainly would not,' said Colin.

Then Colin forgot Sylvia's appeal in the business of moving
his work down to the basement flat, Meriel having taken herself
off. He had to get this new book done: after all, the money Julia
had left was not so much that any of them could slack, take things
easy.

Fred Cope summoned up from his newspaper's and other
archives, articles about Zimlia and concluded that it was true,
Zimlia was always being given the benefit of any doubt. One of
the experts whose name was often on articles about Zimlia was
Rose Trimble. Well, she had never been critical, so who else?
The
Monitor
had a stringer in Senga, and he was invited to write an
article, ‘Zimlia's first decade'. The article that arrived was more
critical than most, while reminding readers that Africa was not to
be judged by European standards. Fred Cope sent a copy of this
article to Colin. ‘I hope this is more on the lines of what you
suggest?' And then, a postscript. ‘How would you fancy writing
a piece about whether Proudhon's “All property is theft” has been
responsible for the corruption and collapse of modern society? I
would be the first to admit that my thoughts on the subject have
been prompted by the fact our house has been burgled three times
in two years.'

The article in
The Monitor
was noticed by the editor of a
newspaper for whom Rose Trimble had regularly written about
Zimlia and Comrade President Matthew, and now she was invited
to return to Zimlia and see if what she found there supported the
critical article in
The Monitor
.

Rose was by now a name in the newspaper world. She had
owed this to her timely praise for Zimlia but that had been only
her start. Everything had gone right for her. She could easily have
said, ‘God be thanked who has matched me with His hour,'–if
she had ever read a line of poetry or could use the word God
without a smirk. Living in Julia's house she had felt inferior, but
once out of it, it was they who seemed inferior. She was matched
with the Eighties. Her qualities were what were needed now, in
the time when getting on, getting rich, doing down your fellows,
were officially applauded. She was ruthless, she was acquisitive,
she was by instinct contemptuous of others. While she kept a
connection with the comparatively serious newspaper for which
she wrote her pieces on Zimlia, she had found her niche in
World
Scandals
, where her task was to hunt out weaknesses, or rumours,
and then hound some victim day and night until she could
triumphantly come up with an exposé. The higher this unfortunate
was in public life the better. She camped on people's doorsteps,
rummaged in rubbish bins, bribed relatives and friends to reveal
or invent damaging facts: she was good at this scavenger's work,
and she was feared. She was particularly famous for her ‘portraits',
bringing journalism to new heights of vindictiveness, and found
the work easy because she was genuinely incapable of seeing
good in anyone: she knew that the truth about them had to be
discreditable, and that it was in the unpleasant that the real essence
of a person lies. This kind of jeering, derision, this ridicule, came
from her deepest self, and matched a generation of similar people.
It was as if something ugly and cruel had been exposed in England,
something that had been hidden before, but was now like a beggar
pulling aside rags to show ulcers. What had been respected was
now scorned; decency, a respect for others, was now ridiculous.
The world was being presented to readers through a coarse screen
that got rid of anything pleasant or likeable: the tone was set by
Rose Trimble and her kind who could never believe that anyone
did anything except for self-interest. Rose hated most of all people
who read books, or who pretended to–it was only a pretence;
loathed the arts, denigrated particularly the theatre–she boasted
she had invented the word ‘luvvies' for theatre people; and liked
violent and cruel films. She met only people like herself,
frequenting certain pubs and clubs, and they had no idea that they
were a new phenomenon, something that earlier generations
would have despised, and dismissed as the gutter press, fit only
for the lowest depths of society. But the phrase now seemed to
her something vaguely complimentary, a guarantee of bravery in
the pursuit of truth. But how could she, or they, know? They
scorned history because they had learned none. Only once in her
life she had written with approval, admiration, it was about
Comrade President Matthew Mungozi, and then, more recently,
Comrade Gloria, whom she adored because of her ruthlessness.
Only once had her pen not dripped poison. And she read the
article by
The Monitor
's stringer with fury, and, too, with
something like the beginnings of fear.

Meeting a journalist who worked on
The Monitor
she heard
that it was Colin Lennox who had prompted it. And who the
hell was Colin to have an opinion about Africa?