The Sweetest Dream

by Doris Lessing

  And now James was sitting with his head in his hands, half asleep, and Geoffrey said that if he didn’t have a nap he’d die. At this Rose and Franklin offered beds downstairs, and the company would have dispersed but there was a bang on the front door, and then the door into the kitchen opened, and there was Johnny, permitting himself a Christmas relaxation of his features, his arms full of bottles, accompanied by his new crony, a recently arrived in London working-class playwright from Hull, Derek Carey. Derek was as jovial as Father Christmas, and with good reason, for he was still intoxicated by the cornucopia that is London. Bliss had begun on his very first evening, two weeks ago. At an after-theatre party, he had watched from afar, in wonder, two gorgeous fair women, with posh accents, that at first he had thought were put on. He thought they were prostitutes. But no, they were upper-class escapes into the swampy beds and pungent groves of Swinging London. ‘Oh, my God,’ he stammered to one of them, ‘if I could be in bed with you, if I could sleep with you I’d be as near Paradise as I ever hope to get.’ He had stood sheepishly, awaiting chastisement, physical or verbal, but instead he heard, ‘And so you shall, dear heart, and so you shall.’ Then the other gave him a tongue kiss of the kind he would have had to work hard for, for weeks, or months, back home. Things had gone on from there, ending with the three of them in bed, and with every new place he went he expected and found fresh delights. Tonight he was drunk: he had hardly been sober for the two weeks. Now he stood by the carcass of the turkey, where Johnny was already energetically picking, and joined in. Johnny’s sons sat silent, not looking at their father.

  ‘I take it you’d like some turkey?’ said Frances to the men, handing them plates. Derek at once replied, ‘Oh, yes, that’d be grand,’ and filled his, while Johnny stacked his, and sat down. Colin and Andrew went upstairs. They really seemed to be no point in asking, ‘And Phyllida? Is she having something?’

  The presence of the two men had banished enjoyment, and the young ones crept upstairs to the sitting-room where they found Julia had spread a white lace cloth, and a display of exquisite china, plates of German stollen, and English Christmas cake.

  Frances was left with the two men. She sat watching them eat.

  ‘Frances, I have to talk to you about Phyllida.’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ said the playwright. ‘I won’t listen. But believe you me, I’m only too familiar with marital situations. For my sins.’

  Johnny had cleared his plate, and now put Christmas pudding into a bowl, doused it with cream, and stood with the bowl in his hand, in his usual place, back to the window. ‘I’ll come to the point.’

  ‘Yes, do.’

  ‘Now, now, children,’ said the playwright. ‘You’re not married any longer. You don’t have to snap and snarl.’ He poured himself wine.

  ‘Phyllida and I are washed up,’ said Johnny. ‘To come to the point . . .’ he repeated. ‘I want to marry again. Or perhaps we’ll dispense with the formalities–bourgeois nonsense anyway. I’ve found a real comrade, she is Stella Linch, you might remember her from the past–Korean War, that time.’

  ‘No,’ said Frances. ‘And so what are you going to do with Phyllida? No, don’t tell me, you aren’t going to suggest she comes here?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I want her to come and live in the basement flat. There’s plenty of room in this house. And it is my house, you seem to forget.’

  ‘Not Julia’s?’

  ‘Morally, it’s mine.’

  ‘But you already have one discarded family in it.’

  ‘Now, now,’ said the playwright again. And he hiccupped. ‘God bless. Sorry.’

  ‘The answer is no, Johnny. The house is full up, and there is one thing you don’t seem to get. If her mother comes here Sylvia will leave at once.’

  ‘Tilly will do as she’s told.’

  ‘You forget Sylvia is over sixteen.’

  ‘She is old enough to visit her mother, then. She never comes near Phyllida.’

  ‘You know as well as I do that Phyllida’ll start shouting at her. And anyway, surely you ought to be asking Julia.’

  ‘The old bitch. She’s gaga.’

  ‘No, Johnny, she’s not gaga. And you’d better be quick, because there’s going to be a tea-party.’

  ‘Tea-party?’ said the comrade from Leeds. ‘Oh, goody. Goody, goody gumdrops.’ He sat swaying, poured out some wine into a glass already half full, and said, ‘Excuse me.’ He fell asleep, as he sat, his mouth falling open.

  Above her, in the sitting-room, Frances could hear voices–Johnny’s, his mother’s. ‘Stupid fool,’ she heard, from Julia, and Johnny came down the stairs, several at a time, and into the kitchen. For once he was off centre, and flustered. ‘I have a right to a woman who is a real comrade,’ he said to Frances. ‘For once in my life I am going to have a woman who is my equal.’

  ‘That is what you said about Maureen, do you remember? Not to mention Phyllida.’

  ‘Absurd,’ said Johnny. ‘I couldn’t have done.’

  Here the playwright came to himself, said, ‘Seconds out of the ring,’–and fell asleep again.

  Sophie appeared to say the party had begun.

  ‘I shall leave you two to wrestle with the sins of the world,’ said Frances, and left them.

  Before joining the tea-party she went to her room, and put on a new dress, and combed her hair, which transformation enabled her to remember, looking into the mirror, that in her time she had been described as a handsome blonde. And on the stage, more than once she had been beautiful. And with Harold Holman during that weekend which now seemed such an age ago, she had certainly been beautiful.

  At the beginning of December Julia had descended to Frances’s rooms, and she was looking embarrassed: that was not her style at all. ‘Frances, I don’t want you to be offended with me . . .’ She was holding out one of her thick white envelopes, that had Frances on it, in her beautiful handwriting. In it were banknotes. ‘I could not think of a nice way to do this . . . but it would make me so happy . . . do go to a hairdresser, and buy yourself a good dress for Christmas.’

  Frances tended to comb her hair flat on either side of a parting, but the hairdresser (certainly not Evansky or Vidal Sassoon, who could only tolerate the current style) was able to make this look the last word in chic. And she had paid more for a dress than she had ever done in her life. No point in putting it on for Christmas lunch, with all that cooking to do, but now she entered the sitting-room, as self-conscious as a girl. At once there were compliments, and even, from Colin, a little bow as he rose to offer her his chair. Clothes makyth manners. And someone else was making a point of admiring her. Julia’s distinguished Wilhelm rose, bent over her hand–unfortunately it probably still smelled of the kitchen–and kissed the air just above it.

  Julia nodded and smiled congratulations.

  ‘You spoil me, Julia,’ said Frances, and her mother-in-law replied, ‘My dear, I wish you could know what it really means to be loved and spoiled.’

  And now Julia poured tea from a silver teapot, and Sylvia, her handmaid, handed around slices of the stollen, and the heavy Christmas cake. On their chairs Geoffrey and James, Colin and Andrew fought to keep awake. Franklin was watching Sylvia trip about as if she had appeared magically from thin air. Conversation was being made by Wilhelm, Frances, Julia, and the three girls, Sophie, Lucy, Sylvia.

  A problem: the windows were still open, and it was after all mid-winter. A fresh cold dark lay outside the polluted room where Julia sat remembering, and they knew she did, how she had entertained ambassadors and politicians here. ‘And even once the Prime Minister.’ And in a corner lay a tangle of sleeping bags, an overlooked empty wine bottle.

  Julia wore a grey velveteen suit, with lace, and garnets in her ears and at her throat, which flashed and reproached them. She was telling them about Christmases long ago, when she was a girl, in her home in Germany, a sprightly, even formal recital, as if she was reading it from a book of old tales, while Wilhelm Stein listened
, nodding to confirm what she was saying.

  ‘Yes,’ he said into a silence. ‘Yes, yes. Well, Julia my dear, we have to agree that times have changed.’

  Downstairs could be heard Johnny’s voice in energetic debate with the playwright. Geoffrey, who had nearly toppled forward, asleep, got up, and with an apology, left the room, followed by James. Frances was overwhelmed with shame, but was pleased they had gone, for at least the girls could be trusted not to nod off while sitting and holding pretty teacups as if they had never done anything else. Not Rose, of course, she was in a corner, apart.

  Julia said, ‘I think the windows . . .’ Sylvia at once went to close them, and drew the heavy curtains, lined and interlined brocade, which had faded after sixty years to a greenish blue that made Frances’s blue look crude. Rose had threatened to pull down the curtains and make herself a dress ‘like Scarlet O’Hara’s’, and when Sylvia had said, ‘But, Rose, I am sure Julia wouldn’t like that,’ said, ‘You can’t take a joke, you’ve got no sense of humour.’ Which was certainly true.

  Andrew now said that he knew they were all besotted barbarians but if she could have seen the meal they had just put away Julia would forgive them.

  Her stollen, her cake, lay in untouched slices on the tiny green plates, that had pink rosebuds on them.

  A burst of laughter from downstairs. Julia smiled ironically. She did smile but there were tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, Julia,’ crooned Sylvia, going to her, putting her arms around her, so that her cheek lay on the silvery cap of waves and little curls, ‘We do love your lovely tea, we do, but if you only knew . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ said Julia. ‘Yes, I know.’ She got up. Wilhelm Stein got up and put his arm around her, patting her hand. The two distinguished people stood together in the middle of the room which made such a frame for them, and then Julia said, ‘Well, my children, and now I think that is enough.’

  She exited, on Wilhelm’s arm.

  No one moved, then Andrew and Colin stretched their arms out and yawned. Sylvia and Sophie began gathering up the tea things. Rose, Franklin and Lucy went off to join the lively group in the kitchen. Frances did not move.

  Johnny and Derek were seated at either end of the table, conducting a kind of seminar. Johnny was reading passages from A Revolution Handbook which he had written and had published by a respectable publisher. It was making some money: as a reviewer had said, ‘This has the makings of a perennial bestseller.’

  Derek Carey’s contribution to the welfare of nations was to exhort young people, at meeting after meeting, to fill in census forms wrongly, to destroy any official letters that came their way, to take jobs in the post offices as postmen and destroy letters, and to shoplift as much as possible. Every little bit helped to bring down the structure of an oppressive state such as Britain. In the recent election they had been advised to spoil voting forms and write insulting remarks on them, such as Fascist! Rose and Geoffrey, needing to distinguish themselves in this exhilarating company, now described their recent shopping expedition. Then Rose ran downstairs and came back with carrier bags full of stolen presents, and began handing them out: soft toys mostly, plushy tigers and pandas and bears but there was a bottle of brandy–handed to Johnny–and one of Armagnac, given to Derek. ‘That’s the stuff, comrade,’ said Derek, with a comradely wink that reached Rose’s soul, parched for compliments; it was like a medal for achievement. And Johnny gave her a clenched fist salute. No one had seen her so happy.

  Franklin was distressed, because he had wanted so much to give Frances a present, and had expected that some of this ‘liberated’ stuff would find its way to him, but he saw now this wouldn’t happen. Rose said, ‘And this is for Frances.’ It was a kangaroo, with a baby in its pouch. She held it up, grinning around, waiting for applause, but Geoffrey took it from her, offended at the criticism of Frances. Franklin admired the kangaroo, and thought it a wonderful compliment to Frances, a mother to them all; he had not understood Geoffrey’s reaction, and now he reached out for the kangaroo. Geoffrey gave it to him. Franklin sat taking the baby from its pouch and putting it back again.

  ‘You could introduce a few kangaroos into Zimlia,’ said Johnny. He raised his glass. ‘To the liberation of Zimlia.’

  Franklin looked among the debris on the table for a glass, held it out to Rose to be filled, and drank ‘To the liberation of Zimlia’.

  This kind of joke both excited Franklin and scared him. He knew all about the terrible war in Kenya: they had ‘done’ it in class, and he could not see why Johnny–or for that matter the teachers at St Joseph’s–were so keen on Zimlia’s going through a war. But now, happy with food and drink and the kangaroo, he drank again to Derek’s toast, ‘To the Revolution’, while wondering which Revolution and where.

  Then he said, ‘I’m going to give this to Frances,’ and was halfway up the stairs with it when he remembered that it was stolen and that Frances had ticked him off that morning. But he didn’t want to return to the kitchen with it, and that was how it found its way to Sylvia, who was carrying a big loaded tray up to Julia’s.

  ‘Oh, how lovely,’ she said as Franklin tucked the kangaroo under her arm, her hands being full. But she put the tray down on the landing, and admired the kangaroo. ‘Oh, Franklin, it’s so nice.’ And she kissed him, with the warm close hug that made him expand with happiness.

  In the sitting-room were now Andrew, asleep in a chair, stretched out, his hands on his stomach. Colin, with Sophie on the divan, arms around each other, both asleep.

  Franklin stood looking at them while his heart took a dive again, and he remembered how puzzled he was by everything. He knew that Colin and Sophie had been ‘friends’ but were not friends now, and that Sophie had a ‘friend’ who had gone to his own family for Christmas. Why then were these two in each other’s arms, Sophie’s head on Colin’s shoulder? Franklin had not slept with a girl yet. At the mission there were no girls, and the boys were watched by the Fathers who knew everything that went on. At home with his parents it was the same. Visiting his grandparents he had teased the girls and joked with them, but no more than that.

  Like so many newcomers to Britain, Franklin had been confused from the start about what went on. At first he had thought there were no morals at all, but soon suspected that there must be. But what were they? At St Joseph’s, girls and boys slept with each other, he knew: at least that’s what it seemed like. In the meadow behind the school, couples lay together in the grass, and Franklin, solitary, listened to their laughter, and, worse, their silences. He felt that the females of this island were available to everyone, available to him, if only he could find the right words. Yet he had seen a Nigerian boy, just arrived at St Joseph’s, go up to a girl and say, ‘Can I come into your bed tonight if I give you a nice present?’ She had slapped him so hard that he fell down. Franklin had been turning over in his mind similar words, to try his luck. Yet the same girl who had done the slapping cuddled on the bed with a boy who had a room in the same corridor, leaving the door open so everyone could see what went on. No one took any notice.

  He went back down the stairs, stopping to listen at the door to the kitchen, where Johnny’s lecture on guerilla tactics to destroy the military imperialistic complex was similar to Derek’s: shoplifting was apparently considered a major weapon. He went down to his room, and to the drawer where his money was. It looked less: he counted it: there was less than half. He was standing there counting when he heard Rose behind him.

  ‘Half my money’s gone,’ he said wildly.

  ‘I took half. I deserve it, don’t I? You got all the clothes for nothing. If you had bought clothes you couldn’t have got anything as nice for that money. So you’ve gained, haven’t you? You’ve got new clothes and half the money.’

  He stared at her, his face puckered up with suspicion, sullen, angry. That money, to him, was more than a gift from Frances, who was a mother to him. It was like a welcome into this family, making him part of it.

  Rose w
as cold, and full of contempt. ‘You don’t understand anything,’ she said. ‘I deserve it, don’t you see?’

  He gave a helpless shrug, and she stood there for a moment, staring him out and then went up the stairs.

  He looked for a place to hide the money in this room that had no place where one could hide anything. At home you could slide forbidden things into thatch or bury them in the earth floor, or in the bush. At his parents’ house were bricks that could be loosened and fitted back. In the end he put the money back into the drawer. He sat on the edge of his bed and cried, from homesickness, for shame because Frances was angry with him, and because he did not feel at home with those revolutionaries upstairs and yet they treated him as one of themselves. In the end he slept a little, and went up to the kitchen to find the two men gone, and everyone doing the washing-up. In this he joined, with relief, and with pleasure, one of them. It seemed there was going to be supper, though everyone joked it would be impossible to eat a thing. Rather late, about ten, the turkey carcass appeared again, and all kinds of stuffings and relishes, and there was a big tray of roast potatoes. They were all sitting around, drinking, tired, pleased with themselves and with Christmas, when there was a knock on the front door. Frances peered through the window, and saw a woman on the pavement, uncertain whether to knock again or go off. Colin came to stand by his mother. Both were afraid that it might be Phyllida.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Colin, and went out, and Frances saw him talking to the stranger, who was swaying a little. He put his hand on her shoulder to steady her, and then brought her in, with an arm right around her.

  She had been wandering in the dark or half-lit streets and now stood blinking at the bright hall light. Frances appeared. The stranger said to her, ‘Are you the darling of my heart?’ She seemed middle-aged, but it was hard to say, because her face was grimy, so were the rather beautiful white hands that clutched at Colin. She looked like someone rescued from a fire or a catastrophe. Colin’s face was wrenched with pain, the tender-hearted youth was in tears. ‘Mother,’ he said in appeal, and Frances went to the other side, and together she and Colin took the poor stray up the stairs and into the living-room, which was empty now, and tidy.