The Sweetest Dream

by Doris Lessing Little Dorrit

  This scene, which after all has repeated itself in various forms since then, did not then have as much weight on it as it would now. Irony, which celebrates that element which we persist in excluding from our vision of things, would have been too much for them to bear: we have become coarser-fibred.

  And now these two lovers who would not have recognised each other passing in a street, had to decide whether their dreams of each other for all those terrible years were strong enough to carry them through into marriage. Nothing was left of the enchanting prim little girl, nor of the sentimental man who had, until it crumbled away, carried a dead red rose next to his heart. The great blue eyes were sad, and he tended to lapse into silences, just like her younger brother, when remembering things that could be understood only by other soldiers.

  These two married quietly: hardly the time for a big German-English wedding. In London war fever was abating, though people still talked about the Boche and the Hun. People were polite to Julia. For the first time she wondered if choosing Philip had not been a mistake, yet she believed they loved each other, and both were pretending they were serious people by nature and not saddened beyond curing. And yet the war did recede and the worst of the war hatreds passed. Julia, who had suffered in Germany for her English love, now tried to become English, in an act of will. She had spoken English well enough, but took lessons again, and soon spoke as no English person ever did, an exquisite perfect English, every word separate. She knew her manners were formal, and tried to become more casual. Her clothes: they were perfect too, but after all, she was a diplomat's wife and had to keep up appearances. As the English put it.

  They started married life in a little house in Mayfair, and there she entertained, as was expected of her, with the aid of a cook and a maid, and achieved something like the standards she remembered from her home. Meanwhile Philip had discovered that to marry a German woman had not been the best prescription for an unclouded career. Discussions with his superiors revealed that certain posts would be barred to him, in Germany, for instance, and he might find himself edged out of the straight highway to the top, and find himself in places like South Africa or Argentina. He decided to avoid disappointments, and switched to administration. He would have a fine career, but nothing of the glamour of foreign ministries. Sometimes he met in a sister's house the Betty whom he could have married – and who was still unwed, because of so many men being killed – and wondered how different life could have been.

  When Jolyon Meredith Wilhelm Lennox was born in 1920 he had a nurse and then a nanny. He was a long thin child, with golden curls and combative critical blue eyes, often directed at his mother. He had soon learned from his nanny that she was a German: he had a little tantrum and was difficult for a few days. He was taken to visit his German family, but this was not a success: he disliked the place, and the different manners – he was expected to sit at mealtimes with his hands beside him on either side of his plate when not actually eating, speak when spoken to, and to click his heels when he made a request. He refused to go back. Julia argued with Philip about her child being sent off at seven to school. This is not unusual now, but then Julia was being brave. Philip told her that everyone of their class did this, and anyway look at him! – he had gone to boarding school at seven. Yes, he did remember he had been a bit homesick... never mind, it wore off.That argument, 'Look at me!', expected to cast down opposition because of the speaker's conviction of his superiority or at least rightness, did not convince Julia. In Philip there was a place forever barred to her, a reserve, a coldness, which at first she ascribed to the war, the trenches, the soldier's hidden psychological scars. But then she had begun to doubt: she had never achieved intimacy enough with the wives of her husband's colleagues to ask if they too experienced this forbidden place in their men, the area marked verboten, No Entrance -but she did observe, she noticed a good deal. No, she thought, if you are going to take a child from its mother so young... She lost the fight, and lost her son; who thereafter was polite, affable, if often impatient.

  As far as she could see he did well in his first school, but Eton did not go well. His reports were not good. 'He does not make friends easily.' 'A bit of a loner.'

  She asked him one holidays, manoeuvring him into a position where he could not escape easily, for he did evade direct questions and situations, ' Tell me, Jolyon, has my being German made problems for you?'

  His eyes seemed to flicker, wanted to evade, but he faced her with his wide polite smile, and said, ‘No, mother, why should it?'

  ‘I wondered, that's all. '

  She asked Philip if he would ' talk' to Jolyon, meaning, of course, Please change him, he's breaking my heart.

  ' He plays his cards pretty close to his chest, ' was her husband's reply.

  Her worries were in fact soothed by the mere fact of Eton, the fact and the weight of it, a purveyor of excellence and a guarantee of success. She had surrendered her son – her only child – to the English educational system, and expected a quid pro quo, that Jolyon would turn out well, like his father. and in due course walk in his footsteps, probably as a diplomat.

  When Philip's father died, and then, soon after, his mother, he wanted to move into the big house in Hampstead. It was the family house, and he, the son, would live in it. Julia liked the little house in Mayfair, so easy to run and keep clean and did not want to live in the big house with its many rooms. But that was what she found herself doing. She did not ever set her will against Philip's. They did not quarrel. They got along because she did not insist on her preferences. She behaved as she had seen her mother do, giving way to her father. Well, one side had to give way, the way Julia saw it, and it did not much matter which. Peace in the family was the important thing.

  The furniture of the little house, most of it from the home in Germany, was absorbed quite easily into the Hampstead house where in fact Julia did not seem to do nearly as much entertaining, though there was so much space for everything. For one thing, Philip was not really a sociable man: he had one or two close friends and saw them, often by himself. And Julia supposed she must be getting old and boring, because she did not enjoy parties as much as she had. But there were dinner parties and, often, important people, and she was pleased she did it all so well, and that Philip was proud of her.

  She went home to Germany for visits. Her parents, who were getting old, were so glad to see their daughter, and she liked her brother, now her only brother. But going home was troubling, even frightening. Poverty and unemployment, and the communists and then the Nazis were everywhere, and gangs roamed the streets. Then there was Hitler. The von Arnes despised in equal measure the communists and Hitler, and believed that both unpleasant phenomena would simply go away. This was not their Germany, they said. It was certainly not what Julia remembered as her Germany, that is, ofcourse, ifshe forgot the vicious rumourmongering during the war. A spy, they had said she was. Not serious people, of course, not educated people... well, yes, there were one or two. She decided she did not much like visiting Germany these days, and it was easier not to, when her parents died.

  The English were sensible people, after all, she had to agree to that. One couldn't imagine allowing battles between communists and fascists in the streets – well, there were some scuffles, but one mustn't exaggerate, there was nothing like Hitler.

  A letter arrived from Eton saying that Jolyon had disappeared, leaving behind a note saying that he was off to the Spanish Civil War, signed, Comrade Johnny Lennox.

  Philip used every influence to find out where their son was. The International Brigade? Madrid? Catalonia? No one seemed to know. Julia tended to sympathise with her son, for she had been shocked at the treatment of the elected government in Spain, by Britain and the French. Her husband, who was a diplomat after all, defended his government and his country but alone with her said he was ashamed. He did not admire the policies he was defending and conducting.

  Months passed. Then a telegram arrived from their son, asking for
money: address, a house in the East End of London. Julia at once saw this meant he was wanting them to visit him, otherwise he would have designated a bank where he could pick up the money. Together she and Philip went to a house in a poor street, and found Jolyon being nursed by a decent sort of woman of the kind Julia at once thought of as a possible servant. He was in an upstairs room, ill with hepatitis, caught, presumably, in Spain. Then talking with this woman, who called herselfComrade Mary, it slowly became evident she knew nothing of Spain, and then that Jolyon had not been in Spain, but had been here, in this house, ill.

  'Took me a bit of time to see he was having a bit of a breakdown,' said Comrade Mary.

  These were poor people. Philip wrote out a fair-sized cheque, and was told, politely enough, that they did not have a bank account, with the only just sarcastic implication that bank accounts were for the well off. Since they did not have that kind of money on them, Philip said that money would be delivered, next day, and it was. Jolyon, but he was insisting on being called Johnny, was so thin the bones of his face suggested the skeleton, and while he kept saying that Comrade Mary and her family were the salt of the earth, easily agreed to come home.

  That was the last his parents heard of Spain, but in the Young Communist League, where he now became a star, he was a Spanish Civil War hero.

  Johnny had a room, and then a floor, in the big house, and there many people came who disturbed the parents, and made Julia actively miserable. They were all communists, usually very young, and always taking Johnny off to meetings, rallies, weekend schools, marches. She said to Johnny that if he had seen the streets in Germany full of rival gangs he would have nothing to do with such people, and as a result of the quarrel that followed he simply left. He anticipated later patterns of behaviour by living in comrades' houses, sleeping on floors or anywhere there was a corner for him, and asked his parents for money. 'After all, I suppose you don't want me to starve even if I am a communist.'

  Julia and Philip did not know about Frances, not until Johnny married her when he came on leave, though Julia was familiar enough with what she described as ' that type of girl' . She had been observing the smart cheeky flirty girls who looked after the senior officials – some were attached to her husband's department. She had asked herself, ‘Is it right to be having such a good time in the middle of this terrible war?’Well, at least no one could say they were hypocrites. (An ancient lady, standing to spray white curls with a fixative and peering at herself mournfully in a mirror, said, decades later: ‘Oh, we had such a good time, such a good time – it was so glamorous – do you understand?')

  Julia's war could have been really terrible. Her name had been on a list of those Germans who were sent off to the internment camp on the Isle of Man. Philip told her: ' There was never a question of your being interned, it was just an administrative error. ‘But error or not, it had taken Philip's intervention to get her name removed. This war afflicted Julia with memories of the last one, and she could not believe that yet again countries meant to be friends should be at war. She was not well, slept badly, wept. Philip was kind – he was always a kind man. He held Julia in his arms and rocked her, 'There now, my dear, there now.' He was able to hold Julia because he had one of the new clever artificial arms, which could do everything. Well, nearly everything. At night he took the arm off and hung it on its stand. Now he could only partially hold Julia, and she tended to hold him.

  The parent Lennoxes were not asked to the wedding of their son Jolyon with Frances. They were told about it, in a telegram, just as he was off again to Canada. At first Julia could not believe he was treating them like this. Philip held her and said, ‘You don't understand, Julia.' 'No, I don't, I don't understand anything.’With humour that made his voice grate, he said, 'We're class enemies, don't you see? No, don't cry Julia, he'll grow up, I expect. ‘But he was staring over her shoulder with a face set in the dismay that was what she felt – and felt more often and more strongly every day. A weeping, generalised, drizzling dismay, and she could not shake it off.

  They knew that Johnny was ' doing well' in Canada. What did doing well mean in this context? Soon after he had returned there, a letter arrived with a photograph of him and Frances on the steps of the register office. They were both in uniform, hers as tight as a corset, and she was a bright, apparently giggling, blonde. ' Silly girl, ' judged Julia, putting the letter and photograph away. The letter had a censor's stamp on it, as if it were out of bounds – which is what she felt. Then Johnny wrote a note to say, ‘You might drop in to see how Frances is doing. She is pregnant.'

  Julia did not go. Then came an airletter, saying a baby had been born, a boy, and he felt the least Julia could do was to visit her. ' His name is Andrew,’ said the postscript, an afterthought, apparently; and Julia remembered the announcements of Jolyon's birth, sent out in a large white thick envelopes, on a card like thin china, and the elegant black script that said, Jolyon Meredith Wilhelm Lennox. None of the recipients could have doubted that here was an important new addition to the human race.

  She supposed she should go and see her daughter-in-law, put it off, and when she reached the address Johnny had provided, found Frances gone. It was a dreary street that had a house sagging to its knees in ruins, because of a bomb. Julia was glad she did not have to enter any house there, but she was directed to another that seemed even worse. It was in Notting Hill; she was let in by a slatternly woman who did not smile, and she was told to knock on that door there, the one with the cracked skylight.

  She knocked, and an irritated voice called, ‘Wait a minute, okay, come in. ' The room was large, badly lit, and the windows were dirty. Faded green sateen curtains and frayed rugs. In the greenish half-dark sat a large young woman, her unstockinged legs apart, and her baby sprawled across her chest. She held a book in her hand, above the baby's head; a rhythmically working little head, the spread-out hands opening and shutting on naked flesh. The exposed breast, large and lolling, exuded milk in sympathy.

  Julia's first thought was that she had come to the wrong house, because this young woman could not be the one in the photograph. While she stood there forcing herself to admit that she was indeed looking at Frances, Jolyon Meredith Wilhelm's wife, the young woman said, 'Do sit down.' She sounded as if having to say this, even to contemplate Julia's being there, was the last straw. She frowned as she eased her breast out of a discomfort, the baby's mouth popped off the nipple, and milky liquid ran down over the breast to a sagging waist. Frances eased the nipple back, the infant let out a choking cry and then fastened itself again on the nipple with a little shaking movement of its head Julia had observed in puppies ranged along the teats of a nursing bitch, her little pet dachshund, from long ago. Frances put a piece of cloth Julia could swear was a nappy over the resting breast.

  The women stared at each other, with dislike.

  Julia did not sit. There was a chair, but the seat was suspiciously stained. She could sit on the bed, which was unmade, but did not care to. She said, 'Johnny wrote to ask me to find out how you are. '

  The cool, light, almost drawling voice, modulated according to some measure or scale known only to Julia, caused the young woman to stare again, and then she laughed.

  ‘I am as you see, Julia,’ said Frances.

  Julia was filling with panic. She thought this place horrible, a lower depth of squalor. The house she and Philip had found Johnny in at the time of the Spanish Civil War misadventure had been a poor one, thin-walled, temporary in feel, but it had been clean, and Mary the landlady was a decent sort of woman. In this place Julia felt trapped in a nightmare. That shameless young woman half-naked there, with her great oozing breasts, the baby's noisy sucking, a faint smell of sick, or of nappies... Julia felt that Frances was forcing her, most brutally, to look directly at an unclean unseemly fount of life that she had never had to acknowledge. Her own baby had been presented to her as a well-washed bundle after he had been fed by the nurse. Julia had refused to breastfeed; too near th
e animal, she felt, but did not dare say. Doctors and nurses had tactfully agreed that she was not able to nurse... her health... Julia had often played with the little boy who arrived in the drawing-room with toys, and she actually sat on the floor with him, and enjoyed a play hour, measured by the nanny to the minute. She remembered the smell of soap, and baby powder. She remembered sniffing at Jolyon's little head with such pleasure...

  Frances was thinking, It's unbelievable. She is unbelievable, and derision was in danger of making her burst out in raucous laughter.

  Julia stood there in the middle of the room, in her neat wool crêpe grey suit, that had not a wrinkle, not a bulge. It was buttoned up to her throat where a silk scarf provided a hint of mauve. Her hands were in dove-grey kid gloves, and even though thoroughly protected from the unwashed surfaces around her, were making anxious little movements of rejection, and fussy disapproval. Her shoes were like shiny blackbirds, with brass buckles that seemed to Frances to be locks, as if making sure those feet couldn't fly off, or even to begin to try out a few prim dance steps. Her grey hat was fenced with a little net veil that did not conceal her horrified eyes, and it, too, was caught with a metal buckle. She was a woman in a cage, and to Frances, under such pressures of loneliness, poverty, anxiety, her appearance in that room, which she loathed, and wished only to escape from, was like a deliberate taunting, an insult.