The Sweetest Dream

by Doris Lessing Little Dorrit

  ‘Oh, do sit down,’ she said to Johnny. He sat, with dignity, and began serving himself.

  ‘You haven't asked after Phyllida,’ said Sylvia. ‘You didn't ask how my mother is. '

  ‘Yes,’ said Frances, ‘I was wondering about that too. '

  ‘I’m coming to that in a minute,’ said Johnny.

  Franklin said, 'When Johnny said he was coming to see you tonight, I had to see you all again. I'll never forget your kindness to me.'

  ‘Have you been back home?' Frances asked. ‘You didn'tgo to university after all. '

  ' The university of life,’ said Franklin.

  Johnny said, ' Frances, you do not ask the black leadership what they are doing, not now. Even you must see that. '

  ‘No,’ said Comrade Matthew. ' This is not the time to ask that. ' Then he said, ‘We must not forget that I am to address a meeting in an hour. '

  Comrades Johnny and Franklin and Mo began pushing in their food, as fast as they could, but Comrade Matthew had finished: he was a frugal eater, one of those who eat because one must.

  Johnny said, ' Before we go, I have a message from Geoffrey. He has been on the barricades with me in Paris. He sends greetings.'

  ' Good God,’ said Colin, ' our little Geoffrey with his nice clean face, on the barricades.'

  'He is a very serious, very worthwhile comrade,' said Johnny. 'He has a corner in my place.'

  'You sound like an old Russian novel,' said Andrew. 'A corner, what's that translated into English?'

  ' He and Daniel. They often doss down for a night or two with me. I keep a couple of sleeping bags for them. And now, before we go, I have to ask if you know what Phyllida is up to?'

  ‘And what is she up to?' asked Sylvia, with such dislike of him that they all saw that other Sylvia. A shock. They were shocked. Franklin laughed, with nervousness. Johnny made himself confront her, and said, ‘Your mother is doing fortune telling. She's advertising on the newsagents' boards as a fortune teller, from this address. '

  Andrew laughed. Colin laughed. Then, Frances.

  ‘What's funny?' enquired Sylvia.

  Comrade Mo, finding this culture clash getting out of hand, said, 'I'll nip in one of these days and she can tell my fortune.'

  Franklin said, 'If she has the gift, then the ancestors must like her. My grandmother was a wise woman. You people say witch doctor. She was an n'ganga.'

  'A shaman,' Johnny instructed them all.

  Comrade Matthew said, ‘I agree with Comrade Johnny. This kind of superstition is reactionary and must be forbidden. ' He got up to leave.

  ' If she's earning a bit of money, then you should expect me to be pleased,’ said Frances to Johnny, who also got up.

  'Come on, comrades,’ said Johnny, ' it is time we set off. '

  Before he left he hesitated, then said, to regain command of the situation, ' Tell Julia to tell Phyllida she can't do this kind of thing.'

  But Frances found she was feeling sorry for Johnny. He was looking so much older – well, they were both nearly fifty. The Mao jacket seemed loose on him. By his dejected air she knew things were not going well for him in Paris. He's past it, she thought. And so am I.

  She was wrong about both of them.

  Just ahead lay the Seventies, which from one end of the world to the other (the non-communist world) bred a race of Che Guavara clones, and the universities, particularly the London ones, were an almost continuous celebration of Revolution, with demonstrations, riots, sit-ins, lock-outs, battles ofall kinds. Everywhere you looked were these young heroes, and Johnny had become a grand old man, and the fact that he was an almost entirely unrepentant Stalinist had a certain limited chic among these youngsters who mostly believed that if Trotsky had won the battle for power with Stalin then communism would have worn a beatific face. And he had another disability, which meant that his entourage was usually young men, and not eager girls. His style was all wrong. The right one was when Comrade Tommy or Billy or Jimmy summoned some girl with a contemptuous flick of the fingers, and said to her, 'You are bourgeois scum.’And, by implication, leave all you have and come with me.(Rather, give all you have to me.) And this goes on to this day. Irresistible. And there was worse. If cleanliness had once been next to Godliness, then dirt and smelliness was now as good as a Party card. Smelly embraces: these Johnny could not provide, having been brought up by Julia or, rather, her servants. The vocabulary – yes, he could swing along with that. Shit and fuck, sell-out and fascist, a good part of any political speech had to be composed of such words.

  But these fumy delights were still ahead.

  Wilhelm Stein who so often ascended the stairs on his way to Julia, nodding gravely at whomever he encountered, this evening knocked on the kitchen door, waited till he heard, ' Come in' , and entered, with a little bow. Silvery white hair and beard, his silver-topped cane, his suit, the very set of his spectacles, rebuked the kitchen and the three sitting at the table, having supper.

  Invited to sit, by Frances, by Andrew, by Colin, he did so, holding the cane upright beside him, in the grip of a wonderfully-kept right hand, that had a ring with a dark blue stone.

  ‘I am taking the liberty of coming to talk to you about Julia, ' he said, looking at them one after the other, to impress them with his seriousness. They waited. ‘Your grandmother is not well, ' he said to the young men, and to Frances, ‘I am well aware that it is difficult to persuade Julia to do things she ought, for her own good.'

  The three pairs of eyes now gazing at him told him that he had misjudged them. He sighed, almost got up, changed his mind, and coughed. ' It is not that I think you have been neglectful of Julia. '

  Colin took it up. He was now a large young man, his round face still boyish, and his heavy black-rimmed spectacles seemed to be trying to keep those features that threatened, far too often, sardonic laughter, in order.

  'I know she is not happy,' said Colin. 'We know that.'

  'I think she may be ill.'

  The trouble was that Julia had lost Sylvia. Yes, the girl was still in the house, this was her home, but events had forced Julia to conclude that this time it was for good. Surely Wilhelm could see this?

  Andrew said, ' Julia is breaking her heart over Sylvia. It is as simple as that. '

  ‘I am not such a stupid old man that I am unaware of Julia's feelings. But simple it is not. '

  Now he was getting up, disappointed in them.

  ‘What do you want us to do?' asked Frances.

  ' Julia should be less alone. She should be walking more. She goes out very little now and I must insist that it is not her age. I am ten years older than Julia and I have not given up. I am afraid that Julia has done that. '

  Frances was thinking that in all those years Julia had never said Yes, when asked to go out to supper, or walking, or to a play, or to a picture gallery. ' Thank you, Frances, You are very kind,’ she always said.

  ‘I am going to ask your permission to give Julia a dog. No, no, not some great big growler, a little dog. She will have to take it for walks and care for it. '

  Once again the three faces told him that he was not going to be informed what they were really thinking.

  Did the old man really imagine that a little dog was going to fill the empty place in Julia? A swap: a little dog, for Sylvia!

  ‘Of course you must give her a dog,’ said Frances, ' if you think she would like that. '

  And now Wilhelm, who had just confessed what they would not have guessed, that he was in his eighties, said, ' It is not a question ofwhat I think would be good for her. I must tell you... I am at my wit's end.’And now the gravity, the high seriousness of his manner, his style, broke down, and before them they saw a humbled old man, with tears running into his beard. 'It will be no secret to you that I am very fond of Julia. It is hard to see her so ... so...’And he went out. 'Excuse me, you must excuse me.'

  Frances said, 'And who is going to say first, I'm not going to look after that dog?'

  Wilhe
lm arrived with a tiny terrier that he had already named Stuckschel – a scrap, a little thing – and as a joke had put a blue ribbon around its neck. Julia's immediate reaction was to back away from it, as it yapped around her skirts, and then, seeing her old friend's anxiety that she like it, made herself pat the dog and try to calm it. She put on a good enough act to make Wilhelm think that she might learn to like the creature, but when he went, and she had to see to the dog's food, its toilet arrangements, she sat trembling on her chair and thought: He's my best friend and he knows so little about me he thinks I want a dog.

  There followed unpleasant days: food for the dog, messes on her floors, smells and the restless little creature who yapped and drove Julia to tears. How could he? she muttered, and when Wilhelm arrived to see how things went, her efforts to be nice told him what a bad mistake he had made.

  ‘But, my dear, it would be good for you to take him for a walk. What have you called him? Fuss! I see. ‘And he went off, wounded, so now she had to worry about him too.

  Fuss, who knew this mistress hated him, found his way to Colin, who liked the creature because it made him laugh. Fuss became Vicious, because of the absurdity of this minute thing growling and defending itself, and snapping with its jaws the size of Julia's sugar tongs. Its paws were like puffs of cotton wool, its eyes like little black pawpaw seeds, its tail a twist of silvery silk. Vicious now went everywhere with Colin, and so the dog that had been meant to be good for Julia became good for Colin, who had no friends, went for solitary walks around the Heath, and was drinking too much. Nothing serious but enough for Frances to tell him she was worried. He flared up with, 'I don't like being spied on.' The real trouble was that he hated being dependent on Julia and his mother. He had written two novels, which he knew were no good, and was at work on a third, with Wilhelm Stein as a mentor. He was pleased that Andrew had returned to the condition of being dependent. Having done well in his exams, Andrew had left home to set himself up with a group of lawyers, but decided he wanted to do international law. He came home, and was going to Oxford, Brasenose, for a two-year course.

  Sylvia had become a junior doctor, much younger than most, and was working as hard as they do. When she did come home she walked in a trance of exhaustion up the stairs, not seeing anyone, or anything; she was already in her mind in her bed, able to sleep at last. She might sleep the clock around, then take a bath and was off. Often she did not even say hello to Julia, let alone kiss her goodnight.

  But there was something else. Sylvia's father, her real one, Comrade Alan Johnson, had died and left her money, quite a bit. The letter from the lawyer came accompanied by a letter from him, obviously written when drunk, saying he had understood that she, Tilly, was the only real thing in his life. ‘You are my legacy to the world, ' apparently considering the substantial legacy a mere derisory material contribution. She did not remember ever having seen him.

  Sylvia dropped in to see Julia, to tell her the news and to say, ‘You've been so good to me, but I won't need any more handouts. ' Julia had sat silent, twisting her hands about in her lap, as if Sylvia had hit her. The gracelessness was because of exhaustion. Sylvia was simply not herself. She was not built for continuous over-strain and stress, was still a wisp of a girl, her big blue eyes always a little red. She had a bit of a cough, too.

  Wilhelm met Sylvia as she came up the stairs after a week of work and almost no sleep, and asked her advice about Julia as a doctor, but Sylvia replied, 'Sorry, haven't done geriatrics' — and pushed past him to get to her bed, where she fell and was asleep.

  Julia had overheard. She was listening from the upstairs landing. Geriatrics. She brooded, suffered; everything was an affront to her in her paranoid state – for it was that. She felt Sylvia had turned against her.

  Sylvia had read the lawyer's letter when she was hungering for sleep like a prisoner under torture, or a young mother with a new baby. She went down to Phyllida with the letter in her hand, and found her looming about her flat in a kimono covered with astral signs. She cut into Phyllida's sarcastic, 'And to what do I owe the honour...' with, 'Mother, has he left you money?'

  ‘Who? What are you talking about?'

  ‘My father. He's left me money. '

  At once Phyllida's face seemed to burst into anger, and Sylvia said, ' Just listen, that's all I ask, just listen. '

  But Phyllida was off, her voice in the swell and fall of her lament, ‘And so I count for nothing, of course I don't count, he's left you the money...’But Sylvia had flung herself into a chair and was asleep. There she lay, limp, quite gone away from the world.

  Phyllida was suspicious that this was a trick or a trap. She peered down at her daughter, even lifted a flaccid hand and let it drop. She sat down, heavily, amazed, shocked – and silenced. She did know Sylvia worked hard, everyone knew about the young doctors... but that she could go off to sleep, just like that... Phyllida picked up the letter which had fallen on the floor, read it, and sat with it in her hand. She had not had the opportunity to sit and look at her daughter, really look, for years. Now she did look. Tilly was so thin and pale and washed out – it was a crime, what they expected of young doctors, someone should pay for it...

  These thoughts ran out into silence. The heavy curtains were drawn, the whole house was quiet. Perhaps Tilly should be woken? She would be late for work. That face – it was not at all like hers. Tilly's mouth, it was her father's, pink and delicate. Pink and delicate would do to describe him, Comrade Alan, a hero, well let them think it. She had married two communist heroes, first one, and then the other. What was the matter with her, then? (This until now uncharacteristic self-criticism was soon to take her into the Via Dolorosa of psychotherapy and from there into a new life.)

  When Tilly came down to tell her of the legacy, was that boasting? A taunt? But Phyllida's sense of justice told her it was not so. Sylvia was full of airs and graces and she hated her mother, but Phyllida had never known her spiteful.

  Sylvia woke with a start and thought she was in a nightmare. Her mother's face, coarse, red, with wild accusing eyes, was just above her, and in a moment that voice would start, as it always did, talking at her, shouting at her. You have ruined my life. If I hadn't had you my life would have been... You are my curse, my millstone...

  Sylvia cried out and pushed her mother away, and sat up. She saw her letter in Phyllida's hand, and snatched it. She stood up and said, 'Now listen, mother, but don't say anything, don't say anything, please, it's unfair he gave me all the money, I'll give you half. I'll tell the lawyer. And she ran out of the room, with her hands over her ears.

  Sylvia informed the lawyers, having consulted with Andrew, and the arrangements were made. Giving Phyllida halfmeant that a substantial legacy became a useful sum, enough to buy a good house, insurance – security. Andrew told her to get financial advice.

  Suddenly there was only one set of fees to pay – Andrew's. Frances decided that the next time she was offered a good part she would take it.

  Once again Wilhelm knocked on the kitchen door, but this time Doctor Stein was all smiles, and as bashful as a boy. Again it was Sunday evening, and Frances and the two young men were making a family scene at the supper table.

  'I have news,' said Wilhelm to Frances. 'Colin and I have news.' He produced a letter and waved it about. 'Colin, you should read it aloud... no? Then I shall. '

  And he read out a letter from a good publisher, saying that Colin's novel, The Stepson, would be published soon, and that great things were hoped for it.

  Kisses, embraces, congratulations, and Colin was inarticulate with pleasure. In fact, the letter had been expected. Wilhelm had read and condemned Colin's two earlier attempts, but this one had been approved by him, and he had found the publisher – a friend. And Colin's long apprenticeship to his own patience and stubbornness was over. While the humans kissed and exclaimed and hugged, the scrap of a dog bounced and barked, its tiny yaps ecstatic with the need to join in, and then it leaped on to Colin's shoulde
r and stood there, its feather of a tail going like a windscreen-wiper all over Colin's face, and threatening his spectacles.

  ' Vicious, down, ' chided Colin, and the absurdity choked him with tears and laughter and he jumped up, shouting, ' Vicious, Vicious...’ and rushed up the stairs with the little dog in his arms.

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Wilhelm Stein, ' wonderful, ' and having kissed the air above Frances's hand, departed, smiling, up to Julia, who, when she had been told the news by her friend, sat silent for some time, then said, ‘And so I was wrong. I was very wrong. ‘And Wilhelm, knowing how Julia hated being in the wrong, turned away, so as not to see the tears of self-criticism in her eyes. He poured two glasses of madeira, taking his time over it, and said, ' He has a considerable talent, Julia. But more important, he knows how to stick at it. '

  ' Then I shall apologise to him, for I have not been kind. '

  'And perhaps tomorrow you will come with me to the Cosmo? A little walk, Julia, that won't do you any harm. '

  And so Julia apologised to Colin, who, because of her evident emotional disarray, took time and trouble to reassure her. Then, her arm in Wilhelm's, Julia descended the hill gently to the Cosmo, where he courted her with cakes and compliments, and all around them the flames of political debate leaped or smouldered.

  Frances read The Stepson, and gave it to Andrew, who remarked, 'Interesting. Very interesting.'

  Years before Frances had had to sit and hear Colin's criticism of her, and his father, angry and merciless, so that she felt she was being shrivelled up by rivers of lava. Here was all that anger distilled. It was the tale of a small boy whose mother had married a mountebank, a scoundrel with a magic tongue, who concealed his crimes behind screens of persuasive words that promised all kinds of paradises. He was unkind to the little boy, or ignored him. Whenever the child thought this tormentor had disappeared, he turned up again, and his mother succumbed to his charms. For charming he was, in a sinister way. The tale was told by the child to an imaginary friend, the lonely child's traditional companion, and it was sad and funny, because the distorted vision of a child could be interpreted by the adult reader as something exaggerated, distorted: the almost nightmare scenes like candle-shadows on a wall were in fact commonplace, and even tawdry. A publisher's reader had described the book as a little masterpiece, and perhaps it was. But the mother and older brother were seeing something else, how frightful unhappiness had been distanced by the magic of the tale: Colin showed himself in this book to be grown-up, and Andrew said, ‘Do you know, I think my little brother has outreached me: I don't think I could achieve anything like this degree of detachment. '