Then Meriel had a relapse and was in hospital. Phyllida and Margaret were together. Phyllida suggested that now her mother was not there Margaret might go back to the Lennox house, but Margaret said she liked it better with Phyllida. ' Frances is an old cow,’ she said. ' She doesn't really care about anything but Rupert. I think it's disgusting, old people like that, holding hands. And I really do like being with you. ' She said this last shyly, tentative, afraid of a rebuff, offering herself as it were to this mother surrogate: ‘I want to be with you. '
Phyllida was in fact moved by this, hearing that the girl liked her. How unlike sly and deceiving Sylvia, who couldn't wait to get away from her.
' All right, but when your mother is better, I think you should have your own place. '
Meriel showed no signs of being better. Margaret would not go and see her, she said it upset her too much, but William went nearly every evening, and sat by the woman curled on her bed, in the grey absence that is depression, and he told her, in the careful, guarded thoughtful way that was his, about his day, about what he had been doing. But she did not reply nor move nor look at him.
And when Colin had finished telling about Meriel, there was Sophie, and Frances, who was writing books, part history and part sociology, that did very well. And about Rupert, whom Colin said was the best thing that had happened in this house. 'Just imagine, somebody really sane, at last.'
The two talked the afternoon away, while the little girl made charming appearances in the arms of Marusha, who grew more exultant every moment with new instalments of the News, of the thorough humiliation of Poland's old enemy, and then Frances arrived, with arms full of food, just like the old days. The three pulled the table out to its former length, as if setting the stage for past festivals.
While Frances cooked, in came William, just as the two black boys came down the stairs. They were introduced. ' Clever and Zebedee are going to stay here for a bit,’ said Colin. Frances said nothing, but began laying the table for nine people. Sophie would join them later.
Frances took her place at the head of the table, with Colin at the foot, and a place beside him for Sophie, then Marusha's place and next to her the baby's high chair. Ten, if you counted Celia. Rupert was next to Frances on one side, William on the other. Sylvia and the two boys were in the middle. Sylvia told about the big dinner at Butler's Hotel, and all the expensive people, some of them who had once been around this table, and then about Andrew's bride, saying flatly that it couldn't last. She was speaking in an empty voice, giving information, none of the relish of gossip, of life's improbable workings. The boys kept looking at her to see what she was feeling since her voice seemed determined not to say: it was their uneasiness that alerted the others that they should be worried about Sylvia. In fact she felt that she was floating off somewhere, and this was not just lack of sleep. She was tired, yes, so tired, and it was hard to keep her attention here, and yet she knew she had to, because the boys were depending on her, and she was the only person who could understand how hard it was for them. Rupert put questions, like a good journalist, but it was because he knew she was needing to be held down, like a too buoyant kite: he was sensitive to her distress, because of his long attention to William, who suffered so much and who depended on him, Rupert, to understand him. And through it all the little child prattled and babbled and made flirtatious eyes at them all, the black boys too, now that she was used to them.
Sophie came rushing in, in a wave of scent. She was fatter than she had been and 'more Madame Bovary than the Lady of the Camellias', as she said herself. She wore elegant voluminous white, and her hair was in a chignon. She gave Colin passionately guilty looks until he kissed her and said, ‘Now, just shut up, Sophie. You can't be the centre of attention tonight.'
‘What's wrong with you, Sylvia, for God's sake?' cried Sophie. ‘You look like death. '
The words struck a chill, but Sophie could not know the boys' father was just dead, and that their Saturday afternoons for months now had been spent at the funerals of people they had known all their lives.
'I think I'll have a little sleep,' said Sylvia, and pushed herself up out of her chair. 'I feel...' She kissed Frances. 'Darling Frances, to be back here with you, if you only knew... dear Sophie...’ She smiled vaguely at everyone, then put her hand shakily on Clever's shoulder and then on Zebedee's. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she said. She went out, holding on to the door's edge and then the door frame.
' Don't worry,’ said Frances to the boys. ‘We'll look after you. Just tell us what you need, because we don't understand the way Sylvia does. ‘But they were staring after Sylvia, and it was easy to see it was all too much for them. They wanted to go back up to bed, and went, Marusha accompanying them, with Celia. Then, Sophie followed: it seemed she intended to stay the night.
Frances, Colin and Rupert faced William, knowing what was coming.
He was now a tall slender fair youth, handsome, but the pale skin was tight over his face, and often there was strain around his eyes. He loved his father, was always as near to him as he could get, though Rupert told Frances he did not dare put his arms around him, hug him: William did not seem to like it. And he was secretive, Rupert said, did not share his thoughts. 'Perhaps it is just as well we don't know them,' said Frances. She experienced William, who would consult her about small difficulties, as a controlled anguish which she did not believe a hug or a kiss could reach. And he worked so hard, had to do well at school, seemed always to be wrestling with invisible angels.
‘Are they coming to live here?'
' It seems that they are,’ said Colin.
‘Why should they?'
' Come on, old chap, don't be like that,’ said his father.
William's smile at Colin, whom they had to deduce he loved, was like a wail.
' They have no parents,’ said Colin. ' Their father has just died. ' He was afraid to say, of AIDS, because of the terror of the word, even though in this house AIDS was as distant as the Black Death. ' They are orphans. And they are very poor... I don't think it's possible for people like us to understand. And they've had no school except for Sylvia's lessons.' In all their minds briefly appeared an image of a room with desks, a blackboard, a teacher holding forth.
‘But why here? Why does it have to be us?' This routine reaction – But why me? — cannot be answered except with appeals to the majestic injustices of the universe.
' Someone has to take them in,’ said Frances.
' Besides, Sylvia will be here. She'll understand what to do. I agree that we' re not up to it,’ said Colin.
'But how can she be here? Where's she going to stay? Where's she going to sleep?'
If Sylvia's mind was a blur of panic because of the impossibility of being in Somalia and London at the same time, then these three adults were in a similar state: William was right.
‘Oh, we'll manage somehow,’ said Frances.
‘And we'll all have to help them,’ said Colin.
This meant, as William knew very well, We expect you to help them. They were younger than him, but that made it even more likely they would depend on him. ' If they don't get on here, will they go away?'
Colin said, 'We could send them back. But I understand everyone in their village has died of AIDS or is going to.'
William went white. 'AIDS! Have they got AIDS?'
‘No. Nor can they have it, Sylvia says. '
‘How does she know? Well, all right, she's a doctor but why does she look so sick, then? She looks ghastly. '
'She'll be all right. And the boys'll have to be tutored first, to catch up, but I am sure they will. '
' They can't be called Clever and Zebedee, not here. They'll be killed, with names like that. I hope they aren't going to my school.'
‘We can't just take their real names away from them. '
'Well, I'm not going to fight their battles for them.'
He said he had to go up: he had homework. He left: before homework, they knew, he would
play a little with the baby, if she was awake. He adored her.
Sylvia did not reappear. She had flung herself down into the bosom of the old red sofa, her arms outstretched: she was at once asleep. She sank deep into her past, into arms that were waiting for her.
Rupert and Frances were in their rooms undressing when Colin came in to say he had checked on Sylvia, who was sleeping like the dead. Later, about four in the morning, uneasiness woke Frances, and she crept down and returned to tell Rupert, who had been awakened by her going, that Sylvia was dead asleep. She was about to slide into bed, but now heard what she had said and, retrospectively, what Colin had said. 'I don't like it,' she said. 'There's something wrong.' Rupert and Frances went down and into the sitting-room where on the sofa Sylvia was indeed dead asleep: she was dead.
The boys lay weeping on their beds. Frances's instinct, which was to put her arms around them, was stopped by that oldest of inhibitions: hers were not the arms they wanted. As the day wore on and the weeping did not cease, she and Colin went to the little room, and she with Clever and he with Zebedee, made them sit up and were close, arms around them, rocking them, saying that they should stop crying, they would be ill, they must come down and have a hot drink, and no one would mind if they were sad.
The first bad days were got through, and then the funeral, with Zebedee and Clever in prominent positions as mourners. Attempts were made to telephone the Mission, but a voice the boys did not know said that Father McGuire had taken all his things away and the new headmaster was not here yet. Messages were left. Sister Molly, left a message, at once rang back, loud and clear though she was miles from anywhere. She said at once, ‘Are you thinking what to do about the boys?' She believed that probably work could be found for them at the Old Mission, looking after the AIDS orphans. When the priest rang back the line was so bad that only intermittently could be made out his concern over Sylvia, 'Poor soul, she did have to work herselfinto the grave.’And, 'If you could see your way to keep the boys it would be best.’And, 'It is a sad business here.'
The boys' griefwas terrible, it was inordinate, it was frightening their new friends, who agreed that everything had been too much: after all, these children – and that was all they were – had been torn from what they had known, then thrust into... but 'culture shock' was hardly appropriate when that useful phrase may describe an agreeable dislocation felt travelling from London to Paris. No, it was not possible to imagine what depths of shock Clever and Zebedee had suffered, and therefore no notice should be taken of faces like tragic masks and tragic eyes. Haunted eyes?
There was something that the new friends had no conception of, and could not have understood: the boys knew that Sylvia had died because of Joshua's curse. Had she been there to laugh at them, and to say, ‘Oh, how can you think such nonsense?' they might not have believed her, but the guilt would have been less. As it was, they were being crushed by guilt, and they could not bear it. And so, as we all do with the worst and deepest pain, they began to forget.
Clear in their minds was every minute of the long days while they waited for Sylvia to return from Senga to rescue them, while Rebecca died and Joshua lay waiting to die until Sylvia came. The long agony of anxiety – they did not forget that, nor that moment when Sylvia reappeared like a little white ghost, to embrace them and whisk them away with her. After that the blur began, Joshua's bony grip on Sylvia's wrist and his murderous words, the frightening aeroplane, the arrival in this strange house, Sylvia's death... no, all that dimmed and soon Sylvia had become a friendly protective presence whom they remembered kneeling in the dust to splint up a leg, or sitting on the edge of the verandah between them, teaching them to read.
Meanwhile Frances kept waking, her stomach clenched with anxiety, and Colin said he was sleeping badly too. Rupert told them that not enough thought had gone into this decision, that was the trouble.
Frances, waking with a start and a cry, found herself held by Rupert, ' Come on downstairs. I'll make you some tea. ‘And when they reached the kitchen, Colin was already at the table, a bottle of wine in front of him.
Outside the window was the dark of 4 o'clock on a winter's night. Rupert drew the curtains, sat by Frances, put his arm around her. 'Now, you two, you've got to decide. And whatever it is you do decide, then you've got to put the other choice clean out of your minds. Otherwise you'll both be ill.'
'Right,' said Colin, and shakily reached for the wine bottle.
Rupert said, 'Now look, old son, don't drink any more, there's a good chap.'
Frances felt that apprehension a woman may feel when her man, not her son's father, takes the father's role: Rupert had spoken as if it were William sitting there.
Colin pushed away the bottle. 'This is a bloody impossible situation.'
'Yes, it is,' said Frances. 'What are we taking on? Do you realise, I'll be dead by the time they qualify?'
Rupert's arm tightened around her shoulder.
'But we have to keep them,' said Colin, aggressive, tearful, pleading with them. 'Ifa couple ofkittens try to crawl out of the bucket they're being drowned in, you don't push them back in.' The Colin who was speaking then Frances had not seen or heard offor years: Rupert had not met that passionate youth. 'You just don't do it,' said Colin, leaning forward, his eyes holding his mother's, then Rupert's. 'You don't just push them back in.' A howl broke out of him: a long time since Frances had heard that howl. He dropped his head down on to his arms on the table. Rupert and Frances communed, silently.
'I think,' said Rupert, 'that there is only one way you can decide.'
'Yes,' said Colin, lifting his head.
'Yes,' said Frances.
'Then, that's it. And now put the other out of your heads. Now.'
'I suppose once a Sixties' household, then always a Sixties' household,' said Colin. 'No, that's not my little aperçu, it is Sophie's. She thinks it's all lovely. I did point out that it was not she who would be doing the work. She said she would muck in – with everything, she said.' He laughed.
Back in bed Rupert said, 'I don't think I could bear it if you died. But luckily women live longer than men.'
‘And I can't imagine not being with you. '
These two people of the word had hardly ever said more than this kind of thing. ‘We don't do too badly, do we?' was about the limit. To be so thoroughly out of phase with one's time does take a certain bravado: a man and a woman daring to love each other so thoroughly – well, it was hardly to be confessed, even to each other.
Now he said, ‘What was all that about the kittens?'
‘I have no idea. Not in this house, and I am sure not at his school. Progressive schools don't drown kittens. Well, not so their pupils can see. '
‘Wherever it happened, it went deep. '
‘And he's never mentioned it before. '
‘When I was a boy I saw a gang of kids torturing a sick dog. That taught me more about the nature of the world than anything else ever has. '
Lessons began. Rupert tutored Clever and Zebedee in maths: beyond knowing their multiplication tables they were as blank sheets, he said, but they were so quick, they could catch up. Frances found that their reading had been extraordinary: their memories retained whole tracts of Mowgli and Enid Blyton, and Animal Farm and Hardy, but they had not heard of Shakespeare. This deficiency she proposed to remedy; they were already reading everything on the shelves in the sitting-room. Colin came in with geography and history. Sylvia's little atlas had done good service, the boys' knowledge of the world was wide, if not deep; as for history, they did not know much beyond The Renaissance Popes — this being a book on Father McGuire's shelves. Sophie would take them to the theatre. And then, without being asked, William began teaching them from old textbooks, and it was this that really did them good.
William said he was unnerved by their application: he himself had to do well, but compared to them...’You'd think their lives depended on it,' and added, making the discovery for himself, ‘I suppose their lives
do depend on it. After all, I can always go and be...' 'What?' enquired the adults, grasping at this opportunity to glimpse what really went on in his mind. 'A gardener. I could be a gardener at Kew,' said William gravely. 'Yes, that's what I'd really like. Or I could be like Thoreau and live by myself, near a lake and write about Nature.'
Sylvia had died intestate, and so, the lawyers said, her money would go to her mother, as the next of kin. A good sum it was, well able to see the boys through their education. Andrew was appealed to, as Phyllida's old mate, and, dropping into or through London, he went to see Phyllida, where this conversation ensued.
'Sylvia would have wanted her money to educate the two African boys she seems to have adopted.'
'Oh yes, the black boys, I have heard about them.'
'I'm here formally to ask you to relinquish that money, because we are sure that is what she would have wished.'
'I don't remember her saying anything to me about it.'
'But, Phyllida, how could she?'
Phyllida gave a little toss ofher head, with a small triumphant smile, that was amused, too, like someone applauding the vagaries ofFate, having won a fortune in the sweepstake, perhaps. 'Finders keepers,' she said. 'And anyhow, something nice is owed to me, that's how I see it.'
There was a family discussion.
Rupert, though a senior editor in his newspaper, and adequately paid, knew that even when he had finished paying for Margaret's school fees (Frances now paid for William) he would have to keep Meriel.
Colin's intelligent novels, described by Rose Trimble as 'elite novels for the chattering classes', were not going to provide for more than the child, and Sophie, who as an actress was often resting. He spent so little on himself he hardly counted.
Frances found herself in a familiar situation. She had been offered a job helping to run a small experimental theatre: her heart's desire, a lot of fun but not much money. Her reliable and serious books, bought by every library in the land, brought in good money. She would have to say no to the theatre and write books. She said she would be responsible for Clever, and Andrew would pay for Zebedee.
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