The Sweetest Dream (37 page)

Johnny heard that Wilhelm was living in Julia's house and
came to say that he hoped there was no question of Wilhelm
being left money. ‘That has nothing to do with you,' Julia said.
‘I shall not discuss it. And since you are here I shall tell you that
I have had to support your abandoned wives and children and so
I am not leaving you anything. Why don't you ask your precious
communist party to give you a pension?'

The house had been left to Colin and to Andrew, and both
Phyllida and Frances were provisioned with decent if not lavish
pensions. Sylvia had said, ‘Oh, Julia, please don't, I don't need
money.' But Julia left Sylvia's name in her will; Sylvia might not
need it, but Julia needed to do it.

Sylvia was about to leave Britain, probably for a long time.
She was going to Africa, to a mission station in the bush, in
Zimlia. When Julia heard this she said, ‘Then I shall not see you
again.'

Sylvia went to say goodbye to her mother, having telephoned
first. ‘Kind of you to let me know,' said Phyllida.

The flat was a large mansion block in Highgate, and the
entry-phone said that here were to be found Doctor Phyllida Lennox
and Mary Constable, Physiotherapist. A little lift ground up
through the lower floors like a biddable birdcage. Sylvia rang,
heard a shout, was admitted, not by her mother, but by a large
and cheery lady on her way out. ‘I'll leave you two to it,' said
Mary Constable, revealing that there had been confidences. The
little hall had an ecclesiastical aspect which, examined, turned out
to be due to a large stained-glass panel, in boiled-sweet colours,
showing Saint Frances with his birds–certainly modern. It was
propped on a chair, like a signboard to spirituality. The door opened
to show a large room whose main feature was a commodious chair
draped with some kind of oriental rug, and a couch, inspired by
Freud's in Maresfield Gardens, rigorous and uncomfortable.
Phyllida was now a stout woman with greying hair in thick plaits on
either side of a matronly face. She wore a kaftan of many colours,
and multiple beads, earrings, bracelets. Sylvia, who had been
carrying in her mind a limp, weepy, flabby female, had to adjust to
this hearty woman, who clearly had acquired confidence.

‘Sit down,' said Phyllida, indicating a chair not in the
therapeutic part of the room. Sylvia sat carefully on its very edge. A
spicy provocative smell . . . had Phyllida taken to wearing
perfume? No, it was incense, emanating from the next room, whose
door was open. Sylvia sneezed. Phyllida shut the door, and sat
herself in her confessor's chair.

‘And so, Tilly, I hear you are going to convert the heathen?'

‘I am going to a hospital, as a doctor. It is a mission hospital.
I shall be the only doctor in the area.'

The big strong woman, and the wisp of a girl–so she still
seemed–were being made conscious of their differences. Phyllida
said, ‘What a pasty-face! You're like your father, a proper weed
he was. I used to call him Comrade Lily. His middle name was
Lillie, after some old Cromwell revolutionary. Well, I had to keep
my end up somehow, when he came the commissar at me. He
was worse even than Johnny, if you can believe that. Nag, nag,
nag. That bloody Revolution of theirs, it was just an excuse to
nag at people. Your father used to make me learn revolutionary
texts by heart. I am sure I could recite the
Communist Manifesto
for you even now. But with you it's back to the Bible.'

‘Why back to?'

‘My father was a clergyman. In Bethnal Green.'

‘So what were they like, my grandparents?'

‘I don't know. Hardly saw them after they sent me away. I
didn't want to see them. I went to live with my aunt. Obviously
they didn't want to see me, sending me away like that for five
years, so why should I want to see them?'

‘Do you have any photographs of them?'

‘I tore them up.'

‘I would have liked to see them.'

‘Why should you care? Now you are going away. Just as far
away as you can get, I suppose. A little thing like you. They must
be mad, sending you.'

‘However that may be. But I've come to say something
important. And what is this Doctor on your nameplate?'

‘I am a Doctor of Philosophy, aren't I? I took Philosophy at
university.'

‘But we don't use Doctor like that in his country. Only the
Germans do.'

‘No one can say I am not a doctor.'

‘You'll get into trouble.'

‘No one has complained yet.'

‘That is what I've come to see you about . . . mother, this
therapy you're doing. I know you don't need any kind of training
for it but . . .'

‘I'm learning on the job. Believe me, it's an education.'

‘I know. People have said you have helped them.'

Phyllida seemed to turn into someone else: she flushed, she
sat forward clasping her hands, was smiling and confused with
pleasure. ‘They did? You've heard good things?'

‘Yes, I have. But what I want to suggest is, why not actually
take a course? There are some good ones.'

‘I'm doing all right as I am.'

‘Tea and sympathy are all very well . . .'

‘I can tell you, there have been times I could have done with
tea and sympathy . . .' and her voice was sliding into the knell of
her complaint. Sylvia's muscles were already propelling her
upwards, when Phyllida said, ‘No, no, sit down, Tilly.'

Sylvia sat, and pulled from a briefcase a stack of paper, which
she handed to her mother. ‘I've made a list of the good ones.
One of these days someone is going to say they have a headache
or a stomachache and you'll say it's psychosomatic, but it's cancer
or a tumour. Then you'll blame yourself.'

Phyllida sat silent, holding the papers. In came Mary
Constable, all confidential smiles.

‘Come and meet Tilly,' said Phyllida.

‘How are you, Tilly?' said Mary, actually embracing the
reluctant Sylvia.

‘Are you a psychotherapist too?'

‘I'm physio,' said Phyllida's companion . . . lover? Who knew,
these days? ‘I train physio students. We say that between us we deal
with the whole person,' said cheerful Mary, radiating a persuasive
intimacy and faint aromas of incense.

‘I must go,' said Sylvia.

‘But you've just come,' said Phyllida, with satisfaction that
Sylvia was behaving as she had expected she would.

‘I've got a meeting,' said Sylvia.

‘Said just like Comrade Johnny.'

‘I hope not,' said Sylvia.

‘Then, goodbye. Send me a postcard from your tropical paradise.'

‘They have just finished a rather nasty war,' said Sylvia.

 • • •

Sylvia rang Andrew in New York, was told he was in Paris, then
from there, that he was in Kenya. From Nairobi she heard his
voice, crackly and faint.

‘Andrew, it's me.'

‘It's who? Damn this line. Well, we won't get a better. Third
World tech,' he shouted.

‘It's Sylvia.'

Even through the crackles she heard his voice change. ‘Oh,
darling Sylvia, where are you?'

‘I was thinking of you, Andrew.'

She had been, needing his calming, confident voice, but this
distant ghost was discommoding her, like a message of how little
he could do for her. But what had she expected?

‘I thought you were in Zimlia,' he shouted.

‘Next week. Oh, Andrew, I feel as if I am jumping over a
cliff.'

She had had a letter, from Father Kevin McGuire, of St Luke's
Mission, forcing her to look steadily at a future she had not
envisaged at all, until that moment. Attached to the letter was a list of
things she must bring. Medical supplies she had taken for granted,
as basic as syringes, aspirin, antibiotics, antiseptics, needles
for suturing, a stethoscope, on and on. ‘And certain things ladies
need, because you won't find them easily here.' Nail scissors,
knitting needles, crochet hooks, knitting wool. ‘And humour this
old man, who loves his Oxford marmalade.' Batteries for a radio.
A small radio. A good jersey, size 10, for Rebecca. ‘She is the
house girl. She has a cough.' A recent issue of the
Irish Times
.
One of
The Observer
. Some tins of sardines, ‘If you can slip them
into a corner somewhere.' With greetings, Kevin McGuire. ‘P.S.
And do not forget the books. As many as you can. There is a
need for them.'

‘It was a bit rough out there,' she had been told.

‘Andrew, I'm in a panic–I think.'

‘It's not so bad. Nairobi's not so bad. A bit gimcrack.'

‘I'll be a hundred miles from Senga.'

‘Look, Sylvia, I'll drop in to London on my way back and
see you.'

‘What are you doing there?'

‘Distributing largesse.'

‘Oh, yes, they said. Global Money.'

‘I'm financing a dam, a silo, irrigation . . . you name it.'

‘
You
are?'

‘I wave my magic wand, and the desert blooms.'

So, he was drunk. Nothing could have been worse for Sylvia
then, than that braggart cry from the ether. Andrew, her support,
her friend, her brother–well almost, being so silly, so shoddy.
She shouted, ‘Goodbye,' and put the phone down and wept. This
was her worst moment: she was not to have another as bad.
Believing that Andrew would have forgotten the conversation,
she did not expect him, but he telephoned from Heathrow two
days later. ‘Now here I am, little Sylvia. Where can we go and
talk?'

He rang Julia from the airport, and asked if he and Sylvia
might come and have a good talk, in her house. His flat was let,
and Sylvia shared a tiny flat near her hospital with another doctor.

Julia was silent, then said, ‘I do not understand? You are asking
if Sylvia and you may come to this house? What are you saying?'

‘You wouldn't like it if we just took you for granted.'

A silence. ‘You still have a key, I think?' And she put down
the telephone.

When the two arrived, they went straight up to see her. Julia
sat alone, and severe, at her table, with a patience spread on it.
She inclined a cheek to Andrew, tried to do the same to Sylvia,
could not keep it up, and stood to embrace the young woman.

‘I thought you'd gone to Zimlia,' said Julia.

‘But I wouldn't go without saying goodbye.'

‘Is this goodbye?'

‘No, next week.'

The old sharp eyes scrutinised the two, at length. Julia wanted
to say that Sylvia was too thin, and that Andrew had a look about
him she did not like. What was it?

‘Go and have your talk,' she commanded, taking up her hand
of cards.

They crept guiltily down into the big sitting-room, full of
memories, and on to the old red sofa, into which they sank, arms
around each other.

‘Oh, Andrew, I'm more comfortable with you than anyone.'

‘And I with you.'

‘And what about Sophie?'

An angry laugh. ‘
Comfortable!
–but that's over.'

‘Oh, poor Andrew. Did she go back to Roland?'

‘He sent her a nice bouquet and she went back.'

‘What, exactly?'

‘Marigolds–for grief. Anemone–Forsaken. And of course
about a thousand red roses. For love. Yes, he has only to say it
with flowers. But it didn't last. He started behaving as comes
naturally to him and she sent him a bunch that said War: thistles.'

‘Is she with someone?'

‘Yes, but we don't know who.'

‘Poor Sophie.'

‘But poor Sylvia first. Why don't we hear about you and some
fantastically lucky chap?'

She could have shrunk away from him, but he held her.

‘I'm just–unlucky.'

‘Are you in love with Father Jack?'

And now she did sit up, pushing him away. ‘No, how can
you . . .' but seeing his face, which was sympathetic, she said,
‘Yes, I was.'

‘Nuns are always in love with their priests,' he murmured.
She did not know if he meant to be cruel.

‘I'm not a nun.'

‘Come back here.' And he drew her close again.

And now she said in a tiny voice he remembered from little
Sylvia, ‘I think there is something wrong with me. I did go to
bed with someone, a doctor at the hospital, and . . . that's the
trouble, you see, Andrew. I don't like sex.' And she sobbed, while
he held her.

‘Well, I think I'm not as proficient in that department as I
might be. Sophie made it very clear that compared to Roland I'm
a dead loss'.

‘Oh, poor Andrew.'

‘And poor Sylvia.'

They cried themselves to sleep, like children.

They were visited, while they slept, first by Colin, because
the little dog's uneasiness said there was someone in the house
who shouldn't be. The room was in twilight. Colin stood for a
while looking at the two, holding the dog's jaws closed, to prevent
it from barking.

‘You're a good little creature,' he told Vicious, now a shabby
old dog, as he went down the stairs.

Later Frances came in. The room was dark. She switched on
a tiny light, which had once been Sylvia's night-light, because of
her fear of the dark, and stood, as Colin had done, looking down
at what she could see, only their heads and faces. Sylvia and
Andrew–oh, no, no, Frances was thinking, like a mother, as it
were crossing her fingers to avert evil. It would be a disaster. Both
needed–surely?–something more robust? But when were her
sons going to get themselves settled, and safe–(
safe?
she was
certainly thinking like a mother, apparently one can't avoid it)–they were both well into their thirties. All our fault . . . she was
thinking: meaning all of them, the older generation. Then, to
console herself, Perhaps it will take them as long as it has taken
me, to be happy. So I mustn't give up hope.