The Sweetest Dream (50 page)

‘Please, Colin.'

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘I want you to go out to Zimlia and see things for yourself
and write the truth.'

A silence. His smile was gently satirical. ‘How that does take
me back! Sylvia, do you remember when the comrades were
always going out to the Soviet Union or associated communist
paradises to see for themselves and coming back to tell the truth?
In fact, we are entitled to conclude, with all the hindsights we
lucky inheritors have been endowed with, that if there is one way
of not finding the truth it is going to somewhere to see for
yourself.'

‘So, you don't want to do it?'

‘No, I don't. I don't know anything about Africa.'

‘I could tell you. Don't you see? What's going on, it's got
nothing to do with what the newspapers are saying.'

‘Wait a minute.' He swivelled himself about, pulled out a
drawer, found a newspaper cutting and said, ‘Did you see this?'
He held it out.

Byline: Johnny Lennox.

‘Yes, I did. Frances sent it. It's such nonsense, the Comrade
Leader is not as the newspapers describe him.'

‘Surprise, surprise.'

‘When I saw Johnny's name I couldn't believe it. He's turned
into an expert on Africa, then?'

‘Why not? All their idols have turned out to have feet of clay,
but cheer up! There's an unlimited supply of great leaders in
Africa, thugs and bullies and thieves, so all the poor souls that
have to love a leader can love the black ones.'

‘And when there's a massacre or a tribal war or a few missing
millions, all they have to do is to murmur, It's a different culture,'
said Sylvia succumbing to the pleasures of spite.

‘And poor Johnny has to eat after all. This way he is always
the guest of some dictator or other.'

‘Or at a conference discussing the nature of Freedom.'

‘Or at a symposium on Poverty.'

‘Or a seminar called by the World Bank.'

‘Actually, that's part of the trouble–the old Reds can't spout
about Freedom and Democracy, and that's what's on our agendas.
Johnny is not as much in demand as he was. Oh, Sylvia, I do
miss you. Why do you live so far away? Why can't we all
live together for ever in this house and forget what goes on
outside?' He was animated, had lost his hung-over pallor, he was
laughing.

‘If I give you all the facts, the material, you could write some
articles.'

‘Why don't you ask Rupert? He's a serious journalist.' He
added, ‘He's one of the best. He's good.'

‘But when they are so well-known then they don't like taking
risks. They're all saying Zimlia's wonderful. He'd be out on a
limb by himself.'

‘They are supposed to like being the first.'

‘Then why isn't he one of them? I could ask Father McGuire
to draft an article and you could use it as a basis.'

‘Ah, yes, Father McGuire. Andrew said he had never
understood the real meaning of a fatted capon before.' Sylvia was
annoyed. ‘I am sorry.'

‘He's a good man.'

‘And you are a good woman. We are not worthy of you–sorry, sorry, but little Sylvia, can't you see I'm envious of you?
It's that clear-eyed single-hearted candour of yours–where did
you get it?–oh, yes, of course, you are a Catholic.' He got up,
lifted Sylvia on to his knee, and put his face into her neck. ‘I
swear you smell of sunlight. I was thinking last night when you
were being so nice to me, She smells of sunlight.'

She was uncomfortable. So was he. It was incongruous, this
position, for them both. She slid back to her chair.

‘And you will try not to drink so much?'

‘Yes.'

‘You promise?'

‘Yes, Sylvia, yes, Sonia, I promise.'

‘I'll send you material.'

‘I'll do my best.'

 • • •

Sylvia knocked on the door to the basement flat, heard a sharp
‘Who's that?', put her head around the door, and from the foot
of the stairs a lean woman in smart tan trousers, tan shirt, with a
copper-coloured Eton crop, stared up at her. A woman like a
knife.

‘I used to live in this house,' said Sylvia. ‘And I hear you are
going to live with my mother?'

Meriel did not abate her hostile inspection. Then she turned
her back to Sylvia, lit a cigarette, and said into a cloud of smoke,
‘That's the plan at the moment, yes.'

‘I'm Sylvia.'

‘I supposed you might be.'

The rooms Sylvia was looking into were as she remembered,
more like a student's pad, but now very tidy. It seemed that Meriel
was packing. She turned to say, ‘They want this space. Your
mother has kindly offered me a place to lay my head while I'm
looking for something.'

‘And you will be working with her?'

‘When I have finished my training I shall work on my own
account.'

‘I see.'

‘And when I get my own place I shall have the children with
me.'

‘Oh, well, I expect it will all work out. I'm sorry I disturbed
you. I wanted just to–look, for old times' sake.'

‘Don't slam the door. This is a very noisy house. The children
do as they like.'

 • • •

Sylvia took a cab to her mother's. Nothing much had changed
there. Incense, mystical signs on cushions and curtains, and her
mother, large and angry but all smiles of welcome.

‘How nice of you to take the trouble to see me.'

‘I'm off back to Zimlia tonight.'

Phyllida slowly and thoroughly examined her daughter. ‘Well,
Tilly, you look thoroughly dried out. Why don't you use skin
creams?'

‘I will. You're right. Mother, I met Meriel just now.'

‘Did you?'

‘And what happened to Mary Constable?'

‘We had words.'

This phrase brought back to Sylvia a rush of memories, she
and her mother, in this boarding-house or that furnished room,
always on the move, usually because of unpaid rent; landladies
who were best friends but became enemies, and the phrase, ‘There
were words.' So many words, so often. And then Phyllida married
Johnny.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Don't be. Plenty of fish. At least Meriel has had children. She
knows what it is to have her children stolen from her.'

‘Well, I'll be off, I just popped in.'

‘I didn't expect you to sit down and have a cup of tea.'

‘I'll have a cup of tea.'

‘Those brats of Meriel's. Now, they're a handful.'

‘Then perhaps she's well rid of them?'

‘They're not coming here, so she needn't think it.'

‘If we're going to have tea, let's have it. It's nearly time to
leave for the airport.'

‘Then you'd better go, hadn't you?'

 • • •

Sylvia was again in the Arrivals of Senga airport, as crowded as it
had been when she was last here, and with the same two kinds
of people divided by colour, but much more by status. But there
had been a change. Four–no, five, years before, this had been
a vigorously confident crowd, yes, but so soon after that war faces
and the set of bodies still showed a practised apprehension, as if
the news of Peace had not really been taken in by the whole
person. Nerves were still set for bad news. But now this crowd
was exuberant, triumphant with successful shopping in London,
which was overloading the small and creaking carousel to the point
where great suitcases, refrigerators, luggage, furniture toppled off
to be hustled away by their laughing owners. Never has there
been a more openly self-congratulatory population of travellers
than this one; on the plane among the whites the words
the new
nomenklatura
had circulated with the relish of gossip.

And, again, here was the same division in dress, the new black
elite in their three-piece suits, wiping copious sweat from their
beaming faces, and the casual be-jeaned and T-shirted whites off
to a hundred different humble stations in the bush, or in the town.
Soon, both these so very different categories of being were staring
at one focus: a young black woman of perhaps eighteen, very
pretty, wearing the advanced clothes of some designer or other,
high heels like skewers and the petulant frown of the spoiled
young. She had commandeered two of the porters. Off the
carousel were being lifted one, two, three, four–was that all?–no,
seven, eight, Vuitton suitcases. ‘Boy, bring that here,' she told
them, in the high peremptory voice she had learned from the
white madams of former times–none would dare to use it now.
‘Boy–be quick.' She advanced to the front of the queue. ‘Boy,
show my cases to the officer.' A large black man in the queue
said something to her, avuncular, proprietary, to establish his
acquaintance with this dazzler to the crowd, while she tossed her
head and gave him a smile half-pleased, and half Who are
you
to
tell me what to do? All the blacks were proudly watching this
accomplishment of their Independence, while the lesser mortals'
white faces did not comment, though glances were certainly being
exchanged. They would discuss the incident later when safely in
their homes. At Customs she said, ‘I am So and So's daughter'–a senior Minister–and to the porters, ‘Boy . . . Boy–follow
me.' And she went through Customs and then past Immigration
as if it did not exist.

Sylvia had four large cases and a little hold-all for her clothes,
and while watching whole households of goods being chalked okay
by the Customs officials, she knew she could not expect the same.
This time she had not been lucky in whom she had sitting beside
her on the plane. She was looking along the faces of the Customs
officials for the young, eager, friendly face of last time, but he was
not on duty, or had evolved into one of these correct officials. When
she got to the head of the line, a frowning man confronted her.

‘And what is all this you have here?'

‘These are two sewing machines.'

‘And what do you want sewing machines for? Are they for
your business?'

‘No, they are presents for the women at the Mission at
Kwadere.'

‘Presents. And what will they be paying you for them?'

‘Nothing,' said Sylvia, smiling at him: she knew that the
sewing machines had touched this man, perhaps he had watched his
mother or sister working on one. But duty won.

‘They will have to go to the depot. And you will be informed
what you must pay on them.' The two boxes were lifted off to
one side: Sylvia knew she was unlikely to see them again. They
would be ‘mislaid'.

‘And now what is all this?' He knocked on the sides of the
two cases as if they were doors.

‘Books. For the Mission.'

At once on to the man's face appeared a look she knew too
well: hunger. He took a lever, prised up the top of one case–books. He picked one up, turning pages, taking his time, and
sighed. He let the books fall back, used the lever to bang the top
down, and stood undecided.

‘Please–they are much needed, these books.'

It was touch and go. ‘Okay,' he said. She had traded two
sewing machines for the books, but she knew which the women
at the Mission would choose.

She went through Immigration without difficulty, and there
stood Sister Molly waiting, smiling, outlined by that brilliance of
light that means rain has recently cleared the air. The rainy season
had come. Late, but it was here. But now, the question had to
be, was it going to stay: the last three or four years, rains had
indeed broken the long dryness, but then had taken themselves
off again. The region was officially in a state of drought, but today
you'd not know it, with complacent white clouds sailing on the
blue, and puddles everywhere. The sunlight dazzled off Sister
Molly's cross, shone off her strong brown legs. Healthy, that was
the word for her. And healthy was this scene, everything strong
and vigorous, newly-washed trees and bushes and a good-natured
crowd disappearing into official cars and lowly buses. Sylvia felt
herself again. Her visit to London had not been a success, except
for her boxes of books. But that experience snapped shut behind
her. London seemed unreal to her: this was real.

The back seat of Sister Molly's old car sank under the weight
of the big cases. She at once began to talk, with the news that
there had been scandals. Ministers had been accused of taking
bribes and of stealing. She spoke with the relish that confirms a
satisfaction in everything going on as expected. ‘And Father
McGuire said there was trouble of some kind at the Mission.
St Luke's has been accused of theft.'

‘That's nonsense.'

‘Nonsense can be very powerful.' And Sylvia thought that this
nun's–she was that, after all–look at her was too admonitory–a warning?–for the occasion. There was something wrong. It
did not do to dismiss anything she said. This was a very
accomplished young woman. She ran a scheme that brought teachers
from America and from Europe to teach for a couple of years in
Zimlia, because of the shortage of black teachers, and this was–so far–welcomed by the black government because it saved on
teachers' wages. Some teachers were in schools in remote areas,
and Sister Molly was almost permanently on her rounds to see
how her charges did. ‘Some of them, they come from well-off
families and they have no idea of what they are coming to, and
then they find themselves at a school like the one at Kwadere and
they can take it hard.' Breakdowns, fits of depression, collapses of
all kinds were coped with by this competent young woman as a
hazard of the work: and she was kind and consoling, and some
sheltered young thing from Philadelphia or LA might find herself
rocked on the bosom of the deep, ‘There now, there now,' in
the arms of this Molly who had started life in a poor home in
Galway. ‘And I hear there is trouble again at the school, the
headmaster has absconded with the money, and Father McGuire
is working double again. And now that is a curious thing, don't
you think so? All these headmasters and naughty thieves they
think they are invisible to the rest of us and to the police, and so
what is it goes through their poor heads, do you think?'–but
she did not want an answer, she wanted to talk, and for Sylvia to
listen. Soon she was back on her real centre of gravity, which was
the Holy Father and his deficiencies, for apart from being a man,
he was ‘putting ideas into the heads' of priests working in various
parts of the world. To hear this sequence of words, in this context–for it had ever been a main grievance of the whites that missions
‘put ideas' into black heads–was an odd exhilaration, the same
used as fuel by Colin in his books–the infinite incongruity that
life was capable of. (Not long before leaving for London, Sylvia
had heard from Edna Pyne that the present delinquency of the
blacks was due to having had ideas put into their heads too soon
in their evolutionary development.)