The Sweetest Dream

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.

‘What am I to tell Jolyon?’

‘Who? – oh, yes. But …’ And now Frances energetically sat herself up, one hand cupping the baby’s head, the other holding the cloth over her exposed breast. ‘Don’t tell me Johnny asked you to come here?’

‘Well, yes, he did.’

Now the two women shared a moment: it was incredulity, and their eyes actually did engage, in a query. When Julia had read the letter which commanded her to visit his wife, she said to Philip, ‘But I thought he hated us? If we weren’t good enough to see him married, then why is he ordering me to visit Frances?’

Philip replied, dry enough, but remote too, because as always he was absorbed in his duties with the war, ‘I see that you are expecting consistency. Usually a mistake, in my view.’

As for Frances, she had never heard Johnny refer to his parents as anything other than fascists, exploiters, at the best reactionaries. Then how could he be …

‘Frances, I would like very much to help you with some money.’ An envelope appeared from her handbag.

‘Oh, no, I am sure Johnny wouldn’t like that. He’d never take money from …’

‘I think you’ll find that he can and he will.’

‘Oh, no, no, Julia, please not.’

‘Very well then, goodbye.’

Julia did not set eyes on Frances again until after Johnny had returned from the war, and Philip, who was by then ill and would shortly die, said he was worried about Frances and the children. Her memories of that visit caused Julia to protest that she was sure Frances did not want to see her, but Philip said, ‘Please, Julia. To set my mind at rest.’

Julia went to the flat in Notting Hill, which she was convinced had been chosen because of the area’s seediness and ugliness. There were two children now. The one she had seen before, Andrew, was a noisy and energetic toddler, and there was a baby, Colin. Again, Frances was breastfeeding. She was large, shapeless, slatternly, and the flat, Julia was convinced, was a health hazard. On the wall was a food safe, and in it could be glimpsed a bottle of milk and some cheese. The wire net of the safe had been painted, the paint had clogged: air therefore could not circulate properly. Babies’ clothes were strung on fragile wooden contraptions that seemed about to collapse. No, Frances said, in a voice cold with hostility and criticism. No, she didn’t want any money, no, thank you.

Julia stood there unconsciously all appeal, hands a-flutter, eyes full of tears.

‘But, Frances, think of the children.’

It was as if Julia had deliberately touched an already sore place with acid. Oh, yes, Frances thought often enough of how her own parents, let alone Johnny’s, must see her and how she lived, with the children. She said in a voice stiff with anger, ‘It seems to me that I never think of anything else but the children.’ Her tone said, How dare you!

‘Please let me help you, please – Johnny’s always so wrong-headed, he always has been, and it’s not fair on the children.’

The trouble was, by now Frances agreed unreservedly about Johnny’s wrong-headedness. Any shreds of illusion had dissolved away, leaving a residue of unresolvable exasperation about him, the comrades, the Revolution, Stalin, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. But what was in question here was not Johnny, it was herself, a small, threatened sense of identity and of independence. That was why Julia’s Think of the children went home like a poisoned bullet. What right did she, Frances, have to fight for her independence, her own self at the cost of … but they were not suffering, they were not. She knew they were not.

Julia went away, reported back to Philip, and tried not to think of those rooms in Notting Hill.

Later, when Julia heard that Frances had gone to work in a theatre, Julia thought, A theatre! Of course, it would be! Then Frances was acting and Julia thought, Is she acting servants’ parts then?

She went to the theatre, sat well back where she could not be seen, she hoped, and watched Frances in a small part in a quite nice little comedy. Frances was thinner, though still solid, and her fair hair was in frilly waves. She was a hotel owner, in Brighton. Julia could not see anything of that pre-war giggler in her tight uniform, but still, she was doing the part well enough, and Julia felt encouraged. Frances knew that Julia had been to watch her, because it was a small theatre, and Julia was wearing one of her inimitable hats, with a veil, and her gloved hands were on her lap. Not another woman in the audience wore a hat. Those gloves, oh those gloves, what a laugh.

All through the war, particularly at bad moments, Philip had kept the memory of a certain little glove, in Swiss muslin, and those dots, white on white, and the tiny frill at the wrist, seemed to him a delicious frivolity, laughing at itself, and a promise that civilisation would return.

Soon Philip died of a heart attack, and Julia was not surprised. The war had been hard on him. He had worked to all hours and brought home work at nights. She knew he had been involved in all kinds of daring and dangerous ventures, and that he grieved for men he had sent into danger, sometimes to their deaths. He had become an old man, during the war. And, like her, this war was forcing him to relive the last one: she knew this, from the small dry remarks he did allow himself to drop. These two people, who had been so fatally in love, had lived always in patient tenderness, as if they had decided to protect their memories, like a bruise, from any harsh touch, refusing ever to look too closely at them.

Now there was Julia alone in the big house, and Johnny came and said he wanted the house, and she should move out into a flat. For the first time in her life Julia stood her ground and said No. She was going to live here, and she did not expect Johnny or anyone else to understand her. Her own home, the von Arne house, had been lost. Her young brother had been killed in the Second World War. The house had been sold and the proceeds had come to her. This house, where she had been so reluctant to live, was now her home, the only link with that Julia who had a home, who expected to have one, who was defined by a place, with memories. She was Julia Lennox, and this was her home.

‘You are selfish and greedy, like all your class,’ said Johnny.

‘You and Frances may come and live here, but I shall be here.’

‘Thank you so much, Mutti, but we shall decline.’

‘Why Mutti? You never called me that when you were a child.’

‘Are you trying to conceal the fact that you are a German, Mutti?’

‘No, I don’t think I am doing that.’

‘I do. Hypocritical. It’s what we expect from people like you.’

He was really furious. His father had not left him anything, it had all gone to Julia. He had planned to live in this house and to fill it with comrades needing a home. Everyone was poor, living from hand to mouth, after the war, and he was subsisting on the proceeds of work for the Party, some of it illegal. He had been furious with Frances for refusing to accept an allowance from Julia. When Frances had said, ‘But, Johnny, I don’t understand, how can you want to take money from the class enemy?’ Johnny had hit her, for the only time in their lives. She hit him back, harder. She had not meant her question as a taunt or a criticism, she genuinely wanted to have it explained to her.

Julia was well off, but not rich. Paying for the two lots of school fees, Andrew’s and Colin’s, was within her scope, but if Frances had not agreed to move in, she had planned to let part of the house. Now she was economising in ways that would have made Frances laugh, if she had known. Julia did not buy new clothes. She dismissed the housekeeper who had been living in the basement, depended on a woman who came in twice a week, and did a good bit of her own housework. (This woman, Mrs Philby, had to be coaxed and flattered and given presents to go on working when Frances and her ill-bred ways arrived.) She no longer bought food at Fortnum’s, but she discovered now, when Philip was dead, that her own tastes were frugal, and that the standards required of a wife married to a Foreign Office official had never really been hers.

When Frances arrived, to take over all the house except for Julia’s top floor, it was a relief to Julia. She still did not like Frances, who seemed determined to shock her, but she loved the boys, and intended to shield them from their parents. In fact, they were afraid of her, at least to start with, but she never found this out. She thought Frances was keeping her from them, did not know that Frances urged them to visit their grandmother. ‘Please, she’s so good to us. And she’d love it if you did.’ Oh, no, it’s too much, do we have to?’

Frances visited the newspaper to establish her job, and she knew how right she had been to prefer the theatre. As a freelance she had had little experience of institutions, and did not look forward to a communal working life. As soon as she set foot in the building that housed The Defender, she recognised there an atmosphere: this was an esprit de corps all right. The Defender’s venerable history, going back into the nineteenth century, as a fighter for any number of good causes, was being continued, so it was generally felt, and most particularly by the people who worked for it; this period, the Sixties, was able to stand up to any of the great times of the past. Frances was being welcomed into the fold by one Julie Hackett. She was a soft, not to say womanly woman, with bundles of strong black hair fastened here and there with a variety of combs and pins, a resolutely unfashionable figure, because she saw fashion as an enslaver of women. She observed everything around her with a view to correcting errors of fact and belief, and she criticised men in every sentence, taking it for granted, as believers tend to do, that Frances agreed with her in everything. She had been keeping an eye on Frances, had seen articles by her here and there, and in The Defender too, but one article had decided her to get her on to the staff. It was a satirical, but good-natured piece about Carnaby Street, which was in the process of becoming a symbol for trendy Britain, and attracting youngsters, not to mention the young in heart, from all over the world. Frances had said that they must all be suffering from some sort of collective hallucination, since the street was grubby, tatty, and if the clothes were attractive – some of them – they were no better than others in streets that did not have the magic syllables Carnaby attached to them. Heresy! A brave heresy, judged Julie Hackett, seeing Frances as a kindred soul.

Frances was shown an office where a secretary was sorting through letters addressed to Aunt Vera, and putting them in heaps, since even the nastiest predicaments of humanity must fall into easily recognised categories. My husband is unfaithful, an alcoholic, beats me, won’t give me enough money, is leaving me for his secretary, prefers his mates in the pub to me. My son is alcoholic, a druggie, has got a girl pregnant, won’t leave home, is living rough in London, earns money but won’t contribute to the household. My daughter … Pensions, benefits, the behaviour of officials, medical problems … but a doctor answered those. These more common letters were dealt with by this secretary, signing Aunt Vera, and it was a flourishing new department of The Defender. Frances’s job was to scan these letters, and find a theme or concern that predominated, and then use it for a serious article, a long one, which would have a prominent place in the paper. Frances could write her articles and do her research at home. She would be of The Defender but not in it, and for this she was grateful.

When she got out of the Underground, coming home from the newspaper, she bought food, and walked down the hill, laden.

Julia was standing at her high window, looking down, when she saw Frances approaching. At least this smart coat was an improvement, not the usual duffel-coat: perhaps one could look forward to her wearing something other than the eternal jeans and jerseys? She was walking heavily, making Julia think of a donkey with panniers. Near the house she stopped, and Julia could see that Frances’s hair had been done, the blondish hair falling straight as straw on either side of a parting, as was the mode.

From some of the houses she had passed, the music pounded and beat, as loud as an angry heart, but Julia had said she would not tolerate loud music, she could not bear it, so while music was played, it was soft. From Andrew’s room usually came the muted tones of Palestrina or Vivaldi, from Colin’s traditional jazz, from the sitting-room where the television was, broken music and voices, from the basement, the throb, throb, throb, that ‘the kids’ needed.

The whole big house was ht up, not a dark window, and it seemed to shed light from walls as well as windows: it exuded light and music.

Frances saw Johnny’s shadow on the kitchen curtains, and at once her spirits took a fall. He was in the middle of a harangue, she could see, from gesticulating arms, and when she reached the kitchen, he was in full flood. Cuba, again. Around the table was an assortment of youngsters, but she did not have time to see who was there. Andrew, yes, Rose, yes … the telephone was ringing. She dropped the heavy bags, took up the receiver, and it was Colin from his school. ‘Mother, have you heard the news?’ ‘No, what news, are you all right, Colin, you just went off this morning …’ ‘Yes, yes, listen, we’ve just heard, it’s on the news. Kennedy’s dead.’ ‘Who?’ ‘President Kennedy.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘They shot him. Switch on the telly.’

Over her shoulder she said, ‘President Kennedy is dead. He’s been shot.’ A silence, while she reached for the radio, switched it on. Nothing on the radio. She turned to see every face blank with shock, Johnny’s too. He was being kept silent by the need to find a correct formulation, and in a moment was able to bring out, ‘We must evaluate the situation …’ but could not go on.

‘The television,’ said Geoffrey Bone, and as one ‘the kids’ rose from the table and went out of the room and up the stairs to the sitting-room.

Andrew said, calling after them, ‘Careful, Tilly’s watching.’ Then he ran after them.

Frances and Johnny were alone, facing each other.

‘I take it you came to enquire after your stepdaughter?’ she asked.

Johnny fidgeted: he wanted badly to go up and watch the Six O’clock News, but he planned to say something, and she stood, leaning back against the shelves by the stove, thinking, Well now, let me guess … And as she had expected, he came out with, ‘It’s Phyllida, I am afraid.’

‘Yes?’

‘She’s not well.’

‘So I heard from Andrew.’

‘I’m going to Cuba in a couple of days.’

‘Best if you take her with you, then.’

‘I am afraid the funds wouldn’t run to it and …’

‘Who is paying?’

Here appeared the irritated what-can-you-expect look from which she was always able to judge her degree of stupidity.

‘You should know better than to ask, comrade.’

Once she would have collapsed into a morass of inadequacy and guilt – how easily, then, he had been able to make her feel an idiot.

‘I am asking. You seem to forget, I’ve got reason to be interested in your finances.’

‘And how much are you being paid in this new job of yours?’

She smiled at him. ‘Not enough to support your sons and now your stepdaughter as well.’

‘And feed Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and anyone who turns up expecting a free meal.’

‘What? You wouldn’t have me turn away potential material for the Revolution?’

‘They’re layabouts and junkies,’ he said. ‘Riff-raff’ But he decided not to go on, and changed his tune to a comradely appeal to her better nature. ‘Phyllida really isn’t well.’

‘And what am I expected to do about it?’

‘I want you to keep an eye on her.’

‘No, Johnny.’

‘Then Andrew can. He’s got nothing better to do.’

‘He’s busy looking after Tilly. She is really ill, you know.’

‘A lot of it is just playing for sympathy.’

‘Then why did you dump her on us?’

‘Oh … fuck it,’ said Comrade Johnny. ‘Psychological disorders are not my line, they’re yours.’

‘She’s ill. She’s really ill. And how long are you going for?’

He looked down, frowned. ‘I said I’d go for six weeks. But with this new crisis …’ Reminded of the crisis, he said, ‘I’m going to catch the news.’ And he ran out of the kitchen.

Frances heated soup, a chicken stew, garlic bread, made a salad, piled fruit on a dish, arranged cheeses. She was thinking about the poor child, Tilly. The day after the girl had arrived, Andrew had come to where she was working in her study, and said, ‘Mother, can I put Tilly into the spare room? She really can’t sleep in my room, even though that’s what I think she’d like.’

Frances had been expecting this: her floor really had four rooms, her bedroom, her study, a sitting-room, and a small room which, when Julia ran the house, had been a spare room. Frances felt that this floor was hers, a safe place, where she was free from all the pressures, all the people. Now Tilly and her illness would be across a small landing. And the bathroom … ‘Very well, Andrew. But I can’t look after her. Not the way she needs.’

‘No. I’ll look after her. I’ll clear the room for her.’ Then, as he turned to run up the stairs, he said quietly, urgently, ‘She really is in a bad way.’

‘Yes, I know she is.’

‘She’s afraid we are going to put her in a loony bin.’

‘But of course not, she’s not crazy.’

‘No,’ he said, with a twisted smile, more of an appeal than he knew, ‘But perhaps I am?’

‘I don’t think so.’

She heard Andrew bring the girl down from his room, and the two went into the spare room. Silence. She knew what was happening. The girl was lying curled on the bed, or on the floor, and Andrew was cradling her, soothing her, even singing to her – she had heard him do that.

And that morning, she had observed this scene. She was preparing food for this evening, while Andrew sat at the table with Tilly, who was wrapped in a baby’s shawl, which she had found in a chest, and appropriated. In front of her was a bowl of milk and cornflakes, and another was before Andrew. He was playing the nursery game. ‘One for Andrew … now one for Tilly … one for Andrew …’

At ‘one for Tilly’ she opened her mouth, while the great anguished blue eyes stared at Andrew. It seemed she did not know how to blink. Andrew tilted in the spoon, and she sat with her lips closed, but not swallowing. Andrew made himself swallow his mouthful, and started again. ‘One for Tilly … one for Andrew …’ Minute amounts of food arrived in Tilly’s mouth, but at least Andrew was getting something down him.

Andrew said to her, ‘Tilly doesn’t eat. No, no, it’s much worse than me. She doesn’t eat at all.’

That was before anorexia was a household word, like sex, and AIDS.

‘Why doesn’t she? Do you know?’ Meaning, please tell me why you find it so hard to eat.

‘In her case I would say it’s her mother.’

‘Not in your case, then?’

‘No, I would say that in my case it’s my father.’ The humorous deprecation, the winning ways of that personality that Eton had created in him, seemed at this moment to have slipped out of alignment with his real self, and become a series of grotesqueries, like out-of-place masks. His eyes stared, sombre, anxious, all appeal.

‘What are we going to do?’ said Frances, as desperate as he was.

‘Just wait, wait a bit, that’s all, it’ll be all right.’

When ‘the kids’ – she really must stop using the phrase – came crowding down to sit around the table, waiting for food, Johnny was not with them. Everyone sat listening to the quarrel that was going on at the top of the house. Shouts, imprecations – words could not be distinguished.

Andrew said, ‘He wants Julia to go and live in his flat and look after Phyllida while he is in Cuba.’

They looked at her, to see her reaction. She was laughing. ‘Oh, my God,’ she said. ‘He’s really not possible.’

Now they glanced at each other – disapproval. All, that is, except Andrew. They admired him, and thought Frances bitter. Andrew said to them, seriously, ‘It simply isn’t on. It’s not fair to ask Julia.’

The top’ of the house, where Julia had her being, was often a subject for mockery, and Julia had been referred to as ‘the old woman’. But since Andrew had been home, and had become friends with Julia, they were having to take their cue from him.

‘Why should she look after Phyllida?’ said Andrew. ‘She’s got her hands full with us.’

This new view of the situation caused a thoughtful silence.

‘She doesn’t like Phyllida,’ said Frances, supporting Andrew. And she suppressed: and she doesn’t like me. She has never liked Johnny’s women.

‘Who could?’ said Geoffrey, and Frances looked at him enquiringly: there was something new here.

‘Phyllida came here this afternoon,’ said Geoffrey.

‘She was looking for you,’ said Andrew.

‘Here? Phyllida?’

‘She’s nuts,’ said Rose. ‘I was here. She’s bonkers. Round the twist.’ And she giggled.

‘What did she want?’ said Frances.

‘I sent her off,’ said Andrew. ‘I told her she shouldn’t be here.’

Upstairs doors were slamming, Johnny was shouting, and he came leaping down the stairs followed by the single word from Julia, ‘Imbecile!’

He arrived, sparking off anger.

‘Old bitch,’ he said, ‘fascist bitch.’

‘The kids’ looked for guidance to Andrew. He was pale, seemed ill. Loud voices – quarrelling – too much for him.

‘Too much,’ said Rose, in admiration of the general unpleasantness.

Andrew said, ‘Tilly’ll be upset again.’ He half rose and Frances appealed, afraid that he would find this an excuse not to eat, ‘Please sit down, Andrew.’ He did, and she was surprised that he obeyed her.

‘Did you know that your … that Phyllida was here?’ said Rose to Johnny, giggling. Her face was flushed, her little black eyes sparkled.

‘What?’ said Johnny, sharp, with a quick glance at Frances. ‘She was here?’

No one said anything.

‘I’ll speak to her,’ said Johnny.

‘Has she got parents?’ asked Frances. ‘She could go home while you’re in Cuba.’

‘She hates them. With good reason. They’re lumpen scum.’

Rose had the back of her hand against her mouth, pressing back more hilarity.

Meanwhile Frances was looking around, taking in who was here this evening. Apart from Geoffrey – well, of course, and Andrew, and Rose, there was Jill, there was Sophie, and she was crying. There was also a boy unknown to her.

At this moment the telephone rang and it was Colin again. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘Is Sophie there? She must be terribly upset. Let me speak to her.’

This reminded everyone that Sophie had to be upset, because her father had died of cancer last year, and the reason why she was here most evenings was because in her own home her mother wept, and claimed Sophie for grief. Kennedy’s death would of course …