The Sweetest Dream (14 page)

‘Your grandparents.'

‘Oh, yes, I suppose they must be. Have been.'

‘I don't know. I know so little about them. There was the
war, like a sort of chasm across my life, and on the other side,
that life. And now they are dead. When I left home I thought
about them as little as I could. I simply couldn't cope with them.
And so I didn't see them and now I'm hard on Rose when she
doesn't want to go home.'

‘I take it you weren't fifteen when you left home?'

‘No, eighteen.'

‘There you are, you're in the clear.'

This absurdity made them laugh. A wonderful understanding:
how well she was getting on with her elder son. Well, this had
been true since he grew up–not all that long ago, in fact. What
a pleasure it was, what a consolation for . . .

‘And Julia, she didn't do much going home for Christmas,
did she?'

‘But how could she, when she was here?'

‘How old was she when she came to London?'

‘Twenty, I think.'

‘
What?
' He actually brought his hands up to cover his mouth
and lower face, and let them drop to say, ‘Twenty. That's what
I am. And sometimes I think I haven't learned to tie my shoelaces
yet.'

In silence they contemplated a very young Julia.

She said, ‘There's a photograph. I've seen it. A wedding photo.
She's wearing a hat so loaded with flowers you can hardly see her
face.'

‘No veil?'

‘No veil.'

‘My God, coming over here, all by herself to us cold English.
What was grandfather like?'

‘I didn't meet him. They weren't approving of Johnny much.
And certainly not of me.' Trying to find reasons for the enormity
of it all, she went on, ‘You see, it was the Cold War.'

He now had his arms folded on the table, supporting him,
and he was frowning, staring at her, trying to understand. ‘The
Cold War,' he said.

‘Good Lord,' she said, struck, ‘of course, I'd forgotten, my
parents didn't approve of Johnny. They actually wrote me a letter
saying that I was an enemy of my country. A traitor–yes, I think
they said that. Then they had second thoughts and came to see
me–you and Colin were tiny then. Johnny was there and he
called them rejects of history.' She seemed on the verge of tears,
but it was from remembered exasperation.

Up went his brows, his face struggled with laughter, lost and
he sat waving his arms about, as if to cancel the laughter. ‘It's so
funny,' he tried to apologise.

‘I suppose it's funny, yes.'

He dropped his head on his arms, sighed, stayed there a long
minute. Through his arms came the words, ‘I just don't think
I've got the energy for . . .'

‘What? Energy for what?'

‘Where did you lot get it from, all that confidence? Believe
me, I'm a very frail thing in comparison. Perhaps I am a reject
of history?'

‘What? What do you mean?'

He lifted up his face. It was red, and there were tears. ‘Well,
never mind.' He waved his hands again, dispersing bad thoughts.
‘Do you know, I might easily have a little taste of your feast.'

‘Didn't you get any Christmas dinner?'

‘Phyllida was in a state. She was crying and screaming and
fainting in coils. You know she really is rather mad. I mean,
really.'

‘Well, yes.'

‘Julia says it was because they sent her off–Phyllida–to
Canada, at the beginning of the war. Apparently she was unlucky,
it wasn't a very nice family. She hated it all. And when she got
home she was a changeling, her parents said. They hardly
recognised each other. She was ten when she left. Nearly fifteen when
she got back.'

‘Then I suppose, poor Phyllida.'

‘I think so. And look what a bargain she's got with Comrade
Johnny.' He pulled the tray towards him, got up to fetch a spoon,
knife and fork, sat down, and had just dipped the spoon into the
soup when the outer door banged, and the door behind them
noisily opened and Colin came in, bringing cold air with him, a
sense of the dark outside, and, like an accusation against them
both, his unhappy face.

‘Do I see food? Actually, food?'

He sat down, and using the spoon Andrew had just brought,
began on the soup.

‘Didn't you get any Christmas lunch?'

‘No. Sophie's ma has gone all Jewish on her and says what
has Christmas got to do with her? But they've always had
Christmas.' He had finished the soup. ‘Why don't you cook food like
this?' he accused Frances. ‘Now that's a soup.'

‘How many quails do you think I'd have to cook for each of
you, with your appetites?'

‘Hang on a minute,' said Andrew. ‘Fair's fair.' He brought a
plate to the table, then another, for Colin, and another knife and
fork. He put a quail on to his plate.

‘You are supposed to heat those up for ten minutes,' said
Frances.

‘Who cares? Delicious.'

They were eating in competition with each other. And having
reached the end of the quails, their spoons hovered together over
the pudding. And that vanished, in a couple of mouthfuls.

‘No Christmas pudding?' said Colin. ‘No Christmas pudding
at Christmas?'

Frances got up, fetched a can of Christmas pudding from the
high shelf where it had been quietly maturing, and in a moment
had it steaming on the stove.

‘How long will that take?' asked Colin.

‘An hour.'

She put loaves of bread on the table, then butter, cheese,
plates. They polished off the Stilton, and began serious eating, the
vandalised tray pushed aside.

‘Mother,' said Colin, ‘we've got to ask Sophie to come and
live here.'

‘But she is practically living here.'

‘No–properly. It's got nothing to do with me . . . I mean,
I'm not saying Sophie and me are a fixture, that isn't it. She can't
go on at home. You wouldn't believe what she's like, Sophie's
mother. She cries and grabs Sophie and says they must jump off
a bridge together, or take poison. Imagine living with that?' It
sounded as if he were accusing her, Frances, and, hearing that he
did, said differently, even apologetically, ‘If you could just get
a taste of that house, it's like walking into the Black Hole of
Calcutta.'

‘You know how much I like Sophie. But I don't really see
Sophie going down into the basement to share with Rose and
whoever turns up. I take it you aren't expecting her to move in
with you?'

‘Well . . . no, it's not . . . that's not
on
. But she could camp
in the living-room, we hardly ever use it.'

‘If you've packed up with Sophie, do I have your permission
to take my chance?' enquired Andrew. ‘I'm madly in love with
Sophie, as everyone must know.'

‘I didn't say . . .'

And now these two young men reverted to the condition
schoolboy
, began jostling each other, elbow to elbow, knee to knee.

‘Happy Christmas,' said Frances, and they desisted.

‘Talking of Rose, where is she?' said Andrew. ‘Did she go
home.'

‘Of course not,' said Colin. ‘She's downstairs, alternately
sobbing her heart out and making up her face.'

‘How do you know?' asked Andrew.

‘You forget the advantages of a progressive school. I know all
about women.'

‘I wish I did. While my education is in every way better than
yours, I fail continually in the human department.'

‘You're doing pretty well with Sylvia,' said Frances.

‘Yes, but she isn't a woman, is she? More the ghost of a little
child someone has murdered.'

‘That's
awful
,' said Frances.

‘But how true,' said Colin.

‘If Rose is really downstairs, I suppose we had better ask her
up,' said Frances.

‘Do we have to?' said Andrew. ‘It's so nice
en famille
for
once.'

‘I'll ask her,' said Colin, ‘or she'll be taking an overdose and
then saying it's our fault.'

He leaped up and off down the stairs. The two who remained
said nothing, only looked at each other, as they heard the wail
from beneath, presumably of welcome, Colin's loud
commonsensical voice, and then Rose came in, propelled by Colin.

She was heavily made up, her eyes pencilled in black, false
black eyelashes, purple eye-shadow. She was angry, accusing,
appealing, and was evidently about to cry.

‘There'll be some Christmas pudding,' said Frances.

But Rose had seen the fruit on the tray and was picking it
over. ‘What's this?' she demanded aggressively, ‘What is it?' She
held up a lychee.

‘You must have tasted that, you get it after a Chinese meal,
for pudding,' said Andrew.

‘What Chinese meal? I never get Chinese meals.'

‘Let me.' Colin peeled the lychee, the crisp fragments of
delicately indented shell exposing the pearly lucent fruit, like a little
moon egg, which, having removed the shiny black pip he handed
to Rose who swallowed it, and said, ‘That's nothing much, it's
not worth the fuss.'

‘You should let it lie on your tongue, you should let its
inwardness speak to your inwardness,' said Colin. He allowed
himself his most owlish expression, and looked like an apprentice
judge who lacked only the wig, as he cracked open another lychee,
and handed it to Rose, delicately, between forefinger and thumb.
She sat with it in her mouth, like a child refusing to swallow,
then did, and said, ‘It's a con.'

At once the brothers swept the plate of fruit towards them,
and divided it between them. Rose sat with her mouth open,
staring, and now she really was going to cry. ‘Ohhhhh,' she wailed,
‘you are so horrible. It's not my fault I've never had a Chinese
meal.'

‘Well, you've had Christmas pudding and that's what you are
going to get next,' said Frances.

‘I'm so hungry,' wept Rose.

‘Then eat some bread and cheese.'

‘Bread and cheese at Christmas?'

‘That's all I had,' said Frances. ‘Now shut up, Rose.'

Rose stopped mid-wail, stared incredulously at Frances, and
allowed to develop the full gamut of the adolescent misunderstood:
flashing eyes and pouting lips, and heaving bosom.

Andrew cut a piece of bread, loaded it with butter, then
cheese. ‘Here,' he said.

‘I'll get fat, eating all that butter.'

Andrew took his offering back and began eating it himself.
Rose sat swelling with outrage and tears. No one looked at her.
Then she reached for the loaf, cut a thin slice, smeared on a little
butter, put on a few crumbs of cheese. She didn't eat however,
but sat staring at it:
Look at my Christmas dinner
.

‘I shall sing a Christmas carol,' said Andrew, ‘to fill in the
time before the pudding.'

He began on ‘Silent Night', and Colin said, ‘Shut up, Andrew,
it's more than I can bear, it really is.'

‘The pudding is probably eatable already,' said Frances.

The great glistening dark mass of pudding was set on a very
fine blue plate. She put out plates, spoons, and poured more wine.
She stuck the sprig of holly from Julia's offering on to the pudding.
She found a tin of custard.

They ate.

Soon the telephone rang. Sophie, in tears, and so Colin went
up a floor to talk to her, at length, at very great length, and then
came down to say he would return to Sophie's, to stay the night
there, poor Sophie couldn't cope. Or perhaps he would bring her
back here.

Then Julia's taxi was heard outside, and in came Sylvia, flushed,
smiling, a pretty girl: who would have thought that possible, a
few weeks ago? She dropped a curtsy to them in her good-girl's
dress, both liking it and amused at the lace collar, lace cuffs and
embroidery. Julia came in behind her. Frances said, ‘Oh, Julia, do
please sit down.'

But Julia had seen Rose, who was like a clown now that her
make-up had smeared with crying, and was cramming in
Christmas pudding.

‘Another time,' said Julia.

It could be seen that Sylvia would have stayed with Andrew,
but she went up after Julia.

‘Stupid dress,' said Rose.

‘You're right,' said Andrew. ‘Not your style at all.'

Then Frances remembered she had not thanked Julia and,
shocked at herself, ran up the stairs. She caught Julia up on the
top landing. Now she should embrace Julia. She should simply
put her arms around this stiff, critical old woman and kiss her.
She could not, her arms simply would not lift, would not go out
to hold Julia.

‘Thank you,' said Frances. ‘That was such a lovely thing to
do. You have no idea what it did for me . . .'

‘I am glad you liked it,' said Julia, turning to go in her door,
and Frances said after her, feeling futile, ridiculous, ‘Thank you,
thank you so much.' Sylvia had no difficulty in kissing Julia,
allowing herself to be kissed and held, and she even sat on Julia's
knee.

 • • •

It was May, and the windows were open on to a jolly spring
evening, the birds hard at it, louder than the traffic. A light rain
sparkled on leaves and spring flowers.

The company around the table looked like a chorus for a
musical, because they were all wearing tunics striped horizontally
in blue and white, over tight black legs. Frances wore black and
white stripes, feeling that this might do something to assert a
difference. The boys wore the same stripes over jeans. Their hair
was, had to be, well below their ears, a statement of their
independence, and the girls all had Evansky haircuts. An Evansky haircut,
that was the heart's desire of every with-it girl, and by hook, or
most likely by crook, they had achieved it. This cut was between
a 1920s bob, and the shingle, with a fringe to the eyebrows.
Straight, it went without saying. Curly hair
out
. Even Rose's hair,
the mass of crinkly black, was Evansky. Little neat heads,
little-ickle cutesy girls, little bitsey things and the boys like shaggy
ponies, and all in the blue and white stripes that had originated
in matelot shirts, matching the blue and white mugs they used
for breakfast. When the
geist
speaks, the
zeit
must obey. Here they
were, the girls and the boys of the sexual revolution, though they
didn't know yet that was what they would be famed for.