The Sweetest Dream (18 page)

And so she was, so they were. ‘Made for each other,' he
breathed in her ear, and then exclaimed it aloud, exulting. They
lay side by side, enlaced, while outside the brief night hurried past
towards a dawn that was not going to be delayed by cloud: the
moonlight glittered on the panes. ‘I've been in love with you for
years,' he said, ‘years. Ever since I saw you first with those little
boys of yours. Johnny's wife. You don't know how often I
fantasised about ringing you up and asking you to sneak around the
corner for a drink. But you were Johnny's wife, and I was so in
awe of him.'

Frances's spirits were taking a fall, and she wished that he
would not go on: but he would have to, that was obvious, for
here was the sad face of the truth. ‘That must have been in that
dreadful flat in Notting Hill.'

‘Was it dreadful? But we didn't go in for gracious living in
those days.' And he laughed loudly, from an excess of everything,
and said, ‘Oh, Frances, if you've ever had a dream you thought
would never come true, then tonight is that, for me.'

She was thinking of herself then, overweight and worried,
with the small children always at her or on her, clutching her,
climbing up her, competing for her lap. ‘Just what did you see in
me then, I'd like to know?'

He was silent for a while. ‘It was everything. Johnny–he was
such a hero to me then. And you were Johnny's wife. You were
such a couple, I envied you both and I envied Johnny. And the
little boys–I hadn't had children then. I wanted to be like you.'

‘Like Johnny.'

‘I can't explain. You were such–a holy family,' he laughed
and flung his limbs about, and then sat on the edge of the bed,
stretching up his arms into the moony light of the room and said,
‘You were wonderful. Calm . . . serene . . . nothing phased you.
And I did realise that Johnny wasn't necessarily the easiest . . . I'm
not criticising him.'

‘Why not? I do.' Was she really going to demolish this dream–she couldn't. Oh, yes, she could. ‘Did you have any idea how
much I hated Johnny then?'

‘Well, of course we hate our dear loved ones sometimes. Jane–she was a pain.'

‘Johnny was consistently a pain.'

‘But what a hero!'

She was sitting with her arm around his neck, as close as she
could, to be near that exulting vitality. Her breasts were against
his arm. How much she did like her body tonight, because he
did. Smooth heavy breasts, and her arms–she could grant that
they were beautiful. ‘When I saw Johnny in that room the other
night, I wondered if you two still . . .'

‘Good God, no,' and she withdrew from him, body, mind,
and even liking, for just that moment. ‘How could you think
that?' Well, why shouldn't he . . . ‘Never mind Johnny,' she said.
‘Come back here.' She lay down and he came to lie by her,
smiling.

‘I admired that man more than anyone in my life. For me he
was a sort of god. Comrade Johnny. He was much older than I
was . . .' He lifted his head to look at her.

‘That means I am much older than you are.'

‘Not tonight you aren't. I was in a bit of a mess when I first
met Johnny–at a meeting, it was. I was a green boy. I had failed
my exams. My parents said, “If you are a communist don't darken
our doors.” And Johnny was kind to me. A father figure. I decided
to be worthy of him.'

Here she controlled the muscles of her diaphragm, but whether
to forestall laughter or tears, it was hard to say.

‘I found a room in a comrade's house. I took my exams again.
I was a teacher for a bit, I was in the Union then . . . but the
point is, I owe it all to Johnny.'

‘Well, what can I say? Good for him. But surely, good for
you?'

‘If I had believed then that I could be with you tonight, hold
you in my arms, I think I'd have gone mad with joy. Johnny's
wife, in my arms.'

They made love again. Yes, it was love, a friendly, even
amorous love, while laughter bubbled in the cauldron, well out
of his hearing, but not out of hers.

They slept. They woke. And then it seemed he had bad
dreams, for he started awake and lay on his back, holding her,
but in a way that said
Wait
. At last he said unhappily, ‘That was
a bad blow, you know, what that man Sachs said.'

She decided to let it go.

‘You can't say it wasn't a shock.'

She decided she would speak. ‘Newspapers,' she spelled it out.
‘Newspaper reports for years. Television. Radio. The Purges, the
camps. The laagers, the murders. For years.'

A long silence. ‘Yes,' he said at last, ‘but I didn't believe it.
Well, some of it of course . . . but nothing like–what he told
us.'

‘How could you not have believed it?'

‘I didn't want to, I suppose.'

‘Exactly.' And then she heard herself say, ‘And I bet we haven't
heard the half of it yet.'

‘Why do you say that? It sounds as if you are quite pleased
with yourself.'

‘I suppose I am. It is something to have been proved right,
after years of having been put down and–trampled on. Of being
put down
now
,' she said.

And now he was dismayed. But she went on, ‘I didn't agree
with him. Not after the very first days . . .' She suppressed,
When
he came back from the Spanish Civil War
. Since after all, he hadn't.
She suppressed,
When I saw what a dishonest hypocrite he was
. Because
after all, how could he be called dishonest? He believed every
word of it.

‘I fell for all that glamour,' she said. ‘I was nineteen. But it
didn't last.'

He didn't like that, no, he didn't like it all, and she lay there
silent by him, enough at one with him to be hurt because he was.

There was a long drowsing silence: outside it was already a
full hot day, and the traffic had begun.

‘It seems it was all for nothing,' he said at last. ‘It was all . . .
lies and nonsense.' She could hear the tears in his voice. ‘What a
waste. All that effort . . . people killed for nothing. Good people.
No one is going to tell me they weren't.' A silence. ‘I don't want
to make a thing of it, but I did make such sacrifices for the Party.
And it was all for nothing.'

‘Except that Comrade Johnny inspired you to great things.'

‘Don't mock.'

‘I'm not. I'm going to allot Johnny one good mark. At least
he was good to you.'

‘I haven't taken it in yet. I haven't begun to take it all in.'

And so they lay side by side, and if he was letting go dreams,
such dreams, such sweet sweet dreams, she was thinking,
Obviously I'm a very selfish person, just as Johnny always said. Harold
is thinking about the golden future of the human race, postponed
indefinitely, but I am thinking what I have shut out of my life.
She could hardly bear the pain of it. The sweet warm weight of
a man sleeping in her arms, his mouth on her cheek, the tender
heaviness of a man's balls in her hand, the delicious slipperiness
of. . .

‘Let's go down to breakfast,' he said. ‘I think I'm going to
cry otherwise.'

They breakfasted soberly, in a decorous little room, and left
the hotel, noting that this morning the graveyard seemed neglected
and shabby, and the magic of last night was going to seem like
bathos if they did not remove themselves. Which they did, and
went off to a place where lying on a grassy hill he told her that
here, where they were, landscapes rolling away in all directions,
that this was the very heart of England. And then, and she
understood it absolutely, he wept, this big man, face on his arm, on
the grass, he wept for his lost dream, and she thought, We suit
each other so well, but we won't be together again. It was the
ending of something. For him. And for her too: what am I doing
prancing around the heart of England with a man heartbroken
because of–well, not because of me?

In the late afternoon she asked him to set her down where
she could take a taxi, because she could not face being seen with
him, outside the house with its jealous hungry eyes. They kissed,
full of regrets. He saw her step into a taxi, and they drove off in
different directions. Up the steps ran Frances, lightly, full of the
energy of love-making, and went straight to her bathroom, afraid
she smelled too much of sex. Then she went up to Julia's, and
knocked, and waited for the close cool inspection–which she
got. Then, because it was not unfriendly, but kind, she sat and
said nothing, only smiled at Julia, her lips trembling.

‘It's hard,' said Julia, and she sounded as if she knew how
hard. She went to a cupboard, full of interesting bottles, poured
a cognac, and brought it to Frances.

‘I shall stink of alcohol,' said Frances.

‘Never mind,' said Julia, and lit the flame of her little
coffee-maker. She stood by it, with her back to Frances, who knew it
was tact, because of how much Frances needed to cry. Then a
cup of strong black coffee arrived beside the cognac.

The door opened–no knock; Sylvia ran in. ‘Oh, Frances,'
she said. ‘I didn't know you were here. I didn't know she was
here, Julia.' She stood hesitating, smiling, then rushed to Frances
and put her arms around her, her cheek against Frances's hair.
‘Oh, Frances, we didn't know where you were. You went
away. You left us. We thought you'd got fed up with us all and
left us.'

‘Of course I couldn't,' said Frances.

‘Yes,' said Julia. ‘Frances has to be here, I think.'

 • • •

The summer lengthened and loosened, breathed slow, then
slower, and time seemed to lie all around like shallow lakes where
one could float and dawdle: all this would end when ‘the kids'
came back. The two already here took up little space in the big
house. Frances caught glimpses of Sylvia, across the landing, lying
on her bed with a book, from where she waved, ‘Oh, Frances,
this is such a lovely book,' or running up the stairs to Julia. Or
the two could be seen progressing down the street to go shopping–Julia with her little friend Sylvia. Andrew also lay on his bed,
reading. Frances had–guiltily, it goes without saying–knocked
on his door, heard ‘Come in,' had gone in, and no, the room
was clear of smoke. ‘There you are, mother,' he drawled, for
everything about him had slowed too, like her own pulses, ‘you
should have more confidence in me. I am no longer a hophead
on his way to perdition.'

Frances was not cooking. She might meet Andrew in the
kitchen, making himself a sandwich, and he would offer to make
her one. Or she, him. They sat at opposite ends of the great table
and contemplated plenty: tomatoes that came from the Cypriot
shops in Camden Town, dense with real sunlight, knobbly and
even misshapen, but as the knife cut into them the rank and
barbarous magnificence of their smell filled the kitchen. They ate
tomatoes with Greek bread and olives, and sometimes spoke. He
did remark that he supposed it was all right, his doing Law. ‘Why
are you having doubts about it?' ‘I think I'll make it International
Law. The clash of nations. But I must confess I'd be happy to
spend my life lying on my bed and reading.' ‘And sometimes
eating tomatoes.' ‘Julia says her uncle sat in his library all his life
reading. And I suppose adjusting his investments.'

‘How much money does Julia have, I wonder?'

‘I'll ask her one of these days.'

A rude little incident interrupted this peace. One night when
Frances had gone up to bed Andrew opened the door to two
French lads who said they were friends of Colin's, who had told
them they could stay the night. One spoke excellent English,
Andrew spoke good French. They sat at the table till late, drinking
wine and eating whatever could be found, while that game went
on when both sides want to practise the other's language. The
semi-silent one smiled and listened. It seemed Colin and they had
become friends while picking grapes, then Colin had gone home
with them, in the Dordogne, and now he was hitching in Spain.
He had asked them to say hello to his family.

They went up to Colin's room where they spread sleeping
bags, not using the bed, so as to make as little disruption as possible.
Nothing could have been more amiable and civilised than these
two brothers, but in the morning a misunderstanding had taken
them to Julia's bathroom. They were larking about, complaining
that there was no shower, admiring the plenitude of hot water,
enjoying bath salts and the violet-scented soap, and making a lot of
noise. It was about eight: they planned to be off early on their travels.
Julia heard splashing and loud young voices, knocked, knocked
again. They did not hear her. She opened the door on two naked
boys, one wallowing in her bath and blowing soap bubbles, the other
shaving. There followed a volley of appropriate exclamations,
merde
being the loudest and most frequent. They then found themselves
being addressed by an old woman, her hair in curlers, wearing a pink
chiffon negligée, in the French she had learned in her schoolroom
from a succession of mademoiselles fifty years ago. One boy leaped
out of the bath, not even snatching up a towel to cover himself,
while the other turned, razor in hand, mouth open. As it was
evident the two were too stunned by her to respond, Julia
retreated, and they picked up their things and fled downstairs
where Andrew heard the tale and laughed. ‘But where did she
get that French?' they demanded. ‘Ancient regime, at least.' ‘No,
Louis Quartorze.' So they jested, while they had coffee, and then
the brothers departed to hitchhike around Devon, which in the
mid-Sixties was
the
grooviest place after Swinging London.