The Sweetest Dream (23 page)

When Franklin went from his mission school back to the
village, he was secretly ashamed of what his parents' background
had been. Still was. A few grass huts in the bush, no electricity,
no telephone, no running water, no toilet. The shop was five
miles away. In comparison the mission school with its amenities
had seemed a rich place. Now, in London, there was a violent
dislocation: he was surrounded by such wealth, such wonders,
that the mission had to seem paltry, poor. He had stayed for the
first days in London with a kindly priest, a friend of those at the
mission, who knew that the boy would be in a state of shock,
and took him on buses, on the Underground, to the parks, to the
markets, to the big shops, the supermarkets, the bank, to eat in
restaurants. All this to accustom him, but then he had to go to
St Joseph's, a place that seemed like heaven, buildings like
illustrations in a picture book scattered about in green fields, and the
boys and girls, all white except for two Nigerians who were as
strange to him as the whites were, and the teachers, quite different
from the Catholic fathers, all so friendly, so kind . . . he had not
had kindness from white people outside the mission school. Colin
was in a room along the corridor two doors from his own. To
Franklin the little room was fitted out with everything anyone
could wish for, including a telephone. It was a little paradise, but
he had heard Colin complaining that it was too small. The food–the variety of it, the plenty, every meal like a feast, but he had
heard grumbles that the food was monotonous. At the mission he
had had little to eat but maize porridge and relishes.

Slowly grew inside him a powerful feeling that sometimes
threatened to come hot out of his mouth in insults and accusations,
while he smiled and was pleasant and compliant. It's not fair, it's
not right, why do you have so much
and you take it all for granted
.
It was that which ached in him, hurt, stung: they had no idea at
all of their good fortune. And when he came home with Colin
to the big house that seemed to him must be a palace (so he
thought at first), it was crammed with beautiful things, and he
found himself sitting in silence while they all joked and teased.
He watched the older brother, Andrew, and his tenderness to the
girl who had been sick, and in his mind he was in her place,
sitting there between Frances and Andrew, both so kind to her,
so gentle. After that first visit it was the same as when he first
heard about the scholarship. He couldn't cope with it, he was not
up to it, half the time he didn't even know what things were for–a bit of kitchen equipment, or furniture. But he did go back
and back, and found himself being treated like a son in that house.
Johnny was a difficulty, at first. Franklin had been exposed to
Johnny's doctrines, his kind of talk, before, and he had resolved
he did not want to have anything to do with these politics, that
frightened him. Politicos had exhorted him to kill all the whites,
but his experience of good had been through the white priests at
the mission even though they were stern, and through an
unknown white protector, and now these kindly people at the
new school and in this house. And yet he burned, he ached, he
suffered: it was envy and it was poisoning him.
I want. I want it.
I want. I want . . .

He knew that most of what he thought he could not say. The
thoughts that crammed his head were dangerous and could not
be allowed out. And with Rose they were not let out either.
Neither Rose nor Franklin ever let the other into the lurid
poisonous scenes in their minds. But they liked to be with each other.

It took him a long time to sort out what people were to each
other, their relationships, and if they were related. It was not
surprising to him that so many sat around that table to eat, though
he had to go back for a comparison, to his village, where he was
familiar with people being made welcome, expecting to be fed,
given a place to sleep. In his father's and mother's little house at
the mission, not much more than a meagre room and a kitchen,
there was no room for the kind of casual hospitality of the village.
When Franklin stayed with his grandparents for the school
holidays, around the great log that smouldered all night in the middle
of the hut, people lay wrapped in blankets to sleep whom he had
not known before and might never see again: distant relatives
passing through. Or relations down on their luck came for refuge.
Yet this kindly warmth went with a poverty that he was ashamed
of and–worse–could no longer understand. When he went
back home after all this, would he be able to bear it?–he thought,
seeing Rose's clothes heaped on her bed, seeing what the children
at school had: there was no end to what they possessed, what they
expected to have. And he had a few carefully guarded clothes,
which had cost his parents so much to buy for him.

And then, the books upstairs. At the mission were a Bible and
prayer books and
The Pilgrim's Progress
, which he read over and
over again. He had read newspapers weeks old that he found
stacked for lining shelves or drawers in the mission pantry. He
treasured an
Arthur Mee Children's Encyclopaedia
that he had found
thrown on to a rubbish heap–discarded by a white family. Now
he felt as if dreams that had been with him since childhood had
come to life in those walls of books in the sitting-room. He took
down this book, turned over the pages, and the precious thing
pulsed in his hands. He sneaked books down to his room, hoping
Rose would not see, for she had shocked him with, ‘They only
pretend to read those books, you know. It's all just a sham.'

But he laughed, because she wanted him to: she was his friend.
He told her that he thought of her as his sister: he missed his
sisters.

 • • •

Christmas was going to be a real one this year because Colin and
Andrew would both be home. Sophie's mother had told her she
didn't want to spoil her fun, and she herself would go to her
sister's. She was more cheerful, no longer cried all day and night,
and was taking a course in Grief Counselling.

Since Johnny was home between trips, Phyllida presumably
would be looked after, and Andrew would not have to.

When Frances said there would be Christmas, a spirit of
frivolity at once appeared in faces, eyes, and in jokes mocking the
festival, though these last had to be subdued because of Franklin's
joy. He felt he could not wait for the time to pass till the day of
feasting, which he read about in every newspaper, saw heralded
on television, and was filling the shops with bright colours. He
was secretly unhappy because there would be present-giving, and
he had so little money. Frances had seen that his jacket was of
thin cloth, that he had no warm jersey, and gave him money to
fit himself out, as a Christmas present. He kept the money in a
drawer, and would sit on his bed, turning it over and over like a
sitting hen on its eggs. That this sum of money was in his hands,
his
hands, was part of the miracle Christmas seemed to him. But
Rose opened his door to check on him, saw him leaning over the
drawer with the money, pounced, and counted it. ‘Where did
you steal this?'

This was so much what he had learned to expect from white
people that he stammered, ‘But missus, missus . . .' Rose did not
know the word, and insisted, ‘Where did you get it?'

‘Frances gave it to me, to buy clothes.'

The girl's face flamed with anger. Frances had not given her
so much, only enough for a Biba dress, and another visit to Mrs
Evansky. Then she said, ‘You don't need to buy clothes.' She was
sitting on the bed close to him, the money in her hand, so close
that any suspicion by Franklin of prejudice had to be abandoned.
No white person in the whole colony, not even the white priests,
would sit so close to a black person in casual friendliness.

‘There are better things to do with that money,' said Rose,
and reluctantly gave it back to him. She watched him return it
to the drawer.

Geoffrey dropped in for an evening, and he joined Rose in a
plan for outfitting Franklin. When he had arrived at the LSE he
was delighted that to steal clothes, books, anything one fancied,
as a means of undermining the capitalist system was taken for
granted. To actually pay for something, well, how politically naive
can one get? No, one ‘liberated' it: the old Second World War
word was having a new lease of life.

Geoffrey would come for Christmas–‘One has to be home
for Christmas'–and did not even hear what he had said.

James said he was sure his parents would not mind his absence:
he would visit them for New Year.

Lucy from Dartington would come: her parents were off to
China on a good-will mission of some kind.

Daniel said he had to go home, he hoped they would keep a
piece of cake for him.

A sad little letter had come from Jill. She thought of them all.
They were her only friends. ‘Please write to me. Please send some
money.' But no address.

Frances wrote to Jill's parents, asking if they had seen her. She
had written earlier confessing failure to keep her at school. The
letter she got back then had said, ‘Please don't blame yourself,
Mrs Lennox. We've never been able to do anything with her.'
The letter this time said, ‘No, she has not seen fit to contact us.
We would be grateful if you would inform us if she turns up at
your place. St Joseph's has heard nothing. No one has.'

Frances wrote to Rose's parents saying that Rose had done
well in the autumn term. The letter from her parents said, ‘You
probably don't know this but we have heard nothing from our
girl, and we are grateful for news of her. The school sent us a copy
of the report. One went to you, we gather. We were surprised. She
used to pride herself–or so I am afraid it seemed to us–on
showing us how badly she could do.'

Sylvia had also done well. This had partly been due to Julia's
coaching, but it had slackened off recently. Sylvia had again gone
up to Julia, and, her voice quavering with love and tears, had said,
‘Please, Julia, don't go on being so cross with me. I can't bear it.'
The two had melted into each other's arms, and almost, but not
quite, the same degree of intimacy had been restored. There was
the tiniest fly in Julia's ointment: Sylvia had said that ‘she wanted
to be religious'. Hearing Franklin's accounts of how the Jesuit
fathers had rescued him, touched her somewhere deep, and she
was going to take instruction and become a Roman Catholic. Julia
said that she herself had been expected to go to mass on Sundays,
‘but that was really as far as it went'. She supposed she could still
call herself a Catholic.

Sylvia and Sophie and Lucy spent Christmas Eve decorating a
tiny tree to set in the window, and helped Frances with preparatory
cooking. They were allowing themselves to be little girls again.
Frances could have sworn these giggling happy creatures were
about ten or eleven. The usually heavy business of preparing
food became an affair of jokes and yes, even fun. Up came
Franklin, drawn by the noise. Geoffrey, James–they were going
to sleep in the sitting-room–then Colin and Andrew, were
happy to shell chestnuts and mix stuffing. Then the great bird was
smeared with butter and oil, and displayed on the baking tin, to
cheers.

It all went on, then it was late, and Sophie said she needn't
go home, her mother was all right now, she had brought her dress
for tomorrow with her. When Frances went to bed she could
hear all the young ones in the sitting-room just below her, having
a preliminary party of their own. She was thinking of Julia two
floors up, alone, as she was, and knowing that her Sylvia was with
the others, not with her . . . Julia had said she would not come
to Christmas lunch, but she invited everyone to a real Christmas
tea in the sitting-room, which was now full of youngsters getting
drunk.

On Christmas morning, like millions of other women
throughout the land, Frances descended to the kitchen alone. The
sitting-room door, left open presumably for the sake of ventilation,
showed huddled outlines.

Frances sat at the table, cigarette in hand, a cup of strong tea
sending out rumours of hillsides where underpaid women picked
leaves for that exotic place, the West. The house was silent–but
no, feet sounded, and Franklin appeared from below, beaming.
He was wearing the new jacket, a thick jersey, and lifted his feet
one after another to show new shoes, socks; he raised his jersey
to show a tartan shirt, and lifted that to display a bright blue
singlet. They embraced. She felt she was holding the embodiment
of Christmas, for he was so happy he began a little jig, and clapped
his hands, ‘Frances, Frances, Mother Frances, you are our mother,
you are a mother to me.'

Meanwhile Frances noted that mingled with his exuberance of
happiness was unmistakable guilt: these clothes had been liberated.

She made him tea, offered him toast–but he was saving space
for the Christmas feast, and when he was seated, smiling still, at
the end of the table opposite her, she decided that she had to dim
this happiness, Christmas or no. ‘Franklin,' she said, ‘I want you
to know that we are not all thieves in this country.'

At once his face became solemn, then puckered with doubt,
and he began darting glances around as if at possible accusers.

‘Don't say anything,' she said. ‘There's no need. I'm not
blaming you–do you understand? I just want you to know that we
don't all steal what we want.'

‘I'll take the clothes back,' he said, all joy gone.

‘No, of course you won't. Do you want to go to prison? Just
listen to what I've said, that's all. Don't think that everyone is
like . . .' But she didn't want to name the culprits, and fell back
on the joke: ‘Not everyone
liberates
goodies.'