The Sweetest Dream (28 page)

Franklin–she had not immediately recognised this large young
man in a good suit–said to the black man with him, ‘This is
Frances, I told you about her, she was a mother to me. This is
Comrade Matthew, Frances. He is our leader.'

‘I am honoured to meet you,' said Comrade Matthew,
unsmiling, formal, in the older style of the comrades, when Lenin-like
severity had been the mode. (And would be again, quite soon.)
It was easy to see he was ill at ease, and didn't like being here.
He stood unsmiling, and even glanced at his watch, while Franklin
was being greeted by ‘the kids', now grown up. He stood in front
of Sylvia, who had risen, hesitating, then she opened her arms for
a hug, and he closed his eyes in the embrace, and when he opened
them they were full of tears.

‘Sit down,' said Andrew, and pulled up chairs from where
they were stacked around the wall. Comrade Matthew sat down,
frowning: he looked at his watch again.

Comrade Mo, who since he had been here last had gone to
China to bless the Cultural Revolution (as he had the Great Leap
Forward and Let Every Flower Bloom), was now lecturing at
universities around the world on its benefits for China and all
humanity. Now he sat down, and reached for some bread.

Franklin said to Frances, ‘Comrade Matthew is my cousin.'

‘We are of the same tribe,' said the older man, correcting
him.

‘Ah, but you must understand, tribe sounds backward,' said
Franklin. He was evidently a little frightened of confronting the
leader.

‘I am aware that cousin is the English term.'

They were all seated now except Johnny, who said to his sons,
‘Did you hear, Danny Cohn-Bendit has just said that . . .' This
threatened to send Comrade Mo off again into his fits of Ho, ho,
ho, and Frances said, ‘We heard the first time. Poor boy, he had
a terrible childhood. German father . . . French mother . . . no
money . . . he was a war baby . . . she had to bring up the children
alone.' Yes, she was definitely doing it on purpose, while she
smiled amiably, and first Andrew, then Colin, laughed, and Johnny
said, annoyed, ‘I am afraid my wife has never had even the
beginnings of an understanding of politics.'

‘Your ex-wife,' said Frances. ‘Many times removed.'

‘These are my sons,' said Johnny, and Andrew picked up
his wine glass and emptied it, while Colin said, ‘We have that
privilege.'

The three black men seemed discommoded, but then
Comrade Mo, who had been at large in the wide world for a decade
or so, laughed heartily and said, ‘My wife blames me too. She
does not understand that the Struggle must come before family
obligations.'

‘Does she ever see you, I wonder?' enquired Frances.

‘And is she pleased when she does?' enquired Colin.

Comrade Mo looked hard at Colin but saw only a smiling
face. ‘It is my children,' he said, shaking his head. ‘That is so
hard for me–When I see them sometimes I hardly recognise
them.'

Meanwhile Sylvia was making coffee and placing cake and
biscuits on the table. It was clear that the guests had expected
more. As she had done so often, Frances fetched out everything
there was in the fridge, and the remains of their own meal, and
put it all on the table.

‘Oh, do sit down,' she said to Johnny. He sat, with dignity,
and began serving himself.

‘You haven't asked after Phyllida,' said Sylvia. ‘You didn't ask
how my mother is.'

‘Yes,' said Frances, ‘I was wondering about that too.'

‘I'm coming to that in a minute,' said Johnny.

Franklin said, ‘When Johnny said he was coming to see you
tonight, I had to see you all again. I'll never forget your kindness
to me.'

‘Have you been back home?' Frances asked. ‘You didn't go
to university after all.'

‘The university of life,' said Franklin.

Johnny said, ‘Frances, you do not ask the black leadership
what they are doing, not now. Even you must see that.'

‘No,' said Comrade Matthew. ‘This is not the time to ask
that.' Then he said, ‘We must not forget that I am to address a
meeting in an hour.'

Comrades Johnny and Franklin and Mo began pushing in
their food, as fast as they could, but Comrade Matthew had
finished: he was a frugal eater, one of those who eat because one
must.

Johnny said, ‘Before we go, I have a message from Geoffrey.
He has been on the barricades with me in Paris. He sends
greetings.'

‘Good God,' said Colin, ‘our little Geoffrey with his nice
clean face, on the barricades.'

‘He is a very serious, very worthwhile comrade,' said Johnny.
‘He has a corner in my place.'

‘You sound like an old Russian novel,' said Andrew. ‘A corner,
what's that translated into English?'

‘He and Daniel. They often doss down for a night or two
with me. I keep a couple of sleeping bags for them. And now,
before we go, I have to ask if you know what Phyllida is up to?'

‘And what is she up to?' asked Sylvia, with such dislike of
him that they all saw that other Sylvia. A shock. They were
shocked. Franklin laughed, with nervousness. Johnny made
himself confront her, and said, ‘Your mother is doing fortune telling.
She's advertising on the newsagents' boards as a fortune teller,
from this address.'

Andrew laughed. Colin laughed. Then, Frances.

‘What's funny?' enquired Sylvia.

Comrade Mo, finding this
culture clash
getting out of hand,
said, ‘I'll nip in one of these days and she can tell my fortune.'

Franklin said, ‘If she has the gift, then the ancestors must like
her. My grandmother was a wise woman. You people say witch
doctor. She was an
n'ganga
.'

‘A shaman,' Johnny instructed them all.

Comrade Matthew said, ‘I agree with Comrade Johnny. This
kind of superstition is reactionary and must be forbidden.' He got
up to leave.

‘If she's earning a bit of money, then you should expect me
to be pleased,' said Frances to Johnny, who also got up.

‘Come on, comrades,' said Johnny, ‘it is time we set off.'

Before he left he hesitated, then said, to regain command of
the situation, ‘Tell Julia to tell Phyllida she can't do this kind of
thing.'

But Frances found she was feeling sorry for Johnny. He was
looking so much older–well, they were both nearly fifty. The
Mao jacket seemed loose on him. By his dejected air she knew
things were not going well for him in Paris. He's past it, she
thought. And so am I.

She was wrong about both of them.

Just ahead lay the Seventies, which from one end of the world
to the other (the non-communist world) bred a race of Che
Guavara clones, and the universities, particularly the London ones,
were an almost continuous celebration of Revolution, with
demonstrations, riots, sit-ins, lock-outs, battles of all kinds. Everywhere
you looked were these young heroes, and Johnny had become a
grand old man, and the fact that he was an almost entirely
unrepentant Stalinist had a certain limited chic among these youngsters
who mostly believed that if Trotsky had won the battle for power
with Stalin then communism would have worn a beatific face.
And he had another disability, which meant that his entourage
was usually young men, and not eager girls. His style was all
wrong. The right one was when Comrade Tommy or Billy or
Jimmy summoned some girl with a contemptuous flick of the
fingers, and said to her, ‘You are bourgeois scum.' And, by
implication,
leave all you have and come with me
. (Rather,
give
all you
have to me.) And this goes on to this day. Irresistible. And
there was worse. If cleanliness had once been next to Godliness,
then dirt and smelliness was now as good as a Party card.
Smelly embraces: these Johnny could not provide, having been
brought up by Julia or, rather, her servants. The vocabulary–yes,
he could swing along with that. Shit and fuck, sell-out and fascist,
a good part of any political speech had to be composed of such
words.

But these fumy delights were still ahead.

 • • •

Wilhelm Stein who so often ascended the stairs on his way to
Julia, nodding gravely at whomever he encountered, this evening
knocked on the kitchen door, waited till he heard, ‘Come in',
and entered, with a little bow. Silvery white hair and beard, his
silver-topped cane, his suit, the very set of his spectacles, rebuked
the kitchen and the three sitting at the table, having supper.

Invited to sit, by Frances, by Andrew, by Colin, he did so,
holding the cane upright beside him, in the grip of a
wonderfully-kept right hand, that had a ring with a dark blue stone.

‘I am taking the liberty of coming to talk to you about Julia,'
he said, looking at them one after the other, to impress them with
his seriousness. They waited. ‘Your grandmother is not well,' he
said to the young men, and to Frances, ‘I am well aware that it
is difficult to persuade Julia to do things she ought, for her own
good.'

The three pairs of eyes now gazing at him told him that he
had misjudged them. He sighed, almost got up, changed his mind,
and coughed. ‘It is not that I think you have been neglectful of
Julia.'

Colin took it up. He was now a large young man, his round
face still boyish, and his heavy black-rimmed spectacles seemed
to be trying to keep those features that threatened, far too often,
sardonic laughter, in order.

‘I know she is not happy,' said Colin. ‘We know that.'

‘I think she may be ill.'

The trouble was that Julia had lost Sylvia. Yes, the girl was
still in the house, this was her home, but events had forced Julia
to conclude that this time it was for good. Surely Wilhelm could
see this?

Andrew said, ‘Julia is breaking her heart over Sylvia. It is as
simple as that.'

‘I am not such a stupid old man that I am unaware of Julia's
feelings. But simple it is not.'

Now he was getting up, disappointed in them.

‘What do you want us to do?' asked Frances.

‘Julia should be less alone. She should be walking more. She
goes out very little now and I must insist that it is not her age. I
am ten years older than Julia and I have not given up. I am afraid
that Julia has done that.'

Frances was thinking that in all those years Julia had never
said Yes, when asked to go out to supper, or walking, or to a
play, or to a picture gallery. ‘Thank you, Frances, You are very
kind,' she always said.

‘I am going to ask your permission to give Julia a dog. No,
no, not some great big growler, a little dog. She will have to take
it for walks and care for it.'

Once again the three faces told him that he was not going to
be informed what they were really thinking.

Did the old man really imagine that a little dog was going to
fill the empty place in Julia? A swap: a little dog, for Sylvia!

‘Of course you must give her a dog,' said Frances, ‘if you
think she would like that.'

And now Wilhelm, who had just confessed what they would
not have guessed, that he was in his eighties, said, ‘It is not a
question of what I think would be good for her. I must tell you . . .
I am at my wit's end.' And now the gravity, the high seriousness of
his manner, his style, broke down, and before them they saw a
humbled old man, with tears running into his beard. ‘It will be
no secret to you that I am very fond of Julia. It is hard to see her
so . . . so . . .' And he went out. ‘Excuse me, you must excuse
me.'

Frances said, ‘And who is going to say first, I'm not going to
look after that dog?'

Wilhelm arrived with a tiny terrier that he had already named
Stuckschel–a scrap, a little thing–and as a joke had put a blue
ribbon around its neck. Julia's immediate reaction was to back
away from it, as it yapped around her skirts, and then, seeing her
old friend's anxiety that she like it, made herself pat the dog and
try to calm it. She put on a good enough act to make Wilhelm
think that she might learn to like the creature, but when he went,
and she had to see to the dog's food, its toilet arrangements, she
sat trembling on her chair and thought: He's my best friend and
he knows so little about me he thinks I want a dog.

There followed unpleasant days: food for the dog, messes on
her floors, smells and the restless little creature who yapped and
drove Julia to tears.
How could he?
she muttered, and when
Wilhelm arrived to see how things went, her efforts to be nice told
him what a bad mistake he had made.

‘But, my dear, it would be good for you to take him for a
walk. What have you called him? Fuss! I see.' And he went off,
wounded, so now she had to worry about him too.

Fuss, who knew this mistress hated him, found his way to
Colin, who liked the creature because it made him laugh. Fuss
became Vicious, because of the absurdity of this minute thing
growling and defending itself, and snapping with its jaws the size
of Julia's sugar tongs. Its paws were like puffs of cotton wool, its
eyes like little black pawpaw seeds, its tail a twist of silvery silk.
Vicious now went everywhere with Colin, and so the dog that
had been meant to be good for Julia became good for Colin, who
had no friends, went for solitary walks around the Heath, and was
drinking too much. Nothing serious but enough for Frances to
tell him she was worried. He flared up with, ‘I don't like being
spied on.' The real trouble was that he hated being dependent on
Julia and his mother. He had written two novels, which he knew
were no good, and was at work on a third, with Wilhelm Stein
as a mentor. He was pleased that Andrew had returned to the
condition of being dependent. Having done well in his exams,
Andrew had left home to set himself up with a group of lawyers,
but decided he wanted to do international law. He came home,
and was going to Oxford, Brasenose, for a two-year course.