The Sweetest Dream (48 page)

‘Pity I am not a dentist,' said Sylvia. ‘We could certainly do
with one.'

Another case, split at the sides, showed that inside was a
wheelchair.

‘Oh, doctor,' said one of the women, ‘we must not take this
chair. Perhaps one day the hospital will be built.' She was pulling
the chair out.

‘We need a wheelchair,' said Rebecca.

‘But they'll want to know where it came from and our hospital
doesn't run to a wheelchair.'

‘We should take it,' said Rebecca.

‘It's broken,' said the woman. Someone had tried to pull the
chair out of its wooden shelter and a wheel had come loose.

Four more cases lay about. Two of the women went to one
and began wrenching at the rotten wood. Inside were bedpans.
Rebecca, without looking at Sylvia, took half a dozen bedpans to
the lorry and came back. Another woman found blankets, but
these were eaten by insects, and mice were nesting in them, and
birds had pulled out threads to line their nests.

‘It will be a good hospital,' said one woman, laughing.

‘We shall have a fine new hospital in Kwadere,' said another.

The village women laughed, enjoying themselves, and then
Sylvia and Rebecca joined in. In the middle of the bush, miles
from the philanthropists in Senga (or, for that matter, London,
Berlin, New York), the women stood and laughed.

They drove back to the Growth Point, picked up the waiting
people, and proceeded slowly to the Mission, all listening for a
burst tyre. Their luck held. Rebecca and Sylvia took the bedpans
down to the hospital. The seriously ill people, in the big new hut
built by Sylvia when she first came, had been using old bottles,
cans, discarded kitchen utensils. ‘What are those things?' asked
Joshua's brother's little boys, and when they understood, they were
delighted and ran about showing them to anyone well enough to
care.

 • • •

Colin opened the door to a timid ring, and saw what he thought
was a mendicant child or a gipsy and then, with a roar of ‘It's
Sylvia, it's little Sylvia,' lifted her inside. There he hugged her,
and she shed tears on his cheeks, bent down to rub hers, like a
cat's greeting.

In the kitchen he sat her at the table,
the table
, again extended
to its full length. He poured a river of wine into a big glass and
sat opposite her, full of welcome and pleasure.

‘Why didn't you say you were coming? But it doesn't matter.
I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you.'

Sylvia was trying to lift her mood to his height, because she
was dispirited, London sometimes having this effect on Londoners
who have been away from it and who, while living in it, have
had so little idea of its weight, its multitudinous gifts and capacities.
London, after the Mission, was hitting her a blow somewhere in
the stomach region. It is a mistake to come too fast from, let's
say, Kwadere, to London: one needs something like the equivalent
of a decompression chamber.

She sat smiling, taking little sips of wine, afraid to do more,
for she was not used to wine these days, feeling the house like a
creature all around her and above her and below her,
her
house,
the one she had known best as home when she had been conscious
of what was going on in it, the atmospheres and airs of every
room and stretches of the staircase. Now the house was populous,
she could feel that, it was full of people, but they were alien
presences, not her familiars and she was grateful for Colin, sitting
there smiling at her. It was ten in the evening. Upstairs someone
was playing a tune she ought to know, probably something
famous, like ‘Blue Suede Shoes'–it had that claim on her–but
she couldn't name it.

‘Little Sylvia. And it looks to me that you need a bit of feeding
up, as always. Can I give you something to eat?'

‘I ate on the plane.'

But he was up, opening the refrigerator door, peering at its
shelves, and again Sylvia felt a blow to her heart, yes it was her
heart, it hurt, for she was thinking of Rebecca, in her kitchen,
with her little fridge, and her little cupboard which to her family
down in the village represented some extreme of good fortune,
generous provisioning: she was looking at the eggs filling half the
door of the fridge, at the gleaming clean milk, the crammed
containers, the plenitudes . . .

‘This is not really my territory, it's Frances's, but I'm sure . . .'
he fetched out a loaf of bread, a plate of cold chicken. Sylvia was
tempted: Frances had cooked it, Frances had fed her; with Frances
on one side and Andrew on the other, she had survived her
childhood.

‘What is your territory, then?' she asked, tucking in to a
chicken sandwich.

‘I am upstairs, at the top of the house.'

‘In Julia's place?'

‘I, and Sophie.'

This surprised her into putting down her bit of sandwich, as
if relinquishing safety for the time being.

‘You and Sophie!'

‘Of course, you didn't know. She came here to recuperate,
and then . . . she was ill, you see.'

‘And then?'

‘Sophie is pregnant,' he said, ‘and so we are about to get
married.'

‘Poor Colin,' she said, and then coloured up from shame–after all, she did not really know . . .

‘Not entirely poor Colin. After all, I am very fond of Sophie.'

She resumed her sandwich, but put it down: Colin's news
had clamped her stomach shut. ‘Well, go on. I can see you are
miserable.'

‘Perspicacious Sylvia. Well, you always were, while apparently
only little miss-I-am-not-here-at all.'

This hurt, and he had meant it to. ‘No, no, I'm sorry. I really
am. I'm not myself. You've caught me at a . . . Well, perhaps I
am myself, at that.'

He poured more wine.

‘Don't drink until I've heard.'

He set down his glass. ‘Sophie is forty-three. It's late.'

‘Yes, but quite often old mothers . . .' She saw him wince.

‘Quite so. An old mother. But believe it or not Down's
Syndrome babies–ever so jolly I hear they are?–and all the other
horrors are not the worst. Sophie is convinced that I am convinced
she coaxed the baby into her reluctant womb, to make use of me,
because it is getting late for her. I know she didn't do it on
purpose, it is not her nature. But she won't let it go. Day and night
I hear her wails of guilt: “Oh, I know what you're thinking . . .” '–And Colin wailed the words, with great effect. ‘Do you know
something? yes, of course you do. There is no pleasure to compete
with the pleasure of guilt. She is rolling in it, wallowing in it, my
Sophie is, she's having the time of her life, knowing that I hate
her because she has trapped me and nothing I can say will stop
her because it's such fun, being guilty.' This was as savage as she
had heard ever from savage Colin, and she saw him lift his glass
and down the lot in a gulp.

‘Oh, Colin, you're going to be drunk and I see you so seldom.'

‘Sylvia–you're right.' He refilled his glass. ‘But I will marry
her, she is already seven months, and we will live upstairs in Julia's
old flat–four rooms, and I shall work down at the bottom of
the house–when it's empty.' Here his face, reddened and angry
as it was, spread into that exhilaration of pleasure that goes with
the contemplation of life's relentless sense of drama. ‘You did
know that Frances took on two kids with her new bloke?'

‘Yes, she wrote.'

‘Did she tell you there is a wife, a depressive? She is downstairs,
in the flat where Phyllida was.'

‘But . . .'

‘No buts. It has worked out as well as might be. She has
recovered from her depression. The two children are upstairs
where Andrew and I used to be. Frances and Rupert are in the
flat she always had.'

‘So it has worked out?'

‘But the two children reasonably enough think that now their
mother has broken off with her fancy man, then why shouldn't
their father and mother get together again, and Frances should
just fade out.'

‘So they are being horrible to Frances?'

‘Not at all. Much worse. They are very polite and reasonable.
The merits are argued out over every meal. The little girl, a real
little bitch by the way, says things like, “But it would be so much
better for us if you went away, wouldn't it, Frances?” It's the
little girl really, not the boy. Rupert is hanging on to Frances for
dear life. Understandably, if you know Meriel.'

Sylvia was thinking about Rebecca with her six children, two
of them dead, probably from AIDS–but perhaps not–her
usually absentee husband, working eighteen hours a day, and never
complaining.

She sighed, saw Colin's look: ‘How lucky you are, Sylvia, to
be so far away from our unedifying emotional messes.'

‘Yes, I am sometimes glad I am not married–sorry. Go on.
Meriel . . .'

‘Meriel–well, now she's a prize. She's cold, manipulative,
selfish and has always treated Rupert badly. She's a feminist–you
know? With all the law of the jungle behind her? She has always
told Rupert that it is his duty to keep her, and she made him pay
for her taking a degree in some rubbish or other, the higher
criticism, I think. She has never earned a penny. And now she is
trying to get a divorce where he keeps her in perpetuity. She
belongs to a group of women, a secret sisterhood–you don't
believe me?–whose aim it is to screw men for everything they
can get.'

‘You're making it up.'

‘Sweet Sylvia, I seem to remember you never could believe
in the nastier aspects of human nature. But now Fate has taken a
turn, and you'll never believe . . . Meriel went to Phyllida for
therapy. Frances paid for it. Then Frances went to see Phyllida
who is quite a reasonable female after all–you are surprised?'

‘Of course I am.'

‘And she asked Phyllida to train Meriel as a counsellor, and
she would pay.'

And now Sylvia began to laugh. ‘Oh, Colin. Oh, Colin . . .'

‘Yes, quite so. Because you see, Meriel is quite
unqualified. She didn't finish her degree. But as a counsellor she will
be self-supporting. Counselling has become the resource of the
unqualified female–it has replaced the sewing machine, for earlier
generations.'

‘Not in Zimlia is hasn't. The sewing machine is alive and well
and earning women's livings.' And she laughed again.

‘At last,' said Colin. ‘I had begun to think you would never
smile.' And he poured her more wine. She had actually drunk all
hers. And he poured more for himself. ‘And so. Meriel is going
to move out to live with Phyllida, because Phyllida's partner is
setting herself up as an independent physio, and our flat downstairs
will be free and I shall use it to write in. And of course to evade
my responsibilities as a father.'

‘Which doesn't solve the problem of Frances being set up as
a cruel stepmother. Apart from the children, is she happy?'

‘She's delirious. First, she really likes this Rupert, and who
could blame her? But you haven't heard? She's back in the theatre.'

‘What do you mean? I didn't know she was ever in it.'

‘How little we know about our parents. It turns out that the
theatre has always been my mother's first love. She is in a play
with my Sophie. At this very moment the applause is ringing out
for both of them.' And now his voice was slurred, and he frowned,
concentrating on his speech. ‘Damn,' he said. ‘I am drunk.'

‘Please, dear Colin, don't drink, please don't.'

‘Spoken like Sonia. Well done.'

‘Oh, Chekhov. Yes. I see. But I'm on her side, all right.' She
laughed, but unhappily. ‘There's a man at the Mission . . .' But
how was she going to convey the reality of Joshua to Colin? ‘A
black man. If he's not high on pot he's drunk. Well, if you knew
his life . . .'

‘And mine doesn't justify alcohol?'

‘No, it doesn't. So you'd rather it wasn't Sophie . . .'

‘I'd rather it wasn't a woman of forty-three.' And now a howl
broke out of him, it had been waiting there all this time. ‘You
see, Sylvia, I know this is ridiculous, I know I am a sad pathetic
fool, but I wanted happy families, I wanted mummy and daddy
and four children. I wanted all that and I'm not going to have
anything like it with my Sophie.'

‘No,' said Sylvia.

‘No.' He was trying not to cry, rubbing his fists over his face
like a child. ‘And if you don't want to be here to greet my
happy Sophie and my triumphant mother, both high on
Romeo
and Juliet
 . . .'

‘You mean Sophie is playing Juliet?'

‘She looks about eighteen. She looks wonderful. She is
wonderful. Pregnancy suits her. You don't have to notice she's
pregnant. The newspapers are making a thing of it, though. Sarah
Bernhardt played Juliet aged a hundred and one with a wooden
leg–that kind of thing. A pregnant Juliet adds an unexpected
dimension to
Romeo and Juliet
. But the audiences love her. She's
never had bigger applause. She is wearing white flowing robes
and white flowers in her hair. Sylvia, do you remember her hair?'
And now he began to cry, after all.

Sylvia went to him, persuaded him out of his chair, and then
up the stairs, and where she had sat with Andrew, she held Colin
and listened while he sobbed himself to sleep.

She didn't know where in this house she could find a bed.
So she left a note for Colin. She told him she wanted him to
‘write the truth about Zimlia'. Someone should.