The Sweetest Dream (67 page)

Then it was two o'clock and she took them back upstairs, and
telephoned the airport, booking seats for the following evening.
She said she was going to get them passports, explained passports,
and said they could sleep if they wanted. But they were too
excited, and were bouncing on the beds when she left, letting
out cries that could have been joy, or a lament.

She walked to the government offices and as she stood on the
steps wondering what next, Franklin stepped out of his Mercedes.
She grabbed his arm and said, ‘I'm coming in with you and don't
you dare say you have a meeting.' He tried to shake her off, and
was about to shout for help when he saw it was Sylvia. He was
so astonished he stood still, not resisting, so she let him go. When
he had seen her weeks ago she had been an imposter who called
herself Sylvia, but here was what he remembered, a slight creature,
whose whiteness seemed to gleam, with soft golden hair and
enormous blue eyes. She was wearing a white blouse, not that
horrible white madam's green suit. She seemed positively
transparent, like a spirit, or a gold-haired Madonna from his long-ago
schooldays.

Disarmed and helpless, he said, ‘Come in.' And up they went
along the corridors of power, up stairs, and into his office where
he sat, sighing, but smiling, and waved her to a chair.

‘What is it you want?'

‘I have with me two boys from Kwadere. They are eleven
and thirteen. They have no family. Everyone has died of AIDS.
I am taking them back to London and I want you to arrange
passports for them.'

He laughed. ‘But I am the wrong Minister. It is not my
department.'

‘Please arrange it. You can.'

‘And why should you steal away our children?'

‘Steal! They have no family. They have no future. They
learned nothing in your so-called school where there aren't
any books. I've been teaching them. They are very bright
children. With me they'll be educated. And they want to be
doctors.'

‘And why should you do this?'

‘I promised their father. He is dying of AIDS. I think he must
be dead by now. I promised I would educate his sons.'

‘It is ridiculous. It is out of the question. In our culture
someone will look after them.'

‘You never go out of Senga, so you don't know how things
are. The village is dying. There are more people up in the cemetery
than in the village now.'

‘And is it my fault their father has AIDS? And is this terrible
thing our fault?'

‘Well, it's not ours, as you keep saying. And I think you
should know that in the country districts people are saying that
AIDS is the fault of the government because you've turned out
to be such a bunch of crooks.'

His eyes wandered. He took a gulp of water. He wiped his
face. ‘I'm surprised you listen to such gossip. They are rumours
spread by South African agents.'

‘This is wasting time. Franklin, I've booked seats for tomorrow
night's flight to London.' She pushed across a piece of paper with
the boys' names on it, their father's name, their birthplace. ‘Here
you are. All I need is a document to get them out of the country.
And I'll arrange for them to have British passports when we get
to London.'

He sat looking at the paper. Then he cautiously lifted his
eyes and they were full of tears. ‘Sylvia, you said a very terrible
thing.'

‘You ought to know what the people are saying.'

‘To say such a thing, to an old friend.'

‘Yesterday I was listening to . . . the old man cursed me, to
make me take his sons to London. He cursed me . . . I am so full
of curses that they must be spilling out of me.'

And now he was really uneasy. ‘Sylvia, what are you saying?
Are you cursing me too?'

‘Did I say that?' But between her eyes was the deep tension
furrow that made her look like a little witch. ‘Franklin, have you
ever sat beside an old man dying of AIDS while he curses you
up hill and down dale?–it was so terrible his sons won't tell me
what he was saying.' She held out her wrist, that had around it a
black bruise, like a bracelet.

‘What's that?'

She leaned across the desk and gripped his wrist, in as tight a
hold as she had felt yesterday. She held it, while he tried to shake
her away, then released it.

He sat, head bowed, from time to time giving her panicky
glances.

‘If your son wanted to go tomorrow night to London and
needed a passport, don't tell me you couldn't fix it.'

‘Okay,' he said at last.

‘I shall wait for the boys' documents at the Selous Hotel.'

‘Have you been ill?'

‘Yes. Malaria. Not AIDS.'

‘Is that meant to be a joke?'

‘Sorry. Thank you, Franklin.'

‘Okay,' he said.

 • • •

When Sylvia rang home from the airport before boarding she said
she was arriving tomorrow morning with two boys, yes black
ones, and she had promised to educate them, they were very
clever–one was called Clever, she hoped it wasn't going to be
too cold because of course the boys wouldn't be used to that, and
she went on until Frances said that the call must be costing a
fortune and Sylvia said, ‘Yes, sorry, oh, I'm so sorry,' and at last
rang off saying she would tell them everything tomorrow.

Colin heard this news and said that evidently Sylvia intended
the boys to live here. ‘Don't be silly, how can they? Besides, she
is going to Somalia, she said.'

‘Well, there you are.'

Rupert after some thought, as was his way, remarked that he
hoped William would not be upset. Which meant that he too
thought the boys would be left with them.

Neither Frances nor Rupert could be there to welcome Sylvia,
they would be at work, but Frances suggested a family supper.
This family conference was handicapped by lack of information.
‘She sounded demented,' said Frances.

It was Colin who opened the door to Sylvia and the boys. In
his arms was his daughter and Sophie's, Celia, an enchanting
infant, with black curls, black flirty eyes, dimples, all set off by a
little red dress. She took one look at the black faces, and howled.

‘Nonsense,' said her father, and firmly shook the boys' hands,
which he noted were cold and trembling. It was a bitter November
day. ‘She's never seen black faces so close,' explained Sylvia to
them. ‘Don't mind her.'

They were in the kitchen, then at the faithful table. The boys
were evidently in a state of shock, or something like it. If black
faces can be pale, then theirs were. They had a greyish look, and
they were shivering, though each had a new thick jersey. They
felt themselves to be in the wrong place, Sylvia knew, because
she did: too fast a transition from the grass huts, the drifts of dust,
the new graves, at the Mission.

A pretty young woman in jeans and a jolly striped T-shirt
came in and said, ‘Hi, I'm Marusha,' and stood by the kettle while
it boiled. The au pair. Soon big mugs of tea stood before Sylvia
and the boys, and Marusha set biscuits on a plate which she pushed
toward them, smiling politely. She was a Pole, and absorbed in
mind and imagination in the disintegration of the Soviet Union,
which was in energetic process. Having gathered Celia on to her
hip, she said, ‘I want to see the News on the telly,' and went up
the stairs singing. The boys watched Sylvia putting biscuits on to
her plate, and how she added milk to her tea, and then sugar.
They copied her exactly, their eyes on her face, her movements,
just as they had watched her for the years at the hospital.

‘Clever and Zebedee,' said Sylvia. ‘They have been helping
me at the hospital. I shall get them into school the moment I can.
They are going to be doctors. They are sad because their father
has just died. They have no family left.'

‘Ah,' said Colin, and nodded welcome to the boys, whose
sad scared grins seemed permanently fixed. ‘I'm sorry. I do see
that all this must be terribly difficult for you. You'll get used
to it.'

‘Is Sophie at the theatre?'

‘Sophie is intermittently with Roland–no, she hasn't actually
left me. I would say she is living with both of us.'

‘I see.'

‘Yes, that's how things are.'

‘Poor Colin.'

‘He sends her four dozen red roses at the slightest excuse or
meaningful messages of pansies or forget-me-nots. I never think
of things like that. It serves me right.'

‘Oh, poor Colin.'

‘And from the look of you, poor Sylvia.'

‘She is sick. Sylvia is very sick,' the boys came in. Last night
on the plane they had been frightened, not only of the unfamiliar
plane, but Sylvia kept vomiting, going off to sleep, and coming
awake with a cry and tears. As for them, she had shown them
how the toilets worked, and they thought they had understood,
but Clever had pushed what must have been the wrong button,
because next time he made his way there the door had Out of
Order on it. They both felt the stewardesses were looking at them
critically, and that if they did something stupid the plane might
crash because of them.

Now, when Sylvia put her arms around them, as she sat
between them, they could feel that she was cold, through her
clothes, and was shivering. They were not surprised. The view
out of the window coming from the airport, all oozing grey skies
and endless buildings and so many people bundled up like parcels
made them both want to put their heads under a blanket.

‘I take it none of you slept a wink on the plane?' asked Colin.

‘Not much,' said Sylvia. ‘And the boys were too overcome
with everything. They are from a village, you see. All this is new
to them.'

‘I understand,' said Colin, and did, as far as anyone can who
has not seen for himself.

‘Is there anyone in Andrew's old room?'

‘I work in it.'

‘And in your old room,'

‘William is in it.'

‘And in the little room on that floor? We can get two beds
in there.'

‘Bit crammed, surely, with two beds?'

Zebedee said, ‘There were five people living in our hut until
my sister died.'

‘She wasn't really our sister,' said Clever. ‘She was our cousin,
if you reckon by your ideas. We have a different kinship system.'
He added, ‘She died. She got very sick and died.'

‘I know they are not the same. I look forward to your
explaining it to me.' Colin was just beginning to distinguish the boys
from each other. Clever was the thin, eager one with enormous
appealing eyes; Zebedee was bulkier, with big shoulders and a
smile that reminded him of Franklin's.

‘Can we look at that fridge? We have never seen a fridge as
big as that before.'

Colin showed them the fridge, with its many shelves, its
interior lighting, its freezing compartments. They exclaimed, and
admired and shook their heads, and then stood yawning.

‘Come on,' said Colin, and he went up the stairs, with his
arms on their shoulders, Sylvia behind them. Stairs, stairs–the
boys had not seen stairs until the Selous Hotel. Up they went,
past the living-room floor, past Frances's and Rupert's, and the
little room where once Sylvia had had her being, to the floor that
had housed Colin's and Andrew's growing up. In the little room
was already a big bed, and just as Colin was saying, ‘We'll fix you
up with something better,' the two flung themselves down on it
and were asleep, just like that.

‘Poor kids,' said Colin.

‘When they wake they'll be in a panic.'

‘I'll tell Marusha to keep her eyes open . . . and where are
you sleeping, have you thought of that?'

‘I can doss down in the sitting-room until . . .'

‘Sylvia, you aren't thinking of dumping the boys on us and
taking off to–where did you say?'

‘Somalia.'

Sylvia had not been thinking. She had been carried along on
a tide of accomplishment since her promise to Joshua, and had
not allowed herself to think, or to fit together the two facts, that
she was responsible for the boys, and that she had promised to be
in Somalia in three weeks' time.

They went back down the stairs, sat at the table and smiled
at each other.

‘Sylvia, you had remembered that Frances is getting on a bit,
she is past seventy? We gave her a big party. Not that she looks
it or acts it.'

‘And she has Margaret and William already.'

‘Only William.' And now, at his leisure–they had all the
time in the world–he told her the story. Margaret had decided,
without discussing it with them, that she would live with her
mother. She had not asked her either, but had turned up at
Phyllida's and said to Meriel, ‘I'm coming to live with you.'

‘There's no room,' said Meriel promptly. ‘Not until I get a
place.'

‘Then you must get a place,' ordered her daughter. ‘We've
got enough money, haven't we?'

The trouble was this: Meriel had decided to go to university
and take a degree in psychology. Frances was furious: she had
expected Meriel to start earning some money, but Rupert was
unsurprised. ‘I always said she had no intention of ever earning
a living for herself, didn't I?' ‘Yes, you did.' ‘No one would
believe it, looking at her, but she's a very dependent woman.'
‘Are we going to have to keep her in perpetuity?' ‘I wouldn't be
surprised.'

This was why Meriel did not really want to leave Phyllida:
she did not want to be by herself. Phyllida meanwhile wanted
Meriel to go. There had been some dark satisfaction, never really
analysed, in having Rupert's former wife, here, with her, like an
extension of the Lennox household, but enough was enough. She
did not actively dislike Meriel, but her sharp cutting ways could
depress. When Margaret moved in, Phyllida felt she was reliving
an old nightmare, seeing herself in Meriel, with the girl, mother
and daughter, snapping and snarling and kissing and making up
and noisy, so noisy, tears and rows and shouts and the long silences
of reconciliation.