The Sweetest Dream (68 page)

Then Meriel had a relapse and was in hospital. Phyllida and
Margaret were together. Phyllida suggested that now her mother
was not there Margaret might go back to the Lennox house, but
Margaret said she liked it better with Phyllida. ‘Frances is an old
cow,' she said. ‘She doesn't really care about anything but Rupert.
I think it's disgusting, old people like that, holding hands. And I
really do like being with you.' She said this last shyly, tentative,
afraid of a rebuff, offering herself as it were to this mother
surrogate: ‘I want to be with you.'

Phyllida was in fact moved by this, hearing that the girl liked
her. How unlike sly and deceiving Sylvia, who couldn't wait to
get away from her.

‘All right, but when your mother is better, I think you should
have your own place.'

Meriel showed no signs of being better. Margaret would not
go and see her, she said it upset her too much, but William went
nearly every evening, and sat by the woman curled on her bed,
in the grey absence that is depression, and he told her, in the
careful, guarded thoughtful way that was his, about his day, about
what he had been doing. But she did not reply nor move nor
look at him.

And when Colin had finished telling about Meriel, there was
Sophie, and Frances, who was writing books, part history and part
sociology, that did very well. And about Rupert, whom Colin
said was the best thing that had happened in this house. ‘Just
imagine, somebody really sane, at last.'

The two talked the afternoon away, while the little girl made
charming appearances in the arms of Marusha, who grew more
exultant every moment with new instalments of the News, of the
thorough humiliation of Poland's old enemy, and then Frances
arrived, with arms full of food, just like the old days. The three
pulled the table out to its former length, as if setting the stage for
past festivals.

While Frances cooked, in came William, just as the two black
boys came down the stairs. They were introduced. ‘Clever and
Zebedee are going to stay here for a bit,' said Colin. Frances said
nothing, but began laying the table for nine people. Sophie would
join them later.

Frances took her place at the head of the table, with Colin at
the foot, and a place beside him for Sophie, then Marusha's place
and next to her the baby's high chair. Ten, if you counted Celia.
Rupert was next to Frances on one side, William on the other.
Sylvia and the two boys were in the middle. Sylvia told about
the big dinner at Butler's Hotel, and all the expensive people,
some of them who had once been around this table, and then
about Andrew's bride, saying flatly that it couldn't last. She was
speaking in an empty voice, giving information, none of the relish
of gossip, of life's improbable workings. The boys kept looking
at her to see what she was feeling since her voice seemed
determined not to say: it was their uneasiness that alerted the others
that they should be worried about Sylvia. In fact she felt that she
was floating off somewhere, and this was not just lack of sleep.
She was tired, yes, so tired, and it was hard to keep her attention
here, and yet she knew she had to, because the boys were
depending on her, and she was the only person who could
understand how hard it was for them. Rupert put questions, like a good
journalist, but it was because he knew she was needing to be held
down, like a too buoyant kite: he was sensitive to her distress,
because of his long attention to William, who suffered so much
and who depended on him, Rupert, to understand him. And
through it all the little child prattled and babbled and made
flirtatious eyes at them all, the black boys too, now that she was used
to them.

Sophie came rushing in, in a wave of scent. She was fatter
than she had been and ‘more Madame Bovary than the Lady of
the Camellias', as she said herself. She wore elegant voluminous
white, and her hair was in a chignon. She gave Colin passionately
guilty looks until he kissed her and said, ‘Now, just shut up,
Sophie. You can't be the centre of attention tonight.'

‘What's wrong with you, Sylvia, for God's sake?' cried Sophie.
‘You look like death.'

The words struck a chill, but Sophie could not know the
boys' father was just dead, and that their Saturday afternoons for
months now had been spent at the funerals of people they had
known all their lives.

‘I think I'll have a little sleep,' said Sylvia, and pushed herself up
out of her chair. ‘I feel . . .' She kissed Frances. ‘Darling Frances, to
be back here with you, if you only knew . . . dear Sophie . . .'
She smiled vaguely at everyone, then put her hand shakily on
Clever's shoulder and then on Zebedee's. ‘I'll see you later,' she
said. She went out, holding on to the door's edge and then the
door frame.

‘Don't worry,' said Frances to the boys. ‘We'll look after you.
Just tell us what you need, because we don't understand the way
Sylvia does.' But they were staring after Sylvia, and it was easy to
see it was all too much for them. They wanted to go back up to
bed, and went, Marusha accompanying them, with Celia. Then,
Sophie followed: it seemed she intended to stay the night.

Frances, Colin and Rupert faced William, knowing what was
coming.

He was now a tall slender fair youth, handsome, but the pale
skin was tight over his face, and often there was strain around his
eyes. He loved his father, was always as near to him as he could
get, though Rupert told Frances he did not dare put his arms
around him, hug him: William did not seem to like it. And he
was secretive, Rupert said, did not share his thoughts. ‘Perhaps it
is just as well we don't know them,' said Frances. She experienced
William, who would consult her about small difficulties, as a
controlled anguish which she did not believe a hug or a kiss could
reach. And he worked so hard, had to do well at school, seemed
always to be wrestling with invisible angels.

‘Are they coming to live here?'

‘It seems that they are,' said Colin.

‘Why should they?'

‘Come on, old chap, don't be like that,' said his father.

William's smile at Colin, whom they had to deduce he loved,
was like a wail.

‘They have no parents,' said Colin. ‘Their father has just died.'
He was afraid to say, of AIDS, because of the terror of the word,
even though in this house AIDS was as distant as the Black Death.
‘They are orphans. And they are very poor . . . I don't think it's
possible for people like us to understand. And they've had no
school except for Sylvia's lessons.' In all their minds briefly
appeared an image of a room with desks, a blackboard, a teacher
holding forth.

‘But why here? Why does it have to be us?' This routine
reaction–
But why me?
–cannot be answered except with appeals
to the majestic injustices of the universe.

‘Someone has to take them in,' said Frances.

‘Besides, Sylvia will be here. She'll understand what to do. I
agree that we're not up to it,' said Colin.

‘But how can she be here? Where's she going to stay? Where's
she going to sleep?'

If Sylvia's mind was a blur of panic because of the impossibility
of being in Somalia and London at the same time, then these
three adults were in a similar state: William was right.

‘Oh, we'll manage somehow,' said Frances.

‘And we'll all have to help them,' said Colin.

This meant, as William knew very well, We expect you to
help them. They were younger than him, but that made it even
more likely they would depend on him. ‘If they don't get on
here, will they go away?'

Colin said, ‘We could send them back. But I understand
everyone in their village has died of AIDS or is going to.'

William went white. ‘AIDS! Have they got AIDS?'

‘No. Nor can they have it, Sylvia says.'

‘How does she know? Well, all right, she's a doctor but why
does she look so sick, then? She looks ghastly.'

‘She'll be all right. And the boys'll have to be tutored first, to
catch up, but I am sure they will.'

‘They can't be called Clever and Zebedee, not here. They'll
be killed, with names like that. I hope they aren't going to my
school.'

‘We can't just take their real names away from them.'

‘Well, I'm not going to fight their battles for them.'

He said he had to go up: he had homework. He left: before
homework, they knew, he would play a little with the baby, if
she was awake. He adored her.

Sylvia did not reappear. She had flung herself down into the
bosom of the old red sofa, her arms outstretched: she was at once
asleep. She sank deep into her past, into arms that were waiting
for her.

Rupert and Frances were in their rooms undressing when
Colin came in to say he had checked on Sylvia, who was sleeping
like the dead. Later, about four in the morning, uneasiness woke
Frances, and she crept down and returned to tell Rupert, who
had been awakened by her going, that Sylvia was dead asleep.
She was about to slide into bed, but now heard what she had said
and, retrospectively, what Colin had said. ‘I don't like it,' she said.
‘There's something wrong.' Rupert and Frances went down and
into the sitting-room where on the sofa Sylvia was indeed dead
asleep: she was dead.

 • • •

The boys lay weeping on their beds. Frances's instinct, which
was to put her arms around them, was stopped by that oldest of
inhibitions: hers were not the arms they wanted. As the day wore
on and the weeping did not cease, she and Colin went to the
little room, and she with Clever and he with Zebedee, made them
sit up and were close, arms around them, rocking them, saying
that they should stop crying, they would be ill, they must come
down and have a hot drink, and no one would mind if they were
sad.

The first bad days were got through, and then the funeral,
with Zebedee and Clever in prominent positions as mourners.
Attempts were made to telephone the Mission, but a voice the
boys did not know said that Father McGuire had taken all his
things away and the new headmaster was not here yet. Messages
were left. Sister Molly, left a message, at once rang back, loud
and clear though she was miles from anywhere. She said at once,
‘Are you thinking what to do about the boys?' She believed that
probably work could be found for them at the Old Mission,
looking after the AIDS orphans. When the priest rang back the
line was so bad that only intermittently could be made out his
concern over Sylvia, ‘Poor soul, she did have to work herself into
the grave.' And, ‘If you could see your way to keep the boys it
would be best.' And, ‘It is a sad business here.'

The boys' grief was terrible, it was inordinate, it was
frightening their new friends, who agreed that everything had been too
much: after all, these children–and that was all they were–had
been torn from what they had known, then thrust into . . . but
‘culture shock' was hardly appropriate when that useful phrase
may describe an agreeable dislocation felt travelling from London
to Paris. No, it was not possible to imagine what depths of shock
Clever and Zebedee had suffered, and therefore no notice should
be taken of faces like tragic masks and tragic eyes.
Haunted
eyes?

There was something that the new friends had no conception
of, and could not have understood: the boys knew that Sylvia had
died because of Joshua's curse. Had she been there to laugh at
them, and to say, ‘Oh, how can you think such nonsense?' they
might not have believed her, but the guilt would have been less.
As it was, they were being crushed by guilt, and they could not
bear it. And so, as we all do with the worst and deepest pain,
they began to forget.

Clear in their minds was every minute of the long days while
they waited for Sylvia to return from Senga to rescue them, while
Rebecca died and Joshua lay waiting to die until Sylvia came. The
long agony of anxiety–they did not forget that, nor that moment
when Sylvia reappeared like a little white ghost, to embrace them
and whisk them away with her. After that the blur began, Joshua's
bony grip on Sylvia's wrist and his murderous words, the
frightening aeroplane, the arrival in this strange house, Sylvia's death . . .
no, all that dimmed and soon Sylvia had become a friendly
protective presence whom they remembered kneeling in the dust to
splint up a leg, or sitting on the edge of the verandah between
them, teaching them to read.

Meanwhile Frances kept waking, her stomach clenched with
anxiety, and Colin said he was sleeping badly too. Rupert told
them that not enough thought had gone into this decision, that
was the trouble.

Frances, waking with a start and a cry, found herself held by
Rupert, ‘Come on downstairs. I'll make you some tea.' And when
they reached the kitchen, Colin was already at the table, a bottle
of wine in front of him.

Outside the window was the dark of 4 o'clock on a winter's
night. Rupert drew the curtains, sat by Frances, put his arm around
her. ‘Now, you two, you've got to decide. And whatever it is
you do decide, then you've got to put the other choice clean out
of your minds. Otherwise you'll both be ill.'

‘Right,' said Colin, and shakily reached for the wine
bottle.

Rupert said, ‘Now look, old son, don't drink any more, there's
a good chap.'

Frances felt that apprehension a woman may feel when her
man, not her son's father, takes the father's role: Rupert had spoken
as if it were William sitting there.

Colin pushed away the bottle. ‘This is a bloody impossible
situation.'