The Sweetest Dream

  ‘All these books,’ Rose said. ‘Well, we didn’t have books.’

  ‘Easy enough to catch up if you want to,’ said Frances. ‘Borrow what you like.’

  But the casualness of it made Rose clench her fists. Anything mentioned, they seemed to know it; an idea, or a bit of history. They were in possession of some bank of knowledge: it didn’t matter what one asked, they knew it all.

  Rose had taken books off the shelves, but she did not enjoy them. It was not that she read slowly, she did: but she was nothing if not persevering, and she stuck at it. A kind of rage filled her as she read, getting between her and the story or the facts she was trying to absorb. It was because these people had all this as a kind of inheritance, and she, Rose . . .

  When Franklin had arrived, and found himself in the complex richnesses of London, he had had days of panic, wishing he had said no to the scholarship. It was too much to expect of him. His father had been a teacher of the lower grades in a Catholic mission school. The priests, seeing that the boy was clever, had encouraged and supported, and the point came when they asked a rich person–Franklin would never know who it was–if he would add this promising boy to his list of beneficiaries. An expensive undertaking: two years at St Joseph’s and then, with luck, university.

  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.’

  He sat looking down, biting his lip. That joyous expedition into the riches of Oxford Street, the three of them, in such companionship, where warm clothes, bright clothes, things he needed so badly, arrived in Rose’s hands, in Geoffrey’s, to be stowed away in a big shopping bag–he was not doing the liberating, only marvelling at their dexterity. It had been a trip into a magic land of possibilities, like going to the cinema and then, instead of watching marvels, becoming part of it. Just as yesterday Sylvia, Sophie and Lucy had become little girls, ‘a giggle of girls’, Colin had called them, so now Franklin became a little boy remembering how far he was from home, a stranger mocked by riches he could never have.

  In came Sylvia who, having decided Evansky was not for her, wore red ribbons in her two golden plaits. She embraced Frances, embraced Franklin who was so grateful for what he was experiencing as forgiveness, that he smiled again, but sat shaking his head at himself, rueful, sending sorrowing glances at Frances; but because of Sylvia, the girl’s grace, her kindness, soon things were back to normal–well, almost.

  The kitchen filled with youngsters already hung-over and needing more to drink, and by the time everyone sat around the great table and the vast bird sat before them ready to carve, the company had already slipped into that state of excess that means sleep is imminent. And in fact James nodded over his plate and had to be roused. Franklin, smiling again, looked down at his heaped plate, thought of his poor village, silently said grace, and ate. And ate. The girls, and even Sylvia, did well, and the noise was incredible, for ‘the kids’ had returned to being adolescents, though Andrew, ‘the old man’, remained his age, and so did Colin, though he tried hard to get into the spirit of it all. But Colin would always be on the outside looking in
, or on, no matter how much he attempted to clown, to be one of them–and he knew it.

  The Christmas pudding arrived in its brandy flames into a room darkened for it, and by then it was four o’clock and Frances said that the room upstairs must be aired and clean for Julia’s tea. Tea? Who could eat another mouthful? Groans as hands went out to gather in just another crumb or two of pudding, a lick of custard, a mince pie.

  The girls went up to the sitting-room, and piled sleeping bags in a corner. They opened every window, because the room in fact stank. They carried down empty bottles that had spent the night under chairs or in corners, and suggested that perhaps Julia could be persuaded to have her party an hour later, let’s say, at six? But that was out of the question.