The Sweetest Dream

  ‘Where is Jaspar?’ he asked the silent woman, who was evidently a long way off, inside the dreadful suffering of the depressive.

  After a time he repeated the question, and she said, irritated at the interruption, ‘Gone.’

  ‘Is he coming back?’

  ‘No.’

  That seemed to be all he was going to get out of her, but then she said, in a thick indifferent mutter, not moving, not turning her head, ‘Better take the kids. They’ll get nothing here.’

  Rupert collected up books, toys, clothes, school gear, under the direction of Margaret and William, and then back to Meriel. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked. A long silence. She shook her head, meaning, Leave me alone, and then when the three were already at the door, she said in the same tone, ‘Get me into hospital. Any hospital. I don’t care.’

  The children were installed again in their old rooms, and at once the whole flat was awash with their possessions. They were frightened, and silent.

  Rupert rang their doctor, who would arrange for Meriel to go into a psychiatric ward. He tried to ring Jaspar, but his call was not returned.

  Frances was having hard, cool thoughts. She knew that Jaspar was not likely to come back to Meriel, if he had gone off in fright at the experience of being with a depressive. He was ten years younger, was an ornament of the fashion world, designing sports clothes and making money. His name was often in the newspapers. Why had he taken on a woman with two half-grown children? Rupert had said he believed the young man had enjoyed seeing himself as mature and responsible, proving that he was a serious person. He had the reputation of being too trendy for his own good, drugs, wild parties–all that. To which scene he had presumably returned. That meant that Meriel was without a man, and would very likely want her husband back. And here were two children in emotional shock, and here she was, a mother substitute. And yes, she was suffering that awed and appalled feeling that comes when life recurs, in a familiar pattern. She thought, I am in danger of being landed with these kids–no, I have been landed with them. Do I want that?

  Margaret was twelve, William was ten. They would soon be adolescent. She was not afraid that Rupert would let her down, relinquish responsibility to her, but that their intimacy would not only suffer–it would have to–and it might disappear, sucked into the insensate demands of teenagers. But she liked Rupert so much . . . she did so like him . . . she loved the man. She could say, seriously, she had not loved till now–yes, she would say yes to whatever turned up. And after all, even depressions take themselves off, and then the children would want to be with their mother.

  From the hospital where Meriel was came scrawls, you could not call them letters, in wild handwriting. ‘Rupert, don’t let the children come here. It won’t be good for them. Frances, Margaret has asthma, she needs a new prescription.’

  The doctors, telephoned by Rupert, said she was very ill but would recover. Her previous illness had lasted two years.

  Frances and Rupert lay side by side in the dark, her head on his right shoulder, his right hand on her right breast. Her hand lay on his inner thigh, her knuckles against his balls, a soft but self-respecting weight that was giving her confidence. This connubial and time-honoured scene was how they spent the half hour before sleep, whether love-making had taken place or not. The subject that both had been skirting around now had to be dealt with.

  ‘Where was Meriel when she was ill, those two years?’

  ‘Mostly in bed. She wasn’t up to much.’

  ‘She can’t stay in hospital for two years.’

  ‘No, she’ll need looking after.’

  ‘I suppose Jaspar isn’t going to rally around?’

  ‘Is it likely?’

  He spoke quietly, even jauntily, but with a forlorn bravery that melted her heart. ‘Look, Frances, this is just as bad as it can be for you. Don’t imagine I don’t know it.’ She wasn’t going to say it wasn’t bad, so hesitated, and he came in quickly with, ‘I won’t blame you if you left . . .’ His voice was thick.

  ‘I’m not leaving. I’m just thinking.’ He kissed her cheek, from which she learned that his face was wet.

  ‘If you sold this flat and we put our money together, and bought a big flat, even then there would be the problem–it would be the first wife and the second incumbent in separate rooms, like an African polygamist.’

  ‘Or like Thurber’s cartoon. I don’t really see Meriel on the top of a cupboard.’

  They laughed. They did laugh.

  ‘Do we have enough money for a house?’ she asked.

  ‘Not in any decent part of London. Not a big one.’

  ‘I take it Meriel is not going to be earning?’

  ‘She was never one for a career.’ His voice was dry, indeed: she knew that here was a history. ‘An old-fashioned woman, that’s Meriel. Or the last word in feminism. And of course she wasn’t working when she was with Jaspar, she was enjoying the high life. So, yes, we can take it that she will have to be kept.’ A pause. ‘They did say, the doctors, that we have to assume the depression will recur.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Rupert. It would be two wives in one house, but at least not on the same floor.’

  ‘I gather you’ve done that one already?’

  ‘I’m an old hand at it.’

  ‘Are you planning to marry me, Frances?’

  ‘It would certainly be better for the children if I did. Fancy-woman into wife. Never underestimate the conservatism of children.’

  • • •

  Frances telephoned Colin, asked if they could talk, and he suggested she should come and he would cook. She found herself back in Julia’s house, in the kitchen, at a table which was the smallest she had seen it. Two chairs. Colin arrived, all energetic welcome.

  They embraced.

  Frances said, ‘Where’s the little dog?’

  He hesitated, turned his back to lift plates from the refrigerator–using it as she had done so often to avoid or postpone notice, set cold soup in front of her, and sat opposite her.

  ‘Vicious is with Sophie. She’s downstairs.’

  She laid down her spoon, and absorbed the shock. ‘Sophie and you are together?’

  ‘She’s ill. It’s a kind of breakdown. The man after Andrew–no good. She appealed to me.’

  She had taken all this in and now applied herself to the soup. He was a good cook. ‘Well, that certainly puts a different face on it.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  She did, and he showed his grasp of the essentials with, ‘Well, Ma, you’re a glutton for punishment.’

  ‘The thing is, I really do . . .’ she had been going to say, like, but said, ‘love this man. I do.’

  ‘He’s a good bloke,’ said her son.

  ‘Have you moved in to Julia’s flat yet?’

  ‘It’s such a period piece, I can’t bear to demolish it. But yes, of course we’re going to use it.’

  ‘Suppose we put Rupert’s wife in the basement flat?’

  ‘Just like poor Phyllida.’

  ‘But I hope not for ever. Rupert says that Meriel couldn’t wait to get rid of him. More fool her.’

  ‘Right then. Meriel in the basement. Sophie and me at the top of the house. We will use Sylvia’s old room, and I will go on working in the sitting-room. So you and Rupert and the two kids will have the six rooms, on Andrew’s floor and mine, and your rooms. And of course, there is this ever faithful kitchen.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought of it if I didn’t know the house was virtually empty. And it would give us a breathing space . . .’

  ‘It’s not a bad idea.’ With the energy he brought to everything, he removed the soup plates and produced grilled fish. He poured wine, he drank his down, poured himself some more.

  ‘And you and Sophie?’

  ‘Andrew wasn’t good for Sophie. It was more of the same. She says Roland was like a black hole when it came to the crunch, and Andrew–well . . . every good intention, but he is a bit of a lightweight,
you’ll have to agree to that? He doesn’t engage,’ explained her son, with a grin that expected complicity in understanding. ‘Whereas I,’ he said, stating his case, ‘take people on. I have victims in my past to prove it, well-gnawed and mangled, but taken on. No, you don’t know about them. I’ve taken Sophie on.’

  ‘Two loonies in one house,’ said Frances.

  ‘Elegantly put.’

  ‘And not for the first time. But never mind, with children at ten and twelve, they’ll be grown-up soon, won’t they?’

  ‘In the first place, I haven’t noticed Andrew and me–or Sylvia–not needing a family base, even when grown-up. And in the second place–well, I wouldn’t have understood your peremptory ways with time until recently. What’s four years? Six years? Ten? Nothing. A mere breath. There’s nothing like a death to bring that home . . . and there’s another thing. Has it occurred to you that the kids might prefer you to their delinquent mum?’

  ‘Delinquent! She’s ill.’

  ‘She went off with her demon lover, didn’t she? She ditched them?’

  ‘No, she took them with her. But now they’re–ditched.’

  ‘I hope they’re at least passable. Are they?’

  ‘So far they’ve been on their best behaviour. I don’t know.’

  ‘Aren’t you haunted by all this recurrence?’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes, I am. And it’s worse than you know. Meriel is the daughter of Sebastian Heath–you probably don’t remember that name? You do? He was a famous communist, just like Johnny. He was arrested by the comrades in the Soviet Union and disappeared for ever.’

  ‘I suppose to have a father who was shot in the back of the neck by his own side is enough to explain a certain amount of emotional disarray.’

  ‘And then her mother committed suicide. She was a communist too. Meriel was brought up by a communist family–but they aren’t communists now, apparently.’

  ‘So she had what might fairly be described as a broken childhood.’

  ‘Hence my feeling of being pursued by more of the same.’

  ‘Poor Ma,’ he said cheerily. Never mind. And don’t think your housing problems will be solved permanently if you come here. I intend to get married.’

  ‘Sophie!’

  ‘Good God, no. I’m not that mad. She’s just my mate. We’re mates. But I’m definitely on the look-out for a wife. And I shall get married and have four kids, none of your two and a half stuff. And then I’ll need this house.’

  ‘Right,’ said his mother. ‘Fair enough.’

  • • •

  Frances, supper over, remarked that it was getting late, and that it was time Margaret and William were in bed. The girl got up, and faced her, the fair maidenly lightly freckled forehead presented to Frances like a little bull about to charge. ‘Why should we? You can’t order us about. You aren’t our mother.’ And now William said the same. Clearly the two had discussed the situation and decided to make a stand. Two obstinate faces, two antagonistic bodies, and Rupert, watching, was pale, like them.

  ‘No, I am not your mother, but while I’m looking after you I’m afraid you’ll have to go along with what I say.’

  ‘I’m not going to,’ said Margaret.

  ‘I’m not going to,’ said William.

  Margaret had a round little girl’s face waiting to take on definition, features that at a few yards seemed to disappear into a pale outline where only a little pink mouth asserted itself. Now the mouth was primly virtuous with disapproval.

  ‘We hate you,’ said William carefully, having rehearsed the line with Margaret.

  Frances was inordinately, irrationally angry.

  ‘Sit down,’ she snapped, and, surprised, the children slid back into their chairs.

  ‘Now, you listen. I did not expect I would have to look after you. It wasn’t something I wanted.’ But here she glanced at Rupert, who was so hurt by the whole awful situation. She went on, ‘I don’t mind doing things for you. I don’t mind cooking and your clothes and all that–but I’m not putting up with nonsense. You can forget about the sulks and making scenes, because I won’t put up with them.’ She was really getting into her stride, and the two pale dismayed faces were not enough to stop her. ‘You don’t know this–and why should you–but I’ve had all I’m going to take of slamming doors and adolescent rebellions and all that infantile rubbish.’ She was shouting at them. Never, ever, had she shouted at a child before. ‘Do you hear? And if you start all that I’m going to leave. So I’m giving you due warning. I shall simply go.’ Lack of breath stopped her. Rupert’s eyebrows, usually ready for irony, were signalling that she was overdoing it.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said–to him rather than to them. And then, ‘No, I’m not at all sorry. I said that because I mean it. So think about it.’

  Without a word the children got up and silently went off to their rooms. But they would join each other in either his or hers to discuss Frances.

  ‘Well done,’ said Rupert.

  ‘Well, was it?’ said Frances, sitting limp, trembling, dismayed at herself. She dropped her head on to her arms.

  ‘Yes, of course it was. There was bound to be a confrontation at some point. And by the way, don’t think I’m taking you for granted. I wouldn’t blame you if you simply left.’

  ‘I’m not going to leave,’–and she reached for his hand. It was trembling. ‘Oh, God,’ she said, ‘this is all so . . .’ He reached out for her and she pushed her chair up to his and they sat close, with their arms around each other, sharing dismay.

  A week later there was a repetition of the ‘You aren’t our mother, so why should we . . .’ and so on.

  Frances had been trying all day to get on with the heavy sociological book which she was writing, interrupted by telephone calls from the children’s schools, Meriel’s hospital, and Rupert from his newspaper, asking what he should bring home for supper. Her nerves were grumbling, they jangled and they swore. She was feeling a reaction to the whole situation. What was she doing here? What a trap she was in . . . did she even like these children? That girl, with her virtuous prim little mouth, the boy (that poor boy), so frightened by what was happening he could hardly look at her, or his father, and who moved about like a sleepwalker, with a scared smile that he tried to make sarcastic.

  ‘Right,’ said she, ‘that’s it, and got up from her place at the table, pushing away her plate. She did not look at Rupert, for she was doing the unforgivable–hitting him when he was down.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked the little girl–she was, after all, still that.

  ‘What do you think? I’m going. I told you I would.’

  And she went into the bedroom she shared with Rupert, slowly, because her legs were stiff, not with indecision but because she intended them to walk her away from Rupert. There she brought clothes down from cupboards, stacked them on the bed, found suitcases, and methodically began to pack. She was in a state of mind opposite to anything she had felt for weeks now. Like a bride or bridegroom who has been swept along on the tide of events with only an occasional moment of misgiving, to find themselves on the eve of the wedding wondering how they could have been so mad, so now, a situation that had seemed reasonable enough, if difficult, made her feel as if she were being carried, wrists and ankles tied, into a prison. What on earth had made her say she would take on his kids, even if only temporarily? And how did she know it would be temporary? She must run away now, before it was too late. The only part of her mind that remained anywhere near what it had been was the thought of Rupert. She could not give him up. Well, that was easy. She would finally buy herself her own place, her place, and . . . the door opened, just a little, then a little more, and the boy stood there. ‘Margaret says, what are you doing?’

  ‘I’m leaving,’ said Frances. ‘Shut the door.’

  The door shut, in careful jerks, as if each little degree of closure had been stopped by a change of mind: should he go in again?

  The cases were packed and standing in a row
when Margaret came sidling in eyes lowered, the mouth half open, that prim pink little mouth, but now it was swollen with tears.

  ‘Are you really leaving?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ And Frances, who was convinced she was, said, ‘Shut the door–quietly.’

  Later she went out and found Rupert still sitting at the supper table. She said, ‘That was badly done, I’m sorry.’

  He shook his head, not looking at her. He was a solitary and brave figure, and his pain shut him away from her. She could not bear that. She knew she would not leave, at least, not like this. She was thinking, in a wild last moment of rebellion, I’ll get my own place and he can deal with the mess of Meriel and the kids and he can come and visit me and . . . ‘Of course I’m not going,’ she said. ‘How could I?’

  He did not move, but then slowly held out the arm near to her. She pushed a chair close and sat inside the arm, and he inclined his head, so that their two heads rested together.

  ‘Well, at least they won’t give you a bad time again,’ he said. ‘That is, if you do decide to stay.’

  The occasion demanded that they should cement their frailties with love-making. He went off to their bedroom, and she prepared to follow, switching off lights. She went to the girl’s door, meaning to go in and say goodnight, ‘Forget it, I didn’t mean it.’ What she heard was sobbing, a dreadful low helpless sobbing which had been going on for some time. Frances stood near the door, then rested her head against it, in a flare of Oh, no, I can’t I can’t . . . but the sound of the child’s misery was undoing her. She took a breath and went into the room, and saw the girl start up from her pillow, and then found her in her arms, ‘Oh, Frances, Frances, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘It’s all right. I won’t go. I did mean it then, but now I’ve changed my mind.’

  Kisses, hugs, and a new start.

  With the boy, it was going to be harder. A hurt child, holding himself inside an armature of pride, he refused tears, rejected consoling arms, including his father’s; he did not trust them. He had watched his mother, so ill and silent, go so deep inside herself she did not hear when he spoke to her, and it was this sight that kept him company as he obediently did what he was told, went to school, did homework, helped clear the table, make his bed. If Frances and Rupert had known what went on inside William, understood his wild solitary misery–but what could they have done? They even were reassured by this conforming boy, who was turning out–surely–to be easier than Margaret?