Michael Frayn - Sweet Dreams

He arranges a meeting with a leading dissident intellectual, J. G. D. McKechnie, to get another perspective on the problem. It takes place in McKechnie’s flat in Belsize Park. They sit in flowered armchairs in front of the gas-fire, and drink Nescafe out of flowered mugs.

What J. G. D. McKechnie says explains a lot.

It’s a question of profit, he explains. The whole economy centres on the medical-pharmaceutical complex. There is massive investment in disease and mortality which the system protects by distracting people’s attention from it. It has a vested interest in brainwashing people into believing that they are happy, when in fact they are not and could not possibly be. It does this by drugging them with things which it persuades them to believe they want. McKechnie lists specifically food, drink, sex, attractive clothing; labour-saving machines and mechanical transport; holidays and leisure activities; so-called “high” culture — music, art, literature, etcetera — and so-called “pop” culture — in which he includes the singing of old Tin Pan Alley songs, such as “Show Me the Way to Go Home,” in public houses run by the big breweries.

“Winter sports?” asks Howard, thinking uncomfortably of the Alps.

“Right,” says J. G. D. McKechnie.

“Walking tours in the Tyrol?”

“All that kind of shit.”

So this explains his driver’s attitude. This explains the neutral look on the faces of people in the streets. And perhaps even the look on J. G. D. McKechnie’s face.

“What about you?” Howard asks him sympathetically. “Are you happy?”

McKechnie seems surprised by the question. He frowns, and curls his beard round his finger, gazing about the room. A Siamese cat picks its way among the confusion of London Library volumes lying open on the table. At the window overlooking the garden the young girl with whom he is living sits painting — tiny brush strokes, with her head very close to the work, silent, absorbed. A clock chimes the quarter.

“Oh, sure,” he says, sliding down into his armchair and putting his feet on the bookcase — he is not wearing socks, Howard notices. “ I’m perfectly happy. Don’t try and make me out to be some kind of embittered nut compensating for an unsatisfactory sex-life.”

So McKechnie was right. Even he has been drugged by the system and anaesthetized against the perception of his own misery. His jaws have been wrenched open, like everyone else’s, and the tranquillizers crammed in — a Siamese cat, a few books and records, an eighteen-year-old girl with wild hair and intent lips slightly parted….

Howard’s heart goes out to him. They must start the world again, to produce a McKechnie who is freed from cat, books, records, and girl.

Michael Wayland’s over in London, too.

There is a familiar roaring noise as Howard is crossing the lobby of the Connaught, and there is this compelling figure bearing down upon him, pinioning his arms, and searching his face with eager recognition.

“Michael!” cries Howard, astonished.

“!” grimaces Michael eloquently, no less astonished.

“Howard,” Howard reminds him.

“Howard,” agrees Michael.

“What on earth are you doing over here?”

“The usual thing,” says Michael. “Reading out various grim warnings on the Teleprompter to the natives about the way things are going. Trying to put the fear of God into them. And you?”

“Oh,” says Howard wittily, “trying to get the fear of God out of them.”

“Do you think the bar’s open?” says Michael. “Let’s go and have a drink. I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you! I thought I was in for another evening of getting slightly drunk on my own.”

They get slightly drunk together, in a most agreeable way, and then wander round the West End, making jokes about the photographs outside the strip clubs. They are very pleased with each other’s company — as pleased as only two fellow-countrymen meeting each other in a strange city can be.

“Lord, this city’s a dump!” says Michael.

“Oh, I don’t know,” says Howard, trying to be reasonable.

“No, it’s the last place God made. I can’t imagine how we all put up with living here.”

“I quite enjoy watching all the people go by,” says Howard, “and wondering what’s going on inside their heads.”

“But that’s you all over, Howard. You always manage to find some good in people. I can’t stand them. For a start they smell.”

“Well …”

“Oh, come on. Be honest.”

“They smell different, that’s all.”

“They smell, Howard. They’re rude and indifferent, and when they’re not being rude and indifferent they’re licking your boots and telling you what they think you want to hear.”

“Michael, I think a lot of this is really our fault….”

“Oh, bollocks! Don’t let them give you that line. They’re born whiners.”

“No, Michael, I honestly think it’s the result of the system that we’re part of….”

“Don’t believe a word they tell you, Howard. They’re all liars. They’re all on the cadge.”

“I must admit,” concedes Howard, “the telephone service is a bit erratic. And the hotel’s lost my laundry.“

“I’ll tell you what gets me,” says Michael. “Having to be so careful all the time not to offend their susceptibilities. Though what right this lot have got to have susceptibilities I can’t imagine. Don’t you find, about five o’clock each day, that you’ve got a polite smile permanently creased into your face, like rigor mortis?”

“I know what you mean,” says Howard. “But …”

“Mind!” cries Michael, and steers Howard round a little heap of excrement in the middle of the pavement. Howard can’t help laughing. Michael enacts a scene where, smiling politely, he attempts to use a telephone to inform some touchy British official that there is a heap of something untoward lying on one of his pavements. Passers-by step into the gutter and try not to look at them as they both lean against walls and shop-fronts, laughing helplessly.

“No, but seriously,” says Howard. “They do have a terrible life.”

“They have a terrible life,” says Michael, growing serious as well, “because a terrible life is what these people understand. A terrible life is what these people enjoy . There’s nothing they love more than an interesting little family tragedy, or a nice little disease to muck themselves up with.”

Howard continues to protest. But secretly he knows that Michael is right. There is something curiously unappetizing about these people. Even McKechnie. Especially McKechnie. It gives Howard an extraordinary sense of personal liberation to admit this to himself. There is something very sweet about strolling through the streets of London with a fellow-countryman, and in the privacy afforded by their shining armour of courtesy and concern, frankly to recognize the difficult truth: that they are better than the people around them.

“It’s some friend of yours who’s responsible for man, isn’t it?” asks Michael, looking sideways at Howard.

“Phil Schaffer. Well, he’s one of the design team.”

“Making rather a pig’s eye of it, isn’t he?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” says Howard loyally. “I think it’s a remarkable achievement. On the whole.”

His loyalty to Phil sets his blood circulating with a pleasant warmth. So does the discovery that Phil needs his loyalty. It’s very agreeable to be able to reach down and offer someone a helping hand — particularly someone he has looked up to for so long.

Later they meet up with a couple of girls whose telephone numbers Michael finds in his pocket, and as a crazy night out they all have dinner at the Ritz.