Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

' 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 Phyl-lida'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'tI?' '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'tbe 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.

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.