Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

There had been a wild half-hour of variations on tired jokes with unfortunate upbringings.

Now Johnny began on his familiar lecture, ' That's right, you take anything you can get from the capitalists. They've stolen it all from you in the first place.'

'Surely not from us?' – Andrew challenged his father.

' Stolen from the working people. The ordinary people. Take them for what you can get, the bastards. '

Andrew had never shoplifted, thought it inferior behaviour fit only for oiks, and said in a direct challenge, 'Shouldn't you be getting back to Phyllida?'

Frances could be ignored, but his son's rebuke took Johnny to the door. ' Never forget, ' he admonished them generally, ' you should be checking everything you do, every word, every thought, against the needs of the Revolution.'

'So what did you get today?' Rose asked Geoffrey. She admired him almost as much as she did Johnny.

Geoffrey took books out of the carrier bags and made a tower of them on the table.

They clapped. Not Frances, not Andrew.

Frances took from her briefcase one of the letters to the newspaper which she had brought home. She read out, '' 'Dear Aunt Vera' '... that's me...' ' Dear Aunt Vera, I have three children, all at school. Every evening they come home with stolen stuff, mostly sweets and biscuits...' ' ' Here the company groaned. '' 'But it can be anything, school books too...' ' ' They clapped. '' 'But today my oldest, the boy, came back with a very expensive pair of jeans.'' ' They clapped again. '' 'I don't know what to do. When the door bell rings I think, That's the police. ' ' ' Frances gave them time for a groan. And I am afraid for them. I would very much value your advice, Aunt Vera. I am at my wits' end. ' ' '

She inserted the letter back in its place.

And what are you going to advise?' enquired Andrew.

Perhaps you should tell me what to say, Geoffrey. After all, a head boy should be well up in these things. '

Oh, don't be like that, Frances,’ said Rose.

Oh, ' groaned Geoffrey, his head in his hands, making his shoulders heave as if with sobs, she takes it seriously. '

I do take it seriously,’ said Frances. It's stealing. You are thieves,’ she said to Geoffrey, with the freedom licensed by his practically living with them, for years. You are a thief. That's all. I'm not Johnny,’ she said.

Now a real dismayed silence. Rose giggled. The newcomer's, James's, scarlet face was as good as a confession.

Sophie cried out, 'But, Frances, I didn't know you disapproved of us so much.'

'Well, I do,' said Frances, her face and voice softening, because it was Sophie. ' So now you know. '

'It's her unfortunate upbringing...' began Rose, but desisted, on a look from Andrew.

‘And now I'm going to catch the news, and I have to work. ' She went out, saying, ' Sleep well, everyone. ' Giving permission, in this way, to anyone, James for instance, who might be hoping to stay the night.

She did catch the news, briefly. It seemed that some madman had shot Kennedy. As far as she was concerned, another public man was dead. He probably deserved it. She would never have allowed herself to voice this thought, so very far from the spirit of the times. It sometimes seemed to her that the one useful thing she had learned in her long association with Johnny, was how to keep quiet about what she thought.

Before settling down to work which, this evening, would be going through a hundred or so letters she had brought home, she opened the door to the spare room. Silence and dark. She tiptoed to the bed and bent over a shape under the bedclothes that could have been a child's. And, yes, Tilly had her thumb in her mouth.

‘I’m not asleep,’ said a little voice.

‘I’m worried about you,’ said Frances, and heard her voice shake: she had promised herself not to get emotionally involved, because what good would that do? ' If I made you a cup of hot chocolate, would you like that?'

‘I’ll try. '

Frances made chocolate in her study, where she had a kettle and basic supplies, and took it to the girl, who said, ‘I don't want you to think I'm not grateful. '

‘Shall I put the light on? Do you want to try drinking it now?'

'Put it on the floor.'

Frances did so, knowing that most likely the cup would be there, untouched, in the morning.

She worked until late. She heard Colin come in, and then he and Sophie went to the big sofa, where they sat talking – she could hear them, or at least their voices, just below hers: the old red sofa was immediately under her desk. Immediately over it was Colin's bed. She heard their lowered voices, and then careful footsteps just above her. Well, she was sure Colin knew how to be careful: he had said so, loudly, to his brother, who lectured him on these matters.

Sophie was sixteen. Frances wanted to put her arms around the girl and protect her. Well, she never felt anything like that about Rose, Jill, Lucy, or the other young females who drifted in and out of this house. So why Sophie? She was so beautiful, that was it: that was what she wanted to guard and keep safe. And what nonsense that was – she, Frances, should be ashamed. She was ashamed about a good deal, this evening. She opened the door, and listened. Down in the kitchen, there seemed to be more than Andrew, Rose, James... she would find out tomorrow.

She slept restlessly, twice went across the landing to see how Tilly was doing; on one occasion found a very dark room, stillness, and the faint stuffy smell of chocolate. Once she saw Andrew retreating upstairs from a similar mission, and went back to bed. She lay awake. The trouble was, the shoplifting. When Colin first went to St Joseph's after his not very good comprehensive, articles she knew were not his began appearing, nothing much, a T-shirt, packets of biros, a record. She remembered being impressed that he had stolen an anthology of verse. She remonstrated. He complained that everyone did it and she was a square. Do not imagine the issue rested there. This was a progressive school! One of the first wave of schoolfriends, who came and went, but much less freely, since after all they were younger, a girl called Petula, informed Frances that Colin was stealing love: the housemaster had said so. This was discussed noisily at the supper table. No, not the love of her parents, but that of the headmaster, who had ticked off Colin for something or other. Geoffrey, already more or less a fixture then, five years ago, more, was proud of what he garnered from the shops. She had been shocked, but had not said more than, Well, then, don't get caught. If she had not said, Don't do it, that was because she would not have been obeyed, but also because she had no idea then of how prevalent it would become, shoplifting. And, too, and that was what now kept her awake, she had liked being one of them, the trendy youngsters who were the new arbiters of modes and morals. There was – had been -undoubtedly a feeling of we against them. Petula, that sparky girl (now in a school for diplomats' children in Hong Kong) had said that stealing without being caught was an initiation rite, and adults should understand that.

Today Frances was going to have to write a solid, long, and balanced article on this very subject. She was actually regretting she had ever said yes to this new job. She was going to have to take a stand on any number of issues, and it was her nature to see opposing points of view, and refuse to say more than, 'Yes, it's all very difficult.'

Recently she had come to see stealing as very definitely wrong, and not because of her unfortunate upbringing, but because of listening for years to Johnny urging all kinds of anti-social behaviour, rather like a guerilla leader: hit and run. One day a simple truth had arrived in her mind. He wanted to pull everything down about his ears, like Samson. That was what it was all about. ' The Revolution' which he and his mates never stopped talking about would be like directing a flame-thrower over everything, leaving scorched earth, and then – well, simple – he and the mates would rebuild the world in their image. Once seen it was obvious, but the thought then had to be faced: how could people unable to organise their own lives, who lived in permanent disarray, build anything worthwhile? This seditious thought – and it was years in advance of its time, at least in any circles she had been introduced to – lived side by side with an emotion she hardly knew was there. She thought Johnny was... no need to spell that out... she had become very clear about what she thought, but at the same time she relied on an aura of hopeful optimism that surrounded him, the comrades, everything they did. She did believe – but hardly knew she did – that the world was going to get better and better, that they were all on an escalator of Progress, and that present ills would slowly dissolve away, and everyone in the world would find themselves in a happy healthy time. And when she stood in the kitchen, producing dishes of food for 'the kids', seeing all those young faces, listening to their irreverent confident voices, she felt that she was guaranteeing this future for them, in a silent promise. Where had this promise originated? From Johnny, she had absorbed it from Comrade Johnny, and while her mind was set in criticising him, more and more every day, she relied emotionally without knowing it on Johnny and his brave sweet new worlds.