Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

Those that were left began squabbling about who was to go next: no one wanted to, because Molly left the bathroom a swamp.

'It's a swamp when she's done,' said an old wild woman, earnestly, to the youngsters. 'You'd think a hippopotamus had been in it. '

‘What do you know about hippopotamuses?’ scorned an old wild man, clearly a sparring partner. ‘You' re always having your say out of turn. '

‘I do know all about hippos,’ said the angry crone. ‘I used to watch them from the verandah of our house on the banks of the Limpopo.'

' Anyone can say they had a house by the Limpopo or the blue Danube, ' he said. ‘When no one can prove otherwise. '

Colin and the girl, who was Mandy, left the hospital, and Colin took her home for supper, where they all wanted to know about the dreaded mental hospital and its inmates.

' They' re just like us,’ said Colin, and Mandy said eagerly, ‘Yes, I don't see why they have to be there. '

Later Colin tackled Julia, then his mother. It is hard, very, for the older ones, world-whipped, when they have to listen while the idealistic young demand explanations for the sadness of the world. 'Why, but why?' Colin wanted to know, and it was not the end of it, for he did go back to the hospital, but found himself defeated since Molly had forgotten his visit to her. At last he left her his address and his telephone number, ' In case you ever want anything' — to someone who wanted everything, above all, her wits. Mandy did the same.

' That was a very foolish thing to do, ' Julia said.

' That was very kind,’ said Frances.

Mandy became for a time one of ' the kids' at the supper table, easy for her, since both her parents worked. She did not say they were shits but that they did their best. She was an only child. Then they whisked her off to New York. She and Colin wrote to each other for years.

And twenty years were to pass before they met.

In the Eighties, at the behest of another ideological imperative, all the mental hospitals and asylums were closed, and their inmates turned out to sink or swim. Colin got a letter in faint straggly writing: Colin — just that, and the address. He went down to Brighton where he found her in one of the lodging houses run by the philanthropists who were taking in former mental hospital patients and charging them every penny of their benefit, for conditions Dickens would have recognised.

She was a sick old woman, whom he did not recognise, but she seemed to know him. 'He had such a kind face,' said Molly-Marlene Smith — if Smith was indeed her name. 'Tell him, he has such a nice face, that boy. Do you know Colin?'

She was dying of the drink. Well, of what else?... And, visiting her again, Colin found Mandy, a smart American matron now, with a child or two and a husband or two, and they met again at the funeral and then Mandy flew back to Washington, and out of his life.

There was another event on that Christmas night.

Late, long after midnight, Franklin crept up the stairs, listening for Rose, who seemed to be asleep. The kitchen was dark. Up he went, past the sitting-room, where Geoffrey and James were in their sleeping bags. Up to the next floor where he knew Sylvia had her room. There was a light on the landing. He knocked, not louder than a hen's peck, on Sylvia's door. Not a sound. He tried again, the gentlest knock: he didn't dare knock louder. And then just above him, Andrew appeared.

‘What are you doing? Are you lost? That's Sylvia's room. '

‘Oh, oh, I'm so sorry. I thought...

' It's late,’ said Andrew. ' Go back to bed. '

Franklin went down the stairs far enough to be out of Andrew's sight, where he collapsed, bending over, head on his knees. He cried, softly though, not to be heard.

Then he felt an arm across his shoulder, and Colin said, ' Poor old Franklin. Never mind. Don't you get upset about Andrew. He's just one of the world's natural prefects.'

'I love her,' sobbed Franklin. 'I love Sylvia.'

Colin increased the pressure of his arm and let his cheek lie against Franklin's head. He rubbed it on the springy mat which seemed to send a message of health and strength, like heather. 'You don't really,' he said. 'She's still a little girl, you know -yes, she may be sixteen or seventeen or whatever she is but she's... not mature, you know? It's all the fault of her parents. They've screwed her up. ' Here rather to his own surprise he felt laughter bubbling up: absurdity was confronting him. But he persevered: ' They' re all shits, ' he informed Franklin, and turned a laugh into a cough.

Franklin was more bewildered than ever. ‘I think your mother is so nice. She is so kind to me. '

‘Oh, yes, I suppose so. But it's no good, Sylvia, I mean. You'll have to fall in love with someone else. What about...’And he began on a list of girl's names from school, chanting them, like a song. ' There's Jilly and there's – Jolly. There's Milly and there's Molly. There's Elizabeth and Margaret, there's Caroline and Roberta.' He said in his usual voice, and with an ugly laugh, 'No one could say they' re immature. '

But I do love her, Franklin was saying to himself. That delicate pale girl, with her golden fluffy hair, she enchanted him, to hold her in his arms would be... He turned his face away from Colin, and was silent. Colin felt the shoulders under his arm hot and miserable. How well he identified with that misery, how well he did know that nothing he said would make Franklin feel better. He began rocking Franklin gently. Franklin was thinking that all he wanted was to go back to Africa tonight, go for ever, it was all too much, but he knew Colin was kind. And he did like sitting here, with the kind boy's arms around him.

‘Would you like to bring your sleeping bag up to my room? Better than the company of Rose, and we can sleep as long as we like.'

‘Yes... no, no, it's all right. I'll go down now. Thanks, Colin. ‘But I do love her, he was repeating to himself.

'All right, then,' said Colin. He got up, went up.

And Franklin went down. He was thinking, I'm going to get it in the morning – meaning, from Andrew. But Andrew never mentioned it nor referred to it. And Sylvia never knew that Franklin had been forced by his longing to go up the stairs to knock on her door.

When Franklin reached the bottom of the stairs into the basement flat, there was Rose, her hands on her hips, her face twisted with suspicion.

' If you think you' re going to sleep with Sophie, then think again. Colin's mad for her, even if Roland Shattock isn't.'

' Sophie?’ stammered Franklin.

‘Oh, yes, you all have the hots for Sophie. '

' It was a mistake,’ said Franklin. ' A mistake, that's all. '

' Really?’ said Rose. ‘You could have fooled me. ‘And she turned her back on him and went to her bed.

She certainly wasn't in love with Franklin, or even fancied him, but she would have liked him to try. A sister, well she' d show him sister. She couldn't say no to a black boy, could she, it would hurt his feelings.

And Franklin in his bed was curled up and clenched, like a fist, weeping most bitterly.

That tumultuous year, 1968, was peaceful enough in Julia's house, which for a long time had not been crammed with ' the kids' but rather with sober adults.

Four years: it is a long time – that is, it is if you are young.

Sylvia had turned out to be almost unnaturally brilliant, crammed two years' work into one, took exams as if they were pleasurable challenges, seemed to have no friends. She had become a Roman Catholic, often saw a magnetic Jesuit priest called Father Jack, at Farm Street, and went every Sunday to Westminster Cathedral. She was on her way to becoming a doctor.

Andrew had done well, too. He was home from Cambridge often. Why didn't he have a girlfriend? worried his mother. But he said his teeth had been set on edge by all the sour grapes he had had to watch being consumed 'by you lot'.