Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

‘Who? What are you talking about?'

‘My father. He's left me money. '

At once Phyllida's face seemed to burst into anger, and Sylvia said, ' Just listen, that's all I ask, just listen. '

But Phyllida was off, her voice in the swell and fall of her lament, ‘And so I count for nothing, of course I don't count, he's left you the money...’But Sylvia had flung herself into a chair and was asleep. There she lay, limp, quite gone away from the world.

Phyllida was suspicious that this was a trick or a trap. She peered down at her daughter, even lifted a flaccid hand and let it drop. She sat down, heavily, amazed, shocked – and silenced. She did know Sylvia worked hard, everyone knew about the young doctors... but that she could go off to sleep, just like that... Phyllida picked up the letter which had fallen on the floor, read it, and sat with it in her hand. She had not had the opportunity to sit and look at her daughter, really look, for years. Now she did look. Tilly was so thin and pale and washed out – it was a crime, what they expected of young doctors, someone should pay for it...

These thoughts ran out into silence. The heavy curtains were drawn, the whole house was quiet. Perhaps Tilly should be woken? She would be late for work. That face – it was not at all like hers. Tilly's mouth, it was her father's, pink and delicate. Pink and delicate would do to describe him, Comrade Alan, a hero, well let them think it. She had married two communist heroes, first one, and then the other. What was the matter with her, then? (This until now uncharacteristic self-criticism was soon to take her into the Via Dolorosa of psychotherapy and from there into a new life.)

When Tilly came down to tell her of the legacy, was that boasting? A taunt? But Phyllida's sense of justice told her it was not so. Sylvia was full of airs and graces and she hated her mother, but Phyllida had never known her spiteful.

Sylvia woke with a start and thought she was in a nightmare. Her mother's face, coarse, red, with wild accusing eyes, was just above her, and in a moment that voice would start, as it always did, talking at her, shouting at her. You have ruined my life. If I hadn't had you my life would have been... You are my curse, my millstone...

Sylvia cried out and pushed her mother away, and sat up. She saw her letter in Phyllida's hand, and snatched it. She stood up and said, 'Now listen, mother, but don't say anything, don't say anything, please, it's unfair he gave me all the money, I'll give you half. I'll tell the lawyer. And she ran out of the room, with her hands over her ears.

Sylvia informed the lawyers, having consulted with Andrew, and the arrangements were made. Giving Phyllida halfmeant that a substantial legacy became a useful sum, enough to buy a good house, insurance – security. Andrew told her to get financial advice.

Suddenly there was only one set of fees to pay – Andrew's. Frances decided that the next time she was offered a good part she would take it.

Once again Wilhelm knocked on the kitchen door, but this time Doctor Stein was all smiles, and as bashful as a boy. Again it was Sunday evening, and Frances and the two young men were making a family scene at the supper table.

'I have news,' said Wilhelm to Frances. 'Colin and I have news.' He produced a letter and waved it about. 'Colin, you should read it aloud... no? Then I shall. '

And he read out a letter from a good publisher, saying that Colin's novel, The Stepson, would be published soon, and that great things were hoped for it.

Kisses, embraces, congratulations, and Colin was inarticulate with pleasure. In fact, the letter had been expected. Wilhelm had read and condemned Colin's two earlier attempts, but this one had been approved by him, and he had found the publisher – a friend. And Colin's long apprenticeship to his own patience and stubbornness was over. While the humans kissed and exclaimed and hugged, the scrap of a dog bounced and barked, its tiny yaps ecstatic with the need to join in, and then it leaped on to Colin's shoulder and stood there, its feather of a tail going like a windscreen-wiper all over Colin's face, and threatening his spectacles.

' Vicious, down, ' chided Colin, and the absurdity choked him with tears and laughter and he jumped up, shouting, ' Vicious, Vicious...’ and rushed up the stairs with the little dog in his arms.

‘Wonderful,’ said Wilhelm Stein, ' wonderful, ' and having kissed the air above Frances's hand, departed, smiling, up to Julia, who, when she had been told the news by her friend, sat silent for some time, then said, ‘And so I was wrong. I was very wrong. ‘And Wilhelm, knowing how Julia hated being in the wrong, turned away, so as not to see the tears of self-criticism in her eyes. He poured two glasses of madeira, taking his time over it, and said, ' He has a considerable talent, Julia. But more important, he knows how to stick at it. '

' Then I shall apologise to him, for I have not been kind. '

'And perhaps tomorrow you will come with me to the Cosmo? A little walk, Julia, that won't do you any harm. '

And so Julia apologised to Colin, who, because of her evident emotional disarray, took time and trouble to reassure her. Then, her arm in Wilhelm's, Julia descended the hill gently to the Cosmo, where he courted her with cakes and compliments, and all around them the flames of political debate leaped or smouldered.

Frances read The Stepson, and gave it to Andrew, who remarked, 'Interesting. Very interesting.'

Years before Frances had had to sit and hear Colin's criticism of her, and his father, angry and merciless, so that she felt she was being shrivelled up by rivers of lava. Here was all that anger distilled. It was the tale of a small boy whose mother had married a mountebank, a scoundrel with a magic tongue, who concealed his crimes behind screens of persuasive words that promised all kinds of paradises. He was unkind to the little boy, or ignored him. Whenever the child thought this tormentor had disappeared, he turned up again, and his mother succumbed to his charms. For charming he was, in a sinister way. The tale was told by the child to an imaginary friend, the lonely child's traditional companion, and it was sad and funny, because the distorted vision of a child could be interpreted by the adult reader as something exaggerated, distorted: the almost nightmare scenes like candle-shadows on a wall were in fact commonplace, and even tawdry. A publisher's reader had described the book as a little masterpiece, and perhaps it was. But the mother and older brother were seeing something else, how frightful unhappiness had been distanced by the magic of the tale: Colin showed himself in this book to be grown-up, and Andrew said, ‘Do you know, I think my little brother has outreached me: I don't think I could achieve anything like this degree of detachment. '

‘Was it so bad?' Frances asked, afraid of his answer which was, ‘Yes, it was, I don't think you realise... I don't see how he could have been a worse father, do you?'

' He didn't beat you,’ said Frances feebly, trawling for something to make the history better.

Andrew said that there are worse things than beating.

But when it was decided to have a little dinner to celebrate The Stepson, Colin himself added his father's name to the list.

So the big table would again have 'everyone' around it. 'I've asked everyone,' said Colin. Sophie was the first to be asked and to accept. Geoffrey and Daniel and James, all habituesof Johnny's place, said they would come but would be late – a meeting. Johnny said the same. Jill, met by Colin in the street, said she would come. Julia said that no one wanted a boring old woman, and Wilhelm told her, ‘My dear one, you are talking foolishly. ' Sylvia said she would try to come, if her hours permitted.