Doris Lessing - The Sweetest Dream

'No worst there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief..."

No.

He chose The Caged Skylark, which she had liked, for there was a pencil line beside it, and then the poem Spring and Fall , to a young child, beginning,

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

This had a line beside it too, but it was the dark poems that had the double, triple heavy black lines beside them, and jagged exclamation marks too.

So the family felt they were betraying Julia, choosing the softer poems. And, too, they had to tell themselves that they had not known Julia, could never have guessed at those deep black lines beside

I wake and feel the fell ofdark, not day.

What hours, O what black hours we have spent...

There ought to be some German poetry but Wilhelm was not there to advise.

Andrew read the poems. His voice was light, but strong enough for the occasion: there were few people there, apart from the family. Mrs Philby stood well away from them, in blackest black, from her hat, kept for funerals, to her boots, that shone, a reproach to them: she continued in her role which was to shame the sloppy ways of the family. None of them was in black, only her. Her face was vindictive with righteousness. She wept, though, at the end. 'Mrs Lennox was my oldest friend,' she told Frances, in severe reproach. 'I shall not be coming to you again. I only came because of her. '

Halfway through the proceedings a gaunt figure, his white locks and loose clothes fluttering in a wind that blew through the gravestones, appeared and wandered uncertainly towards the funeral group. It was Johnny, sombre, unhappy, and looking much older than he should. He stood well apart from any of them, half turned away, as if ready to run off. The words of the service were an affront to him, it was evident. At the end his sons and Frances went towards him, to ask him back to the house, but he only nodded, and stalked off. At the limits of the graveyard he turned and gave them a salute with his open right hand, palm towards them, at shoulder level.

Sylvia was not at the funeral. The telephone lines to St Luke's Mission were down, because of a bad storm.

Meanwhile Frances's life with Rupert was not going as they had expected. She was virtually living in his place, though her books and papers were at Julia's. It was not a big flat. The sitting-room, which was also where they ate, with a tiny kitchen through a hatch, was a third of the size of Julia's. The big bedroom was adequate. The two small rooms were for the two children, Margaret and William, who came at weekends. When Meriel had gone off to live with a new man, Jaspar, there had been plans to buy something bigger. Frances liked the children well enough and believed they did not dislike her: they were polite and obedient. From their mother's flat they went off to school, and with their mother and Jaspar went for holidays. Then one weekend they were strained, silent, and said that their mother wasn't well. And no, Jaspar wasn't there. The children did not look at each other, imparting this information but it was as if they exchanged looks full of dread.

It was at this moment that real life caught up with her again: that was how Frances felt it. In the months – no, years now -she had spent with Rupert she had become a different person, slowly learning to take happiness for granted. Good Lord, just imagine, if there had been no Rupert she would have gone on in the same dull willed routine of duty, and without love, sex, intimacy.

Rupert went off with the children to their mother's and found what he had dreaded. Years ago, after the birth of Margaret, she had suffered a depression, a real one. He had seen her through it, she had got better, but lived in terror that it might recur. It had. Meriel sat curled up in the corner of a sofa, staring at nothing, in a dirty dressing-gown, her hair unwashed and uncombed. The children stood on either side of their father, staring at their mother, then pressed close to him so he could put his arms around them.

'Where is Jaspar?' he asked the silent woman, who was evidently a long way off, inside the dreadful suffering of the depressive.

After a time he repeated the question, and she said, irritated at the interruption, ' Gone. '

‘Is he coming back?'

'No.'

That seemed to be all he was going to get out of her, but then she said, in a thick indifferent mutter, not moving, not turning her head, ' Better take the kids. They'll get nothing here. '

Rupert collected up books, toys, clothes, school gear, under the direction of Margaret and William, and then back to Meriel. 'What are you going to do?' he asked. A long silence. She shook her head, meaning, Leave me alone, and then when the three were already at the door, she said in the same tone, ' Get me into hospital. Any hospital. I don't care. '

The children were installed again in their old rooms, and at once the whole flat was awash with their possessions. They were frightened, and silent.

Rupert rang their doctor, who would arrange for Meriel to go into a psychiatric ward. He tried to ring Jaspar, but his call was not returned.

Frances was having hard, cool thoughts. She knew that Jaspar was not likely to come back to Meriel, if he had gone off in fright at the experience of being with a depressive. He was ten years younger, was an ornament of the fashion world, designing sports clothes and making money. His name was often in the newspapers. Why had he taken on a woman with two half-grown children? Rupert had said he believed the young man had enjoyed seeing himself as mature and responsible, proving that he was a serious person. He had the reputation of being too trendy for his own good, drugs, wild parties – all that. To which scene he had presumably returned. That meant that Meriel was without a man, and would very likely want her husband back. And here were two children in emotional shock, and here she was, a mother substitute. And yes, she was suffering that awed and appalled feeling that comes when life recurs, in a familiar pattern. She thought, I am in danger of being landed with these kids – no, I have been landed with them. Do I want that?

Margaret was twelve, William was ten. They would soon be adolescent. She was not afraid that Rupert would let her down, relinquish responsibility to her, but that their intimacy would not only suffer – it would have to – and it might disappear, sucked into the insensate demands of teenagers. But she liked Rupert so much... she did so like him... she loved the man. She could say, seriously, she had not loved till now – yes, she would say yes to whatever turned up. And after all, even depressions take themselves off, and then the children would want to be with their mother.

From the hospital where Meriel was came scrawls, you could not call them letters, in wild handwriting. 'Rupert, don't let the children come here. It won't be good for them. Frances, Margaret has asthma, she needs a new prescription. '

The doctors, telephoned by Rupert, said she was very ill but would recover. Her previous illness had lasted two years.

Frances and Rupert lay side by side in the dark, her head on his right shoulder, his right hand on her right breast. Her hand lay on his inner thigh, her knuckles against his balls, a soft but self-respecting weight that was giving her confidence. This connubial and time-honoured scene was how they spent the halfhour before sleep, whether love-making had taken place or not. The subject that both had been skirting around now had to be dealt with.

‘Where was Meriel when she was ill, those two years?'

'Mostly in bed. She wasn't up to much.'

' She can't stay in hospital for two years. '

‘No, she'll need looking after. '

‘I suppose Jaspar isn't going to rally around?'

‘Is it likely?'