The Sweetest Dream

' Clever and Zebedee,’ said Sylvia. ' They have been helping me at the hospital. I shall get them into school the moment I can. They are going to be doctors. They are sad because their father has just died. They have no family left. '

‘Ah,’ said Colin, and nodded welcome to the boys, whose sad scared grins seemed permanently fixed. 'I'm sorry. I do see that all this must be terribly difficult for you. You'll get used to it. '

‘Is Sophie at the theatre? '

'Sophie is intermittently with Roland – no, she hasn't actually left me. I would say she is living with both of us.'

‘I see. '

‘Yes, that's how things are. '

' Poor Colin. '

' He sends her four dozen red roses at the slightest excuse or meaningful messages of pansies or forget-me-nots. I never think of things like that. It serves me right.'

‘Oh, poor Colin. '

‘And from the look of you, poor Sylvia. '

' She is sick. Sylvia is very sick, ' the boys came in. Last night on the plane they had been frightened, not only of the unfamiliar plane, but Sylvia kept vomiting, going off to sleep, and coming awake with a cry and tears. As for them, she had shown them how the toilets worked, and they thought they had understood, but Clever had pushed what must have been the wrong button, because next time he made his way there the door had Out of Order on it. They both felt the stewardesses were looking at them critically, and that if they did something stupid the plane might crash because of them.

Now, when Sylvia put her arms around them, as she sat between them, they could feel that she was cold, through her clothes, and was shivering. They were not surprised. The view out of the window coming from the airport, all oozing grey skies and endless buildings and so many people bundled up like parcels made them both want to put their heads under a blanket.

'I take it none of you slept a wink on the plane?' asked Colin.

'Not much,' said Sylvia. 'And the boys were too overcome with everything. They are from a village, you see. All this is new to them. '

‘I understand,’ said Colin, and did, as far as anyone can who has not seen for himself.

‘Is there anyone in Andrew's old room?'

‘I work in it. '

‘And in your old room, '

‘William is in it. '

'And in the little room on that floor? We can get two beds in there. '

' Bit crammed, surely, with two beds?'

Zebedee said, 'There were five people living in our hut until my sister died. '

' She wasn't really our sister,’ said Clever. ' She was our cousin, if you reckon by your ideas. We have a different kinship system. ' He added, ' She died. She got very sick and died. '

‘I know they are not the same. I look forward to your explaining it to me. ' Colin was just beginning to distinguish the boys from each other. Clever was the thin, eager one with enormous appealing eyes; Zebedee was bulkier, with big shoulders and a smile that reminded him of Franklin's.

' Can we look at that fridge? We have never seen a fridge as big as that before. '

Colin showed them the fridge, with its many shelves, its interior lighting, its freezing compartments. They exclaimed, and admired and shook their heads, and then stood yawning.

' Come on,’ said Colin, and he went up the stairs, with his arms on their shoulders, Sylvia behind them. Stairs, stairs – the boys had not seen stairs until the Selous Hotel. Up they went, past the living-room floor, past Frances's and Rupert's, and the little room where once Sylvia had had her being, to the floor that had housed Colin's and Andrew's growing up. In the little room was already a big bed, and just as Colin was saying, 'We'll fix you up with something better,' the two flung themselves down on it and were asleep, just like that.

' 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.'