'Oh yes, the black boys, I have heard about them.'
'I'm here formally to ask you to relinquish that money, because we are sure that is what she would have wished.'
'I don't remember her saying anything to me about it.'
'But, Phyllida, how could she?'
Phyllida gave a little toss ofher head, with a small triumphant smile, that was amused, too, like someone applauding the vagaries ofFate, having won a fortune in the sweepstake, perhaps. 'Finders keepers,' she said. 'And anyhow, something nice is owed to me, that's how I see it.'
There was a family discussion.
Rupert, though a senior editor in his newspaper, and adequately paid, knew that even when he had finished paying for Margaret's school fees (Frances now paid for William) he would have to keep Meriel.
Colin's intelligent novels, described by Rose Trimble as 'elite novels for the chattering classes', were not going to provide for more than the child, and Sophie, who as an actress was often resting. He spent so little on himself he hardly counted.
Frances found herself in a familiar situation. She had been offered a job helping to run a small experimental theatre: her heart's desire, a lot of fun but not much money. Her reliable and serious books, bought by every library in the land, brought in good money. She would have to say no to the theatre and write books. She said she would be responsible for Clever, and Andrew would pay for Zebedee.
Andrew proposed to start a family, but he earned so well he was sure he could manage Zebedee. Things did not turn out as he expected. The marriage was already in trouble, would soon dissolve, after not much more than a year, though Mona was pregnant. Years of legal wrangling would follow, but when Andrew did wrest time with his child from the jealous mother, the little girl was mostly with her cousin Celia, sharing whatever au pair was around, and Celia's daddy's attention. Colin, as Sophie often wailed, was such a wonderful father, and she was such a rotten mother. ('Never mind,' prattled Celia, when Sophie said this, 'you are such a pretty yummy mummy we don't care.')
Where was everyone going to fit in?
Clever would have Andrew's old room, Zebedee Colin's. Colin would use the sitting-room to work in. William was in a room on Frances's and his father's floor. The au pair used Sylvia's old room.
And the basement flat? Someone was in it. Johnny was in it.
Frances had been on her way to a bus stop when she heard hurrying steps behind her and, ' Frances, Frances Lennox. ' She turned to see a woman whose white hair was being blown about while she tried to keep a scarf in place. Frances did not know her... yes, she did, just: it was Comrade Jinny, from the old days, and she was chattering, ‘Oh, I wasn't sure, but yes it's you, well we' re all getting on aren't we, oh dear, I simply had to... it's your husband you see, I'm so worried about him. '
'I left my husband fit and well not five minutes ago.'
'Oh dear, oh dear, silly me, I meant Johnny, Comrade Johnny, if only you two knew what you meant to me when I was young, such an inspiration, Comrades Johnny and Frances Lennox...' 'Look, I'm sorry, but...'
'I hope I'm not speaking out of turn.'
' Just tell me, what is it?'
'He's so old now, poor old thing...
'He's my age.'
'Yes, but some people wear better than others. I just felt you ought to know,' said she, running off and sending back scared but aggressive waves of the hand.
Frances told Colin who said that as far as he was concerned his father could sink or swim. And Frances said that she was damned ifshe was going to pick up Johnny's pieces for him. That left Andrew, who dropped over from Rome for the afternoon. He found Johnny in a quite pleasant room, in Highgate, in the house of a woman he described as the salt of the earth. He was a frail old man with fans of silvery hair around a shiny white pâté, all pathos and vulnerability. He was pleased to see Andrew but he wasn't going to show it. 'Sit down,' he said. 'I'm sure Sister Meg will make us all some tea.’But Andrew remained upright, and said, 'I've come because we hear you've fallen on hard times.'
'Which is more than you have done, so I'm told.'
'I'm glad to say what you hear is all true.'
Not many people in the world would see Johnny's lot as a hard one, but after all, he had spent probably two-thirds ofhis life in comradely luxury hotels in the Soviet Union, Poland, China, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia; in Chile and Angola and Cuba -wherever there had been a comradely conference, Johnny had been there, the world his barrel of oysters, his honeypot, his ever-open jar of Beluga caviar, and here he was, in one room -a nice room, but one room. On his old-age pension. 'And of course the senior bus pass helps.'
'A good member of the proletariat at last,' said Andrew, smiling benevolently from the windows of his gravy train at his dispossessed father.
'And you got married, I hear. I was beginning to think you must be a queer.'
'Who knows these days? But never mind all that, we thought you might like to come and live in the bottom flat?'
'It's my house anyway, so don't make a favour out of it.'
But there were two good rooms, and everything paid for, and he was pleased.
Colin went down to help settle him in and said that he mustn't expect Frances to wait on him.
'It's news to me that she ever did. She was always a lousy housekeeper.'
But Johnny was far from dependent on his family for company. His visitors brought him gifts and flowers as if to a shrine. Johnny was in the process of becoming a holy man, the follower of a senior Indian holy man, and was now often heard to remark, 'Yes, I was a bit of a Red once.' He would sit cross-legged on his pillows on his bed, and his old gesture, palms extended outwards as if offering himself to an audience, fitted in nicely with this new persona. He had disciples, and taught meditation and the Fourfold Sacred Way. In return they kept his rooms clean for him and cooked dishes in which lentils played a leading role.
But this was his new self, perhaps one could describe it as a role, in a play where Sisters and Brothers and Holy Mothers replaced the comrades. His older self did sometimes resurface, when other visitors, old comrades, came around to reminisce as ifthe great failure of the Soviet Union had never happened, as if that Empire was still marching on. Old men, old women, whose lives had been illumined by the great dream, sat about drinking wine in an atmosphere not unlike that ofthose far-offcombative evenings, except for one thing: they did not smoke now, whereas once it would have been hard to see across a room for the smoke that had been through their lungs.
Late, before the guests left, Johnny would lower his voice and lift his glass, and propose a toast, 'To Him.'
And with tender admiration they drank to possibly the cruellest murderer who has ever lived.
They say that for decades after Napoleon's death old soldiers met in taverns and bars and, secretly, in each other's hovels, raised their glasses to The Other: they were the few survivors of the Grand Armée (whose heroic feats had achieved precisely nothing, except the destruction of a generation), crippled men, whose health had gone and who had survived unspeakable sufferings. But so what, it is always The Dream that counts.
Johnny had another visitor, Celia, who would descend on the hand of Marusha or Bertha or Chantal and run to Johnny. 'Poor little Johnny. '
‘But that's your grandfather! You can't call him that. '
The faery child took no notice, stroked the old chastened head, kissed it, and sang her little song, ' That's my little grandfather, that's my poor little Johnny. '
The conjunction of Colin and Sophie had produced a rare being: everyone felt it. The big lads, William and Clever and Zebedee, played with her delicately, almost humbly, as if this was a privilege, a favour she was doing them.