The Sweetest Dream

' Poor Andrew. '

' Poor Sophie. Well, she's a masochist. You should understand that.'

‘Is that what I am?'

‘You do have a certain talent for long-suffering, wouldn't you agree?'

‘Not now. Not for a long time now.'

He hesitated. This scene might have ended there, but he leaped up, put another teabag in his cup, poured on water that was not boiling, saw his error, fished out the teabag and threw it into the sink, swore, picked it out to drop it into the rubbish bin, caused the kettle to boil, chose another teabag, poured on boiling water – all this in clumsy haste that told Frances that he was not enjoying this encounter. He came back, he put down his cup. He got up and gave the little dog a hasty stroke, and sat down.

' It's not personal, ' he said. ‘But I've been thinking. It's your generation. It's all of you.'

‘Ah,’ said Frances, relieved that they had chosen the familiar ground of abstract principles.

' Saving the world. Paradise on every new agenda. '

‘You are confusing me with your father. ' Then she decided to go on the attack herself. ‘I do get fed up with this. I am always implicated in Johnny's crimes. ' She contemplated the word. ‘Yes, crimes. You could call them that by now. '

‘When could we not have called them that? And do you know what? I actually read in The Times that he said, Yes, mistakes have been made. '

‘Yes. But I did not commit the crimes, nor condone them. ' ‘No, but you' re a world saver, all the same. Just like him. The whole lot of you. What conceit you all have. Do you know that?

You must be the most conceited hubristic generation there has ever been.' He smiled stilclass="underline" he was enjoying this attack, but was feeling guilty too. 'Johnny for ever making speeches and you filling the house with waifs and strays.'

Ah, now they were at the nub of it. She said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don't see what that has got to do with it. I don't remember him ever helping anybody. '

' Helping? Is that what you call it. Well, his place is full all the time of Americans dodging the draft – not that I've got anything against that – and comrades from everywhere.'

' It's not the same thing. '

' Has it ever occurred to you to ask yourself, what would have happened to them if you hadn't taken in Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all?'

' One of them was your Sophie. '

' She never actually moved in. '

' She was practically living here. And how about Franklin? He was here for over a year. He was your friend. '

‘And that bloody Geoffrey. I had him day and night at school and then all the holidays here, for years and years. '

‘But I never knew you disliked him so much. Why didn't you say? Why don't children ever say when they' re unhappy about something. '

' There you are – you didn't even have enough insight to see it.'

‘Oh, Colin. And you' re going to say we shouldn't have let Sylvia stay here. '

‘I’d never say that. '

‘You may not now but you certainly used to. You've made my life a misery with your complaints. Anyway, I'm fed up with this. It's a long time ago. '

' The results are not a long time ago. Did you know that little bitch Rose is going around saying that Julia is a lush and you are a nymphomaniac?'

Frances laughed. It was angry, but genuine. Colin hated that laugh: his stare at her was all miserable accusation. 'Colin, if you only knew what a chaste life I'd led...’But now, summoning the spirit of these times, she said, ‘And anyway, if I had a new man every weekend, it was my right, why not? You' d have no right to say a bloody word. '

The absurdity of this showed itself at once. Colin went white, and sat silent. ' Colin, for God's sake, you know perfectly well...’

The dog intervened. ' Yap, yap, ' it went, ' yap, yap. '

Frances collapsed laughing. Colin smiled, bitterly.

The fact was, the weight of his main accusation lay there between them, a poisoned thing.

'Where did you get all that confidence? Father saving the world, a few million dead here, a few million dead there and you, Do come in and make yourself at home, I'll just kiss the sore places and make them better. ' He sounded beaten into the earth by years of his miserable childhood, and he actually looked like a little boy, eyes full, lips trembling. And Vicious, leaving his chair, came to his master, leaped up on to his knee and began licking his face. Colin put his face – as much of it as would go -into the tiny dog's back, to hide it. Then he lifted it to say, ' Just where did you get it all from, you lot? Who the bloody hell are you – world-savers every one, and making deserts... Do you realise? We' re all screwed up. Did you know Sophie dreams of gas chambers and none of her family was anywhere near them?’And he got up, cuddling the dog.

‘Wait a minute, Colin...’

‘We've dealt with the main item on the agenda – Sophie. She is unhappy. She will go on being unhappy. She will make Andrew unhappy. Then she will find someone else and go on being unhappy. '

He ran out of the room and up the stairs, the little dog barking in his arms, its high absurd yap, yap, yap.

Something was going on in Julia's house that none of the family knew about. Wilhelm and Julia wanted to get married, or at least, for Wilhelm to move in. He complained, humorously at first, that he was being forced to live like a teenager, with little assignations to meet his love at the Cosmo, or for visits to restaurants; he might spend all day and half the night with Julia, but then had to go home. Julia fended off the situation, with jokes to the effect that at least they were not yearning like teenagers for a bed. To which he replied that there was more to a bed than sex. He seemed to remember cuddles, and conversations in the dark, about the ways of the world. Julia did wonder about sharing a bed after so many years as a widow, but increasingly saw his point. She always felt bad, staying comfortably in her room, when he had to go home, through whatever weather there was. His home was a very large flat, where once his wife, who was dead long ago, and two children, now in America, had lived. He was hardly ever in this flat. He was not a poor man, but it was not sensible, keeping up his flat with its doorman and the little garden, while there was this big house of Julia's. They discussed, then argued, then bickered about how things could be arranged.

For Wilhelm to live with Julia in the four little rooms that were enough for her – out of the question. And what would he do with his books? He had thousands of them, some of them part of his stock as a book dealer. Colin had taken over the floor beneath Julia, had colonised Andrew's room. He could not be asked to move – why should he? Of all the people in this house, except Julia herself, he needed most his place, his little secure place in the world. Below Colin was Frances in two good rooms and a little one. And on that floor was the room that was Sylvia's, even if she only came back to it once a month. It was her home and must remain so.

But why should Frances not be asked to move? – Wilhelm wanted to know. She earned enough money these days, didn't she? But Julia refused. She saw Frances as a woman used by the Lennox family to do the job of bringing up two sons, and now – out. Julia had never forgotten how Johnny had demanded that she should go away, into some little flat or other, when Philip died.

Beneath Frances was the big sitting-room that stretched from front to back of the house. It might take more shelves for Wilhelm 's books? But Wilhelm knew Julia did not want this room to be sacrificed. There remained Phyllida. She could now well afford to find her own place. She had the money Sylvia had assured her and she earned steady money as a psychic and fortune teller, and – increasingly – a therapist. When the family heard that Phyllida was now a therapist, the jokes, all on the lines of 'but herself she cannot save' , were unending. But she was attracting patients. To get rid of Phyllida and her persistent customers – no one in the house would object. Yes, one, Sylvia, whose attitude towards her mother was now maternal. She worried about her. And to what end would be Phyllida's moving out? Only useful if Frances would move down, or if Colin did. Why should they? And there was something else, very strong, which Wilhelm only guessed at. Julia's dream was that when Sylvia married or found ' a partner'-a silly phrase Julia thought – that she would move in to the house. Where? Well, Phyllida could leave the basement, and then...