They drove back to the Growth Point, picked up the waiting people, and proceeded slowly to the Mission, all listening for a burst tyre. Their luck held. Rebecca and Sylvia took the bedpans down to the hospital. The seriously ill people, in the big new hut built by Sylvia when she first came, had been using old bottles, cans, discarded kitchen utensils. 'What are those things?' asked Joshua's brother's little boys, and when they understood, they were delighted and ran about showing them to anyone well enough to care.
Colin opened the door to a timid ring, and saw what he thought was a mendicant child or a gipsy and then, with a roar of ' It's Sylvia, it's little Sylvia, ' lifted her inside. There he hugged her, and she shed tears on his cheeks, bent down to rub hers, like a cat's greeting.
In the kitchen he sat her at the table, the table, again extended to its full length. He poured a river of wine into a big glass and sat opposite her, full of welcome and pleasure.
‘Why didn't you say you were coming? But it doesn't matter. I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you. '
Sylvia was trying to lift her mood to his height, because she was dispirited, London sometimes having this effect on Londoners who have been away from it and who, while living in it, have had so little idea ofits weight, its multitudinous gifts and capacities. London, after the Mission, was hitting her a blow somewhere in the stomach region. It is a mistake to come too fast from, let's say, Kwadere, to London: one needs something like the equivalent of a decompression chamber.
She sat smiling, taking little sips of wine, afraid to do more, for she was not used to wine these days, feeling the house like a creature all around her and above her and below her, her house, the one she had known best as home when she had been conscious of what was going on in it, the atmospheres and airs of every room and stretches of the staircase. Now the house was populous, she could feel that, it was full of people, but they were alien presences, not her familiars and she was grateful for Colin, sitting there smiling at her. It was ten in the evening. Upstairs someone was playing a tune she ought to know, probably something famous, like 'Blue Suede Shoes' – it had that claim on her – but she couldn't name it.
' Little Sylvia. And it looks to me that you need a bit of feeding up, as always. Can I give you something to eat?'
‘I ate on the plane. '
But he was up, opening the refrigerator door, peering at its shelves, and again Sylvia felt a blow to her heart, yes it was her heart, it hurt, for she was thinking of Rebecca, in her kitchen, with her little fridge, and her little cupboard which to her family down in the village represented some extreme of good fortune, generous provisioning: she was looking at the eggs filling half the door of the fridge, at the gleaming clean milk, the crammed containers, the plenitudes...
' This is not really my territory, it's Frances's, but I'm sure...’ he fetched out a loaf of bread, a plate of cold chicken. Sylvia was tempted: Frances had cooked it, Frances had fed her; with Frances on one side and Andrew on the other, she had survived her childhood.
‘What is your territory, then?’ she asked, tucking in to a chicken sandwich.
‘I am upstairs, at the top of the house. '
' In Julia's place?'
' I, and Sophie. '
This surprised her into putting down her bit of sandwich, as if relinquishing safety for the time being.
‘You and Sophie!'
‘Of course, you didn't know. She came here to recuperate, and then... she was ill, you see. '
'And then?'
'Sophie is pregnant,' he said, 'and so we are about to get married.'
'Poor Colin,' she said, and then coloured up from shame -after all, she did not really know...
‘Not entirely poor Colin. After all, I am very fond of Sophie. '
She resumed her sandwich, but put it down: Colin's news had clamped her stomach shut. ‘Well, go on. I can see you are miserable.'
' Perspicacious Sylvia. Well, you always were, while apparently only little miss-I-am-not-here-at all. '
This hurt, and he had meant it to. ‘No, no, I'm sorry. I really am. I'm not myself. You've caught me at a... Well, perhaps I am myself, at that. '
He poured more wine.
' Don't drink until I've heard. '
He set down his glass. ' Sophie is forty-three. It's late. '
‘Yes, but quite often old mothers...’ She saw him wince.
' Quite so. An old mother. But believe it or not Down's Syndrome babies – ever so jolly I hear they are? – and all the other horrors are not the worst. Sophie is convinced that I am convinced she coaxed the baby into her reluctant womb, to make use of me, because it is getting late for her. I know she didn'tdoiton purpose, it is not her nature. But she won't let it go. Day and night I hear her wails of guilt: ' 'Oh, I know what you're thinking...'' ' -And Colin wailed the words, with great effect. ‘Do you know something? yes, ofcourse you do. There is no pleasure to compete with the pleasure of guilt. She is rolling in it, wallowing in it, my Sophie is, she's having the time of her life, knowing that I hate her because she has trapped me and nothing I can say will stop her because it's such fun, being guilty. ' This was as savage as she had heard ever from savage Colin, and she saw him lift his glass and down the lot in a gulp.
‘Oh, Colin, you' re going to be drunk and I see you so seldom. '
'Sylvia – you're right.' He refilled his glass. 'But I will marry her, she is already seven months, and we will live upstairs in Julia's old flat – four rooms, and I shall work down at the bottom of the house – when it's empty.' Here his face, reddened and angry as it was, spread into that exhilaration of pleasure that goes with the contemplation of life's relentless sense of drama. 'You did know that Frances took on two kids with her new bloke?'
‘Yes, she wrote. '
‘Did she tell you there is a wife, a depressive? She is downstairs, in the flat where Phyllida was.'
‘But...’
‘No buts. It has worked out as well as might be. She has recovered from her depression. The two children are upstairs where Andrew and I used to be. Frances and Rupert are in the flat she always had.'
' So it has worked out?'
‘But the two children reasonably enough think that now their mother has broken off with her fancy man, then why shouldn't their father and mother get together again, and Frances should just fade out. '
' So they are being horrible to Frances?'
‘Not at all. Much worse. They are very polite and reasonable. The merits are argued out over every meal. The little girl, a real little bitch by the way, says things like, ' ‘But it would be so much better for us if you went away, wouldn't it, Frances?' ' It's the little girl really, not the boy. Rupert is hanging on to Frances for dear life. Understandably, if you know Meriel. '
Sylvia was thinking about Rebecca with her six children, two of them dead, probably from AIDS – but perhaps not – her usually absentee husband, working eighteen hours a day, and never complaining.
She sighed, saw Colin's look: ‘How lucky you are, Sylvia, to be so far away from our unedifying emotional messes. '
‘Yes, I am sometimes glad I am not married – sorry. Go on. Meriel...’
' Meriel – well, now she's a prize. She's cold, manipulative, selfish and has always treated Rupert badly. She's a feminist – you know? With all the law of the jungle behind her? She has always told Rupert that it is his duty to keep her, and she made him pay for her taking a degree in some rubbish or other, the higher criticism, I think. She has never earned a penny. And now she is trying to get a divorce where he keeps her in perpetuity. She belongs to a group of women, a secret sisterhood – you don't believe me? – whose aim it is to screw men for everything they can get. '