The Sweetest Dream

‘No veil?’

‘No veil.’

‘My God, coming over here, all by herself to us cold English. What was grandfather like?’

‘I didn’t meet him. They weren’t approving of Johnny much. And certainly not of me.’ Trying to find reasons for the enormity of it all, she went on, ‘You see, it was the Cold War.’

He now had his arms folded on the table, supporting him, and he was frowning, staring at her, trying to understand. ‘The Cold War,’ he said.

‘Good Lord,’ she said, struck, ‘of course, I’d forgotten, my parents didn’t approve of Johnny. They actually wrote me a letter saying that I was an enemy of my country. A traitor – yes, I think they said that. Then they had second thoughts and came to see me – you and Colin were tiny then. Johnny was there and he called them rejects of history.’ She seemed on the verge of tears, but it was from remembered exasperation.

Up went his brows, his face struggled with laughter, lost and he sat waving his arms about, as if to cancel the laughter. ‘It’s so funny,’ he tried to apologise.

‘I suppose it’s funny, yes.’

He dropped his head on his arms, sighed, stayed there a long minute. Through his arms came the words, ‘I just don’t think I’ve got the energy for …’

‘What? Energy for what?’

‘Where did you lot get it from, all that confidence? Believe me, I’m a very frail thing in comparison. Perhaps I am a reject of history?’

‘What? What do you mean?’

He lifted up his face. It was red, and there were tears. ‘Well, never mind.’ He waved his hands again, dispersing bad thoughts. ‘Do you know, I might easily have a little taste of your feast.’

‘Didn’t you get any Christmas dinner?’

‘Phyllida was in a state. She was crying and screaming and fainting in coils. You know she really is rather mad. I mean, really.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Julia says it was because they sent her off – Phyllida – to Canada, at the beginning of the war. Apparently she was unlucky, it wasn’t a very nice family. She hated it all. And when she got home she was a changeling, her parents said. They hardly recognised each other. She was ten when she left. Nearly fifteen when she got back.’

‘Then I suppose, poor Phyllida.’

‘I think so. And look what a bargain she’s got with Comrade Johnny.’ He pulled the tray towards him, got up to fetch a spoon, knife and fork, sat down, and had just dipped the spoon into the soup when the outer door banged, and the door behind them noisily opened and Colin came in, bringing cold air with him, a sense of the dark outside, and, like an accusation against them both, his unhappy face.

‘Do I see food? Actually, food?’

He sat down, and using the spoon Andrew had just brought, began on the soup.

‘Didn’t you get any Christmas lunch?’

‘No. Sophie’s ma has gone all Jewish on her and says what has Christmas got to do with her? But they’ve always had Christmas.’ He had finished the soup. ‘Why don’t you cook food like this?’ he accused Frances. ‘Now that’s a soup.’

‘How many quails do you think I’d have to cook for each of you, with your appetites?’

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Andrew. ‘Fair’s fair.’ He brought a plate to the table, then another, for Colin, and another knife and fork. He put a quail on to his plate.

‘You are supposed to heat those up for ten minutes,’ said Frances.

‘Who cares? Delicious.’

They were eating in competition with each other. And having reached the end of the quails, their spoons hovered together over the pudding. And that vanished, in a couple of mouthfuls.

‘No Christmas pudding?’ said Colin. ‘No Christmas pudding at Christmas?’

Frances got up, fetched a can of Christmas pudding from the high shelf where it had been quietly maturing, and in a moment had it steaming on the stove.

‘How long will that take?’ asked Colin.

‘An hour.’

She put loaves of bread on the table, then butter, cheese, plates. They polished off the Stilton, and began serious eating, the vandalised tray pushed aside.

‘Mother,’ said Colin, ‘we’ve got to ask Sophie to come and live here.’

‘But she is practically living here.’

‘No – properly. It’s got nothing to do with me … I mean, I’m not saying Sophie and me are a fixture, that isn’t it. She can’t go on at home. You wouldn’t believe what she’s like, Sophie’s mother. She cries and grabs Sophie and says they must jump off a bridge together, or take poison. Imagine living with that?’ It sounded as if he were accusing her, Frances, and, hearing that he did, said differently, even apologetically, ‘If you could just get a taste of that house, it’s like walking into the Black Hole of Calcutta.’

‘You know how much I like Sophie. But I don’t really see Sophie going down into the basement to share with Rose and whoever turns up. I take it you aren’t expecting her to move in with you?’

‘Well … no, it’s not … that’s not on. But she could camp in the living-room, we hardly ever use it.’

‘If you’ve packed up with Sophie, do I have your permission to take my chance?’ enquired Andrew. ‘I’m madly in love with Sophie, as everyone must know.’

‘I didn’t say …’

And now these two young men reverted to the condition schoolboy, began jostling each other, elbow to elbow, knee to knee.

‘Happy Christmas,’ said Frances, and they desisted.

‘Talking of Rose, where is she?’ said Andrew. ‘Did she go home.’

‘Of course not,’ said Colin. ‘She’s downstairs, alternately sobbing her heart out and making up her face.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Andrew.

‘You forget the advantages of a progressive school. I know all about women.’

‘I wish I did. While my education is in every way better than yours, I fail continually in the human department.’

‘You’re doing pretty well with Sylvia,’ said Frances.

‘Yes, but she isn’t a woman, is she? More the ghost of a little child someone has murdered.’

‘That’s awful,’ said Frances.