The Sweetest Dream

Johnny said, ' Before we go, I have a message from Geoffrey. He has been on the barricades with me in Paris. He sends greetings.'

' Good God,’ said Colin, ' our little Geoffrey with his nice clean face, on the barricades.'

'He is a very serious, very worthwhile comrade,' said Johnny. 'He has a corner in my place.'

'You sound like an old Russian novel,' said Andrew. 'A corner, what's that translated into English?'

' He and Daniel. They often doss down for a night or two with me. I keep a couple of sleeping bags for them. And now, before we go, I have to ask if you know what Phyllida is up to?'

‘And what is she up to?' asked Sylvia, with such dislike of him that they all saw that other Sylvia. A shock. They were shocked. Franklin laughed, with nervousness. Johnny made himself confront her, and said, ‘Your mother is doing fortune telling. She's advertising on the newsagents' boards as a fortune teller, from this address. '

Andrew laughed. Colin laughed. Then, Frances.

‘What's funny?' enquired Sylvia.

Comrade Mo, finding this culture clash getting out of hand, said, 'I'll nip in one of these days and she can tell my fortune.'

Franklin said, 'If she has the gift, then the ancestors must like her. My grandmother was a wise woman. You people say witch doctor. She was an n'ganga.'

'A shaman,' Johnny instructed them all.

Comrade Matthew said, ‘I agree with Comrade Johnny. This kind of superstition is reactionary and must be forbidden. ' He got up to leave.

' If she's earning a bit of money, then you should expect me to be pleased,’ said Frances to Johnny, who also got up.

'Come on, comrades,’ said Johnny, ' it is time we set off. '

Before he left he hesitated, then said, to regain command of the situation, ' Tell Julia to tell Phyllida she can't do this kind of thing.'

But Frances found she was feeling sorry for Johnny. He was looking so much older – well, they were both nearly fifty. The Mao jacket seemed loose on him. By his dejected air she knew things were not going well for him in Paris. He's past it, she thought. And so am I.

She was wrong about both of them.

Just ahead lay the Seventies, which from one end of the world to the other (the non-communist world) bred a race of Che Guavara clones, and the universities, particularly the London ones, were an almost continuous celebration of Revolution, with demonstrations, riots, sit-ins, lock-outs, battles ofall kinds. Everywhere you looked were these young heroes, and Johnny had become a grand old man, and the fact that he was an almost entirely unrepentant Stalinist had a certain limited chic among these youngsters who mostly believed that if Trotsky had won the battle for power with Stalin then communism would have worn a beatific face. And he had another disability, which meant that his entourage was usually young men, and not eager girls. His style was all wrong. The right one was when Comrade Tommy or Billy or Jimmy summoned some girl with a contemptuous flick of the fingers, and said to her, 'You are bourgeois scum.’And, by implication, leave all you have and come with me.(Rather, give all you have to me.) And this goes on to this day. Irresistible. And there was worse. If cleanliness had once been next to Godliness, then dirt and smelliness was now as good as a Party card. Smelly embraces: these Johnny could not provide, having been brought up by Julia or, rather, her servants. The vocabulary – yes, he could swing along with that. Shit and fuck, sell-out and fascist, a good part of any political speech had to be composed of such words.

But these fumy delights were still ahead.

Wilhelm Stein who so often ascended the stairs on his way to Julia, nodding gravely at whomever he encountered, this evening knocked on the kitchen door, waited till he heard, ' Come in' , and entered, with a little bow. Silvery white hair and beard, his silver-topped cane, his suit, the very set of his spectacles, rebuked the kitchen and the three sitting at the table, having supper.

Invited to sit, by Frances, by Andrew, by Colin, he did so, holding the cane upright beside him, in the grip of a wonderfully-kept right hand, that had a ring with a dark blue stone.

‘I am taking the liberty of coming to talk to you about Julia, ' he said, looking at them one after the other, to impress them with his seriousness. They waited. ‘Your grandmother is not well, ' he said to the young men, and to Frances, ‘I am well aware that it is difficult to persuade Julia to do things she ought, for her own good.'

The three pairs of eyes now gazing at him told him that he had misjudged them. He sighed, almost got up, changed his mind, and coughed. ' It is not that I think you have been neglectful of Julia. '

Colin took it up. He was now a large young man, his round face still boyish, and his heavy black-rimmed spectacles seemed to be trying to keep those features that threatened, far too often, sardonic laughter, in order.

'I know she is not happy,' said Colin. 'We know that.'

'I think she may be ill.'

The trouble was that Julia had lost Sylvia. Yes, the girl was still in the house, this was her home, but events had forced Julia to conclude that this time it was for good. Surely Wilhelm could see this?

Andrew said, ' Julia is breaking her heart over Sylvia. It is as simple as that. '

‘I am not such a stupid old man that I am unaware of Julia's feelings. But simple it is not. '

Now he was getting up, disappointed in them.

‘What do you want us to do?' asked Frances.

' Julia should be less alone. She should be walking more. She goes out very little now and I must insist that it is not her age. I am ten years older than Julia and I have not given up. I am afraid that Julia has done that. '

Frances was thinking that in all those years Julia had never said Yes, when asked to go out to supper, or walking, or to a play, or to a picture gallery. ' Thank you, Frances, You are very kind,’ she always said.

‘I am going to ask your permission to give Julia a dog. No, no, not some great big growler, a little dog. She will have to take it for walks and care for it. '

Once again the three faces told him that he was not going to be informed what they were really thinking.

Did the old man really imagine that a little dog was going to fill the empty place in Julia? A swap: a little dog, for Sylvia!

‘Of course you must give her a dog,’ said Frances, ' if you think she would like that. '

And now Wilhelm, who had just confessed what they would not have guessed, that he was in his eighties, said, ' It is not a question ofwhat I think would be good for her. I must tell you... I am at my wit's end.’And now the gravity, the high seriousness of his manner, his style, broke down, and before them they saw a humbled old man, with tears running into his beard. 'It will be no secret to you that I am very fond of Julia. It is hard to see her so ... so...’And he went out. 'Excuse me, you must excuse me.'

Frances said, 'And who is going to say first, I'm not going to look after that dog?'

Wilhelm arrived with a tiny terrier that he had already named Stuckschel – a scrap, a little thing – and as a joke had put a blue ribbon around its neck. Julia's immediate reaction was to back away from it, as it yapped around her skirts, and then, seeing her old friend's anxiety that she like it, made herself pat the dog and try to calm it. She put on a good enough act to make Wilhelm think that she might learn to like the creature, but when he went, and she had to see to the dog's food, its toilet arrangements, she sat trembling on her chair and thought: He's my best friend and he knows so little about me he thinks I want a dog.

There followed unpleasant days: food for the dog, messes on her floors, smells and the restless little creature who yapped and drove Julia to tears. How could he? she muttered, and when Wilhelm arrived to see how things went, her efforts to be nice told him what a bad mistake he had made.