The Sweetest Dream

THE
SWEETEST
DREAM

DORIS LESSING

With gratitude to my editor at Flamingo, Philip Gwyn Jones, and to my agent Jonathan Clowes, for good advice and criticism,
and to Antony Chennells, for help with the Roman Catholic parts of the book.

Contents

Dedication

Author's Note

Epigraph

Begin Reading

 

E-Book Extra

 

About the Author

Other Books by Doris Lessing

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Author's Note

I am not writing volume three of my autobiography
because of possible hurt to vulnerable people. Which
does not mean I have novelised autobiography. There
are no parallels here to actual people, except for one, a
very minor character. I hope I have managed to recapture
the spirit of, particularly, the Sixties, that contradictory
time which, looking back and comparing it with what
came later, seems surprisingly innocent. There was little
of the nastiness of the Seventies, or the cold greed of the
Eighties.

Some events described as taking place at the end of
the Seventies and early Eighties in fact happened later,
by a decade. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
took a stand against the government doing anything at
all to protect the population against the results of nuclear
attack or accident, even fall-out, though surely protection
of its citizens should be any government's first
responsibility. People who believed that the population should be
protected were treated as if they were enemies, attacked
with verbal abuse,
fascists
being the least of it, and
sometimes physically. Death threats . . . unpleasant substances
pushed through letterboxes–the whole gamut of mob
abuse. There has never been a more hysterical, noisy and
irrational campaign. Students of the dynamics of mass
movements will find it all in the newspaper archives, and
I have had letters from them on the lines of, ‘But that
was crazy. Just what was it all about?'

‘And people leave who were warm children.'

Begin Reading

A
N EARLY EVENING
in autumn, and the street below was
a scene of small yellow lights that suggested intimacy,
and people already bundled up for winter. Behind her
the room was filling with a chilly dark, but nothing could dismay
her: she was floating, as high as a summer cloud, as happy as a child
who had just learned to walk. The reason for this uncharacteristic
lightness of heart was a telegram from her former husband, Johnny
Lennox–Comrade Johnny–three days ago.
SIGNED CONTRACT
FOR FIDEL FILM ALL ARREARS AND CURRENT PAYMENT TO YOU
SUNDAY
. Today was Sunday. The ‘all arrears' had been due, she
knew, to something like the fever of elation she was feeling now:
there was no question of his paying ‘all' which by now must
amount to so much money she no longer bothered to keep an
account. But he surely must be expecting a really big sum to
sound so confident. Here a little breeze–apprehension?–did
reach her. Confidence was his–no, she must
not
say
stock-in-trade, even if she had often in her life felt that, but could she
remember him ever being outfaced by circumstances, even
discomfited?

On a desk behind her two letters lay side by side, like a lesson
in life's improbable but so frequent dramatic juxtapositions. One
offered her a part in a play. Frances Lennox was a minor, steady,
reliable actress, and had never been asked for anything more. This
part was in a brilliant new play, a two-hander, and the male part
would be taken by Tony Wilde who until now had seemed so
far above her she would never have had the ambition to think of
her name and his side by side on a poster. And
he
had asked for
her to be offered the part. Two years ago they had been in the
same play, she as usual in a serviceable smaller role. At the end
of a short run–the play had not been a success–she had heard
on the closing night as they tripped back and forth taking curtain
calls, ‘Well done, that was very good.' Smiles from Olympus, she
had thought that, while knowing he had shown signs of being
interested in her. But now she had been watching herself burst
into all kinds of feverish dreams, not exactly taking herself by
surprise, since she knew only too well how battened down she
was, how well under control was her erotic self, but she could
not prevent herself imagining her talent for fun (she supposed she
still had it?) even for reckless enjoyment, being given room, while
at the same time showing what she could do on the stage, if given
a chance. But she would not be earning much money, in a small
theatre, with a play that was a gamble. Without that telegram
from Johnny she could not have afforded to say yes.

The other letter offered her a niche as Agony Aunt (name still
to be chosen) on
The Defender
, well paid, and safe. This would
be a continuation of the other strand of her professional life as a
freelance journalist, which is where she earned money.

She had been writing on all kinds of subjects for years. At first
she had tried her wings in local papers and broadsheets, any place
that would pay her a little money. Then she found she was doing
research for serious articles, and they were in the national
newspapers. She had a name for solid balanced articles that often shone
an unexpected and original light on a current scene.

She would do it well. What else had her experience fitted her
for, if not to cast a cool eye on the problems of others? But saying
yes to that work would have no pleasure in it, no feeling she
would be trying new wings. Rather, she would have to steady
her shoulders with the inner stiffening of resolve that is like a
suppressed yawn.

How weary she was of all the problems, the bruised souls, the
waifs and strays, how delightful it would be to say, ‘Right, you
can look after yourselves for a bit, I am going to be in the theatre
every evening and most of the day too.' (Here was another little
cold nudge: have you taken leave of your senses? Yes, and she
was loving every minute.)

The top of a tree still in its summer leaf, but a bit ragged now,
was glistening: light from two storeys up, from the old woman's
rooms, had snatched it from dark into lively movement, almost
green: colour was implied. Julia was in, then. Readmitting her
mother-in-law–her ex-mother-in-law–to her mind brought a
familiar apprehension, because of the weight of disapproval sifting
down through the house to reach her, but there was something
else she had only recently become aware of. Julia had had to go
to hospital, could have died, and Frances had to acknowledge at
last how much she relied on her. Suppose there was no Julia,
what would she do, what would they all do?

Meanwhile, everyone referred to her as
the old woman
, she too
until recently. Not Andrew, though. And she had noticed that
Colin had begun to call her Julia. The three rooms above hers,
over where she stood now, below Julia's, were inhabited by
Andrew the elder son, and Colin the younger, her and Johnny
Lennox's sons.

She had three rooms, bedroom and study and another, always
needed for someone staying the night, and she had heard Rose
Trimble say, ‘What does she need three rooms for, she's just selfish.'

No one said, Why does Julia need four rooms? The house
was hers. This rackety over-full house, people coming and going,
sleeping on floors, bringing friends whose names she often did
not know, had at its top an alien zone, which was all order, where
the air seemed gently mauve, scented with violets, with cupboards
holding decades-old hats that had veils and rhinestones and
flowers, and suits of a cut and material not to be bought anywhere
now. Julia Lennox descended the stairs, walked down the street,
her back straight, her hands in gloves–there were drawers of
them–wore perfect shoes, hats, coats, in violet or grey or mauve,
and around her was an aura of flower essences. ‘Where does she
get
those clothes?' Rose had demanded before she had taken in
that truth from the past, that clothes could be kept for years, and
not discarded a week after buying them.

Below Frances's slice of the house was a sitting-room that went
from back to front of the house, and there, usually on a huge red
sofa, took place the intense confidences of teenagers, two by two;
or if she opened the door cautiously, she might see on it anything
up to half a dozen of ‘the kids', cuddled together like a litter of
puppies.

The room was not used enough to justify taking such a big
slice out of the centre of the house. The life of the house went
on in the kitchen. Only if there was a party did this room come
into its own, but parties were few because the youngsters went
to discos and pop concerts; though it seemed hard for them to
tear themselves away from the kitchen, and from a very large table
that Julia had once used, one leaf folded down, for dinner parties
when she had ‘entertained'. As she put it.

Now the table was always at full stretch with sometimes sixteen
or twenty chairs and stools around it.

The basement flat was large and often Frances did not know
who was camping out there. Sleeping bags and duvets littered the
floor like detritus after a storm. She felt like a spy going down
there. Apart from insisting they kept it clean and tidy–they were
taken by occasional fits of ‘tidying up' which it was hard to see
made much difference–she did not interfere. Julia had no such
inhibitions, and would descend the little stairs and stand surveying
the scene of sleepers, sometimes still in their beds at midday or
later, the dirty cups on the floors, the piles of records, the radios,
clothes lying about in tangles, and then turn herself around slowly,
a severe figure in spite of the little veils and gloves that might
have a rose pinned at a wrist, and, having seen from the rigidity
of a back, or a nervously raised head that her presence had been
noted, she would go slowly up the stairs, leaving behind her on
the stale air the odours of flowers and expensive face powder.

Frances leaned out of the window to see if light was spilling
down the steps from the kitchen: yes, they were all there then,
and waiting for supper. Who, tonight? She would soon find out.
At that moment Johnny's little Beetle appeared from around the
corner, parked itself neatly, and out stepped Johnny. And, at once,
three days of foolish dreams dissolved, while she thought, I've
been mad, I've been crazy. What made me imagine anything was
going to change? If there was in fact a film, then there wouldn't
be any money for her and the boys, as usual . . . but he had
said
the contract was signed?

In the time it took her to walk slowly, stopping at the desk
to look at the two fateful letters, reaching the door, still taking
her time, beginning to descend the stairs, it was as if the last three
days had not happened. She was not going to be in the play, not
enjoy the dangerous intimacy of the theatre with Tony Wilde,
and she was pretty sure that tomorrow she would write to
The
Defender
and accept their job.