Sweet Dreams

~ ~ ~

“You should have been there,” Howard tells his wife next morning, as they sit over their second cup of coffee on one of the upper terraces. Their house, Carceri, is a complex world of ancient stone galleries and courtyards, with weird (and scheduled) spiral staircases that you go up only to find yourself on the floor below the one you started on — an old dungeon perched among the treetops on a hillside overlooking the city, which they found by a miracle, and had converted. The sun is shining. Felicity is lying back with her eyes closed, and her face lifted to the light. Her long legs and bare feet are brown; her eyebrows and the down on her arms shine pale gold. Pigeons are purling in the trees. Beyond the branches, the traffic of the city flows endlessly; complex, remote, silent. The children are at school. The school is many-windowed, relaxed, colourful, with a good social mix and high academic standards. It’s reached by a pedestrian walkway through the treetops, well away from all roads. They got their children into it by a miracle.

“Barratt was there,” says Howard, “making sure everyone knew he’d just had lunch with God.”

Felicity’s lips bend into a smile.

“Everyone was sending him up,” says Howard. “It was terrible. You really should have been there. The Waylands were there — of course. Bill Goody asked Michael if he’d ever met God himself. ‘I think so,’ said Michael. ‘I think the name rings a bell.’”

Felicity laughs quietly, without opening her eyes. Then she compresses her lips doubtfully.

“All right,” says Howard, smiling to himself, on the side of his face away from her, in case she opens her eyes, “I made that bit up. But he did ask after you. ‘Where’s the lovely Lady Catherine?’ he said when I arrived. The last thing he said when I left was, ‘Tell Jean I’m still as much in love with her as ever.’”

She puts her hand over his. He looks at her.

“There was no one there as beautiful as you,” he says. “Luci Hayter looked as if she’d been up every night for a week. And I don’t know what Prue was wearing. I think she’d knitted it herself out of old pieces of string she’d saved from the children’s birthday presents.”

The sun grows hotter moment by moment. An aircraft passes high overhead.

“Francis Fairlie was there. He said he’d been meaning to invite us to dinner ever since he arrived. I think the only thing that’s holding him up is making up his mind whether to get married first, and have a wife sitting down the other end of the table.”

Felicity turns onto her stomach. She has no clothes on, Howard notices. Her buttocks look like two golden apples in the sun, wrinkled, like ripe apples, where they meet the top of her legs.

“I like our friends,” says Howard. “We get a lot of pleasure out of them. But then I suppose they do out of us. Somewhere out there Michael Wayland is saying to his wife, ‘God, when what’s-that-man’s-name began telling that enormously long story about how he made a fool of himself crawling round the floor on his hands and knees, which he obviously found so funny, I thought I’d die.’ It’s good to feel that one gives pleasure.”

Bees hum. From somewhere far away comes the drone of a mower, and the smell of the cut grass.

“Did you tell a story about crawling around on your hands and knees?” asks Felicity.

“I’m afraid I did.”

“I don’t know that one.”

“No. I was making it up as I went along. I got it all back to front, and couldn’t think of a punch line. It didn’t seem to matter, though. They all thought it was marvellous. Thought it was the funniest thing since the invention of piles.”

On an impulse he leans across and takes a bite out of her right-hand buttock. It is just as he had imagined — crisp, sweet, and juicy. Her lips curl back from her teeth with pleasure. She takes his hand, and gently crushes each of his fingers in turn between her lips, like buttered asparagus.

Matthew, the six-year-old, leans against Howard’s chair, scuffing his feet about and reading from his Janet-and-John book, On We Plod.

“Janet and John go for a walk,” he reads. “They go for a walk with their father. Who is this they see? It is Tim and Topsy. Tim and Topsy are going for a walk, too. They are going for a walk with their father.”

“Good,” says Howard, thinking about tea-time.

“‘Hello, Tim and Topsy,’ say Janet and John.

“‘Hello, Janet and John,’ say Tim and Topsy.

“‘Hello, Mr…. Aeroplane …’”

Howard squints over his son’s shoulder.

“‘Hello, Mr. Wayland,’ ” he prompts. “Mr. Wayland! That’s funny. We know someone called Mr. Wayland, don’t we?”

“‘Hello, Mr. Wayland,’ says Father,” reads Matthew.

“‘Hello, Mr. Um,’ says Mr. Wayland.”

Howard looks over Matthew’s shoulder again. He bursts out laughing.

“What?” demands Matthew suspiciously.

“Nothing. That’s right! Mr. Um. It’s very funny, that’s all. Felicity, can you hear this? Go on, Matt.”

“See,” reads Matthew, “Mr. Wayland has forgotten their names. Mr. Wayland is not good at remembering things. Father is good at remembering things. Janet and John are good at remembering things. Even Tim and Topsy are good at remembering things.

“See, Mr. Wayland has a funny look on his face. He thinks a friend will come along. He thinks his friend will not know Father. He thinks he will have to say, ‘Do you know Mr. Um?’ ”

Howard laughs.

“Are you listening to this, Felicity?” he asks.

“He thinks that Father will be sad,” reads Matthew. “He thinks that Janet and John will be sad.

“But Janet and John do not care whether Mr. Wayland knows their name. They do not care fourpence. Father does not care. He does not care fivepence.

“Here are Pat and Pete. They are out for a walk with their father.

“See, now Mr. Wayland is running away.

“‘Good-bye, Mr. Wayland. Good-bye, Tim. Good-bye, Topsy.’”

Matthew puts his marker in and closes the book. Howard runs his hand through the boy’s hair.

“Very well read, Matt.” he says. “Isn’t he getting on well, Flic?”

Matthew makes his clumsy face, and moves his feet about.

“That’s what I think is so good about this school,” says Howard to Felicity. “They give them stuff to read which has really got some relevance to the children’s life. Michael Wayland is an actual figure in their mythology.”

“They didn’t give them that,” says Felicity. She is intent upon the picture she is painting, a luminous, finely detailed portrait of a myoglobin molecule. “Matt wrote it.”

“What?” says Howard, not understanding.

“Me and another boy,” says Matthew. “It was our project. But Miss Sinclair had to help us, because we couldn’t spell ‘Mr. Wayland.’ ”

“How do you mean, you wrote this?” demands Howard, taking the book and turning it over in his hands. “It’s printed! It’s published by Ginn and Company, Educational Publishers!”

“Yes, well,” says Matthew, “me and Kevin Williams writ it — that was our project. Then two of the girls, Alexandra Saunders and Karen Holt, their project was to be literary agents and find a publisher for it.”

Howard gazes at Matthew tenderly. He has underestimated him.

“What?” demands Matthew, frowning, and turning his feet over sideways.

Downstairs the ten-year-old and the eight-year-old are quietly occupied in running three of the old dungeons together to make a games room. Upstairs in the nursery the baby is tearing up The Anatomy of Melancholy, and eating it page by page.

They’re good kids.

For dinner they have taramasalata, gigot aux haricots, and apple crumble. They eat outside on the terrace, it’s so warm, by candlelight, with the lights of the city spread out in front of them — a sea of lights, twinkling in the uneven layers of warm air like a still sea shimmering and glittering. Currents move in the sea — the lights of traffic streams flowing and eddying. Somewhere beyond the city brush-fires are burning, hazing the horizon, and lighting the haze with a faint uneven reddish glow.

“They’ve got three thousand firemen up there in the hills,” says Felicity, watching it all dreamily. “There was something about it on the news. A lot of people have lost their homes.”

The moon comes up through the smoke, pale copper, veined, enormous.

It’s very peaceful.

Just as Howard is scraping the last spoonful of apple crumble out of the bowl, a thought strikes him. He gazes at Felicity in astonishment, his mouth open, the scraping spoon in his hand stilled.

“What’s the matter?” says Felicity, alarmed.

“I’ve just remembered something …”

But how can he ever have forgotten it? Was it the Chases’ dinner party that put it out of his mind? Or the sunlight on the terrace all day? Or the warm golden fatness of the drenched haricot beans, and the pale smoky moon?

“I’m in love!” he explains.

Felicity gazes at him, her eyes wide open.

“I can’t eat,” says Howard. “I just have this terrible fluttering in my stomach the whole time. I can’t sleep. I don’t know what’s happening to me — I feel as if I’m walking round in a dream. If I’m not careful I’m going to step in front of a car, or something.”

Felicity goes on staring at him in astonishment. Then she takes his hand.

“Poor love!” she says. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I forgot.”

“You must be exhausted. Go and lie down. I’ll bring you an aspirin and whisky.”

“I can’t lie down!” cries Howard. “I can’t even sit down!”

He jumps up and begins to walk up and down the terrace. Felicity watches him with her eyebrows raised in an expression of tender, slightly comical concern.

“I’m sorry,” he says, running his hand desperately through his hair. “I didn’t mean to shout. It’s not your fault. I don’t know where I am with this girl, that’s the trouble. One moment she’s kissing me, and the next she’s telling me she can’t see me till next week. One day I’m walking with her beside the river, and I’ve got my arm round her shoulders, and she’s put her arm round my waist, and we laugh at everything, and stop every few yards to kiss, and I think, This is fantastic! It can’t go on like this! And it doesn’t, because she suddenly rushes off, and I have to run after her, shouting about when am I going to see her again, and jumping out of people’s way into the gutter.”

Felicity laughs.

“You’ll just have to be firm with her,” she says. “Sweep her off her feet.”

“I keep sweeping her off her feet,” he complains. “But then she keeps getting back on them again.”

“You always dealt with me quite effectively.”

“But I knew where I was with you!” he says irritably. “You’re a completely different sort of person!”

She sits in silence, smiling to herself. He leans over the rail of the terrace, moodily banging his knuckles against the bricks.

“Sorry,” he says finally. “But you must see I’m a bit on edge. It’s no good making fatuous suggestions…. It would be better if you concentrated on sewing some buttons on my shirts. Half my shirts have got buttons missing now! How can I go out and pursue a love-affair wearing a shirt with no buttons on it! What on earth is she going to think? No wonder I’m not getting anywhere when I have to spend half my time holding my tie in place to cover the gap! I get no support, that’s the trouble. I have to do every damned thing for myself. Other men’s wives try to help them a little. They take pride in their husband’s success….“

She comes over and puts her arm round his shoulders protectively.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he says. “I’m obviously trying to have a row with you. Oh God — can’t I even have a row with you now? What am I supposed to do — have rows with my friends? Or bottle all my aggression up and let it turn into high blood pressure? Aren’t I to have any pleasure in life at all?”

She strokes his hair.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he says. “You’re thinking this is all rather comical, aren’t you?”

“A bit,” she says gently.

“Funny that I can always tell what you’re thinking, isn’t it? I can read you like a book — some book I’ve read six times already. That’s one of the things I like about her. I never have the slightest idea what she’s thinking. I never know what she’s going to do next. It’s such a relief! It gives me some slight interest in life.”

She kisses his ear. He sighs.

“Why are you behaving so aggressively?” he demands. “Why are you making a scene like this? You’re not… you’re not jealous, are you? You must realize that I’ve got it all worked out in my head so that this doesn’t have any bearing on you at all.”

“I assumed you’d got it worked out somehow,” she murmurs.

“Of course I have. I’ve got a clear understanding inside my head that this business is taking place before I ever met you.”

She picks up his hand and kisses the knuckles.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m not jealous.”

“Yes, you are,” he replies. “I know when you’re jealous. Don’t deceive yourself. God, no wonder I’m driven to go out and have affairs! Jealous scenes every time I come home….”

She rubs his knuckles silently, gazing at the lights below them.

“You are jealous,” he says, looking at her closely. “Aren’t you? Or aren ’t you? You aren’t, are you? You don’t care a damn! It doesn’t matter tuppence to you whether I go off and have affairs with other people or not …!”

Later, in bed, she puts her head on his shoulder and in a very small voice apologizes. The whole scene was her fault, she sees that now. He puts his arms round her, and insists that he was partly to blame as well. His generosity moves them both. Meltingly they eat at each other, like two carnivorous ice-creams.

So when he sees Rose staring at him with her dark, serious eyes among the crowd on the staircases in the interval (this is at a concert) he doesn’t hesitate for a moment, but goes straight up to her.

“Excuse me,” he says, “but do you know if they’re going to play the violin concerto with the original cadenzas?”

“What?” says Rose, frowning.

“Would you like some coffee?” asks Howard. He has just noticed they are serving coffee on the next floor up.

“I’m looking for someone,” says Rose.

“I feel like a coffee myself.”

“Don’t they always play Mozart’s cadenzas?”

“You could look for them while you’re drinking the coffee.”

She looks round desperately, tugging at her hair.

“I’ll come with you while you have your coffee,” she says.

They walk upstairs to the coffee counter. Howard is so pleased with himself he feels he can say anything.

“Didn’t I do that well?” he cries. “Has anyone ever come up to you and introduced himself like that?”