The Sweetest Dream Read Free

back
in civvies, was preoccupied only by The Revolution.
    Colin was born in 1945. Two small children, in a wretched
flat in Notting Hill, then a run-down and poor part of London.
Johnny was not often at home. He was working for the Party.
By now it is necessary to explain that by the Party was meant the
Communist Party, and what was meant to be heard was THE
PARTY . When two strangers met it might go like this: ‘Are you
in the Party too?’ ‘Yes, of course.’ I thought you must be.’
Meaning: You are a good person, I like you, and so you must, like
me, be in the Party.
    Frances did not join the Party, though Johnny told her to. It
was bad for him, he said, to have a wife who would not join.
    â€˜But who would know?’ enquired Frances, adding to his
contempt for her, because she had no feeling for politics and never
would.
    â€˜The Party knows,’ said Johnny.
    â€˜Too bad,’ said Frances.
    They were definitely not getting on, and the Party was the
least of it, though a great irritation for Frances. They were
living in real hardship, not to say squalor. He saw this as a sign
of inner grace. Returning from a weekend seminar, ‘Johnny
Lennox on the Threat of American Aggression’, he would find her
hanging up the children’s clothes to dry on rickety arrangements of
pulleys and racks screwed precariously to the wall outside the
kitchen window, or returning, one child dragging on her hand,
the other in a pushchair, from the park. The well of the chair
would be full of groceries, and tucked behind the child was a
book she had been hoping to read while the children played.
‘You are a real working woman, Fran,’ he would compliment
her.
    If he was delighted, his mother was not. When she came,
always having written first, on thick white paper you could cut
yourself with, she sat with distaste on the edge of a chair which
probably had residues of smeared biscuit or orange on it. She
would announce, ‘Johnny, this cannot go on.’
    â€˜And why not, Mutti?’
    He called her Mutti because she hated it.
    â€˜Your grandchildren,’ he would instruct her, ‘will be a credit
to the People’s Britain.’
    Frances would not let her eyes meet Julia’s at such moments,
because she was not going to be disloyal. She felt that her life, all
of it, and herself in it, was dowdy, ugly, exhausting, and Johnny’s
nonsense was just a part of it. It would all end, she was sure of
it. It would have to.
    And it did, because Johnny announced that he had fallen in
love with a real comrade, a Party member, and he was moving
in with her.
    â€˜And how am I going to live?’ asked Frances, already knowing
what to expect.
    â€˜I’ll pay maintenance, of course,’ said Johnny, but never did.
    She found a council nursery, and got a small job in a business
making theatre sets and costumes. It was badly paid, but she
managed. Julia arrived to complain that the children were being
neglected and their clothes were a disgrace.
    â€˜Perhaps you should talk to your son?’ said Frances. ‘He owes
me a year’s maintenance.’ Then it was two years, three years.
    Julia asked whether if she got a decent allowance from the
family would she give up her job and look after the boys?
    Frances said no.
    â€˜But I wouldn’t interfere with you,’ said Julia. ‘I promise you
that.’
    â€˜You don’t understand,’ said Frances.
    â€˜No, I do not. And perhaps you would explain it to me?’
    Johnny left Comrade Maureen and returned to her, Frances,
saying that he had made a mistake. She took him back. She was
lonely, knew the boys needed a father, was sex-starved.
    He left again for another real, genuine comrade. When he
again returned to Frances, she said to him: ‘Out.’
    She was working full time in a theatre, earning not much but
enough. The boys were by then ten and eight. There was trouble
all the time at the