The Sweetest Dream. Doris Lessing

      ‘No,’ came Julia’s cool precise voice, ‘no, your name is not Tilly. That is a very foolish name. What is your real name?’

      ‘Sylvia,’ lisped the girl.

      ‘So, why do you call yourself Tilly?’

      ‘I couldn’t say Sylvia when I was little, so I said Tilly.’ These were more words than any of them had heard from her, at one time.

      ‘Very well. I shall call you Sylvia.’

      Julia had in her hand a mug of something with a spoon in it. Now she carefully, beautifully, caused an appropriate amount of the mug’s contents – there was a smell of soup – to fill the spoon, which she held to Tilly’s, or Sylvia’s, lips. Which were tight shut.

      ‘Now, listen carefully to me. I am not going to let you kill yourself because you are foolish. I won’t allow it. And now you must open your mouth and begin eating.’

      The pale lips trembled a little, but opened, and all the while the girl was staring at Julia, apparently hypnotised. The spoon was inserted, and its contents disappeared. The watchers waited, breathless, to see if there was a swallowing movement. There was.

      Frances glanced down at her son and saw that he was swallowing in sympathy.

      ‘You see,’ Julia was going on, while the spoon was again being recharged, ‘I am your step-grandmother. I do not allow my children and grandchildren to behave so foolishly. You must understand me, Sylvia …’ In went the spoon – a swallow. And again Andrew made a swallowing movement. ‘You are a very pretty clever girl …’

      ‘I’m horrible,’ came from the pillows.

      ‘I don’t think you are. But if you have decided to be horrible then you will be, and I won’t allow that.’

      The spoon went in, a swallow.

      ‘First, I shall make you well again, and then you will go to school and take your examinations. After that you will go to university and be a doctor. Now I am sorry I wasn’t a doctor, but you can be a doctor in my place.’

      ‘I can’t. I can’t. I can’t go back to school.’

      ‘Why can’t you? Andrew has told me that you were clever at your lessons, before you became foolish. And now take this cup and drink the rest by yourself.’

      The observers hardly breathed, at this moment of – surely? – crisis. Suppose Tilly-Sylvia refused the cup with its life-giving soup, and put that thumb back in her mouth? Suppose she shut her lips tight? Julia was holding the mug against the hand that was not clutching the shawl around her. ‘Take it.’ The hand trembled, but opened. Julia put the mug carefully into the hand, and held the hand around the cup. The hand did lift, the cup reached the lips and over it came the whisper, ‘But it’s so hard.’

      ‘I know it’s hard.’

      The trembling hand was holding the cup to her lips, while Julia steadied it. The girl took a sip, swallowed. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ she whispered.

      ‘No, you are not. Stop it, Sylvia.’

      Again Frances and her son waited, holding their breaths. Sylvia wasn’t sick, though she had to conquer retching, when Julia said, ‘Stop it.’

      Meanwhile, down the stairs from the ‘boys’ floor’ came Colin, and behind him, Sophie. The two stopped. Colin was blushing bright red, and Sophie was half laughing, half crying, and seemed about to run back upstairs, but instead came to Frances, put her arms around her, and said, ‘Dear, dear Frances,’ and ran off down the stairs, laughing.

      ‘It’s not what you think,’ said Colin.

      ‘I’m not thinking anything,’ said Frances.

      Andrew merely smiled, keeping his counsel.

      Now Colin saw the little scene through the door, took it in, and said, ‘Good for Grandma,’ and went off down the stairs in big leaps.

      Julia who had taken no notice of her audience, got down from the stool, and smoothed down her skirts. She took the mug from the girl. ‘I’m going to come back in an hour and see how you are,’ she said. ‘And then I’ll take you up to my bathroom, and you can put on clean clothes. You’ll be better in no time, you’ll see.’

      She picked up the cup of cold chocolate left last night by Frances, and came out of the room and handed it to her. ‘I think this is yours,’ she said. And then, to Andrew, ‘And you can stop being foolish too.’ She left the door into the room open, and went up the stairs, holding up her pink skirt, which rustled, with one hand.

      ‘So that’s all right,’ said Andrew to his mother. ‘Well done, Sylvia,’ he called to the girl, who smiled, if weakly. He ran upstairs. Frances heard one door shut, Julia’s and then another, Andrew’s. In the room opposite a blotch of sunlight lay on a pillow, and Sylvia, for there is no doubt that this was who she was now, held her hand in it, turning it back and forth, examining it.

      At this moment there was a banging on the front door, the bell rang repeatedly, and a woman’s voice was shouting. The girl sitting in the sun on her bed let out a cry, and dived under the bedclothes.

      As the door opened, the shout of ‘Let me in’ could be heard through the house. A hoarse hysterical voice, ‘Let me in, let me in.’

       in:

      Andrew’s door opened with a bang, and he came leaping down the stairs saying, ‘Leave this to me, oh, Christ, shut Tilly’s door.’ Frances shut the door, as Julia called down, ‘What is it, who is it?’ Andrew called up to her, but softly, ‘Her mother, Tilly’s mother.’

      ‘Then I am sorry to say that Sylvia will have a setback,’ said Julia, and continued to stand there, on guard.

      Frances was still in her nightdress, and she went into her room, and dragged on jeans and a jersey and ran down the stairs towards voices in altercation.

      ‘Where is she? I want Frances,’ shouted Phyllida, while Andrew was saying quietly, ‘Hush, don’t shout, I’ll get her.’

      ‘I’m here,’ said Frances.

      Phyllida was a tall woman, thin as a bone, with a mass of badly dyed reddish hair, and long needle nails, painted bright purple. She pointed a large angry hand at Frances and said, ‘I want my daughter. You have stolen my daughter.’

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Andrew, hovering about the hysterical woman like an insect trying to decide where it should dart in. He laid a calming hand on Phyllida’s shoulder but she shook it off, and Andrew shouted at her, suddenly out of control and surprised at himself. ‘Stop it.’ He leaned back against a wall, composing himself. He was trembling.

      ‘And what about me?’ demanded Phyllida. ‘Who is going to look after me?’

      Frances found that she was trembling too; her heart thumped, her breathing was tight: she and Andrew were being affected by this dynamo of emotional energy. And in fact Phyllida, whose eyes stared blankly like a ship’s figurehead’s, who stood there erect and triumphant, seemed calmer than they were.

      ‘It’s not fair,’ announced Phyllida, pointing her purple talons at Frances. ‘Why should she come to live here and not me?’

      Andrew had recovered. ‘Now, Phyllida,’ he said, and the humorous smile that protected him was back in place, ‘Phyllida, you really can’t do this, you know.’

      ‘Why shouldn’t I? she asked, turning her attention to him. ‘Why should she have a home and not me?’

      ‘But you have a home,’ said Andrew. ‘I’ve visited you there, don’t you remember?’

      ‘But he’s going away and leaving me.’ Then, shrieking, ‘He’s going away and leaving me alone.’ Then, more calmly, to Frances, ‘Did you know that? Well, did you? He’s going to leave me the way