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 he left you.’
This rational remark seemed to prove to Frances how thoroughly the hysteria had transferred itself to her: she was shaking and her knees were weak.
‘Well, why don’t you say something?’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Frances brought out. ‘I don’t know why you are here.’
‘Why? You actually have the nerve to ask why?’ And she began shouting, ‘Tilly, Tilly, where are you?’
‘Leave her alone,’ said Andrew. ‘You always complain you can’t handle her, so let us have a shot at it.’
‘But she’s here. She’s here. And what about me? Who is going to look after me?’
This cycle was likely to continue.
Andrew said quietly, but his voice was shaking, ‘You can’t expect Frances to look after you. Why should she?’
‘But what about me? What about me?’ Now it was more of a grumble, and for the first time those angry eyes seemed actually to see Frances. ‘It’s not as if you’re Brigitte Bardot, are you? So why does he come here all the time?’
This threw an unexpected light on things. Frances was unable to speak.
Andrew said, ‘He comes here because we are here, Phyllida. We are his sons, remember? Colin and I – have you forgotten us?’
It seemed she had. And suddenly, having stood there for a few moments, she lowered that outstretched accusing finger, and stood blinking, apparently coming awake. Then she turned and slammed out of the door.
Frances felt her whole self go loose. She was shaking so she had to lean against the wall. Andrew stood limply there, pitifully smiling. She thought, But he’s too young to cope with this sort of thing. She staggered to the kitchen door, held on to it while she went in, and saw Colin and Sophie at the table, eating toast.
Colin, she could see, was in his mood of disapproving of her. Sophie had been crying again.
‘Well,’ said Colin, coldly furious, ‘what do you expect?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Frances, absurdly, but she was trying to gain time. She slid into her chair and sat with her head in her arms. She knew what he meant. It was a general accusation: that she and his father had screwed things up, that she was not a conventional comfortable mother, like other mothers, and there was this bohemian household, which he had moods of violently resenting, while admitting he enjoyed it.
‘She just comes here,’ said Colin, ‘she just turns up and makes a scene and now we have to look after Tilly.’
‘She wants to be called Sylvia,’ said Andrew, who had come in and was at the table.
‘I don’t care what she’s called,’ said Colin. ‘Why is she here?’
And now he was tearful, and looked like a ruffled little owl, with his black-rimmed spectacles. If Andrew was all length and leanness, then Colin was round, with a soft open face, which was at this moment puffy with crying. Now Frances understood that all last night these two, Colin and Sophie, had probably lain in each other’s arms weeping, she for her dead father, and he for his misery over – well, everything.
Andrew, who like Frances was still cold and shaking, said, ‘But why take it out on Mother? It’s not her fault.’
If something were not done the brothers would start quarrelling; they often did, always because Andrew took Frances’s side, while Colin accused her.
Frances said, ‘Sophie, please make me a cup of tea – and I am sure Andrew could do with one.’
‘God, could I,’ said Andrew.
Sophie jumped up, pleased at being asked. Colin, having lost the support of her being there, just opposite him, sat blinking vaguely about, so unhappy that Frances wanted to take him in her arms … but he would never tolerate that.
Andrew said, ‘I’ll go and see Phyllida later. She’ll have calmed down. She’s not so bad when she’s not in a state.’ And then he jumped up. ‘Christ, I’d forgotten Tilly, I mean Sylvia, and she’ll have heard. She goes to pieces when her mother starts in on her.’
‘And I am certainly in pieces,’ said Frances. ‘I can’t stop shaking.’
Andrew ran out of the room, but did not return. Julia had descended to sit with Sylvia, who hid beneath the clothes, wailing, ‘Keep her away, keep her away,’ while Julia said over and over again, ‘Shhhh, be quiet. She’ll go in a minute.’
Frances drank tea in silence while her shaking subsided. If she had read in a book that hysteria was contagious she would have said, Well, yes, that makes sense! But she had not experienced it. She was thinking, If that’s what Tilly has been living with, no wonder she’s in a mess.
Sophie had sat down beside Colin and the pair had their arms around each other, like orphans. Soon they went off to catch a train back to school, and Colin gave her an apologetic smile before he left. Sophie embraced her. ‘Oh, Frances, I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t come here.’
And now Frances had to write her article.
She put aside the letters about shoplifting and took up another theme, ‘Dear Aunt Vera, I am so worried I don’t know what to do.’ Her daughter, aged fifteen, was having sex with a boy of eighteen. ‘These young people they think they are the Virgin Mary and it can’t happen to them.’ She advised the anxious mother to get contraception for her daughter. ‘Go to the family doctor,’ she wrote. ‘Young people are beginning sexual relations much earlier than we did. You could ask about the new contraceptive pill. There will be problems. Not all teenagers are responsible
