Dreamside Read online

  Lee glanced over his shoulder as though there might be an enemy in the room. "It started around Christmas. I thought it was just some kind of throwback. That's happened before, and there's been no problem. Since then it has come with greater frequency. Over the last few nights it has come without fail."

  "Just the repeated awakening?"

  "Yes. That's all, thank God; I mean there have been one or two other weird things happening in there besides, but mostly it's the repeater. It doesn't sound much but it's scaring the hell out of me."

  "It's the same for me. I know how frightening it is. You get to dread every click or sudden movement in case you wake up and find yourself back in bed."

  "But I've even been testing myself in the dream, burning my hand, sticking pins into myself to see if I'm in or out: it doesn't make any difference."

  "That's how it was before."

  "Sure, but then, somehow, even though I'd get it wrong some­times, I felt I could tell the essential difference. But not now. It gets so I don't want to bother going to work, cooking my breakfast, washing my face even, in case I wake up. Every time something just a little bit off the wall happens, or if I get a client at work with a screw loose, I end up thinking I'll wake up in five minutes and then I can go to work and deal with the real psychopaths."

  "I thought we were the real psychopaths."

  "What's worse is that the dreams make more sense than what happens when I'm awake. When I was talking to you this morning I was convinced that it was just part of another repeater and that I'd put the phone down and wake up."

  "But you should have known that I'd pulled you out with the telephone. It was one of our old techniques for burrowing out. Or burrowing in."

  “I know that, but I didn't ever trust it. I don't entirely trust that business with the book either."

  "Can you remember anything the professor said about the repeater?"

  "Only that he described it as a side effect, and said to try to enjoy it."

  "Yes, he was helpful like that."

  "When did it start happening with you?"

  "Like you, around Christmas. Infrequently at first, then with regularity. I thought it was me; but it wasn't just repeated dreams of waking up. It was some of the other stuff."

  "You went back to that place?" Lee was shocked.

  "Not exactly. But I felt an overwhelming pull. Almost irre­sistible. I've been fighting it. That's why I decided I had to get in touch, find out what was happening to you."

  "I know. I felt it too, pulling me back there, I mean. It was strong. I fought it. That's when the repeaters started to really take hold."

  "Exactly. The more we fight off going back, the more the repeaters go to work on us."

  "But what would happen if we did give in? What would hap­pen if we really did go back there? I couldn't face it."

  "At first I wondered whether you'd been there," said Ella, "whether you were up to something, trying to make contact with me."

  "No."

  "It was just a thought. I realize now."

  "Ella, there have been many times when I've wanted you. But never like that. It didn't seem to hold so much fear for me when I was younger. Now even the thought of it can make me break into a cold sweat."

  Ella ran a hand through her hair, silver moon and stars glinting at her ears. "So where does that leave us?" she asked. "If it's not you and it's not me . . . Oh God, look at us, Lee, just look at us. What a pair of casualties. I'm trying to be brave, Lee, really I am, but I'm scared. So scared."

  Then Lee did what he should have done when he first saw Ella standing outside his house; he put his arms around her and kissed her, and let her cry for both of them. And when Ella cried that evening it was not only for the terror of the dreams that hung in chains around them. It was also for the unburdened, uncaring chil­dren they had been thirteen years ago, and for the thirteen years of distance and loss that had recast lovers as strangers.

  "Which one of them is doing it, do you think?"

  "We can't be sure that it's either of them."

  An open fire burned brightly in the hearth. Ella sat close to it, her legs drawn up under her. Lee sat behind her in an armchair. "You're wrong. One of them is doing it. One of them is calling it all back. Is it him, do you think? Or is it her? We have to find out. Then we can stop them."

  "I was afraid you might say that."

  "No time for faint hearts," said Ella.

  "You really are making a lot of assumptions. You can't know that the others are responsible for this."

  "So what are your ideas?"

  "Me?"

  "Exactly. How long do you think it's going to be before these dreams, these repeaters turn into something else? Something more dangerous."

  Lee felt like a man in a paperweight snowstorm. Everything in his life had been settled and silenced. Then Ella had arrived, had shaken the glass, and was now watching him in his blizzard.

  "When push comes to shove," said Ella, "there's only one ques­tion. Is it him? Or is it her?"

  “Him, her; what's the difference? It's happening."

  "I think it's her. I think we'll find that she's responsible."

  "Look, Ella, I'm really not convinced that we should get in touch with the others. It might not do any good. Sleeping dogs and all that. It might just make things worse. A whole lot worse. There must be something else we can do without running to them."

  "We've been through this once already. It's not a question of running to them. It's a matter of not running away from them."

  Lee wouldn't have minded running away from all of them, Ella included. He knew where all this was leading and he didn't like it. Ella had that manic cast to her eye. She wasn't going to be shifted.

  "So what do we do?" she said.

  "You're the one with all the plans."

  "So it appears. Listen, it's simple. You're going to have to go after one of them; I'm going to have to go after the other. No, don't look like that. Neither of us wants to do it, but neither of us wants this thing opened up again either. You know where it can all lead, and you're just as afraid of that as I am. You also know that one of the others must be responsible for starting it up again. There can't be any other explanation. We'll have to track them down and find out what's going on."

  "How the hell are we going to find them?"

  "Just like I found you. We're going to use a little bit of intelli­gence and a little bit of insight. You'll have to take a break from sell­ing washing powder or whatever important thing it is you do."

  "I can't take time off from work! What will I tell them?"

  "Tell them you're ill! Tell them you're mentally disturbed! That's something like the truth, isn't it? Our hold on reality is a little tenuous at the moment, isn't it? What do I care what you tell them?"

  "Are you getting angry with me?"

  "I'm just trying to give you a sense of urgency, though God knows why. This morning when I phoned you were hardly able to speak."

  “I don't need reminding."

  "Lee, we could simply do nothing about it. We could just forget it. Until tomorrow morning, that is, when you're going out of your mind because you don't know if you're awake or you're dreaming. Until you want to scream, and then you open your mouth and wake up. Or think you've woken up, so you want to scream again. Yes, we could do that. Then you could wonder if this conversation was all a dream."

  "You can see right into my mind, can't you, Ella Innes?"

  Ella softened. "Remember that psychological test the professor gave us? You're walking through the woods? You see a bear. What do you do? You always go around it. I always approach it."

  "Sometimes to get a mauling."

  "That's life," said Ella. "But sometimes the bear turns into a prince. You need me here, Lee. To push you on. To make you face up."

  "Thanks all the same but I never had any use for a prince."

  "Only for a princess, eh?"

  He hated the way she reasserted her position so easily. She
always seemed able to guess his thoughts. More seriously, she was already in the driving seat. He had planned not to let that happen.

  He looked at her as she gazed into the grate, her skin reflecting the firelight. Yes, the years had left their mark here and there. Her face was touched with faint runes, lines of personal history he wanted to read but couldn't. As for himself, he had stopped pre­tending. These few hours with Ella had stripped him bare. The scaling-over of the years had been uncovered, old feelings made new, leaving him exposed, inferior, in love with her. How did she do that?

  He leaned forward and kissed her neck. He felt her stiffen, but she didn't pull away.

  "What are you doing, Lee?"

  "I'm kissing you."

  She turned around. "Let's not add confusion to a bad situation, eh?"

  It seemed to Lee that he had been, on the contrary, trying to straighten things out. He said nothing. Ella closed the issue by standing up.

  "I'm very tired. Can we say that it's settled? You go after one of them, I go after the other? "

  Lee shrugged.

  "As of tomorrow?"

  "As of tomorrow." He looked unhappy.

  "Dreams won't wait, Lee."

  "No; they won't, will they?"

  "I think it would be better if I went for her. I can talk with her. You go after him."

  "You make it sound like a bounty hunt."

  "It won't be as easy as that. Now, show me my room. It's late."

  T H R E E

  I have spread my dreams under your feet;

  Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams

  —W. B. Yeats

  She had to move fast to be on time for the ferry. With about twenty minutes to spare she drove the Midget on to the boat at Stranraer, and was glad to get out to stretch her legs. After spending the night at Lee's flat she had driven back to her house in Cumbria, had a second bad night's sleep before driving hard to catch the boat to Larne.

  Slipping out of the harbour at Stranraer, with the dockside diminishing with each blink, she felt the sea breeze stir around her and along with it came her first misgivings about what she was doing, doubts about her Northern Ireland mission. All her energies had gone into persuading Lee to trust her instincts and follow her lead. She hadn't thought to stand back and question her convictions.

  She thought about Lee, at his house, wanting to kiss her. She had no illusions about it. It was an act of desperation. He thought that a renewal of their relationship would be a way of holding off terror; he wanted to distil from intimacy the bitter-sweet salve which offers protection.

  Lee, stolid Lee, had lowered his eyes in an attempt to disguise a disappointment that would have been no more obvious if he had cried out loud and smitten his brow. He was too gentle to do anything but accept her rejection and retire to his bed, where he would curl up with his confusion. But in the night, when Ella had felt the bad dreams thickening around her like storm clouds, she had thought of Lee, lying asleep and vulnerable in the darkness of his room. So she'd confused him even further by going to him and slip­ping into his bed.

  Lee had woken up to feel her next to him.

  "I'm cold; go back to sleep." Which was what he did, happily; and for which Ella was thankful.

  In the morning Ella had felt the muscular warmth of Lee's arms wrapped around her waist, though he slept on. She could feel his erection becoming hard against the back of her thighs. Sliding out of his unrestraining arms, she pulled on some clothes and opened the blinds. She put coffee on to brew and walked out of the flat, leaving the door open.

  Lee was woken by the telephone. He looked around for Ella. He could smell the fresh coffee brewing.

  "It's me."

  "Where are you?"

  "A hundred yards down the street. Thought I'd pull you out of it with the telephone. We don't want any bad starts to the day."

  "You're a life saver, Ella."

  "One day you might save mine." Click.

  Lee had showered by the time Ella returned, clutching a bag of croissants. "It's good," he said. "I feel more confident this morning. There's a clarity which I haven't felt for a while. The smell of the coffee and the croissants. This is awake."

  Lee's confidence brought a lot of things back to Ella. But if she suspected that it was neither coffee nor croissants that made Lee feel stronger, she didn't say anything. Anyway, she had to agree with him. It was true; there was a kind of sharpness, an extra defi­nition about things today. Outside in the street she had sensed a crackle in the morning air, and she had been confident that this morning they would be untroubled by the nightmare procession of false awakenings.

  Experience told her not to waste hope on this respite. Yet it was in that morning's spirit of optimism that they had drawn up their campaign to contact the others. They had already agreed that it should be Ella who would go to Northern Ireland.

  Which was how she came to be standing out on deck on the ferry to Lame. It was the last day of February, too cold to spend more than a few minutes outside, too cold altogether for most people, which left her with the deck to herself. Ella loved it, huddled in her flying jacket, a bitter wind raking her hair, and the ferry dipping through the spume of the waves.

  But when the sky darkened to the colour of a bruise, and the sea turned black, her doubts started to thicken. She knew that the voy­age would reawaken the one thing that she least wanted. The thought sickened her. Then the wind picked up a foul stench off the water. It was a whiff of corruption; a secret known only to the sea.

  The boat rose and fell. Over the stern a ragged company of grey-backed gulls wheeled and dived. But it was neither cruel beaks nor talons, nor the gulls' greedy eyes that fascinated and terrified Ella as she stared out to sea. It was the hovering nameless thing that went scavenging and sucking at the wake of her journey, and in the wake of the bad dreams that would come to threaten them all.

  FOUR

  Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

  Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

  —Wordsworth

  This wasn't what he had wanted at all, scuttling around trying to track someone down without knowing if he was dead or alive, emigrated, gaoled, dropped out, socially elevated or just erased from the face of the earth; trying to find a character whose company he couldn't abide and who under normal circumstances he would cross vast deserts to avoid.

  Brad Cousins. Where the hell are you now?

  The trail was erratic. Ella had already exercised her powers by obtaining—against university policy—an original home address and telephone number in Sale, Manchester. It led to an odd phone call.

  "Mr, Cousins? My name is Lee Peterson. I'm an old ... friend of your son, from university days. I'm trying to get in touch with him." The line started crackling. "Do you know where I could get hold of him?"

  "Nope."

  "No idea?"

  "I don't ask; he don't tell." Lee could hear the man's asthmatic breathing.

  "Would Mrs. Cousins know?"

  “She might; but she'll not tell; she's been dead six year since."

  The line was beginning to break up.

  "Where was he last time you heard?"

  "Saudi . .. Germany. .. Yugoslavia. .." He pronounced this last with a J.

  "Can't you give me an idea?"

  At last, and with an air of crushing disinterest, the man yielded the name PhileCo, a Midlands pharmaceutical company his son had worked for some time ago. From PhileCo the unpromising trail led through four drug companies, for which Cousins had been a sales rep in less than as many years. It ran cold with a West Country firm called Lytex, where a chatty personnel officer admitted that, yes, the man had been an employee of the company representing their prod­uct to GPs in the region, but that after a few months of mediocre returns he had stopped weighing in for work. Lee emerged from the conversation with an address in Cornwall.

  He made careful preparations, packing a double change of clothes, a set of brushes, a travel shaver and a gift manicu
re set. A manicure set? He wondered when he had become so fastidious.

  He took the train to Plymouth, and spent the journey sipping weak tea and gazing gloomily at the landscape. In the carriage win­dow he had three or more ears, multiple eyebrows and chins to spare. He almost liked himself better that way.

  His thoughts turned to Ella. Their reunion had plunged him back into the morass of his adolescent longing. He didn't know whether to blame that on the dreaming or on Ella. He had hoped that his greater maturity would do something to defuse the excitement he felt in her presence, but just thinking about her made his cheeks burn.

  She was a witch, he had decided. Or at least a mesmerist or a spellbinder of some kind. It was Ella, after all, who had led him into this whole bizarre situation. All she claimed to want was an end to the dreaming. Yet he knew that Ella was notoriously unclear about her own state of mind. She was not as in control as she liked to appear, and he knew that, behind her assertiveness, she would be depending on his support.

  Her behaviour back at his flat had been ambiguous to say the least. She seemed to be signalling that she wanted intimacy, and yet she had kept him at arm's length. Then she had climbed into his bed half-way through the night, and he had had to pretend to be asleep to avoid making love to her. But at least since she had come his nights had been undisturbed by the repeated dream awakenings.

  At Plymouth, Lee hired a Cavalier from a lady in an orange cos­tume and lopsided orange lipstick (which made him think of Ella again). It was already late afternoon.

  Dusk was settling. He drove out of town and crossed the Tamar Bridge into Cornwall, heading towards Gunnislake. By the time he reached the village it was dark, and then he got hopelessly lost look­ing for his turn-off. Eventually he found it—hardly more than a dirt track—and arrived at two isolated cottages. One slouched in semi-derelict condition with a collapsed roof and broken windows; the second was in only slightly better shape. A bare light bulb was burn­ing in a downstairs room.