(1989) Dreamer (17 page)

She pushed the button for the lift and waited. Faintly, behind her, she heard a peal of cackling laughter from the woman in the ticket office, and smiled to herself. The woman laughed again and the tone changed slightly, as if she was laughing at her rather than with her. Then she saw the sign in front of her, red letters on white board, huge. So huge, she wondered how she could have missed it: OUT OF ORDER.

She walked to the staircase, and then began to descend the stone steps that spiralled down, around a steel-cased shaft, listening to the clacking echo of her footsteps. WARNING. DEEPEST STATION IN LONDON. 300 STEPS. USE ONLY IN EMERGENCY. Somewhere in the distance she heard a clank and a rattle, and the sound of voices. The wall stayed relentlessly constant, unrelieved even by graffiti. Grimy drab tiles.

Christ. Like going down into a public lavatory.

The sign was right, the stairs seemed as if they would go on for ever, and she wondered how far down she was now. It felt deep, very deep, but there were no markers, no clues, just the same monotonous downward spiral, around the shaft. She passed a cigarette butt that looked as if it had been recently stamped out. It was getting darker, she realised. Further away from the moon. The colour seemed to be going from the tiles, and the temperature was getting colder.

Then she felt the jerk of a hand around her neck.

For a split second she was furious, then fear surged through her, paralysing her.

No. Not me. Please not me.

She was pulled backwards so sharply she thought her spine was going to snap, and she cried out in pain. She felt something in her neck, pushing in, crushing the bone and pushing out the air, choking her. She felt the hand, hard, rough, over her mouth, crushing her lips against her teeth, and tasted blood. She tried wildly to bite the hand, felt it jammed up against her nose. It smelled of onions.

Like Slider.

Please God it’s Slider. Please God this is a dream and I can wake up.

She heard a door open, and felt herself being dragged
through. She tried to kick, to break her mouth free and shout, then she was pulled again and her feet slid away completely from under her, and she was arched backwards, violently, her scream of pain trapped in her throat.

The light faded completely, and she heard the clang of a door closing.

She was in pitch darkness. Herself and her attacker.

She heard his breathing, hoarse, panting. Malevolent.

Help me. Please. Don’t let this be happening.

She felt a hand, rough, calloused, sliding up her thigh. She struggled wildly, but could not move. The fingers reached the top of her tights, and she felt them rummage harshly through her pubic hairs for an instant, then thrust up deep inside her, his fingernails cutting her like a knife, and she wanted to scream, but still the hand was over her face.

Oh God, no you bastard, let me go. No,
no
.

Then she felt her panties tugged down, and heard them ripping.

She tried to bite again, tried to wriggle, but his grip was like a vice, and every movement was agony. She stared, wide-eyed, into the darkness. There was a click then a whirring sound somewhere in the room. Think. Think, for Christ’s sake. Self defence. Hurt him. Fingers in his eyes. His eyes. Which way was he facing?

She could hear him breathing heavily, grunting, like a pig. She felt a cold draught of wind up between her legs, then the fingers thrust in even further, so hard they were going to split her apart, heard the pop of a button, then the sound of a zipper. Her assailant was moving, slowly, cautiously, preparing himself.

No. God no. Please God no.

‘Kiss me. Tell me you love me,’ he said in a bland North London accent, and she felt his mouth nuzzling her ear. ‘Tell me you love me,’ he repeated, in a
seductive French accent this time, nuzzling her ear again, and she jerked away, from the wetness of his mouth, from the stench of cigarettes and beer and onions on his breath. The fingers slipped out, probed gently through her pubic hair, caressing. ‘Tell me you love me,’ he said again, harshly. Then there was silence as she stared around the dark, her heart crashing, her brain racing, thinking, thinking, listening to his panting, which was getting louder, faster.

Outside she heard footsteps, and she felt her assailant grow tense, the hand over her mouth tighten.

Help me. Please help me.

The footsteps passed by, two or three people. She heard someone call out, someone laugh, someone shout something back. They faded away. There was a deep rumble, and the floor trembled slightly for a moment.

‘Tell me you love me,’ he said. ‘Tell me you love me.’

She felt the hand lift away a fraction, enough to let her speak, and she lunged out with her mouth, as wide open as she could stretch it, and bit, hard, tried to bite a chunk out of his hand.

‘You bitch!’

As his grip released, she sprang away from him, kicking out, smashing with her fist, then kicked again, felt something soft, heard a groan, then her head smashed into the wall and she bounced off, dazed.

‘You cunt bitch!’

She kicked out again, as hard as she could, scrabbling with her hand to find the door, then kicked again, hit air, could not see his shadow in the darkness. She felt a hand grab her hair and lunged forward with her finger, felt something soft, gelatinous, and he screamed. She thrust forward, kicking out wildly again, pushing with her finger and again he screamed. The grip on her hair slackened.

Door handle. It was in her hand. She pulled, and the door opened and she fell out onto the stone staircase. ‘Help!’ she tried to scream, but it only came out as a whisper. ‘Help me. Oh God help me!’ She scrambled up the steps. Christ, run, for God’s sake. Run. She tried, but she couldn’t even raise her leg to the next step up. She heard the door opening behind her. Run, run! She pushed forward against the air that was like a wall. Help! She tried to scream again, but nothing would come out.

She grabbed the hand rail, trying to pull herself up the staircase, but it was steep, too steep. She pulled again, feeling her arm muscles tearing against the strain, against the force that was preventing her.

‘Cunt bitch.’

She tried again, but still she could not move.

The hand closed around her neck, and she was jerked violently back.

She lashed out with her elbows, but her arms were being held tightly and she could scarcely move them. ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘No! No! No!’

She jammed her feet down onto the steps, trying to get a purchase, but it was no use. She was being dragged back down, back to the dark room.

‘No! No! No!’

‘Bugs?’

‘No!’

‘Bugs?’

‘No!’

‘Sam?’

The voice had changed, was gentle now. A different voice.

‘Bugs, are you OK?’

She felt a cold draught blow across her face.

‘Bugs, darling?’

She felt the sweat pouring down her face.

‘Bugs?’

Her whole body was drenched, and she shivered.

‘Bugs?’

She heard the rustle of sheets, the clank of a bed spring, then a click and there was brilliant white light that dazzled her, brighter even than the moon.

‘You OK, Bugs?’

Richard’s face, close, so close she could not focus.

‘Horrible. It was horrible.’

‘You were screaming,’ he said.

‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’ She eased herself up in the bed, and sat, her heart pounding.

‘Probably the booze,’ he said.

‘The booze?’ She was aware of a sharp ache in her head.

Jumbled memories jostled in her mind. Christ, how much had she drunk? How had she got home? She tried to remember, panicking. There was just a blur.

‘You were pissed as a fart.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said blankly.

‘It was bloody funny. The way you kept telling Julian not to worry.’

‘Julian?’

‘Holland.’

Holland, she thought. Julian Holland. Edgar’s father. She remembered now. He had been in the flat when she had arrived home. ‘I felt sorry for him.’

‘I think he thought you’d flipped. You virtually sat on him, and kept telling him it was all your fault, because you’d ignored your dream.’

Dream. She shivered. ‘He looked so – so unhappy. So guilty.’

‘Can hardly expect him to be jumping up and down for joy.’

‘It was nice of him to come round.’

‘I played squash with him. He wanted some exercise.’

‘Did I thank him for the flowers?’

‘About a hundred times.’

She stared at the curtains, flapping gently in the draught. ‘They’re grubby,’ she said.

‘Grubby? The flowers?’

‘The curtains. We’ll have to get them cleaned soon. We’ve never had them cleaned.’ Her head ached and her mouth was parched. She smelled onions again. Hot warm onions and booze and stale smoke. ‘Have you been eating onions?’

‘Yah. Pickled. We had fish and chips and pickled onions. They were seriously good. From that place – that little parade of shops.’

‘You played squash and then had fish and chips?’

‘Yah.’

‘I thought you were trying to lose weight.’ She sipped her water, then closed her eyes tightly against the light and felt herself back, suddenly, in the dark room. She shuddered and sat up, afraid to go to sleep.

‘OK?’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. I think I’ll just – read – for a while.’

Bamford O’Connell’s waiting room smelled of furniture polish and musty fabric, like every medical waiting room Sam had ever been in.
Tatler, The Field, Country Life, Yachts & Yachting
and
Homes & Gardens
had been laid out neatly. Too neatly, fanatically neatly. She wondered if they had been laid out by the patient who
was closeted with O’Connell now, behind the closed door.

I’ve got this thing about tidiness, Doctor. I’ve just tidied up your waiting room. If there’s someone out there untidying the magazines, I’m going to chop their head off with a machete. You will understand?

Of course. If that’s what you feel you must do. It’s important not to repress your feelings
.

It would be a good thing if I did chop her head off, wouldn’t it? Stop her dreaming
.

Yes it would
.

I could take her head home in a plastic bag and stick it on a spike in the garden. And every morning I could say to her ‘Naughty, naughty, naughty, who had another bad dream last night
?’

Someone with a ballpoint pen had added tiny round glasses and a goatee beard to the model on the front of Vogue, making her look like a rather sinister Sigmund Freud.

The door behind her opened, startling her, and she heard Bamford O’Connell’s voice, slightly softer than usual, with less of an Irish accent. ‘Sam, hallo. Come in.’

The psychiatrist was wearing a sober Prince of Wales check suit and serious tortoiseshell glasses. The eccentrically dressed bon viveur of the dinner table had changed into a studious man of authority. Only the centre parting and the hair that was too long remained of the private Bamford she knew. She found the change to this new persona oddly reassuring, as if it put a distance between her and Bamford the friend.

He closed the heavy, panelled, privacy-assured door with a firm click, and the sudden silence of his consulting room startled her. She wondered if it was soundproofed. Like eyes adjusting to light, her ears slowly adjusted to the stillness that was only faintly
disturbed by the hissing of car tyres from the rain-soaked Harley Street three floors down, and from the gentle, more constant hissing of the wall-mounted gas fire.

The room was neat, elegant, sparse, with a mahogany desk, an oak bookcase, two comfortable reproduction Victorian armchairs, a chaise longue, and a large painting on the wall that looked like rhubarb in a thunderstorm.

‘Sit yourself down, Sam.’ He pointed to one of the armchairs. ‘Great evening that was, last week. Wonderful fun.’

‘Good. It was nice seeing you both. Harriet’s looking well.’

He sat down behind his desk, the window framing him in a landscape of rooftops, grey sky and falling rain; heavy, steady rain, the sort of wet Sunday afternoon rain you saw falling in movies and through French windows on theatre sets. He tugged his jacket sleeves up a fraction to reveal a smart watch with a crocodile skin strap, and neat sapphire cufflinks. ‘So, to what do I owe this great honour?’

‘I need some help – advice. It’s professional, this visit. I want to pay you for it.’

‘You’ll do no such thing.’

‘Please, Bamford, I want to.’

‘I won’t hear of it. Anyhow, I shouldn’t be seeing you without a referral from your doctor.’ He winked. ‘Tell me.’

She looked down at the carpet, expensive, pure wool, mushroom coloured, then up again. ‘We were talking at dinner – about dreams . . . premonitions.’

‘That air disaster in Bulgaria,’ he said. ‘You’d dreamed about it.’

‘Yes.’ She paused, glanced up at the light bulb
hanging from the ceiling and felt a cold chill. ‘I – I had another dream.’ She stared at the bulb again. ‘Over the weekend . . . which came true.’

He tilted his head slightly and interlocked his fingers. ‘Tell me about both the dreams.’

She told him of the air disaster dream, and the Punch and Judy dream, and Punch appearing with a black hood and the shotgun, and what happened subsequently. He sat in silence staring at her so intently he was beginning to make her squirm. He seemed to be reading her face like someone reading the small print on a policy.

‘This black hood that was in both dreams – do you have any associations with it?’

She sat still for a moment, then nodded.

‘What are they?’

She looked down at her fingers. ‘It’s . . . something from childhood. I – It’s a long story.’

He smiled encouragingly. ‘We’ve got plenty of time.’

‘There was a boy in our village,’ Sam began. ‘I suppose you could call him the village idiot, except he wasn’t comical. He was nasty . . . malevolent, evil. He lived with his mother in a farmhouse just outside the village. It was a creepy place – quite big, isolated. There were always rumours of weird things going on there.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘I don’t know. Black magic, that sort of thing. His mother was sort of . . . a witch, I suppose. She was foreign. My aunt and uncle used to talk about her occasionally, and the rumour was that she was the wife or the mistress of a German warlock who was into ritual killing, and that Slider was his son, but—’ She shrugged – ‘that was village gossip, probably. She was certainly very weird. Reclusive. There were a lot of strange goings on at the farm. A friend who lived in the village told me
years later that the woman had had an incestuous relationship with her son, but I don’t know how she knew that.’ Sam smiled, ‘You get a lot of strange gossip coming out of a small community. She – the woman – got pregnant, had a daughter, but no one ever saw her. I don’t know whether it was by her son. There were rumours of ritual orgies and God knows what else. All the children were always told to keep well away. The house had a very creepy feel. I can still remember it very clearly. People’s pets used to disappear – dogs and things – and they always said that Slider had got them.’