(1989) Dreamer (8 page)

At the edge of the site a bulldozer reversed, dug, swivelled, dumped, behind a hoarding with huge red letters. RIVERSIDE DEVELOPMENT. RIVERSIDE LIFESTYLES. The workman stopped, knelt down and pawed at the ground with his hand. He pulled something out, stared at it, rubbed it with his finger, then tossed it away over his shoulder.

Sam saw the ball of flame rising high into the sky, the engine showering sparks, bouncing, dancing.

The image froze for an instant in front of her and she could hear nothing. Silence.

Her finger was stinging as if there was a sliver of glass inside the skin and she put it in her mouth and sucked it hard. She saw the cold smile on Andreas Berensen’s face. The fingers of his leather glove curling around the glass. Richard had been fawning over him: filling his glass first, asking his opinion first on each of the wines. Toadying. Sucking up. Richard never used to be like this. He used to be interested in her, used to be a proud man; Richard never used to suck up to anyone.

The cacophony outside started again, louder, deafeningly loud. Thought for the Day was beginning on the radio; she heard the cheery voice of Rabbi Blue, rich as treacle. ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘how many people remember their dreams? I wonder sometimes whether God has dreams?’

Clothes. Dressing. Image. What to wear today? She yawned, tried to concentrate, to focus on the day ahead. A first cut screening this morning, then lunch with Ken. She went into the shower, felt the fine spray, turned the temperature down cold. The needles of water drummed against her skin, hard, hurting. She came out and dried herself vigorously.

Better. Heavy dose of negative ions. One per cent better. What time had they gone to bed? Three? Four?
Port. Coffee. More port. More coffee. Andreas had left first, when Richard and Bamford started telling jokes. Harriet had lectured her on the state of the world. Harriet was worried about plastic; it gave out gases; you could get cancer just from sitting on a vinyl car seat.

She opened her wardrobe. First cuts: tense, tense, tense. Who was going to be at the screening? Hawksmuir. Horrible Hawksmuir. Jake yesterday and Hawksmuir today. Her two least favourite people. Dress to kill. It was a John Galliano and Cornelia James day, she decided.

She winced at the pain in her finger. From one tiny cut? Then she winced again from the sudden sharp pain she now felt in her head that went down her neck, deep into her stomach. She felt as if she had been slit open by a filleting knife. Weird. She felt weird. Seriously weird.

She put on a Galliano two piece. Battle dress. Fashion, she thought. Fashion was bewildering. As soon as you got the hang of it, it changed. She pulled out a stunning Cornelia James shawl and draped it around her shoulders.

Better. Great. Terrific.

She took a handkerchief out of a drawer, a small white handkerchief with French lace edging and her initials, S.C. embroidered in blue in one corner, and put it in her handbag. She tugged a comb through her hair, studied herself in the mirror then smiled, pleased with the effect. ‘Zap!’ she said. ‘Kapow!’ She clapped her hands together and walked out of the bedroom, wondering why those words had suddenly come into her head.

‘No, you’ll never get away with it,’ said a voice with a deep American accent.

She heard Nicky giggle. There were several explosions.

‘Not this time, Batman.’

KAPOW! SOCK! BIFF! BAM! ZAP!

‘We’ll see about that!’

Nicky and Helen were sitting at the table, watching the television. Nicky was holding his spoon in the air and milk was trickling down into his shirt cuff. Helen, spellbound, hadn’t noticed, and Sam felt a flash of irritation. She grabbed the spoon and staunched the flow of milk with a kitchen towel.

Helen stood up. ‘Sorry, Mrs Curtis – I—’

‘OK,’ Sam said, slightly coolly, giving Nicky back his spoon. Then she turned off the television.

‘Aww!’ said Nicky.

Helen sat down again, blushing.

‘Nicky’s watching too much television, Helen. He shouldn’t be watching it while he’s eating.’ She smiled at Helen, realising she had sounded fierce, trying to reassure her.

‘Sorry,’ Helen said again.

Sam sat down at the table and poured out some orange juice. Nicky eyed her sulkily.

‘What’s happening at school today, Tiger?’

The Esso ads had worked on Nicky. When he was four he was a tiger. Ran around on all fours. Pounced. Hid in cupboards with a freebie tiger’s tail sticking out. ‘Tiger in here! Tiger in here!’

He stretched out his arm, seized the Sugar Puffs pack and poured a second helping sloppily into his bowl, spilling them all around. Without bothering to pour any milk, he shovelled cereal into his mouth.

‘Grumpy, this morning?’ Sam asked.

‘I didn’t sleep very well.’

‘Mummy’s tired today too.’

Mummy feels like shit.

‘You were making noises,’ he said.

‘Did we keep you awake? I’m sorry.’

He shoved in more cereal, chewing with his mouth open.

‘Thought you were a Tiger, not a camel.’

He closed his mouth and continued chewing, then stretched out and took a mouthful of juice. ‘Batman,’ he said. ‘I want Batman.’

‘Too much television is not good for you.’

‘You make television.’

‘Just the ads.’

‘Ads are yucky. You made the ads for that new cereal. It’s yuck. It tastes like dog’s do.’

‘And how do you know what dog’s do tastes like?’

‘It tastes of yuck.’

She caught Helen’s eye. Helen looked at her with the uncertainty of a child looking at her teacher. Sam finished her juice and glanced at her watch. Eight-fifteen.

‘Mummy’s late. She’s got to go.’

She went through into the living area to switch on the answering machine, and stared around the huge room with a faint feeling of dismay. The refectory dining table was still covered in coffee cups, half-empty glasses, overflowing ashtrays, butter dishes, and napkins strewn around like confetti. Two half-full bottles of Perrier water were missing their caps; she walked over and rummaged around for them. She found the stopper of the port decanter and put that on. A sliver of glass sparkled at her from an open salt cellar. She looked up warily at the iron chandelier. The one jagged shard of glass was still in the socket. The rest of the bulbs were fine, except that they were still on. She walked over to the wall and switched them off.

The room was filled with a grey light that hung heavily, thick with the smell of stale smoke and
evaporating alcohol, a greyness that seeped into her skin like damp, that would make her clothes and her hair smell of cigar smoke if she stayed much longer. She glanced around at Richard’s roll-top desk in the corner, his computer terminal beside it, at the grand piano with an antique opium-smoking kit on the lid, the two sofas down the far end by the television and the gas-log fire, the armorial shields on the bare brick walls, the swords, the medieval artefacts, the huge copper ladle for pouring gold that Richard had bought when the Royal Mint was being demolished. Richard’s things, relics of his family’s bloody past, portraits of dead ancestors, scrolls with thick red seals. Bare bricks and oak. A man’s flat. It always had been and always would be. A helicopter roared past outside, a dark shadow passing the window.

‘Bye, Tiger.’ She stood by the front door, struggling into her coat.

Nicky came out of the kitchen. ‘Bye,’ he said flatly, walking towards his room.

‘Hey! Tiger!’

He stopped and turned.

‘Don’t I get a kiss goodbye?’

He hesitated for a moment, then trotted over to her. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll forgive you. This time.’

‘And if you’re very good, I’ll forgive you.’

‘What for?’

‘For being rude to your mummy.’

He pouted, then kissed her, and put his arms around her neck. ‘I’m sorry, Mummy.’ He kissed her again then turned and scampered off.

‘Have a good day at school.’

‘Friday! Yippee!’

Sam opened the front door and picked the
Daily Mail
off the mat. She turned to her horoscope. Pisces.

‘Travel may bring surprises. Avoid arguments today,
however much a close colleague may irritate you. Both today and the weekend will be unsettling and may tax even your very strong inner resources.’

Thank you very much. Hope you have a nice day too. She put the paper inside her briefcase, closed the door behind her and walked down the dark hall, four floors up in the cold stone building that was still at the moment in the middle of nowhere. Another few years and there would be a thriving metropolis all around: colour, light, people, shops. Right now it was a mess; it was hard to tell what they were putting up from what they were pulling down.

She went out into the street, into the light that was a brighter shade of grey, into the smells of diesel oil and burning tar and the salty tang of the river. She felt the faintly gritty taste of dust in her mouth and heard the distant clatter of a train, the hissing of pneumatics, the rumble of a cement mixer.

Horoscopes. Who cared about horoscopes? Who cared about dreams? About light bulbs?

The grey E-Type was covered in a light coating of dust that had settled on it since yesterday, and their elderly Range Rover next to it had virtually changed colour under the stuff. She climbed into the Jaguar, pushed the key into the ignition and switched it on. The red warning light appeared and the fuel pump ticked furiously. She pushed up the choke lever and pressed the starter button.

The engine turned over several times, whining, snuffling, then fired with a sharp bang, and rumbled into life. The rev counter flickered wildly then settled down. She flipped down the screenwasher toggle, switched on the wipers, pushed the stubby gear lever into first, struggled with the handbrake, then gripped the thin wood-rimmed steering wheel and eased the car forward,
listening to its engine sucking and grumbling like an old man woken from a comfortable sleep. The three small wipers smeared the salt and dust into a translucent film, and she gave the screen another squirt.

She heaved on the wheel, pulling out around a parked lorry into Wapping High Street, then released it, feeling it spin through her hands so fast she had to be careful not to let it burn them. Old things. Retro. Ken’s idea. Heavily into retro. Run old cars as company cars. Smart image, good investment. She stopped at the main road, waiting for a gap in the traffic. A bus stopped in front of her, blocking her, and she glared at the driver who was looking fixedly ahead; like a carthorse in blinkers, she thought angrily.

Then she saw the poster on the side of the bus, staring her in the face as if it was taunting her, silver with an aeroplane and a blue prancing tiger, and the words boldly emblazoned.

‘CHARTAIR – A GREAT LITTLE AIRLINE . . . NOW A GREAT BIG ONE!’

She parked and hurried across Covent Garden towards her club. There was just time for a quick swim. She tried to swim every morning before work, unless she had an early meeting or was travelling, and she wanted to swim badly today, to try to wake up some more, to clear the fuzziness out of her head.

She felt a bit better as she left the club, slightly more human but not much, walked down the narrow street and across the huge open square, past the old covered market building of Covent Garden, among the pigeons and the street cleaners who had the place to themselves
for another hour yet. A gust of cold icy wind whiplashed her damp hair, and a piece of paper scudded along past her feet like a wounded bird.

DREAMS!

The word rippled through the glass of the shop window.

UNLOCK YOUR OWN SECRET WORLD!

DREAMS. DREAMS. DREAMS.

The window was filled with books on dreams.

DREAMS – YOUR MAGIC MIRROR.

THE POWER OF DREAMS.

THE A–Z OF DREAMS.

One of the small alternative bookshops she passed every day without noticing. She glanced at her watch, 9.20. She tried the door and was faintly surprised that it opened. She went in and the shop was filled with a crisp, pristine papery smell. New jackets, fresh print; it was a good smell. Books. She loved books.

A tall man in a black polo-neck glided noiselessly across the floor, his head swivelling from side to side like a robot. He stopped a few feet from Sam, inclined his head and raised his eyebrows. He looked clean, scrubbed, and smelt of organic soap.

‘Dreams,’ said Sam. ‘I’m—’ She felt flustered for a moment. He was making her nervous. He was the sort of man she should be asking for the complete works of Marcel Proust. ‘I’m interested in something on dreams.’

‘Mmm,’ He rotated and glided across the floor, and made a wide, sweeping arc with his arm at a row of shelves, all labelled ‘Dreams’. He turned around. ‘Is it anything particular?’ He spoke in a studied, hushed public-library whisper, and his breath smelt of peppermints. He ran his finger along the spines as if he were caressing a sleeping girl’s back, then stopped and tapped
one lightly. He pulled it out and held it in the air. ‘This is a possibility. Are you a student?’

‘No,’ said Sam, feeling flattered. No, but I’d like to be. I’d like to look like one, and be as carefree as one. And be as young as one. An Oxford man, are you? Me? I was educated at the University of Life. Know it? Turn first left down the Bitter Vale Of Tears. Graduated to Thompson’s. Never heard of it? J. Walter Thompson. Started as a secretary. Then became a production assistant. By the time I was twenty-six I had been made a junior producer (sounds the bizz, eh?). Then I gave it all up for a sprog. Oh, yes, working again now. Working and dreaming. Had a dream about an air disaster, actually – you probably read about it – that one in Bulgaria? I could have saved them all. Should have rung up the airline, shouldn’t I? EVERYBODY OFF, BOYS, THIS ONE’S A GONER!

Would you have done?

Shit. I’m going nuts. ‘No – I – I’m a layman. I’m just interested in – er – dream interpretation.’

He replaced it with a slingshot flick of his wrist, and arched his back a fraction. ‘Ahh, hmm, let me see, I think, yes, this you’d probably get on with awfully well,’ he said, as if he’d known her all his life. He pulled out a slim paperback with a picture of an eyeball and a fish on the front cover. ‘Yes, this is the one.
What Your Dreams Really Say
.’