S I X
Learn from your dreams what you lack —W. H. Auden
From that night Ella stopped her I'm-more-lucid-than-you games. She was a fast learner, and her genuine skills developed accordingly. She contrived to disguise the substantial change in the accounts she offered to the weekly seminar, and if anyone was made suspicious by her later reports being more modest than her early claims, nobody said anything. Even so, an unacknowledged hierarchy did develop in the group, with Lee, Ella, Brad and Honora clearly emerging as the people with the strongest ability to influence the course of their dreaming. Each of them progressed, without major effort, from being able to conjure small objects to switching locations and settings in which dreaming took place.
Professor Burns, when pressed, admitted that, despite several years of trying, he, like most people, had never experienced the state of self-awareness during dreaming which would allow him to manipulate the course of dream events. "I think I'm too crusted over by a life devoted to academic pursuits," he confessed, admitting to more than a little envy of their abilities. "Besides which," he added, "I don't have the modern swagger of youth in the face of fear."
End of term beckoned, and the round of dreamwork seminars was held to be a moderate success. Their efforts, Burns asserted, while not having lit up the skies of science and progress, had contributed to a growing body of research in the increasingly important field of parapsychology. To conclude matters, he added cheerfully, a miserly wine-and-cheese celebration on the expenses of the parsimonious departmental budget would be arranged for the final week of term.
The students made their arrangements for a long summer: Ella and Lee planned a backpacking expedition around the Greek Islands, sleeping on beaches and living on tzatsiki and feta cheese salads; Honora a trip home to beautiful County Fermanagh where she hoped to make a few pounds sketching portraits of tourists boating on the Loughs; while Brad, as a medical student, had work which would keep him at the university. Meanwhile June warmed the nights in which they lay in their beds and dreamed their lucid dreams.
Invitations to the wine and cheese party came as promised. The students dutifully spruced up and went along to the house. A stiff performance with an early finish was predicted, but they were surprised to find Professor Burns racing around in high spirits, his eyes enlivened by whatever share of the drinks he had already consumed, exhorting everyone to get stuck in to the crates of wine that had been provided along with the standard party fare of cubes of cheese and French loaves.
"Drink! It'll probably be the last time we can get this out of the miserable blighters!" Burns danced around, lavishly topping up any glass within arm's length, everyone's congenial host. "Don't be shy Brother Cousins, there's another crate through there!"
Some group members had brought their partners, swelling the numbers to twenty or more young people freely availing themselves of the generous flow of wine and filling the house with noisy chatter. Burns held forth to a knot of students in the corner, his steady stream of university anecdotes and outrageous disclosures producing waves of raucous laughter. After an hour or so he noticed Honora standing alone in the middle of the room with an empty glass. He cha-cha-cha'd his way over to her. He had obviously been making the most of the departmental wine while the going was good. His jewel eyes blazed merrily and a long thin lock of iron-grey hair had become displaced from its habitual coiled groove across the top of his head. It hung gamely down the side of one ear.
"Wait behind, Miss Brennan," he whispered as he refilled her glass of white wine from the bottle of dry red he was carrying, "after all the others have gone." He winked, then cha-cha-cha'd back to the corner of the room. Honora, speechless, colouring, looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. Ella drifted by.
"L. P. is pissed," said Ella.
"I know; he's trying to chat me up."
"No! What did he say?"
"He wants me to stay behind afterwards."
"Then we're in for three-in-a-bed; he asked me to stay, too."
"What can he want?"
"We'll probably have to suck his balls."
"I'm not going to!" cried Honora.
"No, don't," said Ella, already regretting the joke. "But he's a sharp old cookie. He must be up to something."
Ella knew that Burns had also invited Lee to stay. She had a sneaking suspicion that Brad would also be asked. Indeed, when Burns shepherded out the last of the guests, Brad was still looking very comfortable in a large high-winged armchair, nursing his very own wine bottle. Honora looked deeply relieved.
"Yes, help yourselves to that; I don't really want the incriminating stuff hanging around here." Burns was carrying out empty and half-empty wine glasses four in each hand. Then he returned and closed the door behind him. "I did intend," he said, holding out his glass to Brad, "to keep a clear head, but the road to Hell blah blah."
"Blah blah." Brad poured from his bottle, stealing a glance at the others.
"Quite right. Point being, why did I ask you four to stay behind?"
"Because we four are your most lucid dreamers—we've got nothing else in common."
"Too right," someone else agreed.
"Too right indeed. But the question is are the four of you interested in continuing?"
"Continuing? Continuing how?"
"Yes, Ella, continuing. Carrying on," said Burns as if he was having to explain an obscure concept or an arcane word, "progressing, doing more, not stopping, going further. Some rather more intensive exercises, under more testing conditions, exploring the true potential of these . .. talents of yours."
"Sounds interesting," said Lee, "but I'd got the idea we'd taken things as far as they could go."
"Oh, I don't think that's the case at all. Remember, it wasn't until half-way through the seminar program that you discovered your capacity for lucid dreaming." Lee looked at Ella. "Likewise Ella. Come on, don't look quite so sheepish. It's not important; I know your later accounts were genuine enough. What I'm more concerned about is whether you four will stay on over the summer vacation and do some real work."
"The thing is," said Brad, swirling wine dregs in a smeary glass, "we don't all have the luxury of the academic cushion."
"Pardon?" Burns's eyebrows were twin Norman arches.
"He means some of us have to spend the summer working," said Lee.
"I thought of that. And not wanting any of you to suffer the indignity of having to work for a living, I thought of a way of keeping you on as temporary research assistants. At least until the new term begins. Of course I'd want some results out of you; but from what I've observed of your academic activities, Brother Cousins, it won't squeeze out your studies."
"You mean we'd get paid?"
"A grant?"
"For dreaming?"
"And for writing up your results with a little more rigor than we've seen hitherto."
"What do you get out of it, apart from seeing your name under an article in The Spoonbender's Gazette}"
"Let's say, Brad, that I'm easily satisfied."
"Done," said Lee.
"Done," said the others.
"Good," said Burns, getting out of his chair, "next week we'll see if we can't start a program of real dreaming."
Ella was the last to file out through the hall. The door stood open to admit a wedge of cool night air, and a glimpse of a new moon hanging low over the graveyard opposite. The light played without sympathy on the old academic's cable-veined forehead as he helped Ella on with her coat.
"By the way," shaking her hair free of her collar, "how did you know when we, that is Lee and I, started lucid dreaming for real?"
"Oh," Burns smiled slyly, closing the door to behind her, "I'm a sharp old cookie."