S I X
"I am real" said Alice, and began to cry —Lewis Carroll
The next morning Ella was far away before Lee woke up for the third time, with a frightened start. Each false awakening was like breaking through a thin shell which would fragment and fall away only to reveal another one. This time it occurred to him to get out of bed and pick up a book. He let it fall open, read a paragraph twice and was relieved to find that it didn't change.
Honora found him in the kitchen. He was muttering over broken eggs. "You're awake," he said. "Any repeaters?" By now it was almost like saying good morning. You heard the sentiment but not the words.
"Lots. Where's Ella?" Honora looked better. She had colour in her cheeks and her hair tumbled free over her shoulders.
"Gone to collect something." He would have to tell her later. Ella had told him to win her confidence, to get her to take that dreamside walk. How he was supposed to do that was anybody's guess.
He was still thinking about the episode in the church, and of his Perspex shrine lying in a box in the attic. He could no longer pretend that Honora's problems didn't concern him, or that he was in any way outside of events. His rational objections had already dissolved, and he had been forced to recognize the seriousness of Ella's mission.
"Where did you say Ella had gone?" Honora said over breakfast.
"She had to go out to get something."
"What, exactly?"
This time he looked her deep in the eye before lying through his teeth. "She didn't say."
Being alone in the house with Honora made Lee feel on edge. He wasn't entirely certain what was creating the tension, but she clouded the air. It disturbed him. He cleared the dishes and busied himself at the sink. Honora hovered uncomfortably behind him for a moment before going through to the lounge. Then some movement outside the kitchen window caught Lee's eye.
"Wonder what she wants here?" he said aloud. He went outside, leaving the kitchen door open. Cold air fanned the house. Honora, who had also seen the girl, waited breathlessly in the lounge.
Lee wandered back. "Gone," he said, shutting the door behind him. "A kid. Sad little mouse, blue with cold. She looked at me as though she wanted something."
Honora said nothing.
Lee returned to the sink. Persuading Honora was not going to be easy. She would rather be lowered into a pit of snakes than meet up with Brad Cousins again, on dreamside or anywhere else. As for winning her confidence, Lee was out of practice at getting close to people. Nevertheless, at some point he would have to steer the discussion around to Brad.
Lee plunged his arm into the hot water and took a plate. He heard the ping! and felt it split as he lifted it out. The hot water had broken it.
A hairline crack appeared in the centre, spreading jaggedly both up towards the rim and down to his wrist. But then the crack extended itself at both ends simultaneously: at the top of the plate the crack skipped from the plate to rip at the plastic bowl, releasing a tide of foaming water. Then with a groan of tearing metal it wrenched apart the stainless steel sink itself, water gushing through the breach in the basin. At the other end of the plate the crack swept along the lifeline of the palm of Lee's hand. Skin cells popped and unzipped bloodily, following the curve of a vein in his forearm, marking its progress with a gory, congealed butcher's gash.
Lee was rooted. He let out a tiny gasp. Then he jumped backwards and dashed the plate to the floor where it shattered into minute fragments. The crack breaching the sink repaired itself and closed up instantly. The gash in his hand and arm healed.
Honora came in. Lee was staring at the palm of his hand. Honora took it as if she was looking for a burn, but she had already guessed part of the truth. The kitchen floor was awash with water.
"What happened?"
"I don't know!" said Lee. He was still looking for the phantom gash. "What was it? Did that really happen to me? It was like a . . . like a memory flash from dreamside. An elemental. Oh God!"
"Come through to the other room," said Honora.
"Are we awake? Or are we sleeping?"
Honora had already experienced these invasions into daytime. Lee hadn't, and was shocked.
"We're awake. This has happened before."
"Often?"
"No, not often.”
"But the book .. . the acid test. I did it this morning."
"You can't trust it any more. The old rules are broken."
"God, I'm still shaking. I was being torn apart!"
Honora was still holding his hand. She leaned forward and
kissed it lightly.
"What was that for?"
"That was for you." Her eyes were the blue of a lake.
"Honora, did you never meet anyone, after you left the university I mean. Did you never want to?"
"My one experience of men was enough."
"Are you going to blame everyone for that?"
"I don't know. After it all happened I went into hiding, and that became a habit."
"Did you never think that the reason for all of this might be that you were hiding, I mean repressing things."
"You've all got your boxed theories, haven't you? Ella's theory was Religious Guilt. Yours is Sexual Frustration. At bottom, neither of you wants to admit that there's the dream, the whole dream and nothing but the dream. So you try to put the problem on to me."
"That's not fair .. ."
"Come on. It's going to take more than a bit of pop psychology to clear the rats out of this cellar."
"Don't misunderstand me, Honora. I wasn't suggesting that we . . ."
"Well, I could do worse. Look at you, you're easily shocked! And why not anyway? Things could easily have been different."
"What do you mean ?"
"Oh ... let it go."
"You mean it could have been you and me instead of Ella and me."
"Oh no, not really. Ella was always the bright sparkle on the water. She made me feel like I was standing in the shade. I always admired her and felt a little jealous at the same time."
"I can't imagine you as the jealous type. What was there to be jealous of anyway?"
"Well, she had you for one thing."
"Oh come on Honora, be serious."
"No, really, it's true. I liked the way you could sit back from a situation, when others argued; you always seemed to have … reserves."
"You're mistaking the absence of ideas for reserves; I just didn't have anything to contribute, I always thought: go which way the wind blows."
"That's not such a bad philosophy, is it?"
"You're wrong about that. I've lived all my life in a draft!"
"Oh go on. Don't put yourself down."
Lee thought how easily indeed it might have been different. There was a moment back there, years ago, in the shadow of a doorway somewhere, between Honora and himself. But the moment had been distracted by a sparkle on the water, when Ella had dropped back and had steered him by the elbow down a different path.
Lee put his hand into the nest of brown curls tied back above Honora's neck, and felt them slide over his fingers like cool, live things. But when he tried to draw her to him, she resisted.
"Too late for all that," she said.
"Yes, but I'm going to kiss you anyway."
This time she consented. She put her mouth on his, and her tongue flicked at his mouth. Through half-closed eyes, he saw her curls tumbling free and twisting towards him. He thought of Ella's words before she left, about sleeping with Honora, and he knew that Ella had seen this, hadn't been joking. Or maybe he credited Ella with too much vision, maybe she had just been afraid of this happening. But he closed his eyes and all thoughts of Ella were subsumed in the honeyed kiss. Honora's lips were sweet and her inexperience excited him. She smelled of the freshly falling rain.
Then he opened his eyes and he saw not Honora's face, but a child's. A girl child's, the colour and texture of white candle-wax; the sick, unhealthy face of the child who had eyed him that very morning from the bottom of his garden.
And now he saw not the waving curls of Honora's hair, but a writhing, spitting nest of vipers. Her eyes had turned the dull yellow-gold of a venomous serpent. He tried to pull back, but his tongue petrified in her mouth and the saliva on their lips became a glue which bonded them. Tearing himself away was the agony of lips lacerating in strips of flesh. He gasped and flung himself backwards, crashing into the table and shattering the glass cabinet in the corner of the room.
"What is it? What happened?" cried Honora, getting up to help him.
"No! No! Don't touch me!"
The vision had already disappeared. All he could see now was Honora's helpless and horrified expression, her arms lifted towards him, a trace of blood on her mouth. But he couldn't let her near him.