Dreamside

T E N



We may need to characterize and distinguish respectively between the deceptions and distortions



of our desires; through the media of memory,

fantasy, neuroses, dreaming, and finally through

those unhinged kinds of love which themselves

spiral deeper and deeper into madness

—L. P. Burns

Somewhere in the Brecon Beacons, guided in the moonless dark by an infrared confidence and a blueprint memory, Ella found her mark. It was the early hours of the morning. The Midget, engine knocking wildly, stalled outside the house on the exact spot where an old Morris Minor had stood one summer thirteen years ago. Ella had already jumped out, leaving Brad to stare moodily around him. The house stood empty.

"Thirteen years on," she said to Brad, "and still a holiday home for some overpaid academic who's probably been twice since we were here."

Brad got out of the car. He didn't begrudge anyone a single brick of the place. "How will we get in?" he said, in a voice that suggested. "Let's turn back."

Ella lifted the boot of her car. "You've got a narrow experience of life, Brad Cousins." She lifted a slender chisel and a hammer from the boot, and marched around to the rear of the house. Brad followed at a distance of five paces. She slotted the chisel between the upper and lower frame of a sash window, swung the hammer once, hard, and the window catch flew open. The window required only a light push, sliding up as if by hydraulic gears.

"Where did you learn that?"

"From a cigarette card. Go and fetch those things from the car."

Brad trotted off obediently as Ella climbed through the window. When he reappeared with Ella’s bag, she had the back door open.

"No, don't switch on the lights. We don't want to attract attention. Anyway, it'll soon be light. Close the curtains and light some of these candles."

"Romantic," said Brad.

"You think so?"

"No."

With the candle flames flickering and darting long shadows across the room, they could see that the house had recently been renovated. Floorboards had been sanded, old cupboards replaced by units, and the enamel sink supplanted by one of stainless steel. They made coffee and played a nervous round of That-Wasn't-Here-Before.

"What time will the others come?"

"When they show up."

"Give me one of those ridiculous liquorice cigarettes, will you?"

Some time after three o'clock in the morning, a car pulled up outside the house. Ella went to the window and drew back a curtain. Then she opened the door.

"We got well lost," said Lee, "we've been driving in circles. Scary kind of circles." He gave Ella a special look.

So now Lee was getting a taste, Ella thought. Now he understands what's happening. "Don't tell me about it. You're here. Come inside, Honora,"

"Is he in there?"

Ella nodded, and they walked through. Brad sat stiffly in a corner of the room. Lee was only mildly surprised to see him shaved, shorn and kitted out in some of his old clothes. Honora simply erased his presence: he wasn't there. Brad might have flickered a glance in her direction, or maybe it was only the play of candlelight across his eyes.

Lee rubbed his hands with simulated gusto, paced the floor and chattered about making coffee and getting comfortable: anything to overlay the smoky bitterness in the room. Ella was wiser than Lee. She knew the exact nature of the ingredients that had to be brought together to bubble in the cauldron. Let them feel it, she thought, let them feel it.

Lee discovered what hard work it is to keep up conversation when three other people don't want to join in. He quickly ran out of counterfeit enthusiasm. The candles burned steadily, and the four sat silently, nursing empty coffee mugs, only their eyes reflecting the available light. Occasionally a flame would shiver in a draft, dispatching shadows across a wall and releasing a worm of black smoke.

"This is like a séance," said Lee. "Let's see if we can contact the living."

No one bothered to laugh. Lee was reminded of the early lucid dreaming seminars, where they would sit for twenty minutes in uncomfortable silence waiting for the professor to speak. He was about to wonder aloud what Burns would have made of their situation, but opted against unwise comment. Honora gazed down at the rug beneath her as if she saw something significant in its pattern, and it seemed to Lee that her silence was the deepest. Brad continued to find the far corner of the ceiling an image of satisfaction. Ella looked far too comfortable, and the corners of her mouth were turned up fractionally in what he thought was an incipiently malevolent smile.

That Ella was in charge was unquestionable. The other three had by now surrendered themselves to her. They all knew why they were here, but they were waiting for Ella to summon them to order. She seemed to have the power to draw something out of them, to distil something from the brooding silence. When Ella did speak, the others were steeled to listen.

"No one's in any mood for sleeping; and we all know why that is. In any event I'm wide awake, and the dawn will be up in an hour or two. Better save it for tomorrow night, when we will need to sleep. We have to take that walk together on dreamside." Ella paused for effect, and released a deep sigh.

"Tomorrow," she continued, "or rather when it gets light, we'll go and take a look at the lake. We'll just spend the day together, however much effort that takes. It's what Burns showed us. It worked before and it will work for us again. Tomorrow night we sleep, and we do it. Agreed?" Ella looked from person to person but all eyes were averted. "There can't be any stragglers."

"Ella," said Brad self-consciously, making a waving sign at his mouth.

"Sure," said Ella. "Lee, I hope you didn't forget Brad's medicine?"

"What?"

"Did you bring anything for him?"

"Oh sure," said Lee, glad to do something useful. He went out and returned with a half-empty bottle of whiskey. "Don't scowl at it; there's more in the car."

"Don't give him ideas," said Ella, but not before Brad had hooked back a good belt of Scotch.

Before the candles had burned down, the first grey light of the day leaked into the room. The dawn chorus was in song before they realized it, followed by a brighter light. Honora went round snuffing out candles, slowly, like a church acolyte. Ella watched her and was afraid for her. She had spent most of the night in complete silence, haunting everyone else with her inward stare. Now she stood poised over the last candle, thumb and forefinger moistened to nip out the flickering light, but arrested in the motion. She gazed steadily into the flame without blinking. It was as if her soul was a fine thread being unwound from a thick spool and pulled in toward the heart of the flame.

"Look at her," Ella whispered to Lee, "something is taking her, a little at a time."

"What is it?"

Ella shook her head. "Stop her."

Lee moved up behind Honora, gently reaching over her shoulder to nip out the candle flame. She seemed to wake up.

"Have I been sleeping?" she asked.

Lee looked over at Ella, but they said nothing. Then Ella pulled back the curtains, looked up at the sky and pronounced that it was going to be a fine day. Brad snorted.

"We'll go for a walk," said Ella. "Take a look at the lake."

'I’ll stay here," said Brad.

"No. We need your cheerful company."

The sun came up fast, blood-red. Just as quickly it mellowed to a pallid disk. They were a strange troupe, filing down the hill of the country lane without speaking. Honora walked on a few yards in front. Brad straggled behind. Ella and Lee wanted to grip hands but were for some reason impelled against it. It was no short distance to the lake, and in the chill, damp air of the early morning they completed the hike in silence.

When they got there, the lake was dead.

Or if not completely dead, it was locked in a state of suspended, strangled ugliness. The breath of spring, which abounded in everything else, had passed it by. A yellow, oily foam like detergent had collected in raked scum patterns on the surface of the water. It clung to dead branches and Coke cans and other debris at the lake's edge. The towering oak had failed to come into leaf and the rough bark was stripping itself on the side leaning over the water. The willow that had once dipped into the lake would never recover; it had withered into dry twigs and run the colour of rust. The colonies of birds and insects that should have regenerated had either died with the lake or had migrated, never to return.

"Where did all this pollution come from?" said Brad. He sounded as if he took it personally.

Ella found some kind of an answer pinned to a tree. It was a notice of a public meeting, placed there by a Conservationist group.

POLLUTION

If you are disturbed by the pollution of this and other areas of local beauty by the illegal dumping of chemical wastes, please attend the public inquiry to be held in Penmarthern Town Hall. Representatives of the Lytex chemicals company will be in attendance.



The notice was already out of date: the meeting had gone by two days earlier.

"Lytex?" said Lee, puzzling over the notice. "Sounds familiar."

"Forget it," said Brad.

Honora stood at the very edge of the lake. "It's poisoned," she said, gazing into its depths. Then her face set in that same expression Ella had identified earlier. She swayed slightly on the bank above the polluted water, as if played on some invisible cord, with some still, small part of herself unwinding into the lake. Ella saw it again. Honora looked pale, beautiful and unearthly, but anaemic, as if her life-blood was leaking away. This time it was Brad who made a move to save her, but Ella stopped him with a gesture. Then she stepped forward, put an arm around the other woman and turned her away from the water.

"I'm losing myself," said Honora.

"It's all right. I'll watch over you."

Lee fingered the diseased bark of the tall oak. Ella peered from the bank as the iridescent scales of a detergent slick writhed slowly on the water. Even amid the corruption and pollution she could see the shining scales of a dragon, or a winged serpent, or a beautiful, silver-armoured company with banners fluttering below the surface of the water. It was difficult to look away. "Let's get out of here," she said.

She led them from the lake over to the woods, where afternoons had been spent strolling in Burns's company, when they were wide eyed and receptive to his sharp definitions of life and to his quiet revelations. Even in waking time on those afternoons, Burns had made the woods a place of jewelled cobwebs, a place inhabited by satyrs and dryads. Now they were wandering without purpose through the mouldering scrub of a thin damp copse.

Ella was circumspect as they walked; constantly glancing around her as though she expected to discover something or to encounter someone. If the others noticed, they made no comment.

They took the path back to the house, Honora still in advance and decisively separated from Brad by the other two. Occasionally they changed positions. Ella was anxious about leaving Honora alone with her thoughts, where she was like a weak swimmer at risk from strong currents. She sent Lee up to talk with Honora; Ella dropped back to talk with Brad; then Lee talked to Brad and Ella with Honora; but Honora and Brad never talked. And all of this was conducted against the rumbling, prophetic thunder of what the night held. On this night, they must sleep and dream.

Brad hung his cropped head, eyes fixed on the narrow path before him as Ella walked at his side. "Why are we doing this?"

"To make a connection," said Ella, glancing hopefully about her.

"I've made a connection. Can I be excused now?"

Ella took his arm. She was softening to his helplessness.

"Do you really not remember, Ella?"

"Remember what?"

"That time. Of dreaming. Just the once."

"Don't start that again."

"It's important to me."

"I'm sure it is."

"There's a reason why," he said softly, even shyly. "You say that it didn't happen—"

"Which it didn't."

"So I can't change that; it's what you remember, and anyway it was only on dreamside, but Ella it was lucid, there was no mistake, we all of us know the difference between those dreams and ordinary dreams, but you and I were there, alone and it was special, happy, for both of us, and for me it was the only time it ever happened . . ."

"What?" cried Ella.

"I don't mean the only time it ever happened, I mean the only time it happened—and I'm talking about waking time as well— that was real or good."

There was a frightening urgency about what Brad was saying. Ella closed her eyes. She wondered whether she could in fact recall such a situation with Brad, and conceded that underneath their old antagonism something sexual might have been afoot. Was there a fragment of a dream she had wiped out, repressed completely? Ella knew how easy it was to erase lucid dream experiences. She forced the thought back.

Up ahead, Lee and Honora were engaging in another version of that same conversation.

"What's the purpose of this?" Honora asked.

Lee didn't know, except that Ella wanted it. Sometimes he thought that Ella was just too complicated for him. He didn't understand half of the things she said and did, but he always went along with them. She acted and he reacted. She was quicksilver, he was lead. He had allowed himself to live too vaguely, and consequently she had led him since day one, often into places where he didn't want to be, and he was still following her now. How strongly Honora contrasted with Ella. She looked pale and vulnerable, but lovely in her simple woollen dress and plaited hair.

"Do you still think it could have been us?" said Lee.

"No point thinking of it now."

"No."

But after a pause she admitted, "I've always hung on to secret thoughts about you. Not love, or maybe not, at least let's not call it that. And I think you knew all about it."

"Never," said Lee. He kissed her lightly. This time there were no visions of serpents. Only a fresh smell like clear rainwater, and the diffuse sunlight a-play in her copper hair. Ella watched from a short distance behind.


Late in the walk, Brad dropped behind Lee and Ella to talk to Honora. She shivered as he approached.

"I wanted to speak to you, Honora."

"What in hell would I have to say to you?"

"What about some recognition? What about sorry?"

"Sorry? You think I should apologize to you? You're demented as well as a drunkard."

"All of the times I tried to reach you; to help you. You never once bothered to answer. Time after time, over the years. Not once. Not a single word. Do those two know that? Not a bit of it. They're much happier to see me as the villain. It's all poor bloody Honora."

"I owe you nothing at all; nothing."

"You're wrong, Honora. You owe me the recognition. Did you tell them I was with you when it happened? Did you tell them I was there, and that I held your hand and warmed you, and cleaned you and delivered the baby on dreamside for you-did you tell them that? Did you tell them?"

She stopped and turned to face him. "It was a different dream. You were never there. It could never have been the same dream."

"It was the same dream. I was there. You could never have done it alone, you would have died. That's why you ignored all my letters. You've just changed the dream. You've edited it, blocked me out, that's all. You all block me out!"

"It's not possible."

"It's the truth. My dream and your dream were the same dream."

"Why in God's name did you want to go stirring it all up, waking us all again? It was all dead and buried! Why couldn't you just leave us all in peace? It was all in the past until you brought it on us again. You brought it all back. They thought it was me, all of this time they thought that it was me doing it out of guilt. But I knew it was your doing. I just hoped it wasn't."

"You don't understand, I couldn't leave it. There was something belonging to us there which had to be settled, had to be put right. I didn't choose it; I was taken there and shown it time and time again. I couldn't hold it off."

"Like you can't hold off a drink you mean?"

"Maybe. I don't know. But I didn't intend to drag everyone else back in."

"You didn't 'intend'."

"Listen to me, Honora, I'm trying to make amends." He took hold of her arm. "It doesn't make any difference what you say, I've run out of fight."

"Brad Cousins, I don't care if you run out of breath."

Brad dropped her arm, and walked off in the opposite direction.

They had almost reached the house when Ella and Lee realized that Brad had disappeared.

"Where is he?"

"Gone."

"But is he coming back?"

"I don't know," said Honora.

She thought not.