Miss Mary's Book of Dreams

by Sophie Nicholls

  ‘Why are you here, anyway?’ she said to the angel. ‘What do you want from me?’

  The angel spat out a piece of waxy peel and wiped his mouth with his arm. ‘I’m protecting you. For your own good, Bryony. I want to keep you safe.’

  ‘But I don’t need you to keep me safe,’ Bryony said. ‘I don’t need you anymore.’

  ‘Really?’ The angel raised an eyebrow. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. ‘I see. So you think you’ll be OK on your own now, do you?’ He put back his head and laughed and it was a strange, horrible sound that went bouncing through the trees and echoed against the hills. ‘Bryony. Poor, sweet Bryony. Pride comes before a fall.’ He smiled again and swung his legs, watching her with an amused expression.

  Bryony looked into the angel’s eyes, bright blue and hard as marbles. She smiled back. ‘I know what you’re trying to do now,’ she said, ‘and you won’t frighten me. Not this time.’

  She closed her eyes again and imagined the angel dissolving. She started with his smile, picturing it fading from his face, and then moved on to his shoulders, letting them get paler, more transparent so that she could begin to see the branches of the tree appearing through the burnished silver flesh. She scanned down through his body, letting every part of it get fainter and begin to melt away in a white mist. Finally, there was only the shimmer of his wings hanging there, like a giant ghostly moth, and she imagined this getting smaller and smaller and then lifting up and fluttering away.

  When she opened her eyes again, there was a great rush of warm air that swirled all around her, parting the grass, lifting her skirt, whipping her hair across her face. She felt the apple trees lean down a little closer and cradle her in their long green arms. She looked up at the clouds racing high above her head and her entire body was filled with a kind of pulsing feeling. She could feel it as if it was her own heartbeat.

  And then she felt herself lifting gently from her body, up and up, carried by the press of air, the flashes of white and silver. She looked down and saw the dark shape of herself lying in the grass, her skirt billowing around her like a sail. She felt herself buoyed up, higher still, swirling and wheeling, riding the gusts of power that swept through the garden.

  Far below her, she saw Grace, her arms flung wide in the grass, her head tipped back.

  ‘I feel all funny, Bryony!’ she was shouting excitedly. ‘I can feel it all through me!’

  Then Bryony slammed back into her body. She lay for a moment panting and then struggled to her feet. The wind had dropped, the apple trees groaned softly and she felt something settling down around her shoulders, striations of light that flexed and shivered and then locked into place a few inches around the outside of her body like a shield.

  Grace was crouching over her, touching her face. ‘Bryony’s fallen asleep, Mummy,’ she was saying. ‘Wake up, Bryony. Wake up.’

  Bryony scrambled to her feet, brushing herself down.

  ‘I must have nodded off,’ she said. ‘How embarrassing.’

  ‘So, did it work?’ Ella smiled. ‘Miss Mary’s exercise? Billy’s just gone to get the flask from the boot. I think we could all do with warming up a little.’

  Bryony blew on her fingers. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember exactly what happened,’ she said.

  15

  To travel great distances in spirit: Drink a glass of clean water then draw a circle counter-clockwise on the ground and sit inside it. Direct your thoughts to where you want to go.

  – Miss Mary’s Book of Dreams

  Zohreh Jobrani’s bones ached. This England, it hung on you like damp, grey cotton. The cold got inside you somehow, no matter how you tried to keep it out. And it had been a long time since she’d done any kind of travelling. She’d forgotten how tiring it could be. The last time she’d flown – Cairo, 1989, that conference on Middle Eastern folklore – the seats on the plane had felt large and luxurious. She seemed to remember that she’d sipped a Martini and looked over her notes whilst listening to pleasant music, whereas this time she’d travelled the nine hours from Tehran with a toddler’s feet wedged in the small of her back, his sticky fingers pulling constantly at her headrest. Parents these days didn’t seem to know how to discipline their children. Especially British parents, from what she could make out. They appeared to let their children roam everywhere, even hundreds of thousands of feet up in the air, and when the poor little mites fell over or got tired or got parts of themselves stuck in things, their parents stuffed them full of sweets to keep them quiet. In her day, that would have been called lazy. Perhaps even negligent.

  She took the photograph of little Grace, her great-great-granddaughter, out of her wallet and scrutinised it. The baby looked straight into the camera with calm, clear and intelligent eyes. Zohreh hoped this was a good sign, that Ella was not one of these modern parents, afraid of laying down a few ground rules. Farah, for instance, had never been any trouble as a child. Zohreh never even needed to raise her voice. Well, if you started as you meant to go on . . .

  From her cafe table on the concourse of the new St Pancras Station, Zohreh had a perfect vantage point to watch London in the rush hour. The station was newly renovated, so the woman at the Underground ticket office had told her. Sweeping expanses of glass and polished marble stretched under the great vaulted roof. Very nice. Her sister, Talayeh, would have particularly appreciated it. And the people. People from all the different countries of the earth. There were those moving very fast with determined expressions: this man in his dark business suit and expensive shoes, talking urgently into his phone; this woman, so skinny, with the elegant raincoat and high heels, half-running for her train. Then there were the people just hanging around: the group of women in saris, pink and orange and turquoise, sampling perfumes in the shop across the way and giggling behind their hands; and the teenagers with backpacks and tight jeans, talking loudly in Spanish. And then there were the people like her, seated on benches or at cafe tables, just watching it all: the woman on the next table, sipping her coffee and flicking through a magazine whilst her little girl swung her legs impatiently and blew bubbles into her Coca Cola; the man in the turban with the sad, lined face, just staring into space.

  The woman in the ticket office at King’s Cross had been apologetic. Severe delays, she’d said. Gale-force winds. The lines were down. Zohreh didn’t know exactly what that meant but it didn’t sound good. She was beginning to wonder if she’d make it to York tonight. It would be very disappointing to miss Ella’s birthday, now that she’d got this far. But so be it. She knew better than to argue with the Fates. If she wasn’t to get there tonight then there must be a reason. And she’d nearly missed Farah completely. If it hadn’t been for the call she’d put in – an after-thought, really – she’d be on her way to California by now.

  She shook sugar from one of the little paper sachets into her cup of coffee. At least the coffee was good. She inhaled the fragrant steam from her Americano, letting it warm her, all the way down to her bones. She checked the departures board again and sighed.

  What was to be done?

  She concentrated hard, twisting her rings. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt. Just this once. She did so want to be with them all tonight.

  She reached into her pocket for the little disc of brass that she always carried – her lucky charm.

  *

  ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY!’

  Ella stood inside the door, her hand on the light switch.

  The shop was full of people, standing with raised glasses, their faces beaming at her.

  Ella scanned the room. Billy’s mum had stationed herself by a tray of canapés, her face all dimples. Florence caught her eye and pulled a sympathetic face. She knew that Ella hated surprises. Some of the other women from the book group, minus their usual toddler entourage, were crammed in the leather chairs. She even spotted Bryony, hovering uncertainly in a corner.

  Grace tugged at her hand.

  ‘I love birthdays,’ she said to the crowded
room and everyone laughed and ahhhed. ‘Happy birthday, Mummy!’

  Billy came towards them, his face split in a wide grin, his arms outstretched. Ella’s stomach churned. The air bunched thick and yellow behind Billy’s head, then settled back into place again. He was looking at her with a stricken expression.

  ‘Is it OK?’ he whispered. ‘I haven’t . . . I mean, you don’t really hate it, do you?’

  She smiled then and shook her head. For goodness’ sake. She’d better pull herself together. ‘No. No. It’s lovely. Absolutely lovely. Thank you.’

  He put his arms around her then, Grace snuggling between them, and Ella felt the heaviness that she’d been carrying inside her for days begin to soften and melt away. She’d been so stupid to doubt him. It was all suddenly starting to make sense. All those phone calls that had ended so abruptly when she walked into the room. That shifty look he’d had when she asked him who it was that he’d been speaking to. He’d been planning this, all along. A party. For her. A mixture of relief and guilt washed over her.

  Because this was Billy, after all. Billy, who didn’t know how to be anything but loyal, who liked things simple and true and said out loud. Why did she always have to make things difficult? She’d read the Signals all wrong.

  But as Billy kissed her, to general clapping and wolf-whistling from the friends who filled the room, it still felt odd somehow. Something had changed. Where once he’d been able to reach down inside her, now she felt numb. Her lips felt dry and forced against his.

  A hand on her shoulder. Squiggles of blue, a shiver of green. She turned.

  ‘MAMMA!’

  Fabia Moreno smiled. In the book-lined dim of the shop, she looked like an exotic bird.

  ‘Tesora!’ Her short dark hair, perfectly bobbed, swung playfully as she put her head back, laughing at Ella’s expression.

  ‘Mamma. I can’t believe it’s you. I had no idea. I –’

  ‘Let me look at you, tesora. My Ella-issima. My darling. Happy, happy birthday . . .’

  Ella let herself be held at arms’ length for a moment. Mamma’s green eyes twinkled. But Ella saw that Mamma’s gaze had already travelled in one expert sweep from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, taking in her unbrushed hair, her black sweater, her jeans and Converse.

  ‘Mum. Don’t. You’ve just got here.’

  ‘What? Don’t what?’

  ‘Look at me like that.’ Mamma. Poor Mamma. She would never stop hoping. ‘I honestly had no idea, Mum. I mean, if I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have bothered getting so dressed up. Whereas you, you’re really letting the side down.’

  Fabia herself was wearing a red silk kimono-style dress, with sleeves that fell from her braceleted wrists in wide arcs. An embroidered dragon, embellished with tiny beads in green and gold, snaked from her left breast and down around her waist.

  ‘Oh, come here, carina. Let your Mamma enjoy you for a moment.’

  Ella let herself be held tightly again. She could hear Mamma’s heart beating quick and strong under the red silk. She closed her eyes and breathed in the familiar scent of perfume and Marseilles soap and that other hint of something about Mamma that was always so impossible to define.

  ‘When did you get here?’

  ‘This morning. I came straight from Heathrow.’

  ‘So that’s why David sounded so odd when I tried to call you this afternoon . . . And you!’ Ella turned and punched Billy playfully on the arm. ‘How did you manage to keep this a secret?’

  Billy grinned and put a glass of ice-cold champagne into her hand. She took a sip. As the first bubbles hit the back of her throat, she felt tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. How could she ever have imagined the awful things she had?

  ‘Mum,’ she said, biting back tears. ‘You’ve no idea how glad I am to see you.’

  Mamma’s face clouded with concern then. She laid a hand on Ella’s arm.

  ‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘I just knew there was something wrong. And now I wish I’d come sooner. Tomorrow, carina, we’ll have a long talk. You’ll tell me everything. Ev-er-y-thing, OK? But tonight, we’ll drink.’ She took the glass from Billy’s hands. ‘And we’ll laugh and we’ll dance.’ She jiggled her hips. ‘And we’ll have a nice time. No?’

  Ella nodded.

  ‘But now I’m going to say hello to some old friends.’

  Ella watched Mamma move off, glass held high, nodding and smiling.

  Billy hovered, Grace pulling at Ella’s arm.

  ‘Something’s wrong?’ Billy said. ‘What does she mean, El? You are OK with all this, aren’t you? I mean, I know you hate surprises. But you’ve been so down lately. I wanted to cheer you up, give you a special evening . . .’ His voice trailed off. He looked crushed.

  ‘Of course. And it’s lovely, Billy. Really.’ Ella ran her fingers through his hair. She was still savouring the sense of relief that her suspicions had been so off. But her mind was already racing ahead.

  She sipped at her champagne and watched Billy’s face begin to relax. After all, she could be happy tonight, couldn’t she, surrounded by all these people, people who were kind and good and who only ever had her best interests at heart?

  She saw Mamma weaving her way through the room, easily and elegantly on her silver platform heels. All their old friends from the early days were here. Billy had thought of everyone. There were the Braithwaites from the grocery store on Petergate. And Amanda, the lovely woman who ran ghost tours and made cupcakes. They were hugging Mamma and laughing, happy to see her again after all this time. But Ella could see that Mamma’s fingers clutched her champagne glass a little too tightly and the smile on her perfectly lipsticked mouth was forced.

  Billy took Grace off to find her plastic cup – the one with the glittery unicorn on the side – and Ella took another sip from her own glass, feeling the champagne flow down her arms and into her fingertips. There was so much that she wanted to ask. And now that Mamma was here, she felt all the questions pressing up against one another in her head. Where would she even start?

  ‘How are you bearing up?’ Florence squeezed her shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry, lovely. I was sworn to secrecy. It was so hard not to say something.’ She smiled. ‘You see? Was I right?’ She glanced conspiratorially in Billy’s direction. ‘But I couldn’t let on. He’d have killed me.’

  Ella hugged Florence tightly. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I know. I’m an idiot.’

  Florence shook her head. ‘Only a teeny bit of one.’

  Suddenly the shop door jangled, bringing in a gust of cold wind. The Halloween decorations that Ella had hung in the windows just yesterday – bats’ wings and witches’ hats cut from black crêpe paper, fat orange tissue-paper pumpkin globes – fluttered and slapped against the glass. The broom that she’d balanced on a stack of books in the Children’s Corner clattered to the floor.

  A man stood uncertainly in the open doorway, his gaze taking in the candles and the jack o’ lanterns, searching the faces. Ella didn’t recognise him. A friend of Billy’s perhaps? But as the hum of conversation resumed again, the man pushed his way towards Bryony with a determined expression.

  Ella watched Bryony’s face turn white. She put her glass down carefully on one of the book-laden tables. She seemed to shrink visibly against the wall. Ella found herself moving closer. There was something not quite right about this man.

  ‘Ed,’ she heard Bryony say. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He looked at her and snorted. ‘I could ask you the same question . . .’ He saw Ella moving towards them then and his face instantly reshaped itself.

  ‘This is Ella,’ Bryony was saying. ‘It’s her birthday.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Many happy returns.’ The man’s face coloured. He lunged forward to take her hand in greeting.

  ‘Thank you,’ Ella said, resisting the urge to pull her hand away. She turned to see Mamma at her elbow. ‘And let me introduce you . . . Mamma, this is my friend, Bryony.
And this is . . . um, Bryony’s friend? I’m sorry.’ She looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t know your name . . .’

  She watched Ed’s face change, his smile becoming less certain, his shoulders rounding.

  ‘It’s Ed,’ he mumbled, looking down at his shoes, shifting awkwardly from one leg to the other. ‘I just . . .’ He turned to Bryony and cleared his throat. ‘I was worried about you, Bryony. You said you were going for a walk. But it’s dark. It’s not safe for you to be out here on your own. Look. I brought you this.’ He made a show of pulling a torch from his jacket pocket.

  Ella watched Bryony pull herself up straighter then. She smoothed a strand of hair out of her eyes. Mamma moved away, embarrassed.

  ‘It’s OK, Ed,’ Bryony was saying. ‘As you can see, I’m perfectly safe. These are my friends.’ Ella felt Bryony make a grab for her hand. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  A dark red stain spread across Ed’s cheeks. Ella could see the muscle twitching in his jaw. He was furious.

  ‘Right-o, then,’ he said.

  He turned to go.

  ‘Ed?’ Bryony’s eyes flashed. She looks especially pretty tonight, thought Ella. She felt Bryony’s fingers pressing hers.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t wait up for me. I might be quite late. In fact, I imagine I’ll get a taxi.’

  He nodded again.

  As the door swung to and the bell jangled behind him, Bryony giggled nervously.

  ‘I’ve never said that to him before. I – I don’t really go out much. I feel – different. Like I could do anything.’

  Ella tried not to let her face show what she was thinking.

  ‘Well, of course you can,’ she said. ‘But did he, um . . . did he follow you?’

  Bryony looked away. Her fingers worked the stem of her wine glass. ‘It’s my fault,’ she said. ‘I fibbed. I didn’t exactly say where I was going. He – he means well. But he can be a bit –’

  ‘Controlling?’

  The word was out before Ella could stop herself. Instantly, she regretted it. She saw and felt Bryony’s embarrassment.