The Queen of Yesterday

by Rob Kinsman

  The Queen of Yesterday

  By Rob Kinsman

  The Queen of Yesterday by Rob Kinsman

  ©2016 by Rob Kinsman

  Cover image ©2016 by Rebecca Allen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For Helena

  One

  That night everyone else had the same dream.

  Old men spluttering in their sleep saw a fantastical castle in the sky. Young boys flew with the eagles that danced across the battlements. A thirty year old IT student with no imagination marvelled at the crystal walls which had repelled invaders for forty generations.

  But Zoe didn’t see any of this.

  Around 3am she did briefly drift off and dream about a ginger cat who’d learnt to speak Czech, but mostly she spent the night staring restlessly at the ceiling. Wishing she didn’t have to stare at it alone.

  The next morning the same conversation was repeated up and down the whole country. The realisation that everyone had shared in something most unusual.

  For some it happened over breakfast. A child would mention to their parents that they’d spent the night in a magical place. The parents – used to humouring such tales – would nod and continue about their business… until they heard the details, which sounded oh-so familiar. Then they would stop and listen.

  For others it happened at work. While they were putting their uniform on in the locker room, perhaps; filling the air with small talk. In prisons, disruptive inmates suddenly found something in common with their captors, and for once they spoke as equals.

  The dream brought people together in ways no-one could have imagined. It was a club everyone could be a member of.

  Well, almost everyone.

  Zoe arrived at the office early, which displeased her. For some reason the Underground had been unnaturally quiet this morning, leading to hopes – soon frustrated – that an archaic bank holiday had been revived without her knowledge.

  As she passed through the foyer she nodded at Alf, the surly security guard. He responded with a barely audible grunt. Zoe had no idea why they even needed a security guard: they were a minor branch of an even-more minor local council, not a nightclub at kicking out time. Admittedly, there had once been an altercation when a press officer and a middle manager discovered they’d been sharing more than just a vision for the future of the department. At the time, however, Alf was nowhere to be found.

  Zoe headed into the cramped general office with her head down, hoping to avoid making eye-contact with anyone. She was long past the stage of pretending to care what anybody else had done at the weekend. Today she got to her desk without incident, which was in itself strange. However hard she played the ice queen, someone would usually mistake proximity for giving-a-shit.

  She fired up her computer, ready for another day’s instantly forgettable work. Her spidey-senses tingled. There was something missing.

  The other people. All of them.

  While this would be a blissful situation if it were permanent, Zoe did wonder where they’d all got to. Her fear was that it was someone’s birthday and right now the cakes were being dished out without her. If so then it was a race against time, although mostly against Fat Julie, whom it was rumoured could sniff out a cream horn at a hundred yards. Zoe didn’t assign these nicknames without reason.

  She headed off on a scouting mission to the kitchen. From the hallway she could already hear the rumble of half a dozen voices locked in conversation.

  “I saw things so vividly.”

  “I could feel the crisp wind on my face.”

  “The smell was intoxicating.”

  Zoe came into the kitchen to find a huddle of people trying to ‘out sense’ each other. It would have made one of the more disappointing editions of Top Trumps.

  “Don’t tell me even you had it?” Fat Julie asked her.

  “What?”

  “The dream.”

  Zoe frowned.

  “We all travelled to a magical castle last night,” explained Acne Nigel from HR.

  “Oh, right. Is there cake?”

  “No.”

  “See you later.”

  Zoe spun on her heels and left them to it. Nobody seemed to notice her go.

  “Did you see the eagles?”

  “I flew with the eagles.”

  Zoe returned to her desk, not knowing or caring what the others were on about.

  They’d once wasted a whole day trying to guess Daniel Craig’s email address, so there was no point worrying about whatever madness they’d got obsessed with this time. The important thing was that she’d been wrong about the cake situation. Well, either that or Julie had already devoured the lot, box and all.

  Zoe slumped down in her seat and began the thankless task of marketing the council’s unremarkable work to a disinterested world. It was another forty minutes until the others drifted in and hit their computers, desperately searching for new ways to try and outdo each other.

  “I got an email from my Auntie Elizabeth,” squawked Julie. “She’s in her eighties, and even she had the dream.”

  “So did my sister’s twins, and they’re only four,” came the reply. “They’re very advanced for their age. It’s in their genes.”

  Zoe tried her best to ignore them, but it was hard. They were an obsessive bunch when they had a new game to play.

  “The dream is the top trending topic at the moment,” announced Lopsided Peter.

  “Haven’t you got work to do?” sighed Zoe.

  “Hey, there’s no reason to stress. Just chillax and go with the flow.”

  Zoe thought it should be a crime for anyone in their forties to say words like chillax. Sadly, nobody ever dared criticise Lopsided Peter for fear of being done for discrimination. For Zoe’s money a twat was a twat, lopsided or not.

  Her phoned beeped. A text from a distant cousin asking if she’d had the dream. Then, a little later, another message. A different person, but the same question.

  And then again.

  The delusional ramblings of her colleagues she’d learned to ignore, especially since the carbon monoxide detector broke. But real people in the real world? Most of them she’d barely seen for ages, surely they wouldn’t be texting her without good reason?

  Zoe surreptitiously opened her internet browser and instantly discovered what everyone was getting so excited about. The dream was fast becoming the only story covered on everything from personal blogs to respectable news sites. People all across the country had shared in something special, a vision of a wondrous place. It was like a magical holiday everybody else had been invited on.

  Fucking typical, thought Zoe.

  She tried to convince herself that it might all be a practical joke. Perhaps it was just the idiots in the office getting revenge on her for some perceived sleight. They might have mocked up some special version of the internet which would redirect her to the pages they’d written. Maybe they’d even found some way to send fake texts from distant relatives. It was possible that she was the unknowing star of some hidden camera reality show, and right now unemployed people across the land were watching her mundane life on some obscure cable TV channel.

  She grabbed her mobile and snuck off to the privacy of the Customer Relations department, the one place she was guaranteed not to be disturbed. Whatever staff had once worked there had either been convicted or died of chronic apathy long ago. Time for the acid test.

  “Mum?”

  “Oh love, isn’t it incredible?” came the familiar voice down the phone.

  Maybe she’s in on it too?

  “Do yo
u mean this dream everyone’s been having?”

  “Did you get to go inside the castle? They’ve been talking about it on the news, but it seems that nobody was able to get past the gates. If you did, we’d make a fortune!”

  “Mum, I didn’t have the dream.”

  A long silence.

  “Oh.”

  There was that tone of disappointment Zoe had spent years trying to filter out.

  “Maybe that makes me more special?”

  “Nnnggg,” was the best her mother could manage.

  “Did everyone in the village have it?”

  “Uh-huh”.

  “I did have a dream last night though. A brief one.” Zoe could hear the desperation in her own voice. “Maybe that could be important.”

  “What happened?”

  “There, um, there was a cat.”

  “A castle cat?”

  “No. Just a cat-cat.”

  “What did it do?”

  “It spoke Czech.”

  A long silence.

  “Or possibly Polish,” added Zoe. “They sound pretty similar to me.”

  An even longer silence.

  “I think it was called Mourek…”

  “There’s someone at the door,” said Zoe’s mother abruptly.

  “Ok, I’ll speak to you soon”.

  The line was already dead.

  Zoe decided to knock off work early, there didn’t seem a lot of point trying to get anything done today. With something so unusual going on she couldn’t imagine anyone was going to miss hearing about the department’s new waste management initiative. She went to HR to ask for the time off. In the circumstances even the normally-fastidious Acne Nigel didn’t cause a fuss about the lack of notification. He was always a soft touch if you spoke to him nicely and didn’t stare too much.

  When Zoe got out onto the street the full scale of what had happened became apparent. The whole country was grinding to a halt. Strangers were talking to strangers, comparing their identical experiences. A passing tramp grabbed Zoe in a bear hug.

  “Get off!” she yelped.

  “It’s a miracle! I just want to share the love.”

  Zoe prised him off before any love was shared.

  An impromptu party was forming in the High Street. A general sense of good will and happiness pervaded. The station was a bus ride away, but Zoe couldn’t face the thought of being crammed in with all these tediously happy people so she walked.

  When she finally reached the Tube she scuttled quickly down the stairs. She’d never seen a happy person on the London Underground and today didn’t disappoint: even in the face of an unprecedented event like this, people avoided eye contact. Zoe wondered if it would be possible to spend the rest of her life making laps of the Circle Line.

  She got back home just before one in the afternoon and immediately pulled all the curtains in her flat shut. Without further hesitation she made a beeline for the bedroom, stripped off and slid beneath the duvet.

  Then she tried to go to sleep.

  Two

  In her dream Zoe saw the king of the owls. He was a magnificent white barn owl, and the others called him Aulus the Wise. After he had spread his wisdom to the lesser owls he emitted a pellet, because even kings need to go sooner or later.

  When Zoe woke up she couldn’t help feeling disappointed. This hadn’t seemed like it was part of the great shared adventure the rest of the country was on. Her colleagues at work had mentioned eagles, but she couldn’t remember anyone talking about an owl taking a dump. Still, these were strange times so maybe she was just ahead of the curve.

  Try as she might, further sleep eluded her. For the second time that day Zoe laid staring restlessly at the ceiling. She was afraid to get up and see if her owly dream had somehow made her normal.

  She anxiously turned on the television.

  A multitude of channels had given over regular programming to rolling coverage of what they were unimaginatively calling Dreamgate. Zoe thought it sounded like the name of a boy-band assembled from people who’d failed the solo auditions in the X-Factor.

  The BBC were interviewing a dream expert, who loftily explained the psychological significance of every element of the fantastical castle. He was joined on the sofa by a singer-songwriter who’d fortuitously just released a whole album of dream-themed songs. You could practically see the pound signs in the eyes of his otherwise cherub-like face.

  ITV had given over their programming to a ‘Celebrity Dreaming’ theme. C-listers eagerly described what they’d experienced the previous night, even though it was exactly the same as everybody else. Fashion experts in bad clothes advised people how to dress for bed.

  Even the shopping channels were trying to muscle in on the act, selling dream-catchers, blackout blinds and any other manner of sleep-related tat they could lay their paws on.

  Not a single channel mentioned a regal owl called Aulus.

  Zoe stared at the screen, numb inside.

  What’s wrong with me?

  The hours went by, and it soon became clear that this phenomenon was global. As night fell across other parts of the world so the dream came to visit the people there. In the conflict zones of the Middle East hostilities were briefly suspended, sparking hopes of a new peace process. In tribal parts of Africa the dream was seen as a message from the Gods, and joyous celebrations followed. In Rome much the same thing was going on, albeit less joyously. In Hollywood competing executives tried frantically to work out who to buy the movie rights from.

  Zoe dug deeper into the jumbo tub of ice cream, feeling like the girl no-one had asked to the prom.

  Her whole life had been a struggle to fit in. Her parents had pushed for her to apply to Oxbridge, but deep down she knew she wouldn’t make the cut. Not like Claudia Harrison or Verity Peters of any of those other insufferable girls her mother had encouraged her to mingle with.

  Fearing the inevitable rejection, Zoe had bravely announced that actually she was going to apply to art college. Her mother was horrified, but Zoe figured that if she couldn’t be one of the privileged few then maybe she could find her place on the fringes. For her it would be a life of hanging out with the Bohemian crowd, sticking two fingers up at the establishment.

  The problem, and it was a biggie, was that she wasn’t very good at art.

  But fortunately, at art college that needn’t be a problem; it was as much about personality as what you put down on paper. Zoe quickly acquired a new wardrobe, which made her bedroom look like the aftermath of an explosion at the Army Surplus store. She blagged her way through the interview and headed off, ready to set the world alight through the force of her personality.

  It had never occurred to her that it was possible to buy a trench-coat in the wrong shade of black. That ripped clothes could be torn incorrectly. It turned out that the pecking order among free-thinking, anti-establishment people was far more vicious than anything she had encountered at her minor public school. She’d reluctantly had to face the fact that she didn’t fit in with the people who were trying not to fit in.

  Head hung low, she’d dropped out of college and returned to the village. Her mother was surprisingly sympathetic, perhaps out of relief that they’d only had to waste one term’s worth of fees on this folly.

  Duly chastised, Zoe headed off to study something more sensible the following term. Three years later, marketing degree in hand, she applied for a stopgap crap job with a local council in the murkier outskirts of East London. Twelve years on and she was still there.

  To add insult to injury, her friends had all started breeding over the past few years. Zoe, on the other hand, hadn’t found Mr Right. Even Mr Alright seemed to be stuck in traffic. Life had become increasingly lonely as smug parent after smug parent dropped off the map. For a while she contemplated joining a cult, but she didn’t like the hours.

  And so she found herself stuck in a dead-end job with a bunch of idiots she despised and no meaningful relationship with anything that didn’
t require batteries.

  She didn’t know when she was well off.

  There was a knock on her front door.

  Her instinct was to not answer it, but some optimistic part of her still clung on to the hope that her day was about to turn around. Maybe her visitor would be the bearer of good news.

  She opened the door to reveal Crazy Sid from down the corridor.

  “Hey Zoe.”

  Gulp.

  “Sid.”

  “Do you want to come to my party tonight?”

  “Um, you know, I don’t think I can.”

  “All my friends will be there.”

  “Really?”

  Zoe knew from experience that exactly 100% of these ‘friends’ were in his head.

  “Trouble is, I already made plans,” she stammered. “I’d cancel, but you know how it is.”

  “I shared something special with the world today.” Zoe hoped he meant the dream and not his genitals again. “I want to celebrate.”

  “Like I said, I’m busy.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going on a date,” she lied. “I ought to start getting ready so I can make a good impression.”

  “Bring him to my party!”

  “I’m not sure it’s really his scene.”

  “I’ve got cheesy fingers.”

  “Well, that sounds great,” said Zoe, uncertain how literal he was being. “But we’ve got dinner reservations.”

  “Pleeease,” rasped Sid.

  Christ, he’s going to kill me where I stand.

  “Tell you what, I’ll see what Brad says and maybe we can drop in later.”

  “Thank you!”

  Sid started doing an actual dance of joy, which to a casual observer probably looked more like he was being electrocuted.

  “But if we end up going back to Brad’s place I might not be home till tomorrow,” busked Zoe. “So don’t worry if we don’t make it.”