(1989) Dreamer

by Peter James

  ‘You look very tired Sam. Are you on any medication?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not sleeping pills? Tranquillisers?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘Does Richard know you’re here?’

  She hesitated. ‘No . . . I’d be grateful if you didn’t—’

  ‘Of course.’

  She stared into his expressionless eyes then away at the expanse of polished wood on the top of his desk, with nothing on it except a gold pen, lying flat. Then she glanced down at her fingers. Biting her nails, she thought, looking at her thumb, with part of the skin bitten away as well. Ugly.

  ‘I wondered if there were any pills you could give me that would stop me from dreaming.’ She was picking at it, picking, picking. Stop. She tried, then began to pick again.

  He pushed out his lower lip, then tapped his gold pen with his fingers. ‘There are inhibitor drugs, but they have a lot of side effects. They’ll cut down your dreaming at night but you’ll start having day dreams, hallucinations, instead. Tell me, Sam, if you’re seeing the future, what are you really frightened of? Isn’t it helpful? Can’t you use this information?’

  ‘It’s not like that. It’s as if . . . as if I’m making these things happen by dreaming about them.’

  ‘You caused the plane to crash?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And it wouldn’t have crashed if you hadn’t dreamed it?’

  She felt her face redden slightly, and shrugged.

  ‘These dreams you had as a child after this hooded man was killed – how soon after the dreams did things happen?’

  She racked her brains back in time. Hazy. Childhood was just a mass of images. Like dents in an old desk they became smoothed over the years, part of a familiar landscape, and you couldn’t remember the order in which they came, no matter how hard you tried. ‘It varied, I suppose.’

  ‘A day? A week? Several months?’

  She heard the cry of her own voice.

  ‘Mummy!’ Hugging. Crying.

  ‘It’s all right, darling.’

  ‘It was always soon. The next day, or a few days.’

  ‘Did you ever have anything bad happen when you hadn’t had dreams?’

  ‘I – I suppose so, yes.’

  Silence.

  I see what you’re saying.

  She picked again, tore away a piece of skin and it hurt.

  ‘There’s an air disaster in the news every few weeks, Sam. If you dream of an air disaster, it’s almost bound to come true.’

  ‘Not with all the details in my dream, surely?’

  ‘Did you write them down? Before you heard of the disaster?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I know you’re an intelligent girl, Sam, but you’re very tense at the moment. Do you think there’s any chance at all you might be crediting your dream with more detail than was in it? That you might be making the dream fit the facts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Look at the other dreams for the moment – your hooded fellow in the taxi who gave you a boarding card. That doesn’t seem to me to be anything prophetic. You found out that there was no such seat number on the plane, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘35A, wasn’t it? Those numbers might have some other significance. Do they mean anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They’ll be in your dream for a reason. Everything in our dreams is there for a reason, but you can only get to understand them if you go through analysis.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t look so worried.’

  ‘Do you think I should go to an analyst?’

  ‘If you feel your dreams are disturbing you to the point where they’re affecting the quality of your life, then it’s something you could consider.’

  ‘What would an analyst do?’

  ‘He would try to uncover the anxieties that are causing these dreams. Try to find the root of them. Bring them to the surface. Help you to understand why you are having them.’

  She picked at a different nail. ‘I still think that I’ve – that these things have been premonitions, Bamford.’

  He pulled open a drawer on the right of the desk then pushed it back in again, without appearing to take anything out. Then he did the same with the left-hand drawer. Like an organist setting his stops, she thought. ‘Let’s have a look at the Punch and Judy dream: Punch disappears, reappears in a black hood and fires a shotgun at you. You wake up and a chunk of plaster has fallen on you from the wall. Is that right?’

  ‘From the ceiling.’

  ‘The next day a kid gets hold of your husband’s gun and fires it during the Punch and Judy show.’ He picked up his gold pen and rolled it between his neatly manicured fingers. ‘Well, there are connections, for sure, but I don’t think you could have foretold what was going to happen from that dream. I don’t think anybody could. Let’s turn it around a bit, Sam. How did a boy of six get hold of a loaded gun?’

  ‘Richard—’ She hesitated. ‘We’re not sure. Richard thinks he must have left it out. He normally keeps it upstairs, with the cartridges on top of a wardrobe so it’s out of Nicky’s reach.’

  He nodded. ‘So he might have put it away?’

  ‘It’s possible, but unlikely. The boy said he found it against a wall.’

  O’Connell leaned forward. ‘You see, Sam, it could well be that dream was telling you something, but not in the way you think. Consider this as an alternative: you gave up your career for Nicky, and because his birth was difficult you couldn’t have any more children. Maybe you feel anger at him. Maybe deep in your subconscious you feel that if you didn’t have him around—?’

  Sam stared, flabbergasted for a moment, anger building up inside her. ‘Are you saying it was me? That I gave him the gun?’

  ‘I’m not saying for a moment you do feel that way, but I want to show you the possible alternatives, areas that an analyst would probe, trying to find the real reason for that dream. Your dreams indicate to me you have problems that you’ve got to get to grips with. By dismissing them as premonitions, you are ignoring their real meanings, brushing them away under the carpet. It’s much easier to put them down as premonitions than to face their real truths.’

  ‘Don’t you think you’re trying to dismiss everything with a cosy Freudian explanation?’ she said coldly.

  ‘I’m not trying to dismiss anything. But you need to understand what dreams are really about, Sam.’ He put the gold pen neatly down on the desk and steadied it to prevent it from rolling. ‘Our lives are a constant balance between sanity and madness. Most of us get by all right. We keep our emotions under control when we’re awake, but they all come pouring out in our dreams when we’re asleep: jealousies, pain, thwartings, grief, anger, desires, and the past. Most importantly, the past.’ He realised the pen was distracting her, and put it away in a drawer. ‘Daddy’s having it off with my mummy and I’d like to do that, but if he catches me, he’ll cut my goolies off . . . Or in your case, Daddy’s got a huge donger and I’ve only got a tiny clitoris, so I’m inferior . . . you know? The primal scene and all that stuff?’

  She smiled weakly.

  ‘The dream you had about going down the underground . . . you’ve told it very well. You’ve made it sound like a narrative. I could follow the story easily.’ He raised his hands. ‘But I don’t understand a thing about it. You see, it’s probably full of symbols that are personal to you.’ He paused and looked awkward suddenly. He shifted about in his chair, then leaned forward, put his elbows on his desk and rested his chin on his hands.

  ‘Sam,’ he said softly. ‘Do you mind if I ask you something very personal? If you don’t want to answer that’s perfectly all right.’

  ‘No – of course.’

  ‘I couldn’t help noticing at dinner that things seemed very strained between you and Richard.’

  Her face reddened.

  ‘Are things all right between you?’

  Penis starvation. Of course. That’s unhinged me. That’s why
I have these nutty dreams. Of course!

  He leaned back, without taking his eyes off her. ‘I think you would find it much easier to talk to a stranger. Would you like to see a member of my unit at Guy’s who without harassing you in any way would help you to sort it out?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If your dreams are bothering you to the point where you feel they’re affecting the quality of your life, then you should consider it. Equally, they might all just go away.’

  ‘They’re not going to go away,’ she said.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.’

  ‘Would you like me to recommend someone?’

  ‘I wish I could believe you, Bamford. I wish I could believe all that analysis stuff. But I know I’m having premonitions. I could have saved the lives of those people.’

  ‘Forget premonitions, Sam. They’re nothing more than lucky guesses. That’s all. Don’t get caught up down that alleyway.’

  She felt a flash of anger. ‘Why not? Nicky could have been shot – any of those children could have been. I might have been able to prevent it.’

  He shook his head gently, and it inflamed her anger even more. ‘Whatever you decided, Sam, let me give you one piece of advice. Stay away from the hokum guys.’ He tapped his head. ‘It’s all in here. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says. I know. The medical profession knows.’

  ‘God you’re a smug bastard,’ she said.

  He did not react at all. There was a long silence, in which he continued to stare at her, and she felt her face getting hotter and redder, sorry she had said that, guilty that she’d taken so much of his time and had spat it back in his face.

  ‘Sam,’ he said, ‘you’ve come to me for help, for advice. I’ve given it to you. What do you want me to do? Tell you to go and see a clairvoyant? A medium? Send you off to a dream group? To a parapsychologist? I want to help you, not make things worse.’

  ‘If you want to help me, Bamford, you’ve first got to believe me.’

  He pushed each of the sleeves of his jacket up in turn, scratched his nose, then put his elbows back on the desk.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I believe. I believe that you genuinely believe you are having premonitions.’

  ‘And you think they’re just delusions?’ She stared at him, the anger flaring again. ‘Do you want someone else to die? Will that prove it?’

  He sat back in his chair and rested his hands on the arms. ‘Hooded men,’ he said. ‘Your hooded fellow – Slider?’

  She nodded sullenly.

  ‘Sam, you’re a grown woman. You’re a mother and a successful businesswoman. And you’re still dreaming of your childhood bogeyman. There’s no living person I know of who can foretell the future consistently. There never has been. There are lucky guesses and intelligent guesses, and sometimes the brain whirrs away during our sleep and presents probabilities to us. That’s all. Your big ugly hooded fellow who stinks of onions is frightening the hell out of you, and you think you’re being haunted by the ghost of someone who died twenty-five years ago. Some creature that comes to you in your dreams and is trying to destroy you. If he wants to destroy you, then why does he keep tipping you off? Giving you warnings?’

  She felt cold again, cold and empty and all twisted up. She stared up at the light bulb then out through the window at the rooftops and the leaden sky. ‘Maybe it’s some game he’s playing. Some macabre game to sort of . . . torment me . . . You know? Just playing with me – until he’s ready.’

  ‘We’re all haunted by ghosts, Sam; but they’re not spirits, or demons that have come back from the grave. They are our own personal fears, anxieties.’ He tapped his head again. ‘We need to get inside there, Sam, and pluck him out. That’s what an analyst would do.’

  She stared at him then shook her head. ‘I wish you were right, Bamford.’ She screwed up her eyes tightly.

  Christ I wish you were right.

  19

  Sam sat in front of her dressing table, putting on her make-up. She was wearing the black lace bra, panties and suspenders that Richard had given her for Christmas the year before. She wondered if he would remember, and she wondered why she was wearing them now. A signal? An olive branch?

  She eyed herself, then leaned closer to the mirror examining the crow’s-feet around her eyes; they were getting more pronounced all the time. This is it, girl, all downhill from here. Be a Wrinkly soon; then a Crumbly. Then . . . nothing at all. The void. Godless black nothingness. She touched the lines lightly, stretched the skin, making them disappear for an instant, then stared again at the photograph of Richard and herself on a yacht in Greece; the year after their wedding; nine years ago. They looked so young and carefree then. How much softer her face was, how much fresher. Now a new line seemed to appear every day. She frowned into the mirror and a row of wrinkles popped out along her skin that she had never seen before.

  Maybe it was the photograph that was changing, not her face? Maybe her face had always been like that and the photograph was receding into the past? Showing a woman who was getting younger and younger. So young sometimes she seemed like a total stranger. She unscrewed her lipstick.

  Bamford O’Connell. Was he right? Maybe. Maybe. She shrugged at herself, and pushed her hair back away from her face. No grey hairs yet, but they’d be along soon.

  Do you think there’s any chance at all you might be crediting your dream with more detail than was in it? That you might be making the dream fit the facts?

  No. No way, absolutely not. Surely not?

  Oh shit. You’re screwing up my head, Bamford. I had it all there, in sequence. Don’t mix it up for me, just because I don’t fit into any of your neat boxes.

  ‘Where are you going, Mummy?’

  She saw Nicky in the mirror, standing in the doorway, and turned around, smiling. ‘We’re going out to a dinner party.’

  ‘Whose party?’

  ‘The Howorths’. Do you remember them?’

  ‘Are we going to the country?’

  Sam carefully traced the lipstick across her lips. ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Is it the weekend tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow’s Friday. Come and give Mummy a kiss.’

  Nicky trotted over, and she stroked his hair.

  ‘Top of your class in arithmetic again today?’

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘That’s very clever. Mummy used to come bottom in arithmetic.’

  He looked around suddenly, at the sound of the front door, then sprinted out of the room. ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’

  ‘Hi, Tiger!’ she heard Richard say out in the hallway.

  ‘Daddy! Can we set the Scalectrix up? We haven’t had that set up since Christmas. Can we do it tonight?’

  ‘Stop bloody whining at me.’

  ‘Please, Daddy, can we set it up?’

  ‘Jesus, Tiger! Bloody leave off, will you?’

  Richard stormed into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him. ‘Fucking whingeing on and on at me. What the hell are you wearing that for? You look like a whore.’

  ‘You gave it to me.’

  ‘Been fucking Ken in it?’

  She stood up, livid. ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘No, I’m not fucking drunk, but I’m going to get fucking drunk.’ He charged out of the room, and Sam stared, bewildered, after him. The rage. She’d never seen him in a rage like this. He came back into the room with a whisky tumbler in his hand and slammed the door again.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked.

  ‘Get those fucking whore clothes off and put something decent on.’

  The menace in his voice frightened her. He was like a madman.

  ‘I thought you liked—’

  He marched over, grabbed the bra and ripped it away, so hard it tore, burning her flesh in the process. She shrieked in pain, then slapped him hard, really hard, on the face. ‘You bastard.’

  He blinked, and stared at her, a
nd for a moment she thought he was going to come at her, going to come at her and kill her. But instead he blinked again, as if half waking from a trance, backed away and sat down on the bed. He drank some of his whisky then bent down and untied his laces. He kicked off his shoes, swallowed more whisky and lay back, closing his eyes. ‘What time are we due there?’

  ‘Eight,’ she said.

  She pulled the rest of the bra away, eyeing him warily and took a new one out of a drawer. ‘Don’t you think you’d better have some coffee rather than whisky?’

  He said nothing.

  She removed her lace panties, screwed them up and dropped them in the waste bin, and put on some fresh ones which matched the bra. She put on her dress, in silence, took her evening handbag out of the cupboard, and looked in her daytime bag. She noticed an envelope in amongst all the junk, and took it out. There was a magazine cutting inside it, which she unfolded and glanced at, puzzled.

  ‘DREAMS – BEHIND CLOSED EYES THE FUTURE OPENS UP.’

  Ken. Ken had given it to her on Monday and she’d forgotten about it. She went out of the bedroom, holding the article, and closed the door. She heard Nicky’s bath running, and went into his bedroom. He was sitting sulkily on his bed. She went over and sat down beside him. ‘Daddy’s had a bad day, Tiger.’

  ‘He promised we could play Scalectrix tonight.’

  ‘We have to go out tonight.’

  ‘He shouted at me. I didn’t do anything wrong.’ He began to cry and she held him tight. ‘I’ll play Scalectrix with you until Daddy’s ready.’

  ‘No,’ he sobbed. ‘Got to set it up. Only Daddy knows how to set it up.’

  Helen came in, ‘Bath’s ready, Nicky.’

  ‘Have your bath, Tiger, and I’ll tell you a quick story before we go.’

  He stood up, his face long and wet and walked slowly over to the door. Sam followed him out, then went down the corridor through into the living area and sat down on a sofa in front of the television. She was quivering with the pent-up anger and confusion inside her. This was a new Richard, something completely different; something she did not know how to handle. Maybe it was he that needed to see Bamford O’Connell, not her? Maybe the Market had been bad today. He was grumpy sometimes when the Market was bad. But never like this. She looked down at the article and began to read.