I kneeled down and stared at the cadaver with an odd sense of morbid curiosity. Bloom was frozen quite solid. His pallid blue-grey skin was flecked with snow, and every single follicle of his winterdown was standing hard out in a last-ditch effort to forestall the inevitable. He was covered with a dusting of snowflakes, which made him look fluffy, and his milky eyes were wide open and staring off into the middle distance, his expression placid. Near the end you start to feel warm, hallucinate, and then lose all fear.
‘He looks like he died only last night,’ I said.
‘He did,’ said Aurora, ‘as fresh as frozen peas.’
I hastily stood up, the recentness of his death somehow making the event seem more shocking. Bloom was the grim reality of Frigicution.
‘That’s the thing about the Winter,’ said Aurora, ‘it takes the lawless the same as it takes the diseased and the underweight and the elderly. Society’s spring cleaner, hoovering up the substandard before they become a burden.’
Aurora walked toward the Wincarnis, and I followed. Above the door, the Edwardian woman on the Restorative Tonics sign was still grinning out at the Winter, her cheery smile and bright enamelled colours undiminished by season or cold.
Shamanic Bob looked up from the reception desk from where he had appeared to be dozing.
‘Back to ride the night train to Dreamville?’ he asked me.
‘No,’ I said.
‘How are you and your odious bunch of sleep-shy?’ asked Aurora. ‘Thinned out much?’
‘I’ll pass on your good wishes,’ said Shamanic Bob sarcastically.
We walked into the bar. At one table were a foursome playing Scrabble but they remained oblivious to our arrival. I recognised the receptionist named Josh from HiberTech, but not the others. The only other customers in the room were the drowsy named Zsazsa, who was more intriguing now her younger self had starred in my dream, and a dozen dozing dreamers, who paid us no attention at all.
‘There are now fifty-four winsomniacs in the Sector,’ said Aurora, sitting down and taking off her gloves, ‘and there’s been no wastage for almost five days. I left a note suggesting to Toccata that we tell them there’s a good selection of videos at the Captain Mayberry. The trek would have at least a thirty per cent attrition rate, perhaps as high as forty if we timed it during an ice storm.’
‘Is that legal?’ I asked.
‘The trick is to try and get them to do potentially fatal things voluntarily with a full understanding of the risks. We call it ethical reduction.’52
‘Unless there isn’t a good stock of videos in the Mayberry,’ I said.
‘And therein lies the problem,’ replied Aurora. ‘The selection isn’t terrific. Mostly Police Academy comedies, endless Die Hard sequels and boxed sets of Emmerdale and Dynasty. Hey, Shambob. Two coffees.’
There was a grunt from Shamanic Bob and he moved with almost snail-like speed towards the coffee machine.
Aurora brought out her knitting. It wasn’t a bobble hat this time, it was a sock with an Argyle pattern. We’d sat near the window so we could keep an eye on the nightwalkers. Since you couldn’t actually own another human being, possession – and the bounty thereof – was based nominally on custody and proximity. But on reflection, I doubted, given Aurora’s standing, that anyone would try and steal them.
‘So,’ she said, ‘let me be your Dormeopath. Tell me as much or as little as you want.’
I paused to gather my thoughts, and told her how the blue Buick dream had been circulating around the Sarah Siddons. How I hadn’t thought much about it; how I thought it was simply a Sub-beta dream panic.
‘That’s our view and that of the Consuls,’ said Aurora, ‘although we didn’t know there actually was a blue Buick parked up in the garage. What sort of dreams were you having?’
‘Not dreams as I imagined them to be,’ I began. ‘Half-remembered artefacts, disjointed and vague – but strong, vivid and full of detail. I know this sounds silly, but I dreamed I was Don Hector, with his feelings and his memories.’
‘Go on.’
I recounted everything in as much detail as I could, but purposefully omitted the Birgitta dream because it seemed strangely private, and an odd amalgam of my own childhood holiday memory and Birgitta’s painting. I only told Aurora about the blue Buick, thinking I would apply any advice across to the other dream.
‘Why am I dreaming about rocks, cars and disembodied hands?’ I asked.
‘Search me,’ she said, ‘and on the face of it this is all batshit crazy, but this is my take: the parts of the dream you were told about are easy to explain, simple auto-suggestion. They mentioned it, you dreamt it. You saw stuff, knew about Zsazsa, it was included. The rest of the dream was you just filling in the gaps.’
‘I agree,’ I said, ‘but what about the rabbit’s-foot key ring and the car being precisely the same? I dreamt those and later I’m finding they have a basis in reality.’
‘I’m going out on a limb here, but all I can suggest is that the recall of your dream is still in a state of delayed suggestion. Memory remains plastic after waking, and it’s possible everything you think was in the dream might not actually have been in the dream at all.’
‘You mean,’ I said slowly, ‘the details of my dream have been joggled in retrospectively? The rabbit’s foot and the detail on the Buick weren’t in the dream?’
‘The mind needs to remap on waking,’ she said, ‘and reinforce the millions of neural pathways. Slumber is pretty well understood from a physiological point of view; it’s how personality and memory recover from the doldrums of synaptic tick-over that is hibernation’s greatest mystery. So what I’m thinking is that it’s possible for more recent memories to fill the place of absent, older ones. A fair description would be a severe case of déjà vu. Not just a feeling that something has happened before, but a certainty that it has – and in that certainty, doubt, confusion, fear, paranoia.’
‘So even dreaming myself as Don Hector might not have happened? I only created that in my head when I knew the car was his?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, it’s a plausible explanation.’
‘Ah,’ I said, mulling it over.
ShamBob entered the lounge and put down a large plate of chips in front of Zsazsa, then moved towards us with two coffees.
It was real coffee and I inhaled the mellow fragrance gratefully.
‘It wasn’t all déjà vu,’ I said, still with questions. ‘The blue Buick, for one. What was that doing in the garage?’
Aurora had to consider this carefully.
‘The car could have been there for years. Suzy Watson might have chanced upon the Buick and she constructs a nightmare around it during her Dreamstate. She tells everyone including Moody, they relate the dream to you – bingo.’
‘But that precise model?’
‘You only heard it was blue and a Buick from Suzy,’ said Aurora, ‘the reality was—’
‘—added when I actually saw it. Okay, I get it now.’
I thought of Birgitta. If this were true, the plasticity of the dream would have created the scenario with her, too. Her second name would have been chalked up on the basement door, and the vision in the leaf-green swimsuit could have been created when I imagined her equivalent look in the painting she did of me. Even telling me she loved Charlie might only have happened for the first time under the car, and it would be directed at her husband, not me.
I lapsed into silence.
‘Hard to accept, I know,’ she said, ‘but narcosis is like that. This is intriguing, so tell me if you have any other dreams. But here’s a tip: if you value your career, tell no one else about the dream.’
‘I haven’t, and don’t intend to.’
She smiled, opened her hands and stretched them towards me. I placed mine between them and she clasped them tightly, the shorthand of the Winter embrace. It was firm, trusting and, unlike the full embrace, actually felt warm. As we clasped, I noted that a functioning eye w
asn’t all she’d lost. She was missing her ring finger – from both hands.
The alarm on her watch buzzed at her plaintively.
‘That’s me out of here,’ she said, stifling a yawn while her unseeing eye blinked rapidly, ‘and one other thing: you’ll be seeing Toccata pretty soon and she and I have something of a … strained relationship. It’ll be better for us both if this meeting remained private. As far as you’re concerned, I rescued you from the nightwalkers in the car park, and we parted company outside the Siddons – yes?’
This didn’t sound good, and Aurora sensed my reticence.
‘I need an oath on this, Charlie. I saved your butt twice, remember.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘oath.’
‘Good. Now, I don’t want to seem underhand or insulting but Toccata’s a poisonous, untrustworthy, self-serving little reptile – with a severe personality disorder and a disquieting capacity for cannibalism.’
‘That sounds underhand, insulting – and slanderous.’
‘It’s fair comment. I’ll leave Birgitta for you to deal with. There’s a pit behind the Siddons where you can thump her and dump her. It’s normal to sprinkle on some lime for when the thaw sets in. Here’s another tip: get her to walk there herself. It’ll save you a lot of heavy lifting. Oh, and don’t forget her thumb to claim the bounty.’
I tried to swallow, but found I couldn’t.
‘Right,’ I croaked, ‘good tip, thank you.’
‘No problem. By the way, did you see Hugo Foulnap again?’
‘No, but then I’ve been asleep.’
‘Of course. Well, keep an eye out and if you see him, talk to me first. Oh, and give Toccata a message from me: “Queen’s knight takes bishop, hope you are devoured by slime in your sleep”. Got it?’
‘Queen’s knight takes bishop … and the other stuff. Yes, got it.’
She smiled, and quite without warning leaned forward, placed a soft hand around my neck and kissed me full on the mouth. I was taken aback, but before I could say or do anything she was up and out of the door. I looked around the lounge to see if anyone had observed us and saw ShamBob cleaning some coffee cups in an indiscreet manner.
I touched my lips where Aurora had kissed me. It hadn’t been a misplaced peck; she had parted her lips slightly upon contact and I’d tasted her warm mouth on mine. She smelled of clean laundry, Aveda conditioner and Ludlow scent, and her shirt had been only loosely buttoned. When she leaned forward I had seen the top of her left breast, and clearly visible amidst the soft down of her wintercoat, there was a birthmark the shape of Guernsey.
Shamanic Bob walked over and sat down opposite me.
‘What are you doing back so soon?’
‘I’ve not been away.’
‘Undercover?’ he said in a conspiratorial tone.
‘Under the covers,’ I said, ‘over at the Siddons. I overslept.’
‘I shouldn’t spread that around,’ he said with a smile, ‘but the first Winter up can sure be a dog. So tell me about Aurora: have you known her long?’
Gossip is thin on the ground during Slumbertime. To souls bored by the tedium of the Winter it can become a commodity of value, fourth only to protein, warmth and loyalty. But it struck me that an association with Aurora might actually help me, given that most people seemed to be frightened of her.
‘Four weeks,’ I said, truthfully enough.
‘O-kay,’ said ShamBob slowly, ‘and what – if I might be so bold – does Chief Toccata say about it?’
‘Is that relevant?’ I asked.
ShamBob’s mouth actually dropped open. I wasn’t sure why but he was either shocked, or impressed, or outraged, or a mixture of all three.
I was going to leave, but then I remembered about the last time we’d met. He’d said something about Morphenox being a fluke, and I asked him what he meant by that.
He smiled. Winsomniacs liked conspiracy theories almost as much as they liked undersleeping on someone else’s dollar.
‘Morphenox was originally plain old “F-652”,’ he began, ‘developed as a powerful Dreamblocker, devised so there could be a non-dreaming control group during trials of a cancelled project named Dreamspace, where Don Hector was trying to make us dream not less, but better. But then someone noticed the dreamless group were losing significantly less weight during hibernation, and that was the turning point: up until that point, no one realised just how much energy dreams were burning. Block them and go to sleep lighter. It’s that simple.’
This took a moment to sink in.
‘You’re kidding?’
‘I’m not.’
‘A revolution in Hibernetics,’ I said slowly, ‘wealth, power, influence and the current geopolitical landscape, based on the unexpected results of a control group?’
He grinned.
‘Quite something, eh? Trouble is, they can never seem to manufacture enough of it to go around. If I was a cynical man, I’d think there was a degree of social control regarding its limited distribution.’
Maisie Rogers had said the same thing. The lines were fairly clear – along wealth and class, mostly. The global hibernating village, equal in sleep, equal in dignity, was a myth.
‘And,’ he continued, ‘any news of an improved Morphenox with full distribution benefits should be met with caution. HiberTech cares more for dosh than dozing.’
‘We’re not having this conversation,’ I said. ‘Tell me about Project Dreamspace. What do you mean: “wanting to make us dream not less, but better”?’
But I might have been talking to myself. Shamanic Bob, exhausted by the efforts of conversation, had fallen fast asleep on the table and was snoring loudly.
The Consulate
* * *
‘… “Lucky” Ned Farnesworth and his gang were the poster children of Villains everywhere. So reviled, in fact, that the thump-target dummies at the Academy were shaped like Ned himself. Farnesworth had been a stockbroker, mammoth farmer, stamp dealer and professional gambler. Highly intelligent but utterly ruthless, he commanded huge loyalty among his followers – and fear from the Consul Service …’
– ‘Winter Villains’ Top Trump card circa 1994
The three nightwalkers tethered to the back of the command vehicle were rocking gently back and forth as a precursor to Torpor, but Aurora herself was nowhere to be seen. I released Birgitta and fed her two flapjacks.
‘I love you, Charlie,’ she said.
‘Don’t,’ I replied in a quiet voice, ‘it really doesn’t help.’
‘Kiki needs the cylinder,’ she added.
‘And neither does that. Which Kiki? RealSleep’s Kiki or another one?’
She didn’t answer, and we walked back to the Siddons in relative silence, my mind coming to terms with the fact that my dream had been moulded retrospectively. I tried to see if there were elements in the Birgitta dream that might refute this hypothesis, but there was nothing. Everything that had occurred in the dream was my narcosis-befuddled mind filling in my memory cracks like so much builder’s plaster. I trudged quietly through the snow-packed streets holding Birgitta’s hand, something that, while purely one-sided, did feel oddly comforting.
Jonesy was already waiting for me outside the Siddons, next to a red-and-white Consulate Sno-Trac, the engine almost completely silenced, the only sound the faint rattle of the rain-trap on top of the exhaust stack. It was parked next to a telephone box that was half buried in a snowdrift, and Jonesy was reading an ancient copy of Wonder Woman & the Wintervolk Kid, and chuckling occasionally. Next to her was a tartan travel rug folded neatly atop a picnic set. She was taking the ‘long-partnered’ game seriously.
‘Caught one already?’ she asked as soon as she saw us. ‘Quick work. Goodness, isn’t that Birgitta?’
‘Legally-speaking, it’s just something she used to walk around in.’
‘We sang together in the choir,’ said Jonesy. ‘Did a very passable Pirate Queen in last year’s Pirates of Penzance. Nice enough girl, if a l
ittle prickly. She turned down a five-figure two-child deal from a team scouting for Wackford & Co.’
‘She’d have had very beautiful children.’
‘Hence the five-figure deal. She could have bought herself out of the Douzey on the Wackford deal and moved to somewhere less lugubrious – no one figured out why she didn’t.’
I think I knew the reason. She told me she’d married, but the whole thing seemed secretive. Possibly a union de l’amour – committed personally to one another, but not recognised in law.
‘Does Baggy do any tricks?’ she asked.
‘She used to be into cannibalism and now she’s into Snickers, mumbling and shortbread.’
‘More of a reason for immediate retirement than a trick, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I suppose, yes.’
Jonesy looked at her watch.
‘Toccata isn’t back yet, but we need to be ready to move when she is. Do you want me to retire her for you?’
I looked across at Birgitta, who seemed utterly unconcerned by everything. I weighed the matter carefully. Disposing of Birgitta – even if she herself was long gone – just didn’t feel right. And not just because I had liked her, but for the simple fact that I was, in some small way, responsible for her current status. I had given her the Morphenox, after all.
‘It’s possible she might do tricks,’ I said with some reticence, ‘perhaps we should—’
‘Did you ever wonder how I did this?’ asked Jonesy, holding up the withered remnant. She had only a finger and thumb remaining on her right hand.
I hadn’t given it a second thought. Consuls often left body parts littered around the Winter, and indeed, anyone who hadn’t lost a bit of themselves by their fifth season were clearly risk-averse. But if Jonesy mentioned it, it was probably for a reason.
‘It had crossed my mind,’ I replied obligingly.
‘I was jumped by nightwalkers,’ she said in a matter-of-fact way, ‘gone hive-mind over in Builth Wells. Rare but not unheard of. They took chunks out of any exposed flesh. I’d be nightwalker shit if it wasn’t for Toccata wading in. I’ll do any of them now. I’ve even,’ she added, with an excited gleam in her eye, ‘whacked a celebrity nightwalker. Guess which one.’
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