The Dream Wife

by Louisa de Lange

  A gentle swirl of colour rose from the edge of every object, blurring the lines and dissipating into the air like a surreal mist. She put out her hand and ran her fingers through it, moving the colours into one other, causing the brown of the bench to merge with the green of the grass, hypnotic and tranquil.

  She was strangely calm in this other-worldly environment. She knew something was missing, something usually attached to her at every waking moment, but felt reassured about his absence. She knew he was safe and she was free to enjoy this little bit of isolation.

  Gradually, Annie realised the presence of someone sitting beside her. She willed her head round to face him, a robot breaking free from the remote control. He was watching her, and she wondered how long he had been there. He smiled.

  ‘I’ve been there, where you are,’ he said. ‘It takes time, you’re accessing a new part of your mind, but I promise you it gets easier. And it’s worth it.’

  She turned her body towards him, stiff and awkward.

  ‘It’s all new to you, you’re not used to making these decisions yourself,’ he continued. ‘But don’t push it, try to relax.’

  He took long deep breaths and she copied him, instantly feeling the stiffness in her arms ease.

  ‘Now stand up,’ he said.

  She looked at him doubtfully and he nodded. First, she moved her arm to the bench. Secondly, she slowly placed her feet in the right positions on the gravel. And then the final push to get up to standing. And who knew balancing could be so tricky? Something her body normally did naturally now needed her to control every correcting movement, willing each part to jump into life before she fell over.

  She slumped back down on the bench, exhausted from the effort.

  He smiled. ‘Only do as much as you feel able, and then come back to it later.’

  ‘How do I come back? Where do I return to?’ she asked.

  ‘Just remember this park, and this bench. I’d like to see you again.’ He stood up, and she noticed his height. At least six foot, but skinny. He had long gangly limbs to match and moved them in the manner of a teenager who had grown too quickly and didn’t know quite how to control them. But how could she judge? She couldn’t even walk.

  He was wearing jeans and Converse, a T-shirt with an obscure band name across it that she couldn’t make out, and an oversized grey cardigan. She suddenly realised she had no idea what she was wearing, and her cheeks flared in anticipation of discovering herself naked. To her relief she was dressed as casually as him: jeans, trainers, T-shirt, but not clothes she had knowledge of having bought. She looked back up and caught his eye; he was smiling again, sympathetic to her confusion.

  ‘You’ll get used to the strangeness of it all,’ he said. ‘The more you become aware, the more you can control.’

  He turned to leave and she felt a wave of unease overtake her.

  ‘Wait! What do I do now?’

  ‘Wake up,’ he said simply.

  11

  This dream stays etched in my mind when I wake up, as concrete as if I had experienced it in real life. I screw up my eyes, remembering the man’s face. I instantly felt at ease round him, like he was an old friend I hadn’t seen for some time, and an excitement, an anticipation. I want to see him again. Ridiculous, really, when he is only a figment of my imagination.

  I hear Johnny wake in the next room and go in to get him dressed. Clean nappy on, trousers and jumper, all carefully chosen to ensure David will approve of how his son looks when he deigns to grace us with his presence. Tiny neat polo shirts and proper trousers. Little cardigans and carefully ironed shirts. Absurd. He’s a baby, I tried to explain early on in Johnny’s life – he chucks food on himself, he dribbles, he spills, he pukes, he poos; clothes do not stay clean all day.

  ‘Not my child,’ David said. ‘Not my boy.’

  I didn’t know how to break it to him that his boy had rubbed baked beans into his hair the day before.

  Johnny and I go downstairs, him now in his smartest outfit and me still in my pyjamas. I wonder if David will comment, but I just can’t be bothered to get dressed. I still feel knackered; the dreams seem to be tiring me out rather than offering any sort of rest.

  David wakes. He doesn’t notice the pyjamas. Breakfast: two fried eggs, two slices of bacon, two slices of brown buttered toast. One glass of orange juice, ice cold. Coffee. He shouts at an unfortunate underling on the phone and points to a smudge of milk left on the table, not missing a beat in his conversation. I wipe it away.

  David goes to work.

  Johnny hasn’t had a poo for two days. He doesn’t seem to mind, to be fair; he’s still eating his toast and drinking his milk, but isn’t so keen on dinner. I’m not surprised; if I hadn’t pooed for two days, I wouldn’t be too keen on dinner either.

  I’m not sure what to do about the lack of poo. It’s not the sort of thing you can go up to the average mother on the street and ask about. I idly wonder about asking Adam what advice he would give, but as much as I’d like to talk to him, a constipated child isn’t a great friendship starter, even if I knew how to contact him.

  Johnny has a big tubby tummy at the best of times, but at the moment it seems to be sticking out more than usual. Full of poo. All that poo with nowhere to go.

  I like the idea of phoning David at work and asking him what he thinks I should do, but I can’t imagine his response would be pleasant. It would infuriate him. I think it would be worth it just to imagine the look on his face in the middle of whatever board meeting he would be sitting in. But who am I kidding. I wouldn’t dare call and he wouldn’t answer the phone. Poo, or lack of, is not important to a man so regular he goes at seven o’clock every evening, before dinner. Clearing the way, he calls it.

  If only his son had that regularity.

  I put Johnny down for his nap and carry on with my chores. It’s Tuesday, so I’m elbow deep in laundry. I pull David’s shirts out of the bucket where they are soaking and throw them in the washing machine on a hot wash. I take the towels out of the tumble dryer and fold them for the cupboard, all precise, all neat, all just right. I feel twitchy. The same repetitive jobs, week after week, never-ending. My skin itches with boredom. My brain is desperate for something to keep it occupied; the mundane isn’t enough any more.

  I sew a misplaced button back on the waistband of David’s trousers. I look at it, needle in hand, then move it one centimetre away from where it should be. Just a bit, so the trousers will still do up, but perhaps a wee bit too tightly. Enough to make David slightly uncomfortable, and to doubt that extra chocolate biscuit.

  I go into Johnny’s room at the end of his nap, only to be faced with a smell putrid enough to melt the paint from the walls. I carry him at arm’s length to his changing mat, Johnny chatting away happily all the while, and open his sleeping bag, turning my head away. No wonder he’s cheerful: he’s done a poo big enough to fill up his whole nappy, along with a spectacular leak down both legs and up his back. I clean him up, wipe after wipe, silently ecstatic with the arrival of the poo but trying not to gag over the toxic smell. I change his T-shirt, put on his trousers. Then it’s done and we’re back downstairs, Johnny demanding bananas and a drink, eager to top up. Things are back to normal. On the poo front anyway, only with the poo.

  Because today I can’t wait until night-time. I can’t wait to sleep, to dream, and see what I can do next.

  Bright yellow cabs

  Annie sat by herself, taking in the strange feeling of controlling her movements, being able to decide what to do. She was alone on her park bench, and moved her hand down to touch the wood of the seat, running her fingers across it. Taking in how the wood felt, the bumps and the texture, then to the metal of the bench, the cold, the rust. She pulled at a piece of worn paint, rolled it around in her fingers and dropped it to the ground. This time it felt more real, more concrete.

  Slowly she was starting to get a better grip on how to move things around. At first, every movement of her fingers, feet, ar
ms had felt like a huge effort, and time had passed in a flash. Every morning, back in reality, her muscles ached, and her head felt fuzzy.

  She met the man again, and she had that same feeling of recognition, of him being someone she knew.

  ‘Jack,’ he said, grinning and holding out his hand. It took her about ten minutes to co-ordinate the movements to return his handshake.

  He set her targets each night – at first, something small, then getting more ambitious, stretching her unfamiliar muscles.

  She learnt how to run, and how to stop again without falling. She crawled, she jumped; she hopped on one foot, and then the other. He showed her how to alter what she was wearing, and swap her shoes from one foot to the other; how to change her hair colour and style, moving it from a short bob to long cascading curls.

  She noticed the differences between her and the other people. Where her movements were stiff and uncomfortable, they all moved smoothly, but without any control. They seemed to be pulled – their bodies would move and their heads and eyes would follow, possessed by their own subconscious. Torso and limbs following a mind with its own agenda; zombies with no willpower or drive.

  Annie was getting better. Now she could move around without any effort, and it didn’t drain her once she woke up in the morning; in fact, quite the opposite. She felt energised. There was a second world out there for her to explore.

  ‘You’re doing really well,’ Jack said one day after she had perfected a complicated handstand on the grass.

  ‘Especially since I can’t do these in real life,’ Annie laughed, sitting down next to him on the grass to get her breath back.

  ‘Here you can do whatever you want to do,’ Jack said, crossing his legs under him. He leant back and closed his eyes, the sun on his face. She noticed long dark eyelashes, and a small scar on the edge of his chin.

  ‘I saw it in you,’ he continued, his eyes still closed. ‘We are the same, you and I. We’re trapped and we want to escape, we want something outside of our normal lives.’

  Annie watched him, still confused about her new world.

  Jack sat forward and looked at her. ‘This is the way we get it. This is how we live the life we want.’

  In a blink of an eye, the other people in the park disappeared. The grass, the pond, the path, all empty in a second. The wind blew and Annie could hear the leaves moving and the rustle of an abandoned crisp packet as it flew past them, but they were the only people there, sitting on an empty stage. She gasped and looked around.

  ‘But where did they go?’

  He shrugged. ‘Another dream world? Or perhaps they woke up.’

  ‘Are they real people?’ Annie asked.

  He smiled, and shook his head. ‘You try. Just imagine it, bring them all back.’

  She closed her eyes and thought of all the people in the park, faceless images going about their day. She frowned, unable to picture what they looked like or what they were doing, and opened her eyes in frustration. But they were back, moving around her as she sat on the grass.

  She took it all in, slowly. ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘Anything you want. Name it.’

  ‘New York,’ Annie said. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to New York.’

  In a second, the colours of the park faded away, a watercolour draining into nothing, and in its place, darker colours started to appear. She looked down, and a wide road appeared beneath her feet. All around them buildings were growing; red brick by red brick they rose in perfect synchronicity, forming windows and doorways, glass pouring into the gaps like water. The trees began to emerge, leaves sprouting at the end of twigs, branches reaching towards the sky. The road rolled out further into the distance, a bland graze of gravel, punctuated by perfect white lines, dotting down the centre. Grey concrete, brown stone, bright yellow cabs, then the detail started to fill in – the noises and the smells, the steam rising from the manhole covers. Car engines, beeping horns, baking bread, diesel. Disjointed conversations in strange accents.

  Annie sat, mouth open. ‘And this is New York?’

  Jack laughed. ‘No – I made it!’ He tapped the side of his forehead. ‘I invented what you see around you, just by picturing it in my mind.’ He pointed towards the Empire State Building, its sharp peak towering behind them, and the garish billboards of Times Square in front. ‘So a few too many clichés maybe.’

  ‘It’s still incredible,’ Annie said, twisting round on the bench, looking at the scene. She took in the pictures on the billboards, unable to make out words or headings, the letters jumbled into obscurity. A man stood behind them, naked except for a cowboy hat, gold boots and small white pants, busking with an acoustic guitar. ‘What else can you do?’

  ‘We,’ Jack replied. ‘Not just me, though I’ve had a bit more time to practise. You have to remember you’re in a dream – anything is possible.’ He thought for a moment. Darkness was starting to fall, and the neon turned his face an eerie green, then bright pink. ‘You try.’

  Annie looked at him, then out at the busy street. She took a deep breath and screwed her eyes up tight, clenching her fists and willing a new world to appear. She thought of the first random thing that came to mind – the pyramids of Egypt – and imagined the sand, the dry heat, a few camels. Her imagination faltered; she couldn’t get the images to fix in her mind.

  She opened her eyes. Jack’s New York wobbled briefly, making her feel sick, but stayed as it was, the naked cowboy starting on a new song with enthusiasm.

  Annie looked at Jack, hoping for reassurance. ‘Practise more,’ he said. And disappeared.

  For a moment Annie stayed in New York. Sitting on the bench, she watched the dream people come and go, a silent observer of their lives.

  A man and a women, no older than their twenties, stood in front of her, facing each other in a firm embrace. The woman’s arms were round his waist and his hands were tucked in the back pockets of her jeans. She was slim and pretty, her make-up and hair the worse for wear after an evening out, traces of stubble on him where a carefully shaved chin had started to make its morning rebellion. They spoke in hushed whispers, looking into each other’s eyes, then he bent down and kissed her gently on the lips.

  Annie wondered idly about the last time she and David had looked at each other in that way. Really taken the time to notice the other person, to be lost in the way they looked, the way they smelt and talked. Way before Johnny was born, way before that. She missed it.

  She felt sad then, and sat on the bench, insignificant to everyone around her. These people didn’t see her, but what was the difference between this and her waking life, where her husband went about his day and she went about hers? No more than a maid, a nanny, a cook. At what point had that all changed?

  The sun was starting to come up, glimpses of gold touching the edges of the buildings. It must be morning, Annie thought. She took one last look at the surreal diorama in front of her, committing it to memory. And it was Sunday tomorrow, so she needed to be ready.

  Wake up.

  12

  First Sunday of the month and it is lunch at Maggie’s.

  David looks forward to it with barely concealed zeal, eager to get to his childhood home, where he can bask in the light of everlasting maternal approval and stuff his face at the same time.

  We get dressed up: David in his best smart-casual look (chinos and nice shirt, no tie), me in a dress (blue, demure, chosen by David) and Johnny in a teeny-tiny shirt and trousers. I always have to wrestle Johnny into this uniform – he knows where it will take him, and unlike David, he is not keen. He tries by all means possible to get something on his clean clothes, anything to be made to change out of them. Today, once the door is open, he attempts a daredevil dive towards the flower bed, only to be caught swiftly by my ever-ready left hand. He shouts in protest as I place him squarely back on the tarmac and levels a grumpy stare in my direction.

  We stand next to David’s BMW, clean clothes, hair combed and smoothed down, ready to cl
imb in to take us the few streets to Maggie’s mansion.

  ‘Why don’t we walk?’ I ask. Rain has abated to a gorgeous winter’s day, sunshine sparkling through the clouds and blue skies. David already has his sunglasses on.

  ‘Get Johnny in the car,’ he replies, without a second glance in my direction. He climbs into the front seat. ‘What’s next?’ he chuckles to himself. ‘Catching the bus?’

  It takes longer to strap Johnny in his seat and fasten the belt than it does for us to drive there, so two minutes later, we are unloading again, Johnny staying close to me in uncharacteristic shyness. He hangs off my leg; I can feel his sharp fingernails through my tights. I bend down to his height and his hands go round my neck.

  ‘Carry,’ he demands, so I pick him up and rest him on my hip, balancing the baby bag over the other shoulder and adjusting my dress at the same time. David rings the doorbell and smoothes down his shirt. We are on time, to the dot, twelve noon. Any earlier is rude, any later unforgivable. David’s attitude of being late to all social occasions doesn’t apply to his mother. He is never late for his mother.

  ‘My darlings!’ Maggie says as she opens the door within seconds. I imagine she must have been hovering behind the curtains, waiting for our arrival.

  We are ushered in, me in a heap of bags and small toddler, and I try to lower Johnny to the floor. He goes back to clinging to my leg. Maggie clasps me in a powdery embrace, an experience similar to hugging a spindly lavender bush, all soothing scents and sharp branches, then tunnels her full attention to David. She holds him out at arm’s length, him towering over her.

  ‘As handsome as ever,’ she says.

  ‘Correct to a fault as always, Mother,’ David says, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  Despite my reluctance, I have to admit Maggie’s cooking is always exquisite. I can already smell the chicken roasting in the oven, and know her potatoes will be perfectly brown and crisp, vegetables al dente, and the gravy rich and thick. In the early days of our relationship, when David Senior was still alive, I could ignore David and his mother’s fawning and have a chat with his father, enjoying his blatant disregard and lack of respect for anything Maggie did or said. You always knew where you stood; there was no pretence or fakery. Now he has gone, the house has been injected with artificial sweetener. You know something has changed: on the surface it’s okay, but long after you’ve finished, a nasty taste remains in your mouth.