‘But it’s open at this story about the butterfly.’ said Daniel. He too was clearly trying to control the anxiety in his voice, which threatened to spill over into anger.
Lisanne shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. You took that book off the shelves yesterday evening.’
‘Oh come off it, Lisanne. Did Janice put you up to this?’
Lisanne was baffled. ‘Did Janice put me up to what? What on earth are you talking about?’
‘Searching this out and sticking it under my nose!’
She gazed at him, nonplussed. Not only did she not know what he was talking about, but the clearly discernible agitation in his tone worried her.
‘I have absolutely no idea what that is.’
‘This! This story about Zhuang-zi and the butterfly!’
‘Daniel, calm down.’
‘Only if you stop playing games. Tell me why you’re doing this.’
‘Who’s playing games?’
Lisanne was nervous now. She had seen him leafing through the book the previous evening, had thought nothing of it and so, of course, had made no mention of it. She rather wished now that she had. What was he getting at?
‘Oh, I suppose it’s just a coincidence then.’
Lisanne took a deep breath, put down the manuscript, rose slowly and walked across to the sofa. She sat down next to Daniel, and was distressed to see that his hands, clutching the open book ferociously, were shaking.
‘Let me see,’ she said softly, taking hold of the book. Daniel released it reluctantly, and she read the passage on the open page.
Last night Zhuang-Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly. Fluttering and soaring, he was a butterfly. Likening himself in this way, is it not that he is going along with his own devices? He knew nothing of Zhou. Suddenly awakening in surprise, he is Zhou again. He does not know: is it Zhou dreaming he is a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming it is Zhou?
Lisanne nodded slowly. ‘You’ve told me this story before, I’m sure. About an emperor who dreamt he was a butterfly.’
‘Not an emperor. A fourth-century BC Chinese poet,’ said Daniel, warily. ‘You didn’t leave this open for me to find?’
‘Of course not. Why should I?’
He peered at the text again. He could not recall taking the book from the shelves, had no memory of opening it at this page. And if he hadn’t done it, then it had to be Lisanne. But why should she lie? It didn’t make sense.
‘Do you want to tell me why it’s so important?’
Daniel shrugged. ‘It’s just... I don’t remember looking at this before. I don’t remember.’ He looked up at Lisanne and for the first time she realised that it was neither anger nor frustration in his eyes. It was fear.
Seeing him in such distress, Lisanne thought it best to employ, once more, her skills in damage limitation. She would rather lie to him than have him so upset. ‘Oh, hang on a minute. Maybe I did take it out. I was looking for a quote for one of my authors. I must have borrowed it and forgotten to put it back.’
‘But why should it be open at this of all things?’
‘Why is that relevant? I mean, it’s an interesting story but it’s hardly...’ Lisanne paused a moment, allowing her jumble of thoughts to settle down. ‘Wait a minute, is this all to do with this lucid dreaming thing?’ Daniel said nothing but read on down the page. ‘Daniel?’
‘Huh?’
‘Is this to do with the nightmares? Is that it?’
‘Not exactly. Look, I’d rather not talk about it.’
‘But it’s obviously upsetting you. Perhaps if you talked about it...’
Daniel sighed. ‘It’s not that simple.’
Lisanne could see he was getting irritated, but she felt she had some sort of right to know what was going on. Why, for instance, had he mentioned Janice? And why was he being so secretive? Each day, it seemed, on top of all his filthy moods, his behaviour was becoming more and more incomprehensible. Soon she wouldn’t understand anything about him.
‘Oh Daniel, why won’t you let me help you?’
‘I don’t need help. There’s nothing wrong with me.’
‘Then what’s all the fuss about this story? Why this sudden interest in dreams? If it isn’t the nightmare, what is it?’
‘Just get off my back, will you!’
Lisanne was taken aback, not just by the remark but by the malicious tone in which it was delivered. She felt the urge to cry catch at the back of her throat, but was determined not to let him get to her.
‘That’s right, shout at me. Blame me for all your problems.’
‘Lisanne, I-’
‘You can be a real shit sometimes, you know that? All I’ve wanted is to help you, and all you’ve done is block me out of your life and try to make my life as miserable as possible. Not once in all this time have I complained, even when your behaviour has been reprehensible, and now, when I’m trying to be understanding, when I’m trying to be helpful, all you can do is attack me. I think you could just show a little consideration now and then.’
Daniel looked away, embarrassed, but said nothing. Lisanne’s upper lip started to tremble, like a frightened schoolgirl who has been reprimanded by her teacher. Aware that tears were moments away, she made her way unsteadily to the bottom of the stairs and braced herself against the barrister.
‘You think I don’t know... that’s right, isn’t it?’
Daniel pretended to ignore her. He returned his attention to the book, but even as he did so he knew he had overstepped the mark this time.
‘You think I have no idea what’s going on in that sad, sorry little mixed-up mind of yours,’ continued Lisanne, her voice starting to break under the tension. ‘But I think you’d be surprised - I think you’d be very surprised. I’m not the fool you sometimes take me for. And one thing I can tell you for sure. I won’t let you carry on punishing me for being alive.’
Daniel stopped reading. Lisanne’s words pierced him like an arrow. ‘It’s not my fault, Daniel. It’s not my fault that I’m still alive and that Alex is dead. You see, I’ve just about had it. You can go on wishing you were dead, but I won’t have you wishing that I was dead too.’
‘Lisanne, please-’
‘No, don’t interrupt me. I have a life - it was once a good life - and I’m not ready to relinquish it just yet, and certainly not to appease your guilty conscience.’
‘But-
‘No, no more. Not tonight. You know, I’m not sure I can help you any more, Daniel, not that I was ever any help in the first place. I can’t take away your pain, I can’t rewrite history, I can’t bring her back. And there’s a limit to how much longer I can continue to be “understanding”. Because the truth is, I don’t understand. I don’t understand anything.’
She ran up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door. It was not intended to be melodramatic, but she suspected that’s how it must have seemed, which only added insult to her injuries: I speak my mind, display my feelings for the first time in half a year and it comes out like a piece of cheap theatre, she thought, as she curled up on the bed and, without fear of interruption, sobbed bitterly.
Daniel sat motionless, paralysed once again by his inability to react in the way that was expected of him. He knew that what he was supposed to do was run after Lisanne and apologise... no, more... to beg forgiveness for acting like a complete bastard. But he couldn’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t care; of course he cared. And he hated upsetting Lisanne, even if it was something at which, it seemed, he was becoming progressively more adept.
But for some reason, he seemed unable to draw on whatever resource was responsible for right and proper behaviour. It was as if the links to that part of his personality had been severed.
He thought of those poor souls who, in the aftermath of serious accidents, sometimes suffered brain damage. There were those who looked normal, who appeared to have nothing wrong with them, but nevertheless had one tragic flaw in their behaviour that gave them away, like
the poor sods who could recall their childhoods in perfect detail but were incapable of remembering anything that had happened five minutes ago. Or the sad saps who led normal lives save for the prosaic but devastating fact that they could no longer name the simplest everyday objects.
And Daniel sat there thinking about these pitiful creatures and thought: I’m one of them; I’m some sort of mental cripple, a cerebral paralytic with certain bits cut off or cut out or just no longer functioning. Or worse.
Perhaps it’s not even as complicated as that, he thought. Perhaps I’m just plain mad. After all, if you added it all up - the extreme depression, the antisocial behaviour, the complete lack of empathy - it all seemed to point to one conclusion. And then there was the dream, of course, the dream that had taken over his life and turned him into an obsessive. Crazy? It was starting to look like the only diagnosis that fitted,
Perhaps he really should be seeing someone - Janice’s hippie-dippie analyst perhaps, with his comforting, wacky theories on dreams. Yeah, he thought, that’s just what I need; someone to reinforce my lunatic notions.
Daniel decided to take a walk to clear his head. He was tired - virtually exhausted - and wanted nothing more than to sleep, but he knew he dared not go anywhere near Lisanne unless he was prepared to make a full and sincere apology, and he didn’t believe he could put the right words together, let alone make them sound convincing.
He was about to close the book when his eyes were drawn to the bottom of the page, where an additional portion of the story had been translated.
While we dream we do not know that we are dreaming, and in the middle of a dream interpret a dream within it; not until we wake do we know that we are dreaming. Only at the ultimate awakening shall we know that this is the ultimate dream.
Oh great, mused Daniel; like I don’t have enough problems.
He put on his jacket, grabbed his cigarettes and headed out into the cool evening, trying to clear his mind, lift his mood, bring some reality, some continuity, back into his increasingly fragmented life, but as he wandered down towards Green Lanes with its hubbub of activity and noisy traffic, all he could think about were Zhuang-zi’s words and how Atheenaton, for all its wonder, might just be a dream within a dream.
Chapter 15
They walked along the beach hand in hand, their bare feet, encrusted now with wet sand, leaving a trail of dissolving footprints in their wake.
The sun began its slow ascent over the mountains, casting strange, elongated shadows, tinged with indefinable hues, across the untamed scrub that spread from the foothills down to the strand. A cool, refreshing breeze swept across the beach, blowing specks of sand into their hair.
Daniel stopped in his tracks and clutched Véronique to him tightly. She responded in kind, manoeuvring her body against his so that their shapes coincided: a perfect fit. They stood that way for several minutes, Daniel breathing in the sweet scent of Véronique’s hair and neck, her soft skin still releasing its light, musky scent, arousing him in pleasant and familiar ways.
‘Let’s do it again. Right here.’ He clasped the firm, petite cheeks of her bottom with both hands and pulled her close against him.
‘We’ll get sand everywhere... besides, I don’t think you’re quite up to it, hmmm?’ She insinuated one hand between them and groped around until she could feel his flaccid penis through his jeans and then started to rub gently with the palm of her hand until she felt it start to stiffen beneath her touch.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I was a little hasty.’
Daniel brought one hand to her face, gently clasping her jaw, whilst the other reached down between her legs. They had not dressed completely before going out, deliberately leaving off their shoes and underwear on the pretext of going for an early-morning swim. But now, as Daniel kissed her deeply, impulsively, the immediate sensations of fingertips on naked flesh caught them both off guard, and before he knew it his face had flushed, the sweat was rising on his neck and cheeks and his erection was straining against the constriction of his jeans.
Feeling him hardening against her, Véronique unzipped his jeans with swift, deft movements and prised him out while Daniel’s fingertips, with equally delicate motions, fluttered in the thick, wiry hair that nestled between her upper thighs. Daniel was as excited as he had ever been in his life. He broke away from her and wriggled out of his jeans while Véronique cast off her skirt. She reached out her hands, and when Daniel clasped hold of them and tried to pull her towards him, she tensed her arms and held him away from her.
‘What is it?’
Véronique looked down at Daniel’s groin and smiled approvingly, a look which raised his blood pressure still further.
‘Come on, let’s-’
‘No. Over there.’ She nodded towards the sea.
‘What?’
Véronique laughed. ‘Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re in safe hands.’
As if to prove the point, she released his left hand and reached down, taking hold of him gently, stroking back and forth. Daniel could feel the familiar sensations - part pleasure, part agony - running ahead, out of control, and anxious that, far from being unable to perform, he was in danger of sprinting to the finish line before the race had officially started, he withdrew her hand and chased her down to the water’s edge.
The water was surprisingly warm and still, and within moments they found themselves in a deep embrace, the water lapping gently around their chests. Véronique clasped her hands around Daniel’s neck and allowed the water to take her weight. Lifting her feet off the seabed, she wrapped her legs round his waist. She could feel his erection bumping against her backside, and teased him by resting herself on it for a couple of seconds before lifting herself off.
By now, Daniel was in a frenzy of excitement; the gentle caress of the sea-water, far from dampening his ardour, was coaxing him to greater fervour. Suddenly, without signalling his intention, he grabbed Véronique’s buttocks and with effortless ease, thrust deep into her. She gasped, as much with surprise as sexual frisson. Supporting her with his right hand, Daniel lifted his left hand from the water and cradled the back of her head, bringing her face close to his.
As she rocked slowly back and forth, with small, tight movements, their lips met. A heightened sexual pleasure, like an electric charge, coursed through Daniel’s body, from his groin to his lips and then up through the top of his head where, in a single moment of ecstatic release, he felt his face, neck, shoulders, torso and limbs pulsate with pleasure, a small, controlled explosion, as every synapse in his brain crackled and sparked with an existential vitality, as if a small volcano had erupted inside his head.
He thrust hard and deep, and with each movement revelled in the moans of rapture that issued from Véronique’s parted lips. With a final thrust, Daniel was spent. Holding on tightly to Véronique, he felt the last of his strength ebbing away, and as his legs started to tremble in spasm, he just had time to whisper ‘We’re going under...’ before his knees unlocked and he teetered over sideways into the water, taking Véronique with him.
They lay quietly side by side, hands clasped, until, chilled from the damp sand, they decided to continue their walk. The sun had lifted above the horizon, raising the air temperature so that it caressed them like a warm breath, and it was with free, easy movements that they wandered along the water’s edge, pausing every now and then to kiss or caress each other.
Ahead of them, scampering across the sand, Daniel spotted an unusual crab racing towards the water’s edge. It was quite alone and, with the rest of the beach so empty, looked decidedly lost. By the time they caught up with it, it had stopped moving. He reached down and gently lifted the battered, spiral shell. Nestling deep within its coils was a small yet spirited inhabitant, which actively protested at this interference in its journey.
‘I think this one is in need of a new home,’ said Daniel, examining the damaged sea-shell.
Véronique looked at him blankly. ‘What do you mean?’
Daniel looked at her pensively; he wasn’t sure why, but he felt strangely protective of the sad little creature he held in his hand.
‘It’s a hermit crab,’ he said softly, watching the crab’s legs wriggle excitedly in its cramped mobile home. He looked up at Véronique, but she still registered nothing more than mild curiosity. ‘They’re born without their own body armour, so they have to wear cast-off shells - you know, snail-shells and the like. They’re also known as robber crabs.’
‘More like pauper crabs, if you ask me.’
‘Or squatter crabs, perhaps,’ said Daniel, replacing the crab on the sand.
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