The Dream Operator

by Mike O'Driscoll

  At breakfast, Susan gives me a telephone number. “Mr James, your brother’s solicitor,” she says. “He wants you to call him.”

  I dial the number and listen to James tell me what a fine man Frank was. Impatient to get it over with, I cut him short. “What do you want?”

  “There are papers, Mr Edevane, for you to sign,” he says. “But all in good time.”

  “I don’t have time,” I tell him, curtly. “I have to be back in Sydney by the end of the week.”

  “Oh, a busy man, I understand. Well of course, Mrs Edevane will—”

  “Mrs Edevane?” I’m confused.

  “Your sister-in-law,” he says. “Normally, the house would go to her.”

  Relief floods through me. Since she’d told me she’d left Frank, I’d stopped thinking of her as his wife. Which of course, up until his death, she still was. “Yes,” I tell him. “That’s fine.”

  “Only he changed his will, you see.”

  “Frank had a will?”

  “A sensible man, indeed, given the unfortunate circumstances.”

  Why, I wonder, did he draw up a will at forty?

  “To get back to the point, as I’ve already informed Mrs Edevane your brother changed his will. The house comes to you.”

  My heart skips a beat. Maybe I didn’t hear him right, maybe it’s one last joke on Frank’s part? “I don’t want it,” I manage to say.

  “But he was quite specific,” James insists. “It’s all here in black and white. ‘The family home I leave to my brother in the hope that it will be his home once again.’ That was his wish.”

  Some strange dread stirs inside me and I hang up before I fall to pieces. Despite my growing unease, I drive to the house, intent on proving to myself that Frank no longer has a hold on me. Some kid has built a snowman in the front garden and given it black pebble eyes and twigged hands that point towards the house. I walk round him, trying not to look at the lurid smile of his stone teeth. I brush snow from the living room window and stare through the glass. Shadows shift and slide across the floor. The suggestion of movement is enough to deter me from entering; that and the music I hear coming from within. Something slow and sombre, like a waltz maybe. I return to the steps, glancing towards the snowman; his gaze seems to follow me as if to let me know he’s marked my card.

  It’s two minutes before I’m calm enough to drive, and when I do I head for Neath, to tell Alison the house is hers. But I don’t know where her sister lives, and all I can do is search for her in the bars we used to frequent back when she belonged to me. I try to pace myself, having one drink in each bar and leaving word for her that I’m in town. I lose count somewhere along the way and soon, the names of the bars I’ve yet to visit, blur with the places I’ve already been.

  *

  My dream goes like this: disco lights splash across a crowd of familiar faces, painting them in bright, lurid colours and throwing distorted shadows across the dancefloor. A cluster of girls sway together in the middle of the floor as Duran Duran belt out Rio from the sound system. Most guys hang back by the walls, prowling, scanning, waiting to see who’ll make the first move. The song changes and I search for her among the dancers. A glitterball catches the coloured lights and throws flecks of blue, red, green and purple into our eyes, illuminating our desires. She peels off from the wall and takes my hand. Pulling her close, we move together in a slow dance, our bodies seeming to meld into each other. I’m drowning inside her, only dimly aware of the ebb and flow of other dancers surging around us. She whispers something I don’t understand and suddenly the music changes, a gypsy polka with someone barking out instructions in a strange, guttural tongue. We’re at arms’ length from each other and moving faster in ever-widening circles, the other dancers careening drunkenly around us and falling like skittles. Alison’s a rag doll in my arms, limp and uncaring. I’m desperate to hang on to her but she doesn’t respond. I can’t help thinking that something has changed, that maybe she’s got her eye on someone else.

  Or someone else has his eye on her.

  Struggling to fend off people trying to cut in, I spin her round and round, looking for an exit. Ice cold hands claw at us, tearing into my arms and back. Grotesque faces leer at Alison and voices crackle with the menace of frost. Fear grips me as I lose hold of her and start screaming at them to leave us be. A gap opens in front of me and moving towards it I hear the music has slowed and there in the middle of the dancefloor I see her dancing with him, wrapped up in his cold embrace. I plunge towards them and into an ocean of snow.

  And when I wake I’m still dreaming; I know this because though the DJ has gone, the music is still playing, and I’m dancing alone beneath the gaze of a snowman.

  *

  Music wakes me in an unfamiliar room. A face hovers over me. Alison. “You okay?”

  I look around for the source of the music but there isn’t one. Alison stares at me with concern. “I’m all right,” I manage to say, “I was looking for you.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “Where am I?”

  “My sister’s. We brought you here last night. Found you in the Castle Hotel.”

  I glance down at the bed, trying to remember what I’ve missed. She catches the look and says, “You slept alone.”

  “That wasn’t why…” I say, then remember what I wanted to say to her. “I wanted to tell you about the house.”

  “I already know.”

  “I want you to have it, Ali.”

  “Why? So’s you can hurry back to your girl in Sydney?” That hurts but what can I say? That it’s the truth? Then why can’t I picture Helen’s face ? “It’s your house, not mine.”

  “I feel nothing for the place.”

  Alison sighs and shakes her head. “Sell it then.”

  “You sell it, Ali,” I insist.

  “You’re not thinking straight. Why don’t you go back and spend some time there, you might feel different then.”

  “I will,” I tell her, “If you’ll come with me.”

  *

  Snow has fallen heavily overnight and the roads are barely passable. It takes an hour to drive to Penygwaith, and when we reach the house and hurry up the steps we find a dozen or more faceless snowmen crowded together in the front garden. My head spins as nausea rolls through me. “Who are…?” I start but don’t know really what to say.

  Alison laughs. “They don’t have snowmen down under?”

  I wonder how she knows they’re all men. Staring at the tall mounds, my mind struggles to impose order by imprinting faces on them, some clearly female. “Why though? Who would make them?”

  “Ah, kids, who cares?” She walks past them, leaving me no choice but to follow her. Their featureless faces unnerve me, forcing me to hurry on into the house. As we wander around inside, I hear music again but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. At one point I look out Frank’s bedroom window and see that some of the snowmen appear to have moved. I don’t mention it to Alison in case she’ll think I’m crazy. The longer I spend here, the more certain I am that I want no part of it. Back downstairs, I find Alison huddled inside her coat, dozing in mother’s armchair. I watch her for a minute or two, thinking how right she looks there, how much she belongs. Even so, a bitter taste wells up in my mouth as I think about her choosing Frank over me. And yet, I feel I still have a chance with her, that after what’s happened, she could be mine once again.

  I wake her but say nothing of what I’ve been thinking. We go to the New Inn and talk about Frank. At first she’s reluctant to say much about him, but the more she drinks, the harder she finds it to contain her bitterness. And all the while I listen and say the right things, showing her how different life could be with me.

  “He used me,” she says. “Like he used everyone. But I thought I’d be the one to change him.”

  “Nobody could’ve changed him,” I say.

  “I lost my own friends,” she continues. “All we had were his drinking pals. We hardly ever we
nt out together and when he did, I’d have to wear what he wanted me to and plaster myself with make-up till I looked like a doll on display; Frank’s doll. And God forbid anyone should try and talk to me. Twice it happened and twice he put them in hospital.”

  “Did he ever hit you?”

  She laughs but there’s no humour in it. “You get used to it after a while; you learn to roll with the punches. You watch his moods, learn to anticipate him.”

  I’m filled with loathing for Frank, and with regret for what might have been.

  “The worst thing,” she goes on, “is when you figure out how to provoke him, push him over the edge, and then you do it, like it’s a game. See how far you can push him before he knocks your brains out. That’s when I knew I had to leave him, when I found myself playing that game.”

  Her anger dissipates in the telling and my own feelings for her grow stronger by the minute. It’s getting towards closing time and I’m hopeful that maybe her feelings towards me have been rekindled. When she asks me to spend the night with her I almost say yes without thinking. But something stops me, the realisation that I want us both to know what we’re doing so there’ll be no regrets afterwards. “Not yet,” I tell her. “Not till we’re sure.”

  She puts on a face of mock disappointment, then smiles and says to forget she said that. I don’t listen. Instead, I order another drink, but when I return to our nook she’s gone. I try to focus on what it is I really want, but my head is spinning wildly and I’m uncertain whether I want to take her away, or if I want her here. After closing time I find myself drawn back home. I sit in the car below the garden listening to old songs on late night radio, Dexy’s, Talking Heads, the Waterboys. I imagine the snowmen up there, beginning to move, to shuffle slowly towards each other, reaching out. Someone calls my name, inviting me to join them, but I’m thinking about Frank, worrying about what he might say.

  *

  I’m hungover again next morning. It’s becoming a habit, one I thought I’d got rid of a long time ago. I feel it’s beyond my control, as if it’s not really me but some role I have to play. I’m certain there’s someone I must call, something important I have to tell them, but for the life of me I can’t remember who or what it is. No matter, it’ll come sooner or later. I call Catherine’s house and ask to speak to Alison.

  “Isn’t she with you?” Catherine says.

  “What?”

  “She didn’t come back here last night.”

  Something hard and cold stirs inside me. “What do you mean? I thought she went home.”

  “In this snow?” she says. “She didn’t take her car.”

  But even as Catherine is speaking I guess where Alison is, where she’s waiting for me. I hang up and drive like a madman to the house. The snowmen are huddled together in a crowd. There are more of them now, I’m sure. I hurry into the house. There’s snow on the floor inside, and chaotic footprints all over it, and in the corner on a shelf, Frank’s hifi is on, playing an old song by The Doors. I rush upstairs calling her name and find her waiting in Frank’s room, in Frank’s bed.

  “Ali,” I whisper, breath frosting in the still air. “What are you doing here?’

  “You know what I’m doing,” she says, the thick blankets drawn up to her throat. “I’m waiting for you.”

  I don’t move, not yet. I’m wondering how she can stand the cold.

  “Please. I need you, Ceri. Don’t let me be alone.”

  “It’s not right, Ali, not in his bed.”

  “He’s dead. He doesn’t care.”

  She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She looks sick; her flesh seems almost transparent. “What happened to you, Ali?”

  She smiles but it’s fragile, easily broken. “Look at me,” she says, and pulls the blankets down to show me her naked body. Her flesh is inscribed with old scars and fading bruises, a record of all the hurt he’s inflicted on her while I was away. Anger and pity well up inside me, and though it’s no use, I pray for some way to pay the bastard back for taking my girl and reducing her to this. “I’m so sorry,” is all I can say.

  Alison says, “Hold me, Ceri, please.”

  So I do. I hold her tight and kiss her, trying to smooth away the pain and make her whole again. And finally, we make love in my brother’s bed, and we do it, not because it’s getting back at him, but because it’s what we’ve always wanted. This is love, I tell myself, not revenge.

  I wake at four in the afternoon. The room is freezing and the wind moans through the charred timbers in the next room. I shiver at the thought of the world outside. There’s something about being here with Alison that seems so right, despite the cold, that I wonder why I ever went away. Then she stirs and I kiss her awake, asking if she’s okay.

  “Jesus,” she says, shivering. “It’s bloody freezing.”

  “We’ll go to Catherine’s,” I suggest.

  “No, not yet. I want to be here, with you. We’ll keep each other warm.”

  I light a cigarette. “You’re sure?”

  She nods.

  “You fancy a drink.”

  She shrugs. “Tea would be nice. The electricity’s working.”

  “Right. We’ll go get some.”

  “No,” she says. “You go and I’ll keep the bed warm.”

  I get out of bed and pull on my clothes, leaning over to kiss her before I leave. Downstairs there’s no music playing and all is still in the yard. In the town I call in to Costcutter for teabags, milk and cigarettes. I put a bottle of Bell’s in the basket too. Outside someone hails me from across the street. The face is vaguely familiar. He comes over and introduces himself as Michael Thomas, an old classmate. I let myself get dragged into Vaughan’s where he introduces other men I recognise from the funeral, friends of Frank’s. I want to leave but they gather round me, telling me Frank stories, calling for more drinks. I try to make my apologies but I’m too weak and before I know it, I’m acting like someone I haven’t been for years.

  *

  The car skids off the road as I drive back to the house, smashing sideways into the ditch. I crack my head against the door but hardly feel a thing. I get out and walk the last two hundred yards. Moonlight glows eerily off the snow-shrouded hedgerows and my feet crunch across the frozen ground. From the road I see the house and my mind races, trying to think of some lie to tell Alison. I climb the steps and see that the snowmen have paired off. I look up at Frank’s bedroom window, trying to suppress the feeling that they’ve been waiting for me. I see faces and call out Alison’s name but the wind soughing through the charred roof timbers is the only reply. Then, as if my voice was their cue, the creatures begin to move, slow and stuttering at first, as if unsure of the ground they walk on, but gradually settling into a strange, lumbering rhythm. Despite their awkwardness they have a clear sense of purpose. I watch for a few moments, searching for the meaning in their slow, carefully choreographed nightmare.

  I enter the house and hear the music clearly. Soft Cell. Doubt worms its way into my mind and I wonder what I’m doing here, striving to retrieve things I never had. Things like Alison. But, I tell myself, I can still make it real. Up on the landing, in the doorway to Frank’s room, snow settles on my face. Looking up I see a hole where the roof used to be. I stumble into the room and see Alison pinned like a butterfly to the bed. Her blood blooms darkly on the sheets and where the shattered roofbeam pierces her breast.

  I’m dimly aware of the music downstairs, ABC or the Human League. Why can’t I tell? Only the snow falling and the stillness of her body makes me think for a moment that none of this is real, that I’m twelve thousand miles away and it’s just Frank making me have bad dreams again. I close my eyes then open them but nothing has changed except that I’ve started to scream.

  After a while, I realise what Frank has done and know I have to make things right. I kiss Alison’s frozen lips, then wrestle the roof from her flesh. All the time the music grows more insistent as he tries to distract me. It’s getting louder and
more urgent, almost as if he’s afraid of what I might do. I wrap her in my coat and carry her downstairs, sensing the power I have over him. But the snowmen are waiting; they’ve crowded into the living room, shuddering together, crumbling and turning to slush on the floor. But more of them keep squeezing in to fill every inch of the place. Even as my eyes search frantically for some way out, I realise what this is, who they are. They’re the ones that Frank took away or turned against me; friends and family, all my dead come to welcome me home. The door is very far away so I move towards the window, holding her tight in my arms. But silver moonlight shows more faces pressed against the glass, waiting their turn to come in from out of the cold.

  As another Dexys’ song begins I finally understand why I’m here. I had no choice, neither of us really did. Frank drew us home to where he still has power over us. He doesn’t want us to leave him again.

  There’s not much heat in my body but I hug Alison tightly, drawing the cold from her bones. I have to love her as long as I can, because even as one song ends and another begins, I can sense him moving through the ice, crossing the floor to cut in and take her away for one last wild waltz.

  The Facts in the Case of Mr. P–

  I have not seen them with my own eyes but I believe they are there, staring out from the shadows with a patient, thirsting gaze. There are some stories which, in the manner of their retelling, shed new light on those details which had hitherto seemed inconsequential, allowing us an insight into that which had been undisclosed. Many years ago I attempted such a course, tried to put flesh on the bones of rumour and speculation, believing that in so doing, I would be righting a terrible wrong. I was mistaken—the case of Mr. P– is not such a tale. Rather, it is a labyrinth of whisperings, of hints and half-truths, of betrayal and lies, and the truth I attempted to impose on it, was no truth at all. Thus have my motives changed, for what I hope this process of transcription will uncover is not nebulous truth, but the substance of forgetting.