Overheard in a Dream

by Torey Hayden

  “I could feel the tears rising again, so I turned away and went to the window.

  “‘Laura, relax. I can sense your tension from here. Calm down. You don’t want to feel this way, do you?’

  “‘No.’

  “‘So take a deep, slow breath. The way I’ve taught you.’

  “I did.

  “His voice softened. ‘Come here. Come over here and sit on the floor with me. I’ll massage your shoulders.’ He opened his arms.

  “At the sight of that loving gesture, I couldn’t keep from crying any longer. ‘Everything’s falling apart,’ I said. ‘I don’t know which way to turn.’

  “‘To me,’ he said so tenderly, pulling me in against him. ‘Not to some kid sister. Not to Betjeman. Not to any of them. They can’t help you. Only I can do that, my queen. Because no one else loves you like I do.’ His voice went honey sweet. ‘Don’t go to them. Only I know. Only I can help. Only I love you.’

  “I wept.

  “‘So, relax now, my sweetheart. Relax. Feel your muscles. Here. They’re like iron, aren’t they? Let’s do some of the exercises. I’ll do them with you. Rotate your neck. Like this. Follow me. It’ll release the tension. Now lift your shoulders up.’

  “I was crying so hard. I couldn’t stop.

  “Leaning forward, Fergus placed his hands on either side of my face. ‘Here, give it to me,’ he whispered. ‘Give me your pain. Let me share your burden.’

  “Fergus’s hands were very hot. They felt good against my skin, as he held my face and watched my contorted grimaces. Through them flowed the enormity of his love for me. Really. I could feel it. It surrounded me and absorbed my distress. Even in the depth of my despair I grew aware that no one, ever, had loved me with the strength that Fergus did.

  “‘Come to me,’ he said and pulled me close into his arms again. He kissed my forehead, my wet cheeks, my hair and held me close as a baby in the womb. ‘You’re safe,’ he murmured. ‘I have you. We’re together again and nothing ever, ever will part us. I promise you that. I promise with my life that I’ll protect you forever.’”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “I want a cowboy hat,” Conor announced when he came into the playroom. He crossed over to the dressing-up basket. Selecting the cowboy hat, he clapped it on his head. “He’s my son,” he said to no one in particular. “I don’t want him to go away.”

  Conor looked over at James. “Daddy’s strong. He lifts me up. Hands under my arms. ‘Up, up.’ he says. And I go up. Daddy laughs. I felt his breath.”

  “You’re enjoying the things your father does,” James reflected.

  “Yeah.” Conor crossed over to the table. “My mother isn’t strong. She doesn’t wear a cowboy hat. She said, ‘He needs to go away.’ But Daddy said, ‘No, I don’t want that.’”

  James smiled.

  “I wasn’t here last time,” Conor said.

  “No, you didn’t come.”

  “I was sick in the night – I threw up. Three times. Messy on the floor. My mother said, ‘He needs to go away.’ My mother cried. Tears running down her cheeks,” Conor said and pulled a finger over his cheek. “Daddy said, ‘He can stay with me. If he is sick on the floor I’ll clean it up.’ But I wasn’t sick again. I was well then.”

  He turned. “Where’s the mechanical cat today?” He went to the shelf and picked up the box. “Here you are. Where’s your stand? I’ll put it on your stand so you can stand up and see.” Coming back to the table, he set the cardboard cat down and pushed it over towards James’s notebook. “Here. The mechanical cat will read what you write today.” Then he took off, trotting around the room in a sort of half-skip.

  “You seem happy today,” James ventured.

  “Today’s the day I come here. Today’s the day I spend with the mechanical cat.” He swooped down on the table and picked up the cardboard cat. Excitement overtook him and his body went momentarily rigid. “Read me the poem.”

  James paged back through the notebook to find Conor’s mechanical cat song. He read it aloud.

  Still tense with excitement, Conor fluttered his fingers at the small cardboard form. “You’re strong. You’re brave. No ghosts. You know there aren’t any ghosts here. You tell me, ‘Boy, You’re safe with me! I can see all the ghosts but there are no ghosts to see. Boy, you can do anything in here. You can be yourself.’”

  “The mechanical cat makes you feel safe and strong,” James remarked.

  “I don’t need my wires. Did you see? I have no wires on today.” Conor pulled out his shirt to show that the usual coil of string and foil was absent.

  “You’ve decided to be an ordinary boy today.”

  “Yeah. My strong father says, ‘You don’t need these. Leave them at home.’ I don’t need them. Nothing happens. The mechanical cat says, ‘You don’t need them. You’re strong too.’”

  Setting the cardboard cat down on the table, Conor veered off towards the easel. “Today I’ll paint. Finger-paint. Coleman School Supplies Blue. I’ll do blue. I haven’t done blue.”

  James rose to help him get the materials ready. Once the newspapers were down on the table top and the damp paper was laid out, Conor came over to where James was sitting. He put his stuffed cat into James’s lap. “No accidents this time!” He laughed.

  Conor tackled the painting with enthusiasm. He seemed to have less interest in actually painting than in dumping paint on the paper, because he kept adding to what he had. Around and around he sloshed it, lifting the excess paint up and letting it drop back onto the paper.

  “Now yellow? Coleman School Supplies Yellow?” he asked, raising his head to look at James.

  “Yes, you may add yellow as well, if that’s what you want to do.”

  “Yes! That’s what the boy wants to do. And in here, if the boy wants, the boy does!” he said with relish. A glob of yellow paint joined the blue. The two colours together formed a rather ghastly green.

  “This paper is wearing out. It has a hole,” Conor said.

  “So it has.”

  “I’ll put it over there. I’ll take a new piece.”

  “Can you put water on it yourself?” James asked.

  “Yes, I can do it!”

  James smiled at the child’s budding confidence.

  While Conor was carrying the paint-soaked paper over to the counter beside the sink, the wet weight in the middle proved too much. The paper broke and the excess paint spilled onto the floor. Conor jumped back in surprise but he didn’t lose control. Indeed, unexpectedly, he laughed.

  “Look! Sick! The painting says, ‘Too much in my stomach. Throw up on the floor!’”

  “Yes, it does rather look like that.”

  “Who will clean it up?”

  “Shall I help you?” James asked.

  Conor regarded the splatter of paint pensively. “She says, ‘He needs to go away. He’s too much for me.’ She’s crying. Tears running all down her cheeks.” A pause. “Sorry, Mummy,” he murmured in the tiniest voice. “The boy wants to say that, but his stomach feels sick. He wants to say, ‘Be strong. Don’t cry. Don’t let tears come down your cheeks. The ghost man will come. He will drink your tears.’”

  James had risen from his seat to come and help, but he paused, not wanting to disturb Conor’s thoughts. Conor looked over. He reached his arms out for the stuffed cat.

  Bringing the cat to him, James then went to get paper towels to clean up the paint. Conor helped to soak up the dirty water on the carpet with a paper towel. His mood was more subdued, but he still didn’t lose control. In fact, he went ahead and dampened another sheet of paper to continue finger-painting.

  Back at the table, Conor laid the new paper out. He picked up the blue jar of paint but then hesitated just before it actually poured from the jar. He set it down again. Locating the lid, he screwed it back on and returned the blue paint to its place. He did the same with the yellow. Taking the red finger-paint from the shelf, he brought it over to the table, took off the lid and scoope
d out a large amount.

  Laying his hand flat in the paint, Conor moved it around with an almost rhythmic slowness. Lifting it, he looked at his red fingers. Then he put both hands in and moved them around. Again, he brought them up and looked at them carefully.

  “Is it paint?” he asked softly. “Is it paint? Is that it?”

  Back into the paint he went, around and around, again he lifted his hands up. “Hasn’t Mummy been messy with her paints? Mummy, what a mess. You’ve used up my whole jar.”

  He continued to spread the paint around, his mood slowly changing as the activity drew him deeper into it. The buoyancy was gone. His concentration grew more and more intense as he studied the motion of his hands.

  A pause in the activity.

  Conor lifted up one hand and very carefully laid it on the bare skin of his forearm to leave a clear print of his palm and fingers. “Maybe it’s blood.” He glanced up quickly at James, his expression worried.

  “No, it isn’t blood,” James said quietly. “It’s only red paint.”

  “Only red paint. The man says only red paint. Strong cats live here. Only red paint.”

  He put his hand back into the paint and pushed it around. He paused again and from it grew a deep silence. His brow furrowed in concentration as he scrutinized the handprint on his forearm.

  James sat in silence, watching the boy. What role had blood played in the events that had traumatized Conor?

  Abruptly, Conor looked up with an expression of undiluted horror. Lifting his dripping red hands from the paper, he screamed.

  Jerked from his thoughts, James rose quickly. “What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

  Rigid with fear, Conor just screamed.

  “Shall I help you wash it off? Here, come back to the sink,” James said and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to guide him. Conor held the paint-streaked arm out stiff in front of him. “It’s just red paint,” James reassured again.

  Turning on the faucet, James cupped up water in his hand and ran it over Conor’s skin. The finger-paint began to dissolve, turning the water sloshing down the plughole a pale red. James was standing directly behind the boy, his body keeping Conor close enough to the sink to allow the paint to be washed off, and he felt the easing of rigid muscles.

  Taking paper towels, James dried Conor’s arm. “That was a little too much all at once, wasn’t it?”

  “A little too much for today,” Conor murmured. He turned. “Where’s Daddy?”

  James knelt and put his arms around the boy. “You’re feeling frightened, and you would like your dad here with you.”

  Conor nodded.

  “He’ll be here soon. When the hand on the clock reaches ten, he will be waiting for you in the other room and it’ll be time to go home then.”

  “Read me the poem.”

  James didn’t need to read it. He knew it off by heart.

  Conor let out a long, relieved sigh at the sound of the familiar words. “The mechanical cat is strong,” he murmured. “We’re safe. The mechanical cat can never die.”

  When Alan arrived, James left Conor with Dulcie for a few minutes and invited him into the office for a quick chat.

  “Actually, if you hadn’t asked me, I was going to ask you,” Alan said, following him in. “Because I’ve got to say, he’s become a different boy in the last few weeks.”

  James smiled. “Yes, he’s been showing some good progress in here.”

  “He still talks in circles most of the time, but, you know, the two of us are actually starting to have conversations,” Alan said. “He can make his wants known now, if you keep him calm.”

  “I think your involvement has been critical to his success,” James said. “I’m seeing important signs of bonding with you. Today, for example, when he became upset in the session, he asked for you, not just his cat. That’s a huge step forward.”

  Alan smiled with pleasure. “I’m trying to live up to being that guy he thinks I am.” Then a more wistful expression. “It makes me feel bad when I think back on when things started going wrong for him. I feel like we let him down.”

  “Please don’t judge yourself with hindsight,” James said. “Normally people do try their best. Especially with kids. If we make mistakes it’s usually because we really couldn’t see any other way to do things at the time. How is Laura getting on with him?”

  Alan shook his head glumly. “Not well. They’ve got a whole different dynamic going between them. Conor still won’t talk for her, you know. He’s talking quite a lot with me, but with Laura he’s as incoherent as ever. As crazy as ever. That makes it very difficult to convince her he’s making any kind of significant progress.”

  “Why do you suppose that is?” James asked.

  Alan was pensive. “I don’t know. There’s just all this tension between them. He’s uptight. She’s uptight. They feed into each other. Anyway, I’ve agreed to take Conor more. I’ve still got hope that Laura and I are eventually going to be able to resolve things between us. I don’t want to push her into moving out of the house. So I’ve put a second bed in the cabin so he can be my bunk buddy. He seems very happy with it.”

  “One thing I wanted to ask you more about,” James said, “and that’s about the miscarriage of Morgana’s twin. Conor seems to have some serious fears regarding blood. Could he have witnessed her miscarriage?”

  Alan considered for a moment. “He was at home with her when it happened, but I don’t know. His problems had begun before that. His clinginess started well before Laura could even have been pregnant, because I remember it coinciding with just about the time I got the TB diagnosis on my cattle and that was more than a year before Morgana was born. But … because Conor had become so clingy and never wanted Laura out of his sight, I suppose it’s possible he did witness blood.”

  “Did you ever talk to him at all about it?” James asked.

  “No. He wasn’t even three. It’s not the sort of thing you talk over with a child that age, is it?”

  “I’m just thinking that if he witnessed the blood or Laura’s distress …” James said. “Especially as he was clearly a very bright, perceptive little boy. Because I think Morgana was saying Conor could actually read by two, yes?”

  “Not read properly. He knew his letters. Maybe could read a couple words, but that’s all.”

  “Nonetheless, that’s still very advanced. So he’s a very, very bright boy. But with a two-year-old’s experience of life, it would have been hard for him to interpret what was happening.”

  Alan gave a faint shrug. “I dunno. I’m not aware of him witnessing anything and if so, Laura never said.”

  “Okay,” James said.

  There was a small pause.

  “One other thing I wanted to ask,” James added. “I’d like to do a couple of sessions with Conor and Morgana together. Would that be all right?”

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Alan said. “I’ll arrange for it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Tiffany arrived in Boston the final Saturday in March,” Laura said. “Fifteen months had passed since I’d last been home, so I was surprised by how much she’d grown. She’d always had Marilyn’s body type, but what had been willowy on Marilyn was lanky on Tiffany. She was twelve now and nearly as tall as I was.

  “We enjoyed a splendid first day together. I took her to the shopping mall near my apartment and Tiffany was awed by the size and number of stores. I threw off all Fergus’s teachings about healthy food and treated us to drinks at the Orange Julius stand and doughnuts and caramel corn. We spent ages in the pet store watching the puppies and the tropical fish and pondering who would want a tarantula for a pet. Tiff said she might, but she’d rather have a chameleon. Or a grass snake. In the toy store we fondled the stuffed animals and admired the expensive, imported dolls. In the bookstore, we browsed languidly.

  “I didn’t want to go home. I was worried Fergus would be there, waiting, because I knew he’d stop our fun. So, instead I took Tiffany to a
pizza place for dinner and afterwards we went to the drive-in to see Star Wars. We’d both seen it already, but we both loved it. I bought us a gigantic container of popcorn and quart-sized drinks, cranked back the car seats, and we sat through both the early and late showing. Tiffany was dazed with tiredness by the time we returned to my apartment.

  “I lay on the bed, watching her as she unpacked items from her suitcase. In the normal course of things, she always wore her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, but as she changed into her nightgown, she pulled her T-shirt off and the band holding her ponytail came off too. Her hair tumbled down over her shoulders. Like her mother, Tiff’s hair was black, but unlike her mother, she’d never bothered to curl it, so it was utterly straight. Seeing her there in the soft light of the bedside lamp as she removed the last of her clothes, her dark hair falling forward, I was abruptly drawn into Torgon’s world. I was thinking how Torgon must have looked like this at twelve and for the first time in months the shadowy world of the Forest laid itself down almost instantly over the world of my bedroom like a fallen transparency.

  “We were both still in bed the next morning when I heard the snick of the front door lock. Hurriedly I clambered over Tiffany still asleep on the floor in her sleeping bag and grabbed my robe, because I knew who it was: Fergus.

  “‘What’s this?’ he asked, lifting the empty popcorn container out of the kitchen garbage. ‘There are animal products in this. What else did you eat? Sugar? Animal fat? I can’t believe you’re doing this.’ Angrily he smashed the empty container between his hands and threw it back into the bin.

  “Tiffany appeared in the doorway of the bedroom.

  “Fergus looked at her, his eyes going dark, like a frightened cat’s.

  “‘Hi,’ she said tentatively and looked from him to me and back again. She smiled timidly.