Overheard in a Dream

by Torey Hayden

  Conor remained immobile by the door.

  “I’d like to build a castle. Have you seen them? Them Lego castles? You have to buy a special kit. But they’re really hard to do. My dad says I can’t have one, ’cause I’m not big enough to put it together and I’d just lose the parts. But I’d really like a castle to play with.”

  “What would you like to do with it?” James asked.

  “I dunno. Just play. Fairy tales, I guess. You know, like Rapunzel and stuff.” She picked up some bricks.

  James raised his head and looked over at Conor, still standing by the door. For a brief moment he caught Conor’s eye before the boy quickly looked away.

  “Would you like to join us?” James asked. He rose from the table and went over.

  Standing stiffly, the stuffed cat pressed to his chest, Conor stared straight ahead, his eyes vacant.

  James knelt to the boy’s height. “With your body and your face, I see you saying, ‘Go away and leave me alone.’”

  A faint expression of surprise crossed Conor’s features at James’s accurate interpretation and he looked at him. “Yeah,” he said softly.

  “Things are different today and I can tell this doesn’t make you happy.”

  “This is the boy’s room.”

  Morgana swivelled around in her chair in astonishment. “He talks sense to you!”

  “Perhaps you could show Morgana what you like to do in here,” James suggested.

  “No.”

  “Would you like to come to the table and join us?”

  “No.”

  “Will you talk to me, Conor?” Morgana asked, getting out of her seat and coming over. “What kind of things can you say?”

  His expression hostile, Conor looked at his sister.

  “Can you really talk just like everybody else? Come on, Conor. Do it for me.”

  No response.

  “You want to come play Lego with me?”

  James went back to the table and sat down. “I want Conor to feel welcome to join us. I’d like you to be part of us over here, Conor, but you don’t have to, if you don’t want to. In here, you decide.”

  He marched over. “I have decided. I’ve decided I don’t want her here. This is the boy’s room.”

  “Did you forget that Morgana was coming along today?” James asked

  “I want to do my book today.”

  “What book’s that, Conor?” Morgana asked. “Does he mean stories?” She rose up brightly. “I’d like to hear a story too.”

  Conor turned on her. “It isn’t your story. It’s not for you.”

  Deflated, Morgana sat back down in her chair.

  “You can’t play with this,” Conor stated and approached the dolls’ house.

  “I didn’t say I wanted to play with it,” Morgana muttered.

  “You don’t feel like sharing the dolls’ house,” James reflected back.

  “When I am here, I decide and I have decided that.”

  “What if I decide I want to play with it?” Morgana asked, her tone not belligerent, just curious. She looked over at James. “What happens if I decide I want to but he decides I can’t? How’s it work in here then?”

  “You would wonder that,” James replied with a grin. “And if it happens, then we’ll try to talk it through until we have a solution.”

  Morgana shrugged. “It’s okay. He can have it.”

  Alarm suddenly crossed Conor’s features and he moved swiftly to the bookshelves behind Morgana. “She can’t have this,” he said and snatched up the box containing the mechanical cat.

  “Why? What is it?” Morgana asked.

  Conor pressed the box tightly against his chest. “It’s mine. You can’t have it.”

  “No, I didn’t say I wanted it, Conor. What is it?”

  “It’s the mechanical cat,” Conor replied a little less gruffly.

  “A mechanical cat? Really? What does it do?”

  “It’s the mechanical cat,” he repeated.

  “Let me see it. Please? I really like things like that. Please, Conor?”

  He clutched the box tighter to his chest.

  She turned, her expression an appeal for James’s intervention. “Can’t I see it?”

  James smiled but didn’t reply.

  “I do like things like that,” she said rather sulkily. “I seen this mechanical dog once. It had a ball in its mouth and when you wound it up, its tail wagged and it moved around and shook the ball.” She looked back at Conor. “What does your cat do?”

  “It sees ghosts.”

  “Oh, great.” Morgana let out a pained sigh. “You’re going to start crazy talk again.”

  Silence.

  “This girl at school, her name’s Britney, and she’s got a brother who’s nine like Conor,” Morgana said to James. “He can build really good Lego. He got a Lego rocket ship for Christmas and he brought it to school to show, after he’d built it. If Conor was like him, he might have been able to make me that castle I want. ’Cause my dad won’t. He says it takes too much fiddling. But Conor might have done it for me, ’cause he’s nine.”

  At the other end of the table, Conor sat down. He still had the box of cardboard animals pressed against his chest, but he loosened his grip a little.

  Morgana resumed her play with the Lego bricks.

  The next several minutes passed in complete silence.

  Furtively, Conor watched Morgana’s activity. When she didn’t look up from what she was doing, he quietly lay the box of cardboard animals on the table. Checking briefly to see what Morgana was up to, he then let his hand creep under the lid of the box and he carefully extracted the cardboard cat. Slipping it quickly into his lap, he held it there, looking at it, tenderly caressing the faded print of its fur. Still holding it in his lap below the table level, he fitted the cat into the stand. Another furtive glance at Morgana. Then Conor stood the cat on the table. There was still a tiny wad of clay adhering to the end of the string leash, so Conor pressed it to the table top.

  “There,” he said.

  Morgana looked up.

  “Here’s the mechanical cat.”

  Her eyebrows knitted together. “How’s it mechanical? What’s it do?”

  Conor seemed perplexed by this question. “It’s the mechanical cat,” he replied in a tone of voice that indicated he felt this was self-evident.

  “But what’s it do?” Morgana insisted. “Where’s the mechanical bit? Because it should move or something and it just looks like cardboard to me.”

  “It has electricity. Zap-zap.” Conor fingered the string around the cardboard cat’s neck. “It sees the man.”

  “What man? Him? Dr Innes?”

  “The man under the rug.”

  Morgana rolled her eyes. “Here we go again.” She looked at James. “How come Conor talks nonsense, if he actually knows how to talk proper?”

  “You know what I’m thinking?” James said, “I’m thinking it mustn’t feel very nice to hear other people in the same room talk about you like you aren’t there. What do you think?”

  “My mum and dad do that all the time.”

  “And how do you feel?” James asked.

  Morgana shrugged. “I dunno. Once I heard them talking about me being naughty. That’s why my mum and dad are getting divorced.”

  James looked over at her. “You think your mum and dad are getting divorced because you’ve been naughty?”

  Morgana nodded. “Yeah, they said so. My dad told my mum he was getting divorced because I lied about Caitlin’s party.” Tears sprung to her eyes.

  “Come here,” James said, reaching an arm out. “Come stand right here beside me while I tell you something.”

  Morgana set her Lego down and came around the table to him.

  “That isn’t true,” James said gently. “Your parents aren’t getting a divorce because of you, Morgana. They have grown-up problems that they haven’t been able to solve and that’s why they’re divorcing. I know for a fact that both
of them love you very much and you didn’t do anything to cause the divorce.”

  “No sir. ’Cause I did lie. I wanted the marking pens for the Lion King, so I pretended they were for Caitlin. My daddy got really mad and spanked me. And I heard him say to Mum he’s going to get a divorce from her because I lied. I heard him say it,” she said tearfully.

  “That’s a very big worry for a little girl. I’m glad you’ve told me,” James said, “because then I can help you understand that even though that’s what feels like happened, even though it sounded like that’s what your dad meant, it isn’t. I’ve talked to both your mum and your dad and I know all about Caitlin’s birthday party. I also know that they both love you very, very much and they’d both feel terribly unhappy to know that you thought you were responsible for the divorce. If your dad did say that, it was only because he was feeling angry at the time and said something he didn’t mean. That happens, even with grown-ups sometimes.”

  A small silence followed. Seeking comfort, Morgana nuzzled into the fabric of James’s suit jacket.

  Conor had watched this exchange, but now he rose to wander around the room. Coming to where the large white plastic sheet with the roads drawn on it was folded up on the shelf, he took it out and laid it out upside down on the floor. There was a basket of small plastic figures on the shelf nearby. Conor started taking them out, one by one, and endeavoured to stand them up, but the road sheet hadn’t been laid out smoothly enough and most fell over. Finally he began just piling the figures on top of each other.

  Still clinging to James, Morgana noticed Conor’s activity. For several moments she watched silently and then she pulled away and crossed tentatively over to see what was going on.

  “What are you making?” she asked.

  Conor didn’t respond.

  “Why don’t you turn it right side up, so it looks like a highway?”

  No response.

  “You could make a ranch. With those animals.”

  Still no answer.

  Morgana reached down and picked up a horse, lying on its side. “Here. Stand this up.”

  “No,” Conor said firmly and pushed her hand away.

  Rebuffed, Morgana backed off, but she didn’t leave.

  “Can I play too?” she asked finally.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Can I have some of the animals?”

  No response.

  “No fair, ’cause you got them all.” She turned to appeal to James.

  James smiled. “See if you two can work it out.”

  Initially Conor didn’t appear to be paying attention. He continued piling things from the basket onto the plastic sheet in a rather ritualistic manner. Then unexpectedly, he held out a small plastic figure of a woman to Morgana.

  “Can I have more? Can I have some animals?”

  Conor grabbed a handful from the basket and dropped them on her end of the sheet. “Where’s the mechanical cat?” he said suddenly, looking at James. He jumped up, went to the table to get it and brought it over. Carefully, he stood it up halfway along the sheet.

  “Oh, there’s your cat again,” Morgana said. “What do you call him? Does he have a name?”

  “The cat says here’s the boy’s side. Don’t come here. Don’t use this side.”

  Several minutes passed in silence. Morgana fashioned a small world at her end of the sheet. Folding it back to expose part of the road, she brought over toy cars from the shelves and parked them along the side. The few animals Conor had shared she set up in a row.

  Conor watched her furtively. On his side there was nothing more than a heap of plastic figures. He gathered them together in a steeper pile, but then paused again to watch what Morgana was doing. He picked up the mechanical cat and laid it on top of the pile of animals. He laid it first on its side, then tried to make it stand amid the plastic legs and tails. With some effort, he achieved this.

  “I’m going to make a ranch for my animals,” Morgana declared. “But I wish we had some trees. To make it look pretty, like down at the creek.”

  “Trees and flowers,” Conor said. Unexpectedly he reached a hand out and gripped Morgana’s arm. “Where the Lego is.” He pulled her up from where she was sitting. “Trees and flowers. In there. See?” He leaned down and rooted through the big bin holding Lego. He lifted up one of the small green Lego trees. “See?”

  “Hey, good! Yeah, that’ll work, Conor.”

  He bent down and pulled tree after tree up out of the bin. The little Lego flowers appeared too. Morgana returned to building her ranch, but Conor continued to bring up all the trees and the flowers. When he couldn’t find anymore, he paused over them. Lining them up on the side of the bookcase, he counted them. “Twenty-five trees. Thirteen flowers. Thirteen red flowers. Eight blue flowers. Eleven yellow flowers.” He came over to Morgana. “Twenty-five trees plus six trees. Thirty-one trees. Six trees here for your ranch. Twenty-five trees on the shelf.”

  “Yeah, okay, Conor, I got the idea. Now let me play.”

  “Twenty-five trees. The boy has twenty-five trees on the shelf.”

  James watched, fascinated by Conor’s efforts at conversation. He obviously wanted to communicate with Morgana and there was a poignancy in his clinging to the one topic she had praised.

  He returned to the shelf and picked up as many trees as he could carry in his hands. He brought them to his side of the road sheet. “Here are eleven trees. The boy has eleven trees.” He let them tumble through his fingers onto the pile of animals.

  One plastic tree hit the cardboard cat and knocked it off the pile. Hurriedly, Conor picked it up. “It isn’t hurt,” he said to James. Crossing the room, he held it up close to James’s face. “The mechanical cat isn’t hurt. A tree fell on it and knocked it off, but it’s okay. The mechanical cat can’t die.”

  James smiled.

  “It’s safe in here. The mechanical cat is safe.” These were almost questions, the way Conor inflected them.

  “Yes, you’re safe in here,” James said.

  “Not on the moon,” Conor replied.

  He went back to the road sheet and carefully put the mechanical cat once again between his half and Morgana’s half. “In terria,” he murmured.

  Carefully, Conor picked out three trees. He stood them up together on top of the sheet. “They are like this,” he said. “Three trees on the moon.”

  Morgana looked up. “I don’t think the moon’s got any trees, Conor. I think I heard that once.”

  “Three trees on the moon.”

  “The moon doesn’t have any trees growing there, does it, Dr Innes? Conor’s got it wrong.”

  “I saw. I know,” Conor said. “You weren’t there. You didn’t go to the moon.”

  “You’ve never gone to the moon either,” Morgana remarked.

  “With the man under the rug. In a rocket ship. Three trees on the moon,” Conor said. James saw his fingers beginning to flutter at his side.

  “Conor, you got to be an astronaut to go to the moon. Kids can’t go.”

  “The ghost man was on the moon.”

  Morgana looked over at James beseechingly. “I don’t like it when he talks about ghosts.”

  Conor reached out and picked up the mechanical cat. He pressed it to his face, to his lips and over his eyes. “The mechanical cat is here,” he murmured. “He says, ‘You’re safe here, boy. You’re safe here, girl. I’ll never die. I’ll watch out for you forever.’”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “I returned to Boston revitalized and ready to start again,” Laura said at the start of her next session. “Over the summer I’d come to terms with the fact that I’d never be that jungle surgeon. I saw it for what it actually was – one of those idealistic dreams you have in adolescence. All I wanted by that point was simply to complete my medical degree and start my internship.

  “I’d had no contact with Fergus while I was in South Dakota and in my mind it was over. However, the day after I returned to Boston, the doorbel
l rang. I knew instinctively it was him.

  “I opened the door. For a moment we just stood, looking at each other. Then he flung open his arms and enveloped me in a huge hug.

  “‘Oh God, oh God, oh God,’ he murmured into my hair and hugged me so tightly to him I was muffled into his chest. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

  “I asked him in.

  “In the living room Fergus flopped heavily into the big armchair by the window. ‘I’ve been in a depression all summer,’ he said. ‘I didn’t appreciate how crucial your life force is to mine. With you gone I have hardly been able to face anyone.’

  “Fergus leaned back into the chair and closed his eyes a moment. He looked beautiful like that, his features relaxed, his dark curls bathed in the glow of the floor lamp, like a careworn, street-corner Christ.

  “‘It’s sleep,’ he murmured. ‘I can’t sleep. Weeks now and I can’t sleep.’

  A pause.

  “‘I was wrong,’ he said. ‘I should have met you on more equal terms. You were right to leave me. I see that now. I see that you didn’t have any alternative and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’

  “I nodded. ‘Thank you for saying that.’

  “‘It’s been so hard, Laura. I’ve been dying without you.’

  “‘Torgon’s returned to me,’ I said.

  “His brow furrowed.

  “‘I’m writing again. I won’t stop it this time. I need to write.’

  “‘Torgon never left you.’

  “‘That Torgon never existed, Fergus. What I was channelling – pretending to channel – was just me. I’ve finished with that now and I refuse to do it again.’

  “Fergus’s expression was enigmatic.

  “‘I only did it then because I Ionged to be that person you wanted me to be. Sometimes, when we want something so much, we make it real, even to ourselves. But that doesn’t make it true. Real and true are different things.’

  “‘You are so gifted,’ Fergus said, his eyes bright with wonder.

  “I shook my head. ‘No. I am so messed up. That’s what became clear to me over the summer. Somewhere along the way, I got lost. I left the path my life was on, and I’ve screwed up as a result. So I need to say “stop” to a lot of stuff I was doing. I won’t go back to channelling. And I won’t be going back to the Tuesday night group.’