‘Oh God, Mike, this is starting to gather a momentum way beyond what is good for either of us. We are divided by life and yet it feels so special.’
Mike was feeling his heart beat faster and he felt electricity between them both. In life they had been close colleagues, enjoyed each other’s company, but somehow these dreams had brought a level of closeness that seemed to bring contentment to both of them. What was clear was that the feelings were growing and were mutual.
‘Well I hope we can meet again really soon, perhaps I shall start to be able to dream at will, and then I have to tell you I will want to see you so much more! Do you think we could start to plan dates? I would like to go on a picnic to the seaside!’ Mike felt elated at the thought of being by the sea, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine and having some pate, French bread and red wine.
‘Steady,’ he thought to himself, ‘I am planning a date, planning the menu and all this with my dead girlfriend! Is she my girlfriend?’ At mid-40s Mike felt a little self-conscious over such descriptions. They should be confined to people in their 20s he thought. What was clear to him, however, was he didn’t want to part from her, he didn’t want to wake up. In this life, he felt more complete and happier than he could ever remember feeling in his real life. But then he thought to himself: ‘Which is real?’ Just because his logical mind told him he was dreaming and that when he woke he would be in his real life, did that make it real? Perhaps if he were true to himself, he would rather be in this life with Andrea where he was happiest.
‘Mike I am sensing something.’ Andrea was looking straight at his eyes. ‘Whatever we say to each other we are separated, we can spend some lovely moments together but you must promise me you will never do anything rash.’
‘I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.’ He lied and he knew she realised.
‘Please don’t lie, I can feel what you feel Mike. I know you are happier here, standing, walking, spending time with me but this is not the real world. Do not get confused between life and death Mike. This is not the Matrix, you know, where everything is turned upside down.’ Andrea had stepped away and was holding both his hands at arm’s length.
‘It is just that I adore this time with you, I love what we do together, our walks, the places we find ourselves in. You cannot realise how wonderful it feels to be able to walk with you holding your hand.’
‘Mike all those things can continue, after all I am not about to go anywhere.’ Andrea smiled ‘Are you sure you don’t just love the idea of the freedom you get in this life?’
‘No!’ Mike felt a little affronted. ‘It’s great, sure, but so are you and please don’t denigrate what we have here, it is so special.’ Andrea smiled back at him, drew him close to her and kissed him tenderly, squarely on his lips.
‘Now remember darling, what we have is lovely, is special, but you are just a visitor and as such you don’t see or feel as I do here. Let us keep to the times like this we have together.’ Andrea looked long onto his eyes, he felt them drill into his heart, he felt as though she were trying to imprint a message on him without spelling out the detail.
‘Take care, Mike.’ And with that Andrea vanished.
CHAPTER 5
THE FOLLOWING morning Mike awoke with a warm contented feeling inside. It felt special that he had been able to spend such a long time with Andrea, particularly as he had been able to make it happen. How he had travelled in his mind to the next world for the night was beyond him. Indeed he was still not sure if it was the next world or just his dreams. In fact were the two the same or was there some sort of parallel universe going on where the dream world seemed to overlap into the next world? And then, there was that conversation with Andrea over which was the real world. He tried to move his legs, they felt heavy and awkward. ‘This must be the real world,’ he thought to himself. ‘Stuck in a wheelchair and stuck in my marriage.’
Still, however the dream contact worked, he felt pleased that it did. Victoria was fast asleep next to him, turned away from him, facing the window. He moved to the side of the bed to swing himself up, and then reached out for the little table so he could steady himself. Just then Victoria rolled over and just caught sight of his thin legs as he started to rise out of a seating position. Mike fell forward and hit his head against the table.
‘Shit that hurt!’ Mike was rubbing his hand on his head expecting to see blood but his hand was dry.
‘That is certainly one way to make you wake up straight away!’ Andrea was standing next to him holding his arm and looking to steady him as he swayed slightly on his legs.
‘Am I back dreaming?’ Mike asked still feeling a little dazed.
‘Well you are with me and not Victoria so you must be passed out on your bedroom floor in real life.’ Andrea looked concerned for him but also in a way rather pleased he was there with her.
‘It is funny when you refer to real life and this is not. I know I am dreaming when I am with you, but it is so lovely I feel a little more comfortable here than I do there.’ Mike now felt OK to start to wander. They casually held hands as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do and walked gently downhill. They were in a pine forest. The gradient was not steep and there was a smell of sea air in the breeze, Mike wondered if they were walking down towards a beach.
‘You need to be careful Mike, I mean it.’ Andrea was sounding surprisingly serious. ‘For me I spend all my time here, I have no choice but you are still alive Mike, you visit when you want or can. We spoke about this yesterday. There are parts of this life, if that is what it is, that are great, but there are certain parts that are not very pleasant. You see, you and I have this relationship because you are just a visitor, but if you were, shall we say, a permanent resident, then it would be different between us.’
‘I know you keep trying to warn me off but it seems funny to think of time here as not being so lovely when I compare it with life at home,” said Mike. ‘How do you know I am just visiting now? I may have banged my head so badly I may be dead.’ Even as Mike said it he felt relaxed, as though he could accept his end and start a new life.
‘I know you are still alive because I can feel these things, I do keep telling you! Perhaps if you started to take more notice of what I say and spent less time trying to work out how to justify being dead and therefore with me, you could understand and accept what we have, when we have it.’ Andrea was sounding a little strained, as though she was tired of explaining herself.
‘Mike I know we have something very special, but there are parts of this world that you don’t realise yet. You will when you are dead and they come with some pretty big disadvantages.’
‘Will I still be able to stand, walk and be with you?’ Mike felt he needed answers and quickly.
‘Mike that is not for now. Now you belong your wife and not with me. You belong in the world that is living and not with the dead.’ Andrea was dismissing him as gently as she could.
‘Mike, Mike, oh my God are you alright? Mike, Mike can you hear me?’ Victoria was crouching beside him, her face streaked with tears, she was brushing his hair off his forehead with a damp sponge. He felt warm blood trickling down his face in between the wipes with the sponge.
‘Jesus darling, are you trying to kill me off?’ Mike did not feel relieved either to be alive or to be seeing Victoria. He somehow felt cheated he could not spend the day with Andrea.
‘Oh God, you’re back with me. I was just about to call the ambulance! I feel terrible, I am so sorry darling.’ Victoria sounded genuinely upset.
‘I wonder if she would be this worried if she realised I nearly had sex with her best friend’s 19-year-old daughter last night?’ Mike wondered to himself as he hauled his body up against the bed and sat propped against it on the floor. The blood had stopped and he was not feeling too bad.
‘I’m OK now darling, please don’t worry. I’ll start to get ready and just catch a later train.’ Mike did not want to make a great deal of fuss, he had his
favourite client coming in for a lunch appointment and as it was Friday, they could enjoy a bottle of wine and relax.
‘Don’t be such a bloody idiot.’ Victoria was incensed. ‘You have just smashed your head, you could have concussion, and you need to get yourself checked out by a doctor. If you think you are putting that fucking office first today you have another thing coming. In fact I shall go and get your Blackberry now and you can email them.’
With that Victoria stood up and started to walk down the corridor. ‘Is it in the laptop bag as usual?’ She called as she reached the study.
Mike felt powerless for the first time he could remember. He remained sat on the floor, he tried to mentally prepare himself for the tsunami that was about to engulf his whole life. He did not even know whether to try to lie or not. It was just going to happen.
Victoria walked into the bedroom after a few moments with the Blackberry in her hand. ‘Actually I think as you have bashed your head it may be better that I email them, otherwise they may think you are better than you really are.’
Mike just sat against the bed, his mind in turmoil. Surely she had seen the black bra? Was she not going to say anything? Was she going to play some sort of mind game, catch him out? But he knew Victoria, she would have gone mad with fury, she could not have controlled her voice and pretended nothing was wrong, surely?
‘God, you really do not look good at all darling, you are as white as a sheet! I’ll email them and then help you up. Would you like a coffee or do you think it would make you throw up?’ Victoria was standing over him, Blackberry in hand looking concerned.
‘Coffee, yep, that sounds good. Perhaps you are right I should take it easy today.’ Mike just looked up at his wife, in her old T-shirt and black lacy knickers and was dumbfounded.
Victoria returned from the kitchen a few minutes later with a mug of coffee in one hand and still carrying the Blackberry in the other.
‘I’ve sent an email to Georgina and said you fell out of bed. Sorry, I couldn’t bring myself to say it was all my fault! I’ve said I’m taking you to the doctor’s first thing as I am not letting you drive and then you’re staying put quietly for the day. You can deal with anything on the laptop.’ Victoria put the coffee down on the bedside table and straddled herself over his body, Mike was still sitting on the floor with his back against the bed.
Victoria placed her arms around his upper body just below his armpits and heaved him up onto the bed. Then she swung his legs onto the bed and pulled the duvet over him. Sitting up in bed he reached for the coffee, still unable to quite comprehend what was happening. Perhaps, thought Mike, his bump on the head had been more serious than he had realised, and he had not stuffed Sophie’s bra in his laptop bag. In which case, where the hell had he put it?
Victoria sat on the end of the bed looking at him. ‘I am sure Georgina – it is Georgina your new secretary isn’t it? – will forward anything important for you. Now, after you’ve come to a little with that coffee, let’s get you in the shower and I’ll ring the doctors. I’m serious, I really don’t want you to drive before you have been checked out.’
The morning seemed to pass in a bit of a haze to Mike. He was not certain whether it was the bang on the head or the worry over Sophie’s bra. He was driven by Victoria to the doctor’s who, after an over-thorough examination, pronounced him fit and well.
‘I’m going to open up the shop, darling.’ Victoria said as she packed away the plates into the dishwasher after their ham sandwiches and cup of tea which had made up an early lunch.
‘Well then I shall set myself up in the study and see how my partners have coped without me for the last few hours,’ Mike responded, as he started to push himself down the corridor to the study and his laptop bag, which he had not been able to check all morning.
As Victoria left the house with a cheery goodbye Mike settled himself at his desk and reached into his bag. He withdrew the laptop and some loose papers and shuffled his hand around but there was definitely no bra. That meant only two things, either he didn’t put it in there – perhaps that was a dream. In which case where the hell was it? Or Victoria had removed it and was waiting for her moment to confront him with the evidence.
Mike played with the idea in his head.
‘I stand before you my Lord, as Victoria wife of Michael and exhibit in my right hand a black lacy bra size 32D.’ Victoria was addressing a packed court room in Mike’s mind. ‘My husband claims no knowledge and I believe he is lying!’
‘Now how the hell do I defend that?’ thought Mike, as he relaxed back into his chair.
‘You owe me, big time, you tart!’ Andrea was sitting in the sunlight at a railway station platform. There were no announcements or other passengers milling about. The station seemed old fashioned, clean and small as though some type of quintessential branch line from the 1950s.
‘I moved the bra for you. I got to the laptop bag before Victoria and stuffed it behind the books on gardening on the shelf in your study. I could not take it with me across the divide so to speak and I did not have that much time to act in.’
‘Thank you, I don’t know what to say,’ Mike was relieved beyond words and also very pleased to be seeing Andrea again.
‘Could I suggest you try not to get yourself into that position again? I mean you really should not go around collecting young ladies’ underwear as some sort of pervert trophy thing!’ Andrea had a mischievous smile and her eyes were sparkling. ‘That was actually the first time I have been back into your world, although it is not really the same.’
Mike was sitting beside her on the bench. Their thighs were casually touching and he reached across to hold her hand.
‘You are turning into my guardian angel, aren’t you?’ Mike smiled at her and squeezed her hand gently. ‘I’ll dispose of the item in question when I wake up, before Victoria comes home. What do you mean about the place not really being the same?’
‘Oh God, Mike it is so hard to describe! You feel emotionally that walls and things are not really solid. I suppose for me back in your world is a little like you in this world when you dream. Things melt away, you move as though you are floating.’ Andrea knew what she had experienced but could not find the words to help Mike understand.
‘Well all I know is I am so grateful… again!’ Mike was pleased at least he understood why Victoria had not found the bra. ‘I like this railway station, rather quaint really. Is a steam train going to come along in a minute?’ Mike asked, as he looked first one way and then the other up the platform.
‘I have no idea if a train is going to come along, Mike!’ Andrea smiled, she thought Mike looked like a small boy excited at the thought of going on a steam train. ‘Could I suggest that you don’t make this too long a visit here, you should deal with your young lady’s underwear before the lovely wife comes home!’
‘That’s true. I tend to lose track of time here, sorry no pun intended!’ Mike looked across at Andrea and smiled. ‘I would like to come back here again and wait for the train. Perhaps they might have a restaurant carriage and we could have tea and cakes as the countryside rolls past.’
‘That would be lovely, bye for now.’ And with that Andrea stood up, started to walk up the platform and seemed to melt away. Mike woke up and started to rub his eyes as he looked out of the window of his study. He looked at his email page, 86 in his inbox since this morning.
‘Surely there must be more to life than this.’ He thought, ‘Yes there is, it is called death and the more I think about it the more I like the sound of it.’
Mike pushed himself over to the bookcase, it was low level like all the ones in the house to accommodate his needs in his chair. He looked along the gardening section and pulled a couple of books out. There stuffed behind them was the black bra. Mike decided he should dispose of it completely so he pushed himself into the kitchen picked out the rubbish in the bin liner from under the sink and dropped the bra into it. He tied up the bag and pushed himself outside, opened
and dropped it safely into the black bin. That, he thought with some satisfaction, was not going to be recycled.
Victoria came home a little after 5pm and they spent another uneventful evening followed by a rather boring weekend. The only odd conversation happened on Sunday morning when Mike had suggested they visit the steam railway at Alresford, a few miles east of Winchester.
‘God, Mike has that bang on your head affected you that badly?’ Victoria responded to the idea
‘It is just I thought it would be different, they have a special 1940s theme and we could have a ride on the train, some tea out, just chill really.’ Mike tried to sound nonchalant.
‘Well unless you are starting to regress into a 7-year-old who wants to go and play on steam engines I would rather go over and see Gerald and Jules and sit and drink Pimms. You can drive.’ Victoria sounded as though her mind was made up and Mike did not feel able to argue. In fact he thought it would still not be as good to visit the railway line with Victoria as it would be with Andrea, so what the hell.
The rest of the Sunday had passed in a blur, Victoria had drunk a little too much Pimms and had started to plan her next holiday with Jules while Gerald had bored Mike with details of his latest bonus deal at work that he was trying to funnel to some offshore account to avoid tax.
That evening as they got ready for bed Mike was pleased at the idea of going to sleep and dreaming of Andrea, perhaps after such a day he would be able to travel there at will again. Even if he could not then there would be work this week and he could spend most of his waking hours away from Victoria and home. She had annoyed him that afternoon more than he was prepared to admit to himself. It seemed odd but one moment she had been so supportive and attentive when he had banged his head on the table on Friday and then they had seemed to settle into their usual routine of two middle-aged people sharing a house, not exactly a happy marriage.
A Dream to Die For Page 6