by Ross Welford
Slowly, he descends until both feet are back on the stage. He thanks Maureen, shoves the dagger back in its sheath, acknowledges the applause gracefully and finishes by saying, ‘Ladies and gentlemen. The power of the mind is a marvellous thing. Thank you for your attention!’
On our screen, the picture cuts back to colour and Robbie Ferguson in the studio.
‘Well, that was then, and he’s floated all the way back to us now! Here to talk about his new venture, the Mystic o’ the Highlands himself, Kenneth McKinley!’
And there he is, in his kilt, sporran and dirk, coming down the studio steps to the talk-show sofa. He’s grinning at the audience’s applause and he’s holding an exact replica of the strange device that is currently hanging above my and my brother’s beds: a Dreaminator.
‘Wow! He looks so young!’ says Susan. ‘What on earth is he holding?’
I don’t reply.
The interview does not go at all well. The show’s presenter seems determined to mock Kenneth and make jokes at his expense, and Kenneth looks increasingly uncomfortable when the audience seems to enjoy the taunting.
To begin with, Robbie Ferguson stands facing Kenneth who is on the sofa. ‘Can I start by showing you how I can float?’ he says, and the audience titters. Kenneth smiles back, good-natured, but he looks a little wary.
‘Stand up,’ says the presenter, ‘I’d like you to be Maureen. Please take my hand!’
The audience laughs. He turns his back slightly, so he is in a different position from Kenneth who had been facing the audience directly. But then, just like Kenneth had done, Robbie Ferguson starts to float, just a little bit off the ground, but the audience cheers and gasps. It looks amazing.
But then, in a slight jerking motion, he turns his body round until he is facing the audience – and there is a huge laugh from them as they see the trick, and the camera shows a close-up of his feet. He has been balancing on the tiptoes of one foot, which is protruding from the bottom of his shoe.
The audience howls with laughter at the simple trick.
‘Come on, Kenneth – admit it! That was how you did it, eh? It’s just an old stage trick. I had the studio boys here make up special shoes for me!’ The presenter’s tone is teasing, but there’s a definite edge to it. Kenneth’s face freezes in a cold smile.
‘Well –’ he hesitates – ‘that might be one way of doing it, but I assure you …’
‘Don’t worry, Kenneth. I know the rules. You can’t reveal your secrets.’ Robbie pauses for comic timing and shoots a cocky glance at the camera. ‘Instead, I’ll reveal them for you!’ Big laugh from the audience, and a close-up of Kenneth looking uncomfortable.
‘That’s not fair!’ says Susan. ‘That’s not how Kenneth was doing it!’
‘Shh, Susan,’ says Mola.
Robbie Ferguson goes, ‘Och, don’t mind me, Kenneth. Just enjoyin’ a wee bit o’ banter with you, eh? So tell me, O Mystic o’ the Highlands – what’s that you’ve brought with you to Scotland Loud and Live?’
Clearly relieved that the subject has moved on, Kenneth grins and holds up the device, and the audience goes, ‘Ooooh!’
‘This,’ he says, ‘is my latest venture. I call it …’
‘I believe you’re calling it “the Dreaminator”. Woooo!’ The presenter says this in an exaggerated, dramatic way that makes it clear he thinks it’s crazy and the audience titters. ‘What does it do, Kenneth?’
‘Well, as the name implies, it allows the user, when asleep, to control his or her dreams, so that …’
Robbie Ferguson interrupts again. ‘You’re saying you can dream whatever you like, thanks to these wee crystals.’ He reaches over and holds up one of the woven cords with a crystal attached.
‘Well, it’s not just that, Robbie. You see, the philosophy behind this is based on my lengthy studies of a number of ancient cultures. Many of us possess the ability, through practice and meditation, to control our dreams and actually experience them as though we are awake. What the Dreaminator does is to combine that natural ability – which is very hard to acquire – and put it within the grasp of pretty much anyone. By using the unique qualities of these crystals here to create an undetectable vibration around the sleeper, along with the ancient power of the pyramids …’
The presenter’s face shows boredom and frustration. He interrupts. ‘Oh aye. Can you prove that it works, Kenneth?’
There’s a long pause, and the audience sniggers again.
Kenneth says, ‘In cases like this, proof is a difficult thing to quantify, Robbie, so I’d say …’
‘So you can’t prove it?’
‘Well, I know it works for me, and …’
‘Well, you’re bound to say that! You’re selling it!’
The audience laughs properly now, and Kenneth glances at them, annoyed.
‘I hate that man!’ says Susan. ‘He’s a bully!’
‘How much is this selling for, Kenneth?’
‘Well, once production commences, I expect it to be retailing for around twenty pounds.’
Now the audience gasps. I do too. ‘Is that all?’ I say to Susan.
‘That was 1981,’ she says, quickly, not taking her eyes from the screen. ‘It would be a lot more now. Shh.’
‘… you’re saying that you haven’t started making them yet? And you’re expecting people to pay twenty quid to control their own dreams and you can’t even prove it works!’
‘We have made some prototypes, but full-scale production …’
‘Kenneth, with respect. I love you as the Mystic o’ the Highlands, but I tell you this much. If you manage to persuade people to shell out twenty of their good Scottish pounds for a load of string and a few pebbles, then that will be your best trick ever!’
He grins at the audience, who are howling with laughter now. Kenneth has no choice but to smile and to pretend that it’s all in good humour. But, in the close-up shot, his eyes look moist.
‘It’s not a trick!’ he says, struggling to control his voice. ‘There are more mysteries in the human mind than we can ever dream of …’
‘Is … is he crying?’ I say.
‘Looks like it,’ says Susan.
Robbie Ferguson is wrapping up the interview. ‘… a great sport and a great entertainer. Ladies and gentlemen – Kenneth McKinley!’
The camera lingers on a close-up of Kenneth and his watery, baffled smile, while the audience applauds, politely.
Susan fast-forwards and the tape spools quickly through the rest of the programme. Kenneth doesn’t reappear. The programme credits whiz past and the picture goes black. She has raised the remote control again to press ‘stop’ when the picture comes on again and I say, ‘Don’t! Let’s see,’ and she presses ‘play’ instead.
There is Kenneth again, on a different stage. This time, though, he’s not in his kilt: just jeans and a huge striped jumper. He has grown a little beard, and his hair is longer. Behind him on a backdrop in big letters it says
NEW AGE – NEW BEGINNING
1983
Kenneth is addressing an audience, although it’s hard to judge how many people there are. It’s an amateur production: the camerawork is wobbly and the sound isn’t great.
‘My friends,’ he says as he raises both arms above his head, ‘a new age of understanding and insight is upon us! Together we can dream of a new future. A future free of conflict! A future free of disease! A future of love and brotherhood, in which we use the infinite power of our subconscious to release us from poverty, from sickness, from weakness and from hatred!’
He is mesmerising to watch. His voice swoops, his arms slash the air in front of him and his hands make chopping motions to emphasise his words. I don’t even understand most of what he says, to be honest. It sounds like a sermon by one of those old-time preachers, only there is no mention of God, or heaven, or hell. Instead, it all seems to be about ‘releasing our inner powers’ and ‘coming together to dream a better future’. Kenneth displays picture
s behind him of the stars, and ancient temples, the pyramids in Egypt, complicated-looking mathematical formulas, a picture of a human brain, and a Native American chief complete with a huge feathered head-dress …
Then he holds up a Dreaminator and the audience applauds. ‘This, my friends, will change the world! Control your dreams, and the awesome force of our thoughts, even when we sleep, will create a world of …’
Then the picture goes fuzzy and finally black as the tape ends.
Susan turns off the VHS machine and we sit in silence for a moment.
‘Wow!’ I say.
‘Poor Mr McKinley,’ she says at last.
‘Ridiculous,’ says Mola, taking a long and noisy slurp of tea. ‘Nothing but cocky-pop. And dangerous cocky-pop as well.’
‘Poppycock, Mola,’ corrects Susan. ‘And why dangerous? It’s just harmless, surely? I mean, it can’t possibly work.’
‘This is just a short cut. A very bad short cut. Like … like eating sweeties instead of proper food.’
I say nothing. If what Mola just said is true, then I have been munching my way through a family pack of Haribos. Every night. While I am asleep.
Mola continues, an air of righteousness settling over her. She closes one eye and turns the other to Susan, raising a single finger, palm out. Although she addresses her granddaughter, I think this is meant for me.
‘I have heard of these toys. Pah! They will mess with your head.’
That phrase again! I am surprised. ‘You’ve heard of these Dreamy-thingies?’ Clever, Malky, I think. Don’t sound too familiar with them.
‘Course I have. Not that one exactly, but others. People always look for a quick solution. They want to control everything. “Control your dreams,” he says. Meditation is all about giving up control. Just be, you know? It takes time and patience to be good at it. But who has time and patience these days, huh? You want everything now-now-now. Click, I want it now! Click, same-day-delivery!’
‘Well …’ says Susan, ‘it may not be …’
‘Don’t interrupt, Tenzin. Thing is, when you eat only sweeties, your teeth fall out, you get fat and you die an early death. You understand? Stop trying to control everything. Just let it be. You know – like the Beatles song?’
To my astonishment, she starts singing Mam’s bedtime song: ‘Let it be, let it be … You understand?’
Susan gasps. ‘That’s the song Mr McKinley just mentioned!’
Mola’s not listening. ‘I’m talking to him. Dream-boy over there. He knows, don’t you! You with me?’
‘Yes, Mola,’ I lie. I haven’t got a clue what she’s on about, and I’m still a bit freaked out at hearing Mam’s song warbled by Mola.
Susan is showing me to the door, and she’s wincing a little. ‘Sorry about Mola. She gets a bit … intense sometimes.’
I nod. ‘Why does she call you by your last name?’
Susan is puzzled for a moment, then her face clears. ‘Oh! Tenzin! That is only my last name in English. It is my first name in Tibetan.’
‘That’s odd,’ I say, and she smiles.
‘Not really. My daddy wanted me to have an English name as well, so he chose Susan and then added my first name to make a surname because in Tibet they don’t really do names in the same way as you do.’ She points to a picture of an elderly man with spectacles and a bald head, in a silver frame on the wall of the little entrance lobby. He has the look of a government minister, or head teacher, except he’s wearing dark red robes. ‘I am named after this man. Dalai Lama,’ she says.
‘But that’s not your name?’
‘Dalai Lama is his title. His name is Tenzin Gyatso.’
‘Cool. Is he a relative or something?’
Susan lets out a little gasp of laughter and puts her hand to her mouth. ‘No, Malky! Dalai Lama means “great master”. He is the world leader of Tibetan Buddhists.’
I nod slowly and – I hope – wisely. ‘Like the Pope?’
Susan shrugs and smiles. ‘I suppose. A bit like the Pope.’
I say to her, ‘Are you a Buddhist then?’ and she does the exact same shrug-and-smile.
‘Sort of. Not really. It’s quite hard to be a good one. I practise with Mola.’
It occurs to me that I have never said sorry for siding with Kez that day, and for what I said in the lunch hall earlier. And so I do. She gives her shy smile and nods. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘Friends?’
‘Aye. Friends.’
I seriously think this whole thing might have ended right there had the next few seconds been different. If I hadn’t had that conversation, I’d have been on my way home and Susan would never have found out.
But what happens, happens. And guess whose fault it is?
My phone goes as I’m standing there with my hand on the doorknob, ready to go.
It’s Seb. He’s FaceTiming me. I think about not taking the call, but I remember I was supposed to be there when he got back from goalie training …
I hold the phone up and Seb’s face appears. He’s on Mam’s laptop in our bedroom, in his green keeper’s top.
‘Sorry, mate,’ I say, trying to head off any whingeing. ‘I’m just leaving now. Five minutes.’
‘Okay. Are you passing the corner shop?’
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘Can you buy some triple-A batteries …?’
Batteries? I should have been quicker. I can see where this is going. I try to swipe the phone screen to end the call, but I’m in too much of a hurry, and end up stabbing at it with my finger to no effect. Meanwhile, Seb is still talking.
‘The ones in my Dreaminator are losing power. Look – it’s not as bright …’ He tilts the laptop and my phone screen is filled with an image of Seb’s Dreaminator.
Susan sees and hears everything and, oh my God, the look on her face.
‘You lied to me, Malky Bell. You have been lying to me since the start, haven’t you? And do you think I did not hear Mr McKinley say Dreaminator? I am not deaf, you know.’
I’ve tried to make a swift getaway, but she has followed me down the weedy path and her voice has gone all quiet again. It’s like … when other people would shout, Susan Tenzin goes the other way.
‘All that “shared dreaming” stuff with your little brother?’ she hisses. ‘It was that … that thing, wasn’t it? And did you … steal it? How, Malky? Why?’
I sigh. ‘It wasn’t stealing. It was borrowing, just a dare – banter, you know? I was messing about with Kez Becker …’
Susan lets out a small snort of contempt.
‘And … one thing led to another,’ I say.
‘Is that the best you can do, Malky? “One thing led to another”?’
I find I don’t have a good answer for her. I mumble something and Susan puts her hands on her hips. From somewhere deep inside me, I hear myself murmuring, ‘I’m sorry,’ for the second time in about a minute.
‘Look what has happened, Malky. You stole, you lied, you used this Dream thing with no knowledge of what it might do to your head and it is sending you crazy! It is like my Mola says: you want all of this stuff too quickly, too easily. All that business in school today? That is the dream world escaping from your head. You’re lucky it has not happened to Sebastian … or has it?’
‘No. Don’t think so.’
‘Good. Maybe he is too young. How would I know? Have you heard about karma?’
I shrug. She says, ‘Mola would not like this definition, but … bad actions have bad results.’
I shrug again. ‘So?’
‘So. If you are asking me, then you have to stop using the Dreaminator and return it to Kenneth. It is that simple.’
There is something in her manner that makes me push back and I say, ‘But I wasn’t asking you, was I?’
She swats away my reply with a flick of her head. ‘Oh, stop being so stubborn. You do realise, don’t you, what you have done? People suffer because of lies, Malky. People suffer because they stand up for the truth. Why do you thi
nk my dad is not here? It is because he stood up for the truth, and the liars in charge do not like that. Truth, and honesty, Malky: in a crazy world, they are all we have!’
I want to tell her that I’ve been trying to tell the truth. To Mam, to her, but the mention of her dad distracts me.
‘You … your dad?’ I say.
‘Yes. Put in jail in China for telling the truth about Tibet. They … they do things differently in China. It … it is a long story.’
We stand there for several seconds, glaring at each other, and the pain of Susan’s separation from her dad seems to blaze from her dark eyes.
I wonder about sneaking into Kenneth’s backyard and replacing the Dreaminators in the shed. My stomach turns over at the thought. I can’t do it.
After a moment, I say, ‘I can stop using it, sure. But I’m not taking them back.’
‘Them? You mean there’s more than one?’
I nod and mumble, ‘One each.’
Susan tuts then looks at me closely through her big glasses. ‘Being honest, Malky, means a bad deed belongs in your past. Being dishonest means it is with you forever. Which do you want?’
In my heart, I know she’s right. ‘Is that karma?’
‘No,’ she says. Her voice has softened. ‘That’s just me.’
Susan takes a step forward until she is standing close enough for me to catch her soap-and-apples smell. ‘I will come with you if you want,’ she says. ‘We go there, you hand them back, you apologise, you say that it was just a prank, or whatever …’
‘Banter.’
‘That’s it. It was just banter, you are really, really sorry … and that is it. What can they do? You said that Andi already knows it was you, anyway. So it will be a piece of cake.’
I raise my eyes to meet her intense gaze. ‘Butter cake?’
‘Exactly!’ she laughs. ‘A piece of butter cake.’
‘Tomorrow?’
Susan smiles her closed-mouth smile and says, ‘Yes. Tomorrow morning. Come round here, we’ll go together and we will put everything right. As friends.’
I feel like a heavy box of anxiety has been lifted off my chest.