Chapter sixteen

Two Dreams

 

It was a big dark house, imposing in the twilight. Viola had knocked on the front door several times, but she was not really surprised that no-one had answered. She looked up at the façade of the house. Above her there were a long row of windows on an upper level all sheathed in heavy curtains.  Above that there were narrower windows below a long sloping roof. She imagined a hundred hidden eyes staring down at her. She really didn’t want to enter this building but she knew that she would have to try.

She took a deep breath and pushed at the door. It didn’t budge. There was no handle. She pushed again, a little harder and then when that didn’t work she pushed with all of her might. It still didn’t move at all. She shook her head and turned away from the door. Perhaps there was a side entrance?

The gardens were formal but somewhat overgrown, full of rose and camellias, most of them in flower but almost gone over. The path that ran round the house was overgrown with these plants and walking round was difficult, with multiple detours and doubling backs.

There was low conservatory structure halfway along the right hand edge of the building. The door to it was open and so she tiptoed in. There was a tall man standing next to a rubber plant in front of her. He had his back to her.  She walked towards him and he turned towards her. As he did the whole room twisted with him so that his turning achieved nothing – he got no closer to looking at her. The inside of the conservatory was now strangely twisted by the man’s movement. The way beyond him was now humped and twisted, like a rutted track on a country path.

‘Who are you?’ she hissed

The man said nothing – all he did was continue turning, always with the same part of the back of his head pointing towards her. The room began to spiral, like the inside of a snail’s shell – the fabric of space groaned as it distorted. It was impossible to look at it without feeling nauseous.  Bewildered, she looked back over her shoulder. The open door was there and the garden, looking as they had just moments before. With an involuntary movement she was out of the door again, happy to escape. She looked back. All she could see now was the tall man standing next to a rubber plant, just as before. Shivering, she shut the open door. It seemed that that was not the way in.

She walked on through the scrubland of camellias. The land stopped abruptly at a vertical edge. She hadn’t noticed the sea before, but there it was lapping at the front of the house. If she craned her neck she could see around the side of the house. There seem to be space where most of the wall should be. It was hard to see anything much but she thought just for a second that she saw steps leading up to row after row of books. Something shifted in the fabric of the house and then the sea disappeared. It was replaced by a vegetable garden and a crazy paving path that led round to the back of the house. She blinked a few times and looked at the rows of beans from a number of different angles but then concluded that this sort of thing must be quite normal in the strange world that she had somehow stumbled into.

The back of the house no longer had any way in – there was no space, no steps, no library, they had all gone along with the ocean. Viola continued her traipse round the building, across an unkempt lawn and then back to the front door. She didn’t even bother to knock this time.

***

Celia sat in the boat for a while, wondering what had happened to the Dream Girl. As soon as she had found the boat the girl had disappeared. Now she had nowhere to go and, in any case, the wind had dropped to nothing. The sails on the little boat sagged limp and useless. Celia was rapidly concluding that this stitched-together dream meant nothing after all. Her earlier conviction, that this would lead to something, was rapidly evaporating.  She stared out over the still blue water wondering when she would wake up.

 The Dream Girl tapped her on the shoulder. Celia twisted round to see where she was sitting behind her and almost fell out of the boat.

‘What are you waiting for?’ asked the girl

Celia turned to face her. This was the first time that she’d had a proper look at her and whatever she had been planning to say in response to the irritating question immediately dropped out of her mind. She felt frozen in time.

She put her hand up to the girl’s face. It was so familiar that it was shocking. The girl had a long thick mane of black hair, blue eyes and a slightly crooked grin. She knew exactly who this was, even though that person was years away from being born.  She ran her fingers through her dark hair. It felt like she had done that ten thousand times before.

‘How...?’

The Dream Girl laughed.

‘It’s a dream... how else?’

A shaft of light seemed to enter Celia’s heart; simultaneously wonderful and wounding. She found it hard to speak.

‘Have you come from the future?’

The girl shook her head accusingly – as if she had never heard anything so foolish.

‘You never listen to what I say, mum... I mean never. I really wish you would...’

It’s a dream. That’s all that it is. Celia proceeded more cautiously. She spoke very slowly.

‘So – you’re my dream daughter... is that it?’

The girl tilted her head to one side and considered this. Her mouth puckered slightly, just like Owen’s when he was thinking.

‘No – I’m your daughter... in dreams and waking’

Celia shook her head.

‘How can that possibly be true?’

‘I have no idea – I just know that it is...’

And it was true. This was exactly how the daughter of Councillors Celia Franklyn and Owen Floyd would look and act. But more than that, she seemed to exist beyond Celia’s imagination. She was more wilful, more playful, and yet somehow more intense than anything she could summon up from her mind. Something odd was going on. Her mind raced with questions.

‘Who sent you?’

The dream girl exasperation was like a slap.

‘I have no idea – I’m just a child, mum... hadn’t you noticed?’

Celia hadn’t expected a straight answer; but then she thought of a far more important question.

‘What’s your name?’

The girl grinned; her button nose crinkling up.

‘Come on mum – you know what my name is, surely...’

‘Imogen...’ Celia said, without hesitation. She had always known that she would name her daughter that.

The girl giggled and made a face.

‘No – thank goodness it’s not that...’

‘What is it then?’

‘... it’s Aery... I’m Aerona... how could you forget your own daughter’s name?’

She folded her arms in a mock strop.

Celia felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. That was Owen’s mother’s name.

‘Imogen...good grief’ Aerona laughed, ‘I’m glad that Daddy won that one...’

There was a pause while Celia considered the girl in front of her. This was in equal measure disquieting and upsetting. Her desire for children had always been there – pushed down, perhaps even dismissed as impossible – but now her mind, or something else, who knew, had created this facsimile of a daughter and she could scarcely bear the thought of the dream ending.

‘How is Dad?’ asked Aerona

Tears welled up in Celia’s eyes. To think of Owen now was too much to bear.

‘Stop it’ she said, but not really to the dream girl, ‘please stop torturing me...’

And as if from that request the dream girl was gone. In her place a wind blew up and lifted the sails. The little boat slipped off the sand. Celia sniffed, took out a white handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes.