Graham Joyce: Dreamside

“I’m already calm. You don’t need to tell me to calm myself.”

“That’s settled then.”

“Right, that’s settled.”

Lee took this concert of understanding as a suitable moment to escape to the kitchen. He closed the door behind him, putting his back to it as he expelled a deep breath. He was furious about that business of renewing their old relationship, not with Ella but with himself. He had made his feelings transparent, trailing her with spaniel eyes from the moment she had come into his house. He wanted to bury his head.

Their meal arrived. “Tell me,” she said, “what was happening before I phoned?”

Lee glanced over his shoulder as though there might be an enemy in the room. “It started around Christmas. I thought it was just some kind of throwback. That’s happened before, and there’s been no problem. Since then it has come with greater frequency. Over the last few nights it has come without fail.”

“Just the repeated awakening?”

“Yes. That’s all, thank God; I mean there have been one or two other weird things happening in there besides, but mostly it’s the repeater. It doesn’t sound much but it’s scaring the hell out of me.”

“It’s the same for me. I know how frightening it is. You get to dread every click or sudden movement in case you wake up and find yourself back in bed.”

“But I’ve even been testing myself in the dream, burning my hand, sticking pins into myself to see if I’m in or out: it doesn’t make any difference.”

“That’s how it was before.”

“Sure, but then, somehow, even though I’d get it wrong sometimes, I felt I could tell the essential difference. But not now. It gets so I don’t want to bother going to work, cooking my breakfast, washing my face even, in case I wake up. Every time something just a little bit off the wall happens, or if I get a client at work with a screw loose, I end up thinking I’ll wake up in five minutes and then I can go to work and deal with the real psychopaths.”

“I thought we were the real psychopaths.”

“What’s worse is that the dreams make more sense than what happens when I’m awake. When I was talking to you this morning I was convinced that it was just part of another repeater and that I’d put the phone down and wake up.”

“But you should have known that I’d pulled you out with the telephone. It was one of our old techniques for burrowing out. Or burrowing in.”

“I know that, but I didn’t ever trust it. I don’t entirely trust that business with the book either.”

“Can you remember anything the professor said about the repeater?”

“Only that he described it as a side effect, and said to try to enjoy it.”

“Yes, he was helpful like that.”

“When did it start happening with you?”

“Like you, around Christmas. Infrequently at first, then with regularity. I thought it was me; but it wasn’t just repeated dreams of waking up. It was some of the other stuff.”

“You went back to that place?” Lee was shocked.

“Not exactly. But I felt an overwhelming pull. Almost irresistible. I’ve been fighting it. That’s why I decided I had to get in touch, find out what was happening to you.”

“I know. I felt it too, pulling me back there, I mean. It was strong. I fought it. That’s when the repeaters started to really take hold.”

“Exactly. The more we fight off going back, the more the repeaters go to work on us.”

“But what would happen if we did give in? What would happen if we really did go back there? I couldn’t face it.”

“At first I wondered whether you’d been there,” said Ella, “whether you were up to something, trying to make contact with me.”

“No.”

“It was just a thought. I realize now.”

“Ella, there have been many times when I’ve wanted you. But never like that. It didn’t seem to hold so much fear for me when I was younger. Now even the thought of it can make me break into a cold sweat.”

Ella ran a hand through her hair, silver moon and stars glinting at her ears. “So where does that leave us?” she asked. “If it’s not you and it’s not me… Oh God, look at us, Lee, just look at us. What a pair of casualties. I’m trying to be brave, Lee, really I am, but I’m scared. So scared.”

Then Lee did what he should have done when he first saw Ella standing outside his house; he put his arms around her and kissed her, and let her cry for both of them. And when Ella cried that evening it was not only for the terror of the dreams that hung in chains around them. It was also for the unburdened, uncaring children they had been thirteen years ago, and for the thirteen years of distance and loss that had recast lovers as strangers.

“Which one of them is doing it, do you think?”

“We can’t be sure that it’s either of them.”

An open fire burned brightly in the hearth. Ella sat close to it, her legs drawn up under her. Lee sat behind her in an armchair. “You’re wrong. One of them is doing it. One of them is calling it all back. Is it him, do you think? Or is it her? We have to find out. Then we can stop them.”

“I was afraid you might say that.”

“No time for faint hearts,” said Ella.

“You really are making a lot of assumptions. You can’t know that the others are responsible for this.”

“So what are your ideas?”

“Me?”

“Exactly. How long do you think it’s going to be before these dreams, these repeaters turn into something else? Something more dangerous.”

Lee felt like a man in a paperweight snowstorm. Everything in his life had been settled and silenced. Then Ella had arrived, had shaken the glass, and was now watching him in his blizzard.

“When push comes to shove,” said Ella, “there’s only one question. Is it him? Or is it her?”

“Him, her; what’s the difference? It’s happening.”

“I think it’s her. I think we’ll find that she’s responsible.”

“Look, Ella, I’m really not convinced that we should get in touch with the others. It might not do any good. Sleeping dogs and all that. It might just make things worse. A whole lot worse. There must be something else we can do without running to them.”

“We’ve been through this once already. It’s not a question of running to them. It’s a matter of not running away from them.”

Lee wouldn’t have minded running away from all of them, Ella included. He knew where all this was leading and he didn’t like it. Ella had that manic cast to her eye. She wasn’t going to be shifted.

“So what do we do?” she said.

“You’re the one with all the plans.”

“So it appears. Listen, it’s simple. You’re going to have to go after one of them; I’m going to have to go after the other. No, don’t look like that. Neither of us wants to do it, but neither of us wants this thing opened up again either. You know where it can all lead, and you’re just as afraid of that as I am. You also know that one of the others must be responsible for starting it up again. There can’t be any other explanation. We’ll have to track them down and find out what’s going on.”

“How the hell are we going to find them?”

“Just like I found you. We’re going to use a little bit of intelligence and a little bit of insight. You’ll have to take a break from selling washing powder or whatever important thing it is you do.”

“I can’t take time off from work! What will I tell them?”

“Tell them you’re ill! Tell them you’re mentally disturbed! That’s something like the truth, isn’t it? Our hold on reality is a little tenuous at the moment, isn’t it? What do I care what you tell them?”

“Are you getting angry with me?”