Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

That night, having borrowed the AC Six, Daniel took Rosie on honeymoon to a hotel in Henley-on-Thames, and had to feed her himself. She declined champagne, and later on Daniel felt that he could not possibly expect anything of her in her injured condition. Moreover she had, perhaps wilfully, not taken account of certain physiological inevitabilities when planning the date of the wedding. It was very difficult to change the clouts with her damaged hands, as it was to do anything for herself at all.

The couple lay face-to-face, kissing and talking, he in striped pyjamas and she in a copious nightdress. Her kisses were tentative and reluctant, and he construed this as modesty. After she fell asleep at last, he got up, went downstairs, lifted a sash, carefully made a note of which one it was, and went for a long nocturnal walk along the river. As dawn broke he sat on the stump of an oak, took out his cigarette case, removed a cigarette, tapped the end of it on the case, and lit it. He smoked and breathed in the chilly air all at once. In spite of everything, he was brimming with happiness and optimism. He had almost made up his mind to leave the RAF and get a job in civil aviation. Everyone said there were tremendous opportunities just round the corner. If that did not work out, he would go into motorcycles.

Daniel fell into a reverie about a house somewhere nice, such as here in Henley, and he envisaged himself playing cricket in the garden with his children, a pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth even though he did not smoke one, or going fishing on the Thames, when he had never been fishing in his life. In the driveway of the house, on the other side where you can’t see it, there would be a beautiful Hispano-Suiza, its engine ticking as it cooled down after a run to Oxford and back. In his mind’s eye Rosie was wearing a summer dress and a wide floppy hat. She was smiling at him and the children, and over her arm was a basket of flowers.

SOPHIE LAY FLAT on her back in bed, freshly washed and in a new nightdress with a decorative blue ribbon at the neck, waiting for her husband to come in from the bathroom. They had chosen a small hotel in Dover for the first night of their honeymoon and had come down by train, sending their luggage in advance. It was the kind of hotel where the plumbing groaned and rattled, and light draughts of fresh salty air seeped in through the ill-fitting window frames. They had dined on Dover sole, as seemed only appropriate, and had become very slightly tipsy on white wine that should have been a little bit more chilled, the kind of sour generic wine that the French used to palm off on the British, in the secure knowledge that the British didn’t know any better. Because Sophie and Captain Fairhead did not know any better, they had enjoyed it very much.

Captain Fairhead came in at last, and slipped under the sheets. He did not touch her, but turned on his side to face her. She rolled and faced him, so close that they could smell each other’s winey hot breath.

‘You face looks completely different from so close up,’ said Sophie.

‘From this close you’ve got four eyes,’ said Captain Fairhead. He planted a small kiss on her lips, and she put her arms around him.

‘Do you know what?’

‘No. What?’

‘Mama asked me if I knew what was going to happen tonight. I said, “We’re going to Dover.” And she said, “Don’t be obtuse, darling.” Then she said, “What will happen will be deeply unpleasant, humiliating and degrading, but you must do your duty, and in the end it is worth it for the children that result.”’

‘What do you think we ought to do?’ asked Fairhead. ‘I confess, I do feel quite apprehensive. I haven’t been so nervous in a long time. Like the feeling when you know there’s going to be a barrage.’

‘Didn’t you go to borledos in France?’

‘Borledos? What on earth do you mean?’

‘You know, places for jiggajig and hozirontal recreation?’

‘Hozirontal recreation? You mean bordellos?

‘Ah, that must be it.’

‘There was at least one for officers in Amiens,’ he said. ‘The queues at the licensed ones for other ranks were quite unbelievable.’

‘Didn’t you go and brandish your Bible at them?’

‘Certainly not. A military chaplain in time of war is solely concerned with consolation, encouragement and death. The men never took us very seriously in any case. They called us “sky pilots”. Even the airmen called us sky pilots. Anyway, I never was one for the “borledos”. You can call it fastidiousness, or moral principle, or lack of courage. I’m still not sure what it was, and now I’ll never know. I’m as pure as the driven snow, I’m afraid.’

‘I had some good advice,’ said Sophie. ‘I got it from someone who married last year.’

‘What was it?’

‘She said not to try and do it until you both feel comfortable, ’specially not on the first night. That’s what someone told her, and it worked out very well, she said.’

‘Really?’

‘She said just to stick to talking and kissing, and things like that.’

‘Are you ticklish?’ he asked.

‘Don’t tickle me, kiss me.’

‘Where?’

‘Here,’ she said, pointing to the tip of her nose. He kissed it. ‘Now here,’ she said, patting her right cheek, ‘and now here,’ patting the left. ‘Now it’s my turn to kiss you.’ She placed her mouth fully on his.

Quarter of an hour later, utterly enflamed, he said, ‘Do you really need that nightdress on?’

‘Do you really need those pyjamas?’

‘I’ll undress if you undress.’

‘You undress me, then I’ll undress you.’

He made her sit up, and pulled the nightdress over her head, exposing her small pointed breasts and flat belly. Her cheeks flushed, and she began to fumble with his buttons.

They lay wonderingly, their whole flesh in complete correspondence with another’s for the first time in their lives. The warmth, the smell, the textures, were strange, exciting and beautiful. He ran a finger softly down her spine, and she shivered.

Outside the gaslighter doused the street lamps. Their eyes glittered in the dark.

‘Shall we go to sleep now?’ he suggested mischievously. ‘We’ve got an early start if we want to get to Deauville.’

‘Oh drat,’ she said.

‘Thank God I’m alive,’ he said. ‘Thank God I made it through.’

‘Let’s not wait,’ she said.

In the morning, when they drew the curtains, a bright shaft of sunlight was thrown into the room, its colour pure and golden. Outside the sky was absolutely clear of cloud, and the whole town and the sea shimmered and wavered in a serene and perfect light. Sophie went to the window, naked as she was, and held out her arms so that the sunlight could bathe her body.

‘How beautiful you are,’ said Fairhead gratefully.

He went to the bathroom down the corridor, and when he returned quarter of an hour later, freshly shaven and smelling of cologne, he found Sophie in her nightdress and dressing gown, sitting by the window, apparently writing in the air with her forefinger. He stood behind her and saw that she was disturbing the tiny motes that sparkled in the bright shaft of sunlight.

‘Look at all the little shiny specks, swirling about,’ said Sophie. ‘Do you know what they are?’

‘Do you? What are they?’

‘They’re the dust that falls from dreams.’

‘The dust that falls from dreams,’ repeated Fairhead, his voice full of wonder. He was only just beginning the long journey towards the revelation that he had married a truly original and remarkable woman, and felt again a pang of gratitude and incredulity.

‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘This is the dust from last night’s dreams. I’m writing our names. I’m writing with my finger in the dust that falls from dreams.’