Barbara Vine - The Chimney Sweeper's Boy

She couldn’t understand why it didn’t wake Sarah and Hope, it was such a cry. A scream that burst from the big healthy lungs of a man in the prime of life, a howl of horror, the cry a prisoner might give who finds himself walled up in a doorless dungeon. And that was just what he had fancied he was in the dream, which had been so real, so tangible, odorous, cold, that he thought it was true, that it was really happening.

When she got to him, he was sitting up, his mouth still open, his arms raised, his hands up, quivering, beside his head. Not thinking, not remembering in that moment those slights and rejections, she had gone straight to him and put herself into his uplifted arms. For a moment, he was still, petrified, and then his hands closed around her shoulders. He hugged her to him and she clung there, gasping. She hesitated for only a little while before getting into bed with him and holding him in her arms while he told her about his dream. There, two hours later, the astonished children found them fast asleep.

Ursula got to her feet and walked back along the wrinkled sand. Up in Lundy View House, someone had put lights on in the living room, though it wasn’t even dusk yet. Tonight, the clocks would be turned back. The wind had blown leaves from the clifftop gardens down onto the beach, where they lay among the shells as if they, too, had been left stranded by the sea.

We never remember other people’s dreams, only our own, but she remembered that one, Gerald’s dream. He told her—she hadn’t known—that it was recurrent, though sometimes years passed before it came again.

He whispered it all to her, and she was touched, moved, happy. He was talking to her as people who were close did talk to each other, confiding, telling their fears and their pain. It was only later that she understood anyone would have done for him, any ear would have served, anyone’s arms and anyone’s warmth would have been enough for him. And there were some who would have been far more welcome than she. Dream people from good dreams that for some reason he could never find or keep or confront in reality.

He had been in a city street at night. Which city, he said, he didn’t know and it didn’t matter. He had entered a tunnel. Or, rather, a passage between streets of stone houses in some densely built-up ancient place. Small stone houses in back-to-back terraces that ran up hills and down hills in parallel lines. The passage was walled and the walls were of stone, damp and glistening, and it was roofed over with stone, from which drops of water fell. Only a very few drops, and they fell only occasionally, but with a soft, dull plop onto the stone floor.

It was quite a short passage, which should have come out into one of the streets, but when he rounded the bend in it, he saw that the way out ahead had been blocked by a smooth sweep of mortar. Where the opening should have been was a wall of man-made stone. He turned and retraced his steps back to where he had entered, and there, during the time he had been in the passage, someone had blocked that end also. Someone had sealed it over with stone blocks set in mortar and the mortar was hard and firm, as if it had been there for years.

He was enclosed inside a tube of stone. And he knew that whatever the passage might once have been, it was now deep in the earth, a worm-cast tomb. All around him, the stones sweated water, falling faster now, dripping softly, forming pools at his feet. He pushed at the stones; he ran to the other end and pushed at the curtain of cement that was covered with fan-shaped prints where hard hands had pressed it in— from the inside. Yet there was no one inside but him, and it was then that he screamed and woke screaming, holding up his hands in the attitude of the stonemason who was himself.

Sarah dropped Hope at the hotel where she was having her reunion, walked into the pub, and saw Adam Foley sitting there on his own up at the bar. He looked at her and she looked at him, apparently without recognition, and she walked past him and went into the ladies’ room. When she came back, Alexander and Vicky had arrived and Alexander said, “I can’t remember if you’ve met Adam.”

“Once, I think,” she said, and Adam said yes, once, but a long time ago.

Rosie came then and a man she’d brought with her named Tyger. Tyger with a y , as he told everyone, as if they were going to write him letters. Alexander got the drinks and they all moved to a table and Rosie said she had a conundrum to put to them. Suppose someone emigrated to North America and never came back home, or only came home on a visit and then went back again—it must happen to thousands of people—what became of the five (or seven or eight) hours they had gained? Everyone had answers for this: that time didn’t work like that; that time wasn’t a pathway, but a room; that the gain of hours was illusory, not real. Adam contributed and she contributed, but they didn’t look at each other.

“Would you die five hours earlier than you would have if you hadn’t made the journey?” Vicky asked, and Tyger said, “Or five hours later?”

Then they ordered food from the blackboard and Adam went to get more drinks. He brought drinks for everyone but her; it was the same performance as last time, and Vicky said, “Hey, what about Sarah?”

He looked and shrugged and Sarah sat silent, watching, wondering what the next move would be. Vicky pushed her white wine across the table, said, “Here, you have mine,” and “For God’s sake, Adam.”

Of course Adam got Vicky a drink and the food came and Rosie said to him, “You and Sarah ought to come down from London together. Save petrol.”

Sarah gave a tight smile.

“Well, you must live practically next door to each other. Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

Sarah said, looking down at her plate, “Not really.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Rosie looked at Sarah’s bowed head and Adam’s stony face. “Have I said something I shouldn’t?”

A silence fell. Sarah began to feel very excited. She hadn’t known how easy it was to manipulate people, to create an atmosphere, to change things. Everyone (except Adam) was now embarrassed. Vicky began talking very fast about someone she knew who had gone to central Africa with a famine-relief mission and who had liked it so much that she had stayed.

“What, liked the famine?” said Tyger.

The conversation now turning to whether one should contribute to famine-relief charities, whether the money ever got to the starving, how much corruption existed, Sarah ate her fish and chips in tranquillity. There were three bottles of wine on the table, but she was going easy because she thought she should have her wits about her. She was very aware of Adam’s presence and almost painfully aware of his attractions. Their like-mindedness slightly troubled her. No one she had ever known before had so closely shared her inclinations—tendencies that, until a few weeks ago, she hadn’t known she had. Such compatibility threatened her freedom.

Which of them was to make the first move? The pub would close in half an hour and Alexander suggested they go on to Greens. Sarah said, “If I drink any more, I won’t be able to drive home.” She added, “I mean, not physically capable,” lest anyone should think she was showing respect for the laws.

When she went into the car park, he would come to her—but suppose he didn’t? Any message that could be passed, any eye signals, would spoil things. She scarcely considered them. She could drive alone to his family’s cottage, but she knew she wouldn’t. The others all got up. She heard Adam saying good night. He, too, had decided against the club. They made their way out onto the pavement. “Well, good night, Rosie. Good night, Alex,” he was saying. “Good night, Vicky. Nice to have met you, Tyger. See you.”