The trolley slowed and stopped and I saw that there was a playground by the canal. The swings and roundabouts moved in the half light as if people were on them, and a large metal rocking horse with a rather odd head swayed gently back and forth. A small sound was coming from somewhere in the playground. Leaving the trolley by the canal, I went to investigate.
I walked carefully amongst the swings and roundabouts, through thick leaves and long grass. It was a small playground. It wouldn’t take me long to find whatever was making the noise. It was a sort of chittering sound, which was good. Or not as bad as it could be, anyway. Once I went to find out what was making a crying sound in a playground like this and round the base of a tree I found a crop of evil babies. I’ve seen them since, and they’re getting worse.
I saw that on the other side one of the swings was rocking back and forth as if someone had just climbed off. I walked slowly along the wall, peering under seesaws and roundabouts, and as I progressed the sound got a little louder. I hoped it wasn’t going to be anything bad. The stuff in the ghost town had been enough for the time being. Not frightening, but solidly depressing. I hadn’t thought properly about Rafe for a while, and I didn’t want to now.
There was a bench on that side, and a dark shape underneath. I went up to it carefully and crouched down to see what it was. It was Alkland.
The Actioneer was curled up tightly, and the sound I’d heard was that of his teeth chattering violently. His clothes were wet and his hands were clasped rigidly over his face, shutting everything out. The knuckles were white and glaring, muscles vibrating from the force of his grip. I reached out and touched him gently on the shoulder. He flinched and curled into an even smaller ball.
‘Alkland,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s me. It’s Stark.’
Very slowly one of his hands began to move, like that of a child who is afraid to look in case the bad thing is still waiting for him. I guessed that he must have had a pretty tough time since we came in. You always do, for some reason: it’s a bit of a downer even for me. The hand moved just enough for one eye to peek out behind it.
‘Stark?’ he said, very, very softly.
‘Yeah.’ I reached out my hand. ‘Come on: let’s go.’
More cautiously than I would have believed possible, like an advertisement for the whole concept of caution, Alkland slowly came out from under the bench. As I helped him to his feet he kept casting slow searching looks around us, peering towards the corners of the playground.
‘Have they gone?’ he whispered, when he was finally upright.
‘Who?’
‘The babies.’
‘Oh shit. You saw them.’
He nodded, rubbing his hand across his lip.
‘Have they gone?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they’ve gone. Listen.’ The park was silent, apart from rustling leaves. ‘No crying.’
He listened, rubbing back and forth. I’d expected him not to look good here, but it was worse than I’d banked on. Large patches of his face had a variegated green tinge and in places it was a virulent shade of purple. Seeing the babies was a terrible thing to have happened to him straight off. He stopped rubbing his lip.
‘No crying,’ he said.
I led him out into the park towards the canal. Unfortunately the trolley was spinning slowly round in a perfect circle, which was the last thing Alkland needed at that time. He cringed up against me, whimpering. I made sure his eyes were covered and closed my own.
When I reopened them the trolley had disappeared. Alkland looked up and stared at the empty path.
‘How did you do that? Look, Stark, where the hell are we? What is going on? What is this? Where the fuck are we?’
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here. And steady on with the language.’
It looked as if we were stuck with night for the time being, and also with the canal. It was quiet and fairly sane, so I was happy with that. I was even happier to find that I had some cigarettes. Alkland trailed alongside me, still casting glances behind. Then he pointed in front of us.
‘What’s that?’
It was a gondola, actually, coming gracefully towards us down the canal, describing gradual arcing circles.
‘There’s no one in it, there’s, oh God: it’s full of bugs.’
‘Ignore it,’ I said. ‘It’ll be behind us soon.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Well, to a degree we’ll have to wait and see. Ah.’ Suddenly we were in a forest, on a gravel path wide enough for us to walk abreast. ‘This looks promising.’
‘What’s going on?’ he wailed. Huge trees stood in ranks on either side of us, massive branchless trunks that shot straight up to blend into the black sky. Alkland put his hands on his hips and stood facing me petulantly.
‘Tell me, Stark.’
I carried on walking, and after a pause he followed.
‘It’s not a good idea to talk while you’re on the move,’ I said, truthfully. ‘It’s distracting, and we want to stay where we are for the time being. Are you hungry?’
The Actioneer frowned.
‘Yes, I am, actually,’ he said, as if surprised that his body could be finding time for so mundane a sensation.
‘Good. Concentrate on that for the time being.’
We walked for another fifteen minutes along the forest path. Twice an owl hooted in the trees, but apart from that it was quiet and very peaceful.
‘Hold on.’
I turned to see the Actioneer bending down to tie up his shoelace. He straightened and stared at me tiredly, looking forlorn and damp.
‘Are you okay?’ I said.
‘Yes and no, as you would say.’ Then he twitched and peered into the dark behind me, frightened. ‘What’s that?’
I turned and looked. At first there was nothing to see, only a faint rustling sound, then I made out a dim pale shape coming towards us down the path.
‘Don’t make a sound,’ I whispered to Alkland. This is nothing to be afraid of. Stand close to me and be very quiet.’
He stepped quickly towards me and we waited.
Within a minute the shape had taken on more definition. It was a young woman, aged about twenty, dressed in a neat skirt and white blouse. She walked slowly towards us down the path.
‘Stark.’
‘Shhh,’ I said.
The woman glowed gently, a white light that encased her from head to foot, muting the colour of her clothes and skin. She was looking straight ahead, eyes focused on the middle distance. About three yards in front of us she stopped. Alkland’s hand gripped my arm tightly, but he didn’t make a sound. The woman talked for a few moments, spoke as if to someone standing by her side, though no sound reached us. Then she laughed and carried on walking. She passed us and continued down the path into the darkness between the trees. Before Alkland could ask me anything I started walking again, quickly, so that he had to concentrate on keeping up.
A few minutes later the forest stopped, and we were on a high dark hillside which shaded down into a wooded valley. I led the Actioneer along the path down the steep hillside.
‘Pretty,’ he observed, surprising me.
It was, in fact. In the darkness the green of the steep hills bounding the narrow valley was a rich dark emerald, and though it was cold and rain was hanging in the air, it felt safe, like some elvish kingdom.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘This is okay.’
At the bottom of the valley the path ran by a stream which gurgled quietly and reassuringly. It led into a small village. Though all the houses were dark it wasn’t like the area I’d passed through earlier. It wasn’t about alienation. It was just quiet and old.
‘Right,’ I said cheerily. ‘Somewhere along here we may well find an inn. Look out for it.’
The village was very small, no more than twenty cottages long, and we were out the other side of it within a minute and without seeing any lights. I was beginning to think that I’d made a mistake when I noticed that the las
t house on the right, which stood slightly apart from its neighbour, had a dim light glowing from one of the rear windows.
‘Looks like it’s not an inn, just a house,’ I said.
‘What is?’
I motioned to him to be quiet and walked up to the house. ‘Just go with it,’ I said, and knocked on the heavy old oak door.
There was a pause long enough for Alkland to say my name once more with a heavy, pendulous question mark after it and then the door was flung wide, spilling a yellow glow of warm light out onto the path.
‘Well I never.’ The speaker was a middle-aged woman, fat and jolly, rosy-cheeked and wholesome. ‘Don’t just stand there! Come in, come in!’
I shepherded Alkland, whose eyes were completely round with unarticulated confusion, in front of me. The woman bustled along ahead, leading us though a dim corridor to a room at the back where the welcoming light blazed. It turned out to be the kitchen, with a huge table in the middle and a few rough-hewn wooden chairs around it. In one of them was the woman’s husband, a huge rustic bear of a man. He rose when we entered and grinned at us, rubbing his beard shyly.
‘Well who’s this then?’ he said in a voice that was gruff and rural, but welcoming.
‘Visitors!’ exclaimed his wife. ‘Been out all evening, by the look of you, eh?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nasty old night,’ observed the man sagely, coming over to shake our hands. His hand was huge and warm, the skin dry and comforting, like the memory of your father’s hand.
‘Look at you,’ the woman said to Alkland, poking him in the stomach. ‘Soaking, you are. And hungry too, I’ll be bound?’
Alkland, surprised into a smile, nodded at her.
‘I am a little,’ he said.
‘Well go on then, sit yourselves down there while I make us up some tea. Come on, Henry, you go out and get some more logs for the fire.’
The man grinned at us, picked a battered old hat off the back of his chair, and opened the back door.
‘Her wish is my command,’ he said, winking, before going out into the night and closing the door behind him.
Alkland stared after him, his eyebrows fighting hard to climb off the top of his face.
‘There you go,’ said the woman, setting two enormous mugs of tea down in front of us. ‘Get those inside you while I find something for you to eat. Go on now.’
I took a sip of the tea, which was wonderful, strong and sweetened with honey. Alkland drank too, and I could almost see the warmth stoking his body, fading the colours in his face until they were barely noticeable. I knew the balm would only be temporary, but it was good to see all the same. The woman busied herself round the enormous old iron stove, clanging utensils and singing loudly to herself as she happily set about rustling something up.
I turned back to face Alkland, who was sitting looking at me with an expression which clearly said that he had no intention of uttering a single bloody word until I explained something.
‘Okay,’ I said, leaning on the table. ‘Where do you think you are?’
‘I have no idea. Not a clue.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well,’ he cradled the mug against his chest, savouring the warmth. ‘It was as you said. I heard you say something and then suddenly it was cold and I felt as if I was made of heavy water. Then I woke up, and it felt as if no time had passed, but I knew it had. I was in that playground, and I couldn’t see you anywhere. I was very frightened because everything started to move without anyone there, and then I heard the sound of crying and so I went to find out what it was.’ He stopped, and put the mug back on the table, his hands trembling violently.
‘Bad break, running into them.’ I said.
‘Stark, what were they?’
I didn’t answer, because the woman came over to the table and set down plates in front of each of us. From nowhere had appeared a massive mixed grill affair; sausages, thick rashers of bacon, eggs, fried bread and potatoes. Alkland stared at it.
‘My,’ I said to him. ‘You were hungry, weren’t you.’
The woman laughed and went back to the stove, still singing. Alkland dragged his eyes away from the food to watch her for a moment, and then leant across to whisper to me.
‘I know that song,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where from, but I know it.’
I nodded, setting about the huge pile of food in front of me.
‘You would,’ I said. ‘Just like this is your idea of a feast.’
‘What?’
Now, this is probably going to come as no surprise to you, especially if you’re one of the smartarses who worked out there was no gang ahead of time and all that, but Alkland was obviously still well behind the pace, so I had to make it clear.
‘Where we are, Alkland, is Jeamland.’
He stopped chewing and stared at me.
‘Come again?’
‘This is Jeamland.’
‘Are you saying dreamland?’
‘No. Jeamland. When you walk along that plain, if you can find it, sooner or later you come to a gate, and when you go through it you come into here.’
‘And it’s like a dream, you mean?’
‘No. It is a dream. This is where you come to dream, where everyone comes to dream.’
‘You mean we’re asleep.’
‘No. We’re not. You remember that woman in the forest?’
‘The glowing one.’
‘Yes. She was asleep. Somewhere in the world, she was lying in bed, or sprawled on a sofa, asleep. When she wakes up, if she remembers her dream, she’ll remember a forest, a deep dark forest with thick trunks, and she’ll remember walking along that path, and whatever happened to her after that.’
‘The canal.’
‘Not necessarily. It doesn’t work like that. It depends what track she was on, what she was dreaming for.’
‘Do we look like that to other people?’
‘No. Because we’re not asleep. We’re awake.’
Alkland finished his plate of food just in time to have another placed in front of him. On it was a thick sandwich, a hunk of steaming home-cooked ham between two wedges of fresh bread. Alkland’s mouth dropped open.
‘I know what that’s from,’ he said, pointing at his plate.
‘What?’
‘When I was young,’ he said, ‘I used to read books by a woman called Meg Finda. They were really old, belonged to my grandmother when she was a girl.’ He stopped, struck by a sudden revelation, and looked at the woman, who was busy again over at the stove. ‘That’s where the tune’s from too. My grandmother used to sing that tune. Bloody hell.’
‘Go on.’
‘These books, which had been passed down the family for generations, were all about these children who used to have adventures.’ He smiled, sheepishly. ‘I don’t think my parents were very keen on them, actually. Not required reading for Centre children, as I’m sure you can imagine.’
‘Not Janet and John Push Back the Frontiers of Management Accounting.’
‘Exactly. Anyway, in these books, whenever there was a hiatus in the story they’d somehow come upon an aunt or something who’d take them back to her cottage for high tea.’ He smiled, his eyes miles away. ‘Scones, tea, jam, thick creamy milk. Stuff I’d never tasted.’
‘More tea?’ The woman stood next to us, red-faced and smiling from her work over at the stove, proffering a huge old iron teapot. We nodded gratefully and she topped up her cups, and plonked a jug of thick, creamy milk on the table for us to help ourselves to. Alkland looked at it as he continued.
‘And one I particularly remember. A farmer’s wife took them in and gave them ham sandwiches. Exactly like this one.’ He indicated the fast-disappearing remains of his. ‘Exactly like this.’ He said nothing for a while, and then smiled painfully. ‘I used to love those books.’
‘Lots of people did,’ I said. ‘That’s why it’s like this. This is a rest break, a pause. It’s the Jeamland equivalent of Stuckeys: a st
op along the way. They’re dotted all over, mainly in areas like this. You turn up, you’re welcomed and fed, and then you go on your way ready for your journey. In fact, if you want you can come in, be fed, go out, knock at the door again and come in and be fed again. The second time will be exactly like the first: they won’t recognise you, won’t know you’ve been here before. If we came back in again the old man would be sitting in that chair, and he’d stand up just the way he did, and everything would happen exactly again.’
‘He’s been a long time, actually.’
‘He won’t be coming back,’ I said. ‘He’s not necessary. He isn’t part of what’s going on. He was just a detail.’
Alkland shook his head, mopping up the last of his sandwich.
‘What you find depends on what you need: that’s why I asked if you were hungry,’ I added. ‘If we’d been tired, it would have been a quick snack and then we’d have been shown to a pair of high old brass beds with thick mattresses and feather quilts.’
‘Stark, how do you know these things?’
‘I’ve been here before,’ I shrugged.
He looked at me intently.
‘A lot, I suspect.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why is it called “Jeamland”, and not “Dreamland”, which would appear at least to have some sense behind it?’
‘It’s a long story.’
Alkland considered for a moment.
‘So,’ he said, finally. ‘I’m dreaming, and you’re here with me.’
‘Hello?’ I said, exasperated. ‘Is there anybody in there? We are not dreaming. We are awake. That’s the whole fucking point.’
‘Language!’ scolded the woman genially, as she slapped some scones and jam down in front of Alkland and topped up our tea.
‘Sorry. That’s the whole point of the plain, Alkland. For those who can find it, it’s the way into here when you’re awake. If I’d wanted us to dream I would just have let you fall asleep. But I couldn’t, could I? Because when you sleep, and when you dream, bad things happen to you, don’t they?’
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