‘I’ll be gone from the Sector in a couple of days,’ I said, handing her my card. ‘You can reach me here.’
She took the card, waited another ten seconds then opened the door on the back of the Polaroid and peeled the print from the negative. She looked at it, nodded approval then set the picture upon her work desk to dry.
‘Have you rights to Morphenox?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘But you won’t need it, what with staying up?’
‘No, I guess not.’
‘I’ve been neglecting my bulking up this season,’ she confessed, ‘and need something to see me through the Hib. Give me your dose and I’ll knock two hundred euros off the painting.’
Now I came to think of it, she was looking a little light. Transferring my Morphenox to her was illegal, of course, but I did have a dosage on me and, wanting to do what I could to maximise her chances of survival, I agreed.
‘Only on condition you don’t pay me. No money off the painting – nothing. I’ll be in enough trouble as it is if I’m rumbled.’
She understood the reasoning, thanked me, then moved to one of her larger canvases, which depicted Gwendolyn IX on horseback, leading the troops. She never did such a thing in reality, but overdramatic portraits of the great woman were bread-and-butter for the jobbing artist – that, memento mori, still-lifes of flowers in a jar* and prize cow-mammoths. She picked up a palette, dabbed her brush in some paint and then moved it absently around on the canvas. It was like I suddenly wasn’t there.
‘Well, okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll be off, then.’
She said nothing and I moved away, but she spoke again when I reached the door.
‘The wise money says not to leave the rocks.’
‘What rocks?’
‘The ones under the oak,’ she said without looking up, ‘near the blue Buick.’
‘You’ve had the dream?’
‘I’ve had scraps.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, ‘I don’t have dreams.’
‘Everyone needs dreams,’ she said simply. ‘If you don’t have them, they can’t come true.’
I wanted to ask her more but she’d returned to her painting and begun to hum. The conversation was over, and I returned to my room.
With the fatigue now almost overpowering, I elected to turn in. I fully wound the phonograph, selected an ultra-long play of the Preludio Sinfonica, slipped it on the player and pressed Start & Repeat. This done, I placed my Bambi under the pillow, undressed, climbed into bed and pulled up the blankets to stare at the ceiling, hands behind my head, the calming strains of music wafting in from the next room.
The situation was not what I had intended. I was in a strange town in a fringe sector, about to hit the sack in the apartment of a woman who had suffered a fatal attack of Hibernational Narcosis mixed with night terrors. I’d lost my mentor and a much-respected Consul to boot, partly as a result of my own intransigence. Mind you, if Logan hadn’t paused when the lift doors had opened, then Aurora would be dead instead of him – but then probably me as well.
Conscious that I should only be night-napping and not tumbling down the slope to deep hibernation, I set my Taser-clock* for an early rise the following morning and attached the electrode to my earlobe, then switched off the light. In the faint gloom I could just make out the shape of Clytemnestra: happy that she’d just murdered her husband. I thought of the artist, and what she asked me to think of when she took the picture, then my thoughts jumbled as grateful slumber bore down upon me. Thoughts of Aurora, the dead woman with the bouzouki, the Hugo Foulnap-who-wasn’t, Porter Lloyd, Jack Logan and finally Moody telling me that I would visit the blue Buick, and to not leave the rocks.
But I knew it would all be okay. I wasn’t going to dream.
But I did, of course.
Trip to the Gower
‘ . . . Among Early Risers, the wake failure rate hovered around thirty per cent, even amongst those who had been doing it for decades. About a third would simply pull off the Taser, roll over, grunt, and not stir until their contingency was burned away and hunger brought them floundering back to the surface. Early rising wasn’t for the weak-hearted . . . ’
– Winter Physiology for the Consul Service, by Dr Rosie Patella
Flashes of light, incoherence, a shout, then darkness. But an unusual form of darkness. Not darkness as in nothing being there, or hibernatory darkness, thick, unyielding and timeless, but darkness as a heavy velvet curtain. I could hear and smell what was behind the curtain, but it had not yet lifted. There were whisperings of words unrecognised, then the rustle of trees and the sweet scent of a childhood Summer: freshly-turned hay, hot mud while dibbling with a stick in drying puddles, harvest, meadows.
Then, the darkness turned . . . glossy. A cascade of disjointed images. Jack Logan embedded in the wall, partially plastered over. Moody, Mrs Tiffen, the Siddons and Porter Lloyd humming ‘The Lonely Goatherd’. And then, with a sudden short blast of static, I was sitting on Rhosilli beach beneath the shade of an orange-and-red parasol of spectacular size and splendour. Dominating the view was the wreck of the Argentinian Queen, the passenger liner now rusted and half-collapsed with gaping holes in her hull, nibbled by decades of surf.
I looked around and saw that I was not alone: sitting on the beach towel next to me was the artist I’d seen back in the Siddons. She was wearing a perfectly-fitting one-piece swimsuit the colour of Spring-fresh leaves and her large and inquisitive eyes were staring intently into mine, her jet-black hair moving in a breeze that carried with it the scent-memories of Summer holidays: sun lotion, ice cream and drying seaweed. Her name I now knew was Birgitta, and she gave me a captivating smile, then pushed some loose hair behind her ear. I could sense the intoxicating feeling of indivisible oneness, something that I had yet to feel in life – to know someone loves you, and to know you love them back equally; that you belong only with each other; that you are each other.
‘I love you, Charlie.’
‘I love you, Birgitta.’
The breakers boomed and a little girl chased a beach ball towards shore’s edge with a gurgle of laughter.
And then, I knew: for the first time since childhood, I was dreaming. I’d remembered them as being vague and hazy, but this dream felt more real than reality itself – I could feel the gritty texture in the sand, see the foam flecking on the waves, smell the salt in the sea air.
I looked down and noticed that I too was dressed for the beach; a one-piece swimsuit in black with contrasting white pumps. They weren’t my shoes, they weren’t my feet. It wasn’t even my body. Different, taut and excitingly . . . other. It felt like Birgitta’s missing husband’s body.
I corrected myself. I wasn’t like Birgitta’s missing husband. I was Birgitta’s missing husband. In love with her, and loved by her. Together, as one.
‘Is this really me?’ I asked, somewhat stupidly.
Birgitta blinked at me with a look of mild amusement.
‘You’re Charlie now, my Charlie,’ she said with a giggle. ‘Try not to think about the facility and HiberTech Security. Just today and tomorrow, forty-eight hours. You and me. What Dreams May Come.’
‘What Dreams May Come,’ I replied, looking around. ‘Where is this place?’
She laughed again. She didn’t need to tell me; I already knew. We were on the Gower Peninsula. I’d been there many times as a child; the view of Worm’s Head and the rusting passenger liner was stuck to the inside of my head like glue.
She looked at me again and smiled.
‘No matter what, there will always be the Gower.’
We both laughed at the comment, which was cheesy and utterly true, all in one.
‘I love you, Charlie.’
‘I love you, Birgitta.’
The waves boomed and the seagulls cackled, a beach ball bounced past and the same child
with the same gurgle of laughter chased after it. I knew then exactly where and when I was. I had found the high point in Birgitta and Charles’ relationship, the precise moment when everything was beautiful and wonderful and pristine and right, before the shadows drew on and the Winter closed in. The holidays I’d spent there had been high points for me, too, small oases of joy in an otherwise dismal, Pool-trapped existence.
‘Happy snap?’ said a photographer holding a Polaroid. ‘Proper tidy you’ll look and as reasonably priced as—’
* * *
* * *
— I was suddenly awake, drenched in sweat, my heart thumping so rapidly in my chest that I felt it might burst. I sat up and flicked the light switch but there was nothing; the only glow was from the emergency lights, which had automatically switched on. Hydro Twelve, recently on the fritz, looked as though it had failed.
Something in the room struck me as odd and out of place, but it took me a moment or two to figure out what it was: Clytemnestra was missing. I froze, not wanting to make a single noise, lest she knew where I was. The ornate frame was still there, the background still there – painted curtains, painted marble steps, even the drops of painted blood on the painted floor. But of Queen Clytemnestra, there was nothing. It looked as though she had simply stepped out of the frame.
I pulled my Bambi from under the pillow, then the flashlight from the bedside table, and padded softly to the living room, which was also empty. I checked the bathroom then anywhere narrow where she might have concealed herself, such as behind the wardrobe or under the kitchen units, but without any success. I went to the door, which was still locked, and for a brief moment was confused, until I noticed there was a slender gap under the door, and I figured she’d probably got out that way.
I opened the door to a corridor still illuminated by the flickering fair dreaming candles, but this too was empty, so I trod noiselessly to the stairway that spiralled up the heat-well in the centre of the building, then stopped as I heard the soft tread of shoes against the stone. I tried to remember if Clytemnestra had been wearing sandals but could not, so waited until the footsteps were opposite my door, and then stepped out, flashlight in hand.
It was Charles, as Birgitta had painted him. Completely naked but with no features. Oddly, he was carrying a mug of hot chocolate. He jumped, and spilt some on the steps.
‘Why are you out of your painting?’ I asked.
‘Out of my what?’ asked Charles, which was impossible because he had no mouth. But then I realised it wasn’t Charles at all but Porter Lloyd and with all the features traditionally associated with a face. He wasn’t naked, either. I lowered the Bambi.
‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I thought you were a thin layer of oil paint.’
‘A thin layer of what? Actually, it doesn’t matter. Can I help you?’
‘I was looking for Clytemnestra. Sort of queenly, tall, topless, fine wintercoat – oh, and carrying a bloody dagger.’
Lloyd smiled.
‘No, I haven’t seen her about.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I think I would have remembered that.’
‘She might be difficult to see,’ I persisted, ‘because if you viewed her edge on, she’d only be the thickness of a sheet of paper and wouldn’t be that obvious.’
‘I see,’ said Lloyd, with a look of understanding – and about time too, to be honest. ‘Now don’t take this the wrong way,’ he said, ‘but you may have a touch of narcosis.’
This was ridiculous, and I told him so.
‘Hear me out,’ he said. ‘Historical topless figures don’t peel themselves out of paintings, and you wandering naked about the Siddons in the small hours doesn’t seem very sensible, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘I’m not naked,’ I said, shivering.
‘If you’re not naked,’ he said slowly, ‘then how is it that I can see your doo-dads and your hoo-hah?’
‘You can’t.’
‘They’re as clear as the nose on my face.’
‘That’s a terrible use of an idiom.’
‘Agreed – but take a look for yourself.’
I looked down, and now that he mentioned it, I was naked – except for a single sock, one of Suzy’s, maroon in colour. I shivered again as the lights flickered back on, power returning, and the reality of the situation began to dawn.
‘Sod it,’ I said, ‘I’m narced, aren’t I?’
Lloyd nodded kindly. Hearing about narcosis is one thing, experiencing it quite another. Lloyd took my hand and led me back upstairs to my room, the full stupidity of my actions now becoming abundantly clear. Clytemnestra was exactly where she’d been all along, happily ensconced in the gilt frame, her immovable expression of murderous intent unchanged. My clothes, which I could have sworn I’d put on, were lying where I’d left them on the back of the chair.
‘I think I was dreaming,’ I said with a sigh.
‘Of blue Buicks and oak trees and hands and stuff?’
‘Actually, no.’
‘Then probably part of the narcosis. Have this hot chocolate; I’ll make another for myself.’
I told him I would be fine, but he insisted because I hadn’t yet put anything on room service. I agreed, and he wished me goodnight and departed.
Once I’d drunk the hot chocolate I settled back into bed, feeling unutterably foolish. Narcosis is something that you think will never happen to you, but when it does, it’s kind of scary – but only after the event. When it’s happening, it’s the best reality in town, with the possible exception of the dream in the Gower with Birgitta. I wanted to get back there if possible, so lay back, closed my eyes again and was soon fast asleep.
Dream, wake, repeat
‘ . . . The provenance of the Louvre Mona Lisa was finally established in the Spring of 1983, when margin notes written contemporaneously by Agostino Vespucci declared that “a fine painting of Lisa del Giocondo as she prepares to slumber is currently being [painted] by Leonardo”. Given that the Louvre Mona Lisa has her depicted as undeniably thin, the true da Vinci is now thought to be the Fat Lisa currently on display in Isleworth . . . ’
– Art and the Sleeping Artist, by Sir Troy Bongg
There was dreamless sleep, at first, and darkness. But not quite as I remembered the darkness, as simply shapeless, timeless ebony, but darkness as in an unlit hall – full of memories, and places, and peoples and things – the marker-stones of my life’s experience. Then a chasm, like a rent of linen, but both visual and aural, and in a second I was back: Birgitta, on the beach, blue-and-white towel, the bathing suit of fresh-leaf green and that orange-and-red parasol of spectacular size and splendour. The day was the same, the beach was the same, the Argentinian Queen was the same. I too was the same – not Charlie Worthing, but another, different, Charlie: Birgitta’s Charlie, sitting with her on the striped towel, wearing a black bathing suit and white pumps.
She looked at me and smiled, and I felt myself smile back. The dream was, as far as I could see, identical in every detail. The gulls cackled from on high, and the scent of the tide drifted in on the breeze. She gave me her captivating smile, and pushed the hair once more behind her ear. I was Charles, and she was Birgitta, and this was their perfect moment.
‘I love you, Charlie.’
‘I love you, Birgitta.’
The breakers boomed and then the child, with a gurgle of laughter, chased a beach ball toward shore’s edge. Again.
‘Is this really me?’ I asked, repeating myself before I’d realised it.
Birgitta blinked at me and smiled.
‘You’re Charlie now, my Charlie,’ she said with a giggle. ‘Try not to think about the facility and HiberTech Security. Just today and tomorrow, forty-eight hours. You and me. What Dreams May Come.’
‘What Dreams May Come,’ I replied.
Knowing that I might wake soon, I looked aro
und, eager to soak in the fine detail.
Behind us was a path leading back up to the car park, where there would be a café of whitewashed clapboard that sold the best pistachio ice cream in the nation. We were close to where Birgitta’s mother lived, and would be staying in the room above the car house with its double brass bed, boxwood panelling and lace curtains. We’d leave early on Sunday and stop at Mumbles Pier to eat cockles and laver bread, while ‘Groove Me’ played on a wireless close by. I knew all these things without knowing how I knew, and odder still, I couldn’t just remember backwards, I could remember forwards. The beach was only a memory of better times, many years before. Following this, Birgitta and I had travelled separately to Sector Twelve. She’d painted and I’d worked at HiberTech as an orderly in the Sleep Sciences Division, Project Lazarus. We’d met rarely but passionately, and then we’d been parted, this time for good.
‘Happy snap?’ said a photographer who was plying his trade up and down the beach. ‘Proper tidy you’ll look and as reasonably priced as anywhere you’ll find.’
This was as far as I’d got in the dream the first time round and I expected to be awoken again, but I wasn’t. We agreed and he took the Polaroid, handed it to us and told us he would be back to pick up payment if it came out ‘to our proper satisfaction’. We watched the picture emerge, cementing the moment in time. It was the first time I got to see what I looked like. Birgitta’s Charles was ridiculously handsome, with fine features and dark curly hair that half obscured his eyes. Despite this, he looked somehow lost, hopeless and ultimately doomed—
* * *
* * *
— I was sitting at the base of an ancient oak, looking up. The spread of the tree went almost to the periphery of my vision, and the light of a fresh Summer’s morning filtered through the leaves. I blinked several times and sat up. The beach dream had abruptly cut out. Not with a fade or a segue but a tear. I was now in another place, another dream – one that I realised very quickly that Watson, Smalls, Moody, Birgitta and Lloyd had all visited before me.
Early Riser Page 16
