by Peter James
‘Sadie’s late again,’ said Tanya. ‘I think she has a problem with her timekeeping. She has a lot of dreams about clocks.’
‘And sex,’ said the man in the baggy sweater. ‘She seems to have a lot of dreams about sex.’
‘I think she has a bit of a problem about sex,’ said the American girl.
Tanya nodded her head noncommittally, with the faintest trace of a sympathetic smile. ‘We all have problems. That’s what the group is for. Now Sam, the way we introduce someone new to the group is to get them to tell a dream. Did you bring one with you?’
‘One with me? I haven’t written any down – no.’
Tanya tapped her head. ‘In there, Sam. Is there a dream you can remember that you’d like to tell the group?’
Sam shrugged. ‘I—’ She looked around. The basking snake in the corner appeared to have gone to sleep. The man in the baggy jumper was staring fixedly at the wall ahead, and she wondered if he was sulking because he hadn’t been asked to tell a dream. The American girl smiled intently at her and gave her a nod of encouragement.
The door opened and in came a tiny woman with a figure like a rugger ball and a prim face that was heavily caked in make-up, only partially visible behind a curtain of limp brown hair. She mouthed a silent apology, checked her bright red lipstick with her tongue, then sat down primly on a pouf and opened her handbag with a loud click. She rummaged in it, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, a lighter and a small tin, from which she removed the lid, and set it down on the floor beside her. She looked like a goblin perched on the pouf, Sam thought, and wondered what she was going to do with the tin.
‘Sadie, we have a new member in our group tonight. Sam, this is Sadie. Sam’s going to tell us a dream. It doesn’t matter if it’s an old dream, Sam.’
Sadie smiled at Sam, a long, lingering smile that Sam first mistook for warmth, but then realised, as it continued, was a warning shot across her bows.
She turned away, confused, and heard the click of the woman’s cigarette lighter, and her sharp, smug, intake of smoke.
‘Did you remember a dream you had last night, Sam?’ said Tanya Jacobson.
She felt her face reddening. ‘No – I – I don’t think I dreamed last night. At least I—’ She stared helplessly around the room. It was wrong. All wrong. She saw the American girl, nodding encouragingly, willing her on.
You poor deluded sod, she thought.
What do you want me to do? Tell you to go and see a clairvoyant? A medium? Send you off to a dream group? I want to help you, not make things worse.
She saw Sadie squatting on her pouf and caught the slight narrowing of her eyes. Don’t take up much time, she was saying. I have important dreams to tell.
‘Last week, er—’ Sam faltered. ‘Last Tuesday night, I had a dream that . . . that seems to be coming true. At least, some of it.’
‘Would you like to tell us about it?’
Sam told them her dream of Hampstead tube station, feeling foolish, talking at their blank faces, at the blank wall, talking whilst Tanya Jacobson sat on her cushion, rocking backwards and forwards with her eyes closed, and whilst Sadie squatted on her pouf, puffing on her cigarette and tapping the ash into the tin she had brought. She wondered whether anyone was taking in a word she said.
When she had finished the silence continued. The American girl leaned back and gazed at the ceiling, and the man in the baggy jumper stared at the wall ahead.
Tanya Jacobson appeared to take several deep breaths, then opened her eyes. ‘Okay, Sam, the first thing I want you to do is to free associate.’
‘Pardon?’ said Sam.
‘I want you to tell me anything that comes into your mind about the dream.’
‘Replay.’ Sam said.
‘Replay?’
‘Yes. The journey here – it was exactly as I dreamed it. Coming here was like a replay of the dream.’
Tanya stared at her with a faintly disinterested look on her face. ‘Don’t get too stuck on that for a moment. There’s a lot going on in that dream. Is there another reason why you dreamed Hampstead? Did you ever live here? Or know anyone that lived here?’
‘No.’
‘It was very filmic,’ the American girl said suddenly. ‘There was a very Buñuel feel to the first part. Then, when you went down those steps, it was like a tunnel, it gave me the feeling of – you know? The Harry Lime movie. The Third Man.’
Anthea uncoiled a fraction in the corner, and raised her head. ‘Sewers,’ she said slowly, articulating very precisely, as if she were teaching a foreigner to speak English.
‘Sewers?’ echoed Tanya Jacobson.
‘Sewers,’ she repeated. ‘Gail’s got it wrong. It wasn’t tunnels, it was sewers.’
‘I’m not connecting with you, Anthea,’ said Tanya.
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Her voice was getting louder, deeper, more haughty. ‘In the film. The Third Man. It was sewers they went down, not tunnels.’ She lowered her head and began to coil back up again.
‘That was a good movie.’ Barry spoke without opening his eyes. He scratched the side of his left leg with the toes of his right foot. ‘Orson Welles.’
‘And Joseph Cotten,’ said the American girl.
‘Vagina,’ said the man in the baggy jumper gruffly. ‘I’m getting a vagina.’ He sat upright and clasped his hands together, staring at Sam. He had a face that might once have been kindly, but now had a hardened, slightly embittered look. ‘You’re going down inside this vagina and you’re finding something horrible there. There’s this man that grabs you, takes you into this dark room where there’s no light, and he’s trying to strangle you, rape you. I’m getting this very strong feeling that you hate men.’
‘Don’t you think it could be pre-existence, Clive?’ said Tanya Jacobson.
He frowned, then sat back and dug his hands into his pockets. ‘Pre-existence,’ he said. ‘Hmm.’
Tanya Jacobson threw her head back, then tilted it forwards again. ‘You know what’s coming through to me? We’ve got several different dreams here. The journey. The buying the ticket. The travelling down the steps. Now the travelling down, I’m connecting very strongly with pre-existence, you know. Like birth reversal.’
Sam tried to make sense of the jargon. She stared at the print on the wall of the man looking at the ornament. He looked puzzled too.
‘You mean she’s going back into her mother’s womb?’ said the American girl.
Tanya gave three sharp nods of her head as if she was trying to shake water out of her hair. ‘She’s going down into this sort of tunnel, then suddenly she gets pulled into this dark room. In birth it would be the opposite.’ Tanya stared at Sam. ‘In birth, you start inside the womb, then you move down the tunnel, then the doctor or whoever delivers you pulls you out.’ She patted her chest. ‘I’m getting strong feelings that you’re dreaming about going back to the womb. It’s a nice safe place in there, you don’t have to do anything. It’s nice and warm and snug. It would be a good place to escape to. No traumas in there. No premonitions. Are you connecting, Sam?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said hesitantly.
‘What sort of birth did you have, Sam? Traumatic? Caesarian or something like that, or was it normal?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I never—’ She trailed off and Tanya smiled, reasurringly.
‘It’s a big shock, being born,’ Tanya said. ‘It never leaves us. Keeps coming back in our dreams.’
Wide. So wide of the mark, Sam thought.
‘Is that connecting with you, Sam?’
‘No,’ she said apologetically.
‘Do you know this man?’ said Barry, his eyes still shut.
Do I? Slider? Was he Slider? Onions? Christ, do I want to get into all that? That’s why you’re here. I know. But.
‘No.’
‘He could be your animus,’ said the American girl.
‘Do you know about animus and anima?’ asked Tanya.
‘No,’ said S
am.
‘Jung said we have an opposite self which appears sometimes in our dreams. If you’re a man, you see a strange woman who is your dream self, and if you’re a woman, then a strange man. He could be your animus. Do you feel violent towards anyone? Towards yourself?’
She shook her head.
There was a long silence. Tanya Jacobson sat back with her eyes closed. Then she opened them again. ‘Let’s try and free associate a bit more. This person was trying to rape you in the dream. Think about rape. Free associate. Just say anything that comes into your mind.’
Sam looked around the room, then at the picture once more. Her heart felt heavy. The heater continued to rattle, and somewhere above she heard the muted shrill of a doorbell.
‘Slider,’ she said.
The man in the baggy jumper turned his head towards her, studying her thoughtfully, and the American girl smiled.
‘Who is Slider, Sam?’ said Tanya Jacobson. ‘Do you want to tell us about Slider?’
She told them the full story of how she had discovered Slider, and how he had died, and how she had kept on dreaming until her parents had died.
When she had finished, there was a silence that seemed to go on for ever.
‘That’s awful,’ the American girl said. ‘That’s really awful. It’s made me feel all creepy.’
There was another long silence.
‘How did you feel about it, Sam?’ said Tanya Jacobson.
The words were like a distant echo, and she looked around, baffled, wondering if they were really addressed to her. She saw Sadie, on the pouf, and for a moment she thought she was perched on a mountain ledge.
‘I can’t remember, really. Numb, I suppose for a long time. I felt that he had done it, that he had killed them. I didn’t dream of him again for a long time.’
‘Why do you think that was?’ Tanya said.
‘I suppose my parents dying was the worst possible thing. There wasn’t anything worse that he could do.’
Tanya nodded. ‘Who brought you up after this, Sam?’ she said.
‘An uncle and aunt.’
‘Were they nice?’
‘No. They resented me. They were very cold people.’
‘Did you ever tell them about Slider?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever told anyone, Sam?’ said Tanya.
‘No.’ She hesitated, remembering she had told Bamford O’Connell.
‘What about your husband?’
‘No.’
‘What happened when you dreamed of him again?’ Gail asked. ‘How long after was it?’
Sam stared at her. ‘Twenty-five years after. It was two weeks ago.’
‘Wow,’ Tanya Jacobson said. ‘You’re holding a lot inside you, aren’t you? All bottled up. Can’t tell your uncle and aunt. Can’t tell your husband. But it’s going to come out in your dreams, Sam, it always does.’ She leaned forwards. ‘You see, Sam, it doesn’t matter what we try and hide from the world – we can’t hide things from ourselves. It all comes out in our dreams, and it keeps on coming out until we face them, deal with them. But it’s good, Sam. It’s good that it’s come to the surface, because you can deal with it now. You’re going to have to face it, talk about it more, then he’ll go away.’ Tanya clasped her hands together dramatically. ‘You have to meet your monster, Sam. We all have our personal monsters that come to us in our dreams. One of the things we try to do here is to meet them, and understand them. Then they go away.’
Sam stared back at her, then glanced at her watch. Were the others getting impatient? She wondered. She could see Sadie glaring down at her own watch then back at her, puffing angrily on her cigarette. ‘Would someone else like to have a go – I’ve had rather a lot of time.’
‘Don’t worry about the others for a moment, Sam. This is your dream. Let’s worry about you. I don’t think we’re ready to move on yet. OK?’
Sam suddenly felt very emotional, on the verge of weeping. She looked around and saw friends looking back. Even some of the hostility of Sadie’s gaze seemed to have softened. Safe. She was safe here.
‘Do you have any other associations?’
Sam closed her eyes, wondering if she dared. She opened them and looked around. It was beginning to seem easy to talk. ‘Yes . . . my husband.’ She felt her face reddening. ‘The man in the dream smelled of onions. When I woke up, I could smell onions on my husband’s breath.’
‘And you associated him with the rapist?’ said Tanya.
Sam bit her lip. ‘He’s been having an affair.’
‘Wow!’ Tanya clapped her hands together. ‘I think you’re really beginning to connect!’ She rocked backwards and forwards. ‘We’ve got a whole bag, here, haven’t we? This hooded man – Slider – you know, he’s really strange for me. I’m connecting with the hood – like a mask. I think that part of what you are seeing in him is some dark side of yourself. You know? You can’t let your real self show, can’t let your feelings show, you keep them all safely hidden behind the mask. I think he represents so many things for you. Part of him is nasty adult, your cold uncle and aunt, they’re a threat to you, taken away your nice, kind, warm parents and given you this cold resentment, this total lovelessness.’ She shook her head, then stared hard back at Sam. ‘Think of your description of him, Sam. The hood, the one eye – what else does that remind you of? You know? What does that make you think of?’
Sam tried to think, but could not concentrate.
‘The old one-eyed trouser snake? It makes me think of a penis, Sam. A giant penis.’
Sam’s heart sank. Did all analysis end up down the same road, at the same place? Did everything end up with a penis?
‘You’ve been violated, Sam, haven’t you? Your childhood was violated by this man, now your adulthood is being violated again by your husband. Does this resonate?’
Sam felt irritated suddenly. Crap. This was all crap. ‘I’m sure it all fits very neatly, but I think that’s a side issue. The point is that I had a premonition – about the Bulgaria air disaster. I dreamed it the night before it happened. There was someone in the dream with Slider’s hood on his head. The next day, I dreamed of him again, in a taxi. It’s as if he’s linked with each of the premonitions. I don’t know – like a sort of a harbinger. I feel that more bad things are going to happen. I had a second premonition a few days later, and he appeared again.’
Tanya raised her eyebrows. ‘Sam, dismissing a dream as a premonition is the easy route. I think you’re using that as an excuse not to face the real meaning of the dreams. I’m not saying that you don’t have premonitions, or what you think are premonitions, but I’m not connecting with them. I don’t think they matter.’
‘They matter to me.’
‘OK! They matter to you.’ Tanya glanced at her watch. ‘There’s one other thing I want you to think about which could be important: this man chasing you. You were trying to run up the stairs from him and you couldn’t move. Being chased by the opposite sex can mean that you fancy someone, but feel guilty about it – that you don’t dare respond to the overtures. Am I touching any nerves?’
‘I – I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘Are you happy if we leave it there for a moment?’
Sam shrugged.
‘OK, there’s plenty for you to think about there,’ Tanya said. ‘Has anyone else brought a dream?’
‘Yes,’ Sadie said, almost bursting.
‘Would you like to tell us, Sadie?’
‘It’s another of my sex dreams.’
Sam detected a faintly irritable sigh from the man in the baggy sweater, and tried to remember his name. Ian? Colin?
Sadie dipped into her handbag and pulled out a thick notebook. She leaved through pages of handwriting, then stopped. ‘This was last Monday night, after the group. I was in this big old room, up in an attic – it was like my parents’ house, but it was much bigger, and there was this little old lady in the corner, all wrinkled, sort of watching me. She was doing
tapestry, but she was trying to embroider this sheet of metal with a drill.
‘Anyhow, I was lying naked on this bed, and I was manacled, and I realised that she was the one who had manacled me, and the metal sheet turned into a scoreboard, and she was going to be scoring.’ She looked smugly around the room and took a cigarette out of her pack. ‘Clive came in the room. I didn’t recognise him at first, then I realised he had on that baggy sweater he always wears.’
Sam looked at him, and saw him almost fuming with rage. Clive, that was his name.
‘He started making love to me, but he wasn’t satisfying me, so I told him he’d have to go to the back of the queue and try again later. Then this young boy from the office came in, and told me he’d been fancying me like mad for months and he really wanted to be my toyboy.’
The dream seemed to go on interminably. The young boy from her office. Robert Redford. Prince Philip. Jack Nicholson. John McEnroe. Paul Hogan, Richard Gere. All, it seemed, had desired her secretly for much of their lives. All had been unable to satisfy her.
Finally, everyone was standing up. The two hours had passed. Sam had resonated well, she was told. ‘Do you think you’re more in touch with your feelings?’ Tanya asked her.
‘Yes, I think so,’ she said dubiously.
Everyone was embarrassed about handing over their money, and it changed hands quickly, silently, almost shadily, like contraband, as if acknowledgement would somehow debase what they were going through.
‘So you’re going to come next week, Sam?’ Tanya asked.
Barry still lay on the floor in his black karate suit, with his eyes closed. He raised his right arm. ‘Bye. Good meeting you.’
She wondered if he had ever once opened his eyes to look at her, and whether he would recognise her again.
‘Yes,’ Sam said.
‘You keep a lot inside you, don’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘We’ll have to get it out,’ Tanya said. ‘It’s going to take a long time. Just don’t get sidetracked into those premonitions, Sam. We don’t dream the future—’ She tapped her head through her frizz of hair. ‘But we make connections. We meet our monsters. Forget the manifest, Sam. You’ve got to connect with your deep psyche.’
