Bad Dreams and Other Stories

by Tessa Hadley

  My husband was intelligent and read a lot of books about history and politics; he worked as a policy officer for a borough-regeneration strategy. Whenever we quarrelled he didn’t raise his voice but explained why I was wrong with a fixed, reasonable smile, tapping his foot under the table. We had once enjoyed visiting the Wren churches together, and we’d gone to evening classes to learn Greek, because there was an unspoiled Greek island that we visited whenever we could get away. When he asked me to move out, I didn’t scream that I wouldn’t be able to bear my life without him, because I knew that I probably could bear it. In the months before we separated, I noticed that he kept moving my toiletries off the shelf in the bathroom, onto the windowsill, as if they were already redundant. He and I had too much irony to take our lives as earnestly as Hana took hers. Viewed coldly from outside, how silly Hana’s affair was and how demeaning, with its hysteria and its banal props. But who wanted to view things coldly, from outside?

  AND THEN ONE morning, when I was still in my pyjamas because I didn’t have anything to get dressed for, the door phone buzzed in the kitchen. I thought it might be a delivery for Hana – she was buying things in California and shipping them home.

  It was a man’s voice, placatory and peremptory at once. — Hana? It’s Julian. I have to pick up some stuff.

  — Hana’s not at home, I said.

  He sounded taken aback but not disappointed. — Who are you, then?

  — I’m living here.

  When I opened the door to Julian, he didn’t look at all as I’d imagined Hana’s lover. He must have been several inches shorter than she was, to begin with: wiry, with a neat pixie face, a high forehead under a receding hairline, and a taut smile. He had a child in tow, a boy of eight or nine, with the same sandy colouring and quizzically interrogating look – only the child seemed puny and lethargic, while Julian exuded a kind of restless satisfaction. He rose and fell while we talked, elastic on the balls of his feet in their youthful trainers. I explained that I was staying in Hana’s house while she was away. Julian said that he was an old friend of Hana’s and needed to pick up some gear he’d left with her, a tent and sleeping bags.

  — I’m taking the kids camping.

  I did remember seeing a tent in the attic, but of course I couldn’t tell him that. The key to the attic was at that very moment weighing down my dressing-gown pocket. He asked if he could come in and hunt around for his stuff; I hesitated, then said it was OK. I hadn’t washed my hair for a week and I hadn’t bothered to put my contacts in; I was wearing my glasses. I was too thin, because I wasn’t eating enough, and my pink dressing gown was years old and grey from washing. I followed Julian around while he rummaged in the cupboard under the stairs, the utility room. The house was hot, because I’d had the central heating on for hours. Fuming to himself, he wondered what Hana had done with his things. He wasn’t very interested in me.

  The boy traipsed after us, complaining that he was bored. He wanted to watch TV, but Julian said that he watched too much of it and made him unpack some paper and pens from his backpack, then settled him down to draw at the kitchen table. I got the impression that the boy had been to Hana’s house before. Julian was one of those parents whose attention to their children is inventive and forceful, inspiring – but I guessed that it might also be intermittent, abruptly withdrawn at any time, without explanation or with too much explanation. The child wasn’t likeable: his white face was theatrically reproachful; he whined and never once smiled or thanked anyone for anything. Julian told me upstairs that the situation at home was tough. He was leaving his wife and moving out. The important thing was to make sure that the kids knew it didn’t affect his love for them. That’s why he was taking them camping.

  — The weather’s not very good for camping, I said.

  He insisted that that was half the fun.

  When I mentioned the locked attic room at the top of the house, he bounded up to rattle the door handle, frustrated that he couldn’t get in.

  — She didn’t tell you where she keeps the key?

  It would have been easy for me to produce it at this point, to explain that I’d noticed it in the tea-towel drawer, but for some reason I liked feeling its weight against my leg, holding something back from him. Finally, he decided to call Hana on her mobile. — She’s still got her old number, right? He glanced at the clock to work out the time difference. I imagined Hana dishevelled and stale, roused from her sleep in Los Angeles.

  — Hello, Hana, he said. — It’s Julian. Yes, I know what time it is.

  Walking away from me, he addressed himself with a fixed, strained smile into the phone. — Don’t even start, he said in a subdued voice, intimately cruel and not meant for me to hear. — Don’t even get started, Hana. I don’t want to get started on all that all over again. I just want my camping gear.

  After further urgent sotto voce exchanges, he covered the mouthpiece with his hand, gesturing to me. — She says to try in the knife-and-fork drawer.

  — You’ve looked there, I said.

  — Fuck, Hana. I’m taking my kids on a fucking holiday.

  I went again into the kitchen, opening and closing a couple of drawers.

  — Here it is, I said then. — Look, I’ve found it.

  I went back into the room where he was telephoning, holding out the key on the palm of my hand. Julian didn’t bother to explain to Hana, just cut off the call, snatched the key, and went running upstairs again to the attic, where he quickly found what he was looking for. I heard him humping stuff onto the landing, and the chink of metal tent poles in a bag. The boy was still absorbed in his drawing. When they’d gone, I noticed that he’d left it behind on the table: most of the page was blank, but a procession of tiny people was drawn neatly and precisely along the bottom – men, women and children, weaving their way among tall clumps of grass and jagged rocks.

  I THOUGHT I’D never see Julian again, but that afternoon he called me on Hana’s landline.

  — Listen, he said. — What’s your name? Listen, Laura. I told you I was moving out from home. Well, I need a place to store some boxes and it occurred to me that I could leave them at Hana’s. She’s got that attic for storage, so they won’t be in your way – you won’t even know they’re there. It’s just for the interim, while I find a place.

  He said that Hana didn’t mind, but I didn’t really believe he had asked her.

  — It’ll all be gone, anyway, before she gets back from the States.

  — I suppose I don’t see why not, I said.

  So he arranged to bring his boxes over around six. Something about his jubilant efficiency made me suspect that he was outmanoeuvring his wife, whisking his possessions out from under her nose before she could lay claim to anything. — I’ll see you at six, Laura, he said.

  When I put the phone down, I was frightened and excited, as if I had an assignation with a lover. This was preposterous, of course, and I knew it – I hadn’t even liked the man and wasn’t the least bit attracted to him. Also, he was only coming to drop off some boxes. Yet I hurried upstairs, burdened by the need to get ready for his arrival, as if it were momentous. It was only half past four – I had plenty of time. I washed my hair in the shower, with Hana’s special revitalising shampoo, then I put on the thick towelling bathrobe that still smelled of her perfume. It was big on me, and I felt as if I were a little girl playing in my mother’s clothes. Putting in my contacts, I studied my reflection, layering on foundation and then eyeshadow, mascara, lipstick; ordinarily, I didn’t bother with any of this. The face that emerged in the mirror was recognisably mine – a wary small oval spoiled by a thin nose – but replete with new knowledge. Then I browsed through the blouses in Hana’s wardrobe, looking for something to wear over my jeans; I chose a gauzy, sultry maroon top splotched with black flowers, cinched at the waist with a belt I’d found discarded in the attic – Middle Eastern, dark pink embroidery, sewn with dangling silver coins. I wore a necklace of the silver coins, too. I pinned
up my hair and sprayed on Hana’s perfume.

  When I was ready, I poured myself a glass of white wine from a bottle I’d put in the fridge. I had been careful with alcohol while I was living in Hana’s house: I was afraid of getting drunk by myself every night. But this evening the first sips were delicious – a high green note like a bell at the front of my mind. I stood at an upstairs window watching the leaves blowing down from the trees onto the wet black tarmac. After a while, Julian was late, and I’d finished the glass of wine. Just as I’d decided with relief that he wasn’t coming after all, he turned up in a white camper van, parking where there was a space across the road. He rang the bell and I buzzed him in, then went down to the front door, where several boxes were already stacked on the doorstep; Julian was across the road, unpacking more boxes from the van. There were a lot more boxes than he had suggested on the phone – and not only boxes but other stuff: bedding and an anglepoise lamp and a couple of racing bikes.

  He explained that he was late because things had been more complicated than he’d anticipated. — Where’s that key? I’ll just pop these up in the attic, then I’ll clear out of your way. They’ll honestly only be here for a week or two.

  — Are you leaving your wife to be with Hana? I asked.

  He barked with disbelieving laughter.

  — You’re kidding. Who gave you that idea? Don’t tell me she did.

  — No one. I just wondered.

  — No fear of that, he said. — Hana’s not really my type.

  I gave him the key and waited in the kitchen while he ran up and down the stairs, taking them two at a time, carrying up his stuff; he was muscular, as if he went to the gym or took regular exercise. I could hear that he had to move things around in the attic to get it all inside. By the time he came looking for me to return the key, he was breathing hard, and there were dark patches of sweat on his T-shirt. He picked up the jacket he’d slung over the back of a chair.

  — Would you like a glass of wine? I asked, as I had planned.

  — Better not, I’m driving.

  — Cup of tea?

  I think he was surprised that I persisted. Noticing something, he took a step towards me, reaching for my necklace of coins and fingering it. — I remember this. Isn’t it Hana’s?

  — She gave it to me, I lied.

  For the first time then, I saw him take me in: distinctly, as if an image of me flickered across his expression and was swallowed inside. He held on for a moment to the necklace connecting us, then let it drop so that it struck me on the breastbone. I wondered if he recognised the blouse, too.

  — Well, why not? he said. — A glass of wine.

  We sat at the counter where Hana and I had sat to make arrangements. Julian glowed with the satisfaction of having accomplished his pre-emptive strike against his wife. With the boxes stowed, there was time now to focus the strong beam of his attention on me. I felt its heat and knew that he was seeing at last how different I looked.

  — So, Laura. What are you doing here in Hana-land?

  Disguised, I was able to perform a part: I could hear myself sounding carefree and flirtatious. I explained that I hardly knew Hana and was staying in her house because, like him, I was escaping my marriage.

  He raised his glass. — To marriage, and all those who abandon ship.

  — To abandoning ship, I said.

  He asked me about my husband, and I exaggerated how dull he was; I made it sound as if I were the one who’d fallen out of love. Julian had a lot of ideas about relationships and their natural sell-by dates (that was his phrase). — If the thing’s dead, he said, — then the kindest thing to do is walk away from it. You’re only prolonging the agony otherwise.

  I thought he might be the sort of man who heard himself expounding his own ideas inside his head even when he was alone – reasonably, persuasively. Meanwhile, I began to feel peculiar as I drank my way through my second glass of wine. I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast; then, when I tried to step down from the high stool at the counter, my foot tangled in the crossbar and I staggered and almost fell. Julian was immediately proficient, practical. Supporting me, he steered me to an armchair.

  — What’s the matter? Are you going to throw up? What have you taken?

  I explained that I hadn’t taken anything. And then I told him the whole story – how I’d run out of money and hadn’t begun looking for a job yet, and how over the weeks I’d eaten everything in Hana’s freezer and now it was empty.

  — You’re actually fainting from hunger?

  — I’m definitely going shopping tomorrow. It was just silly, having that second glass of wine.

  Something about my situation touched him and made him laugh – I think he rather liked imagining me as a starving waif. He rummaged through the kitchen cupboards looking for something I could eat, but I’d gone through those cupboards weeks before. Then he stood frowning, as if I were a puzzle, half intriguing and half bothersome. — Well, Laura. It looks as if I might owe you a supper. I suppose you did me a favour. I’ll drive up to the deli. What do you like?

  — Oh, anything, I said, trying to remember the freezer. — Chicken Maryland, chicken Kiev, shrimp in teriyaki sauce . . .

  — Not that frozen shit Hana eats. I’m going to cook real food.

  I saw that his seduction, if it came, would be like this – not heartfelt and hesitant but brisk and with an element of firm corrective. I was ready to submit to it. He tucked a rug over me before he left, put a glass of water within reach, and tested my forehead competently with his palm.

  WHILE HE WAS out, the telephone rang and I answered it from the armchair.

  — So what happened? Hana said. — Did he find his bloody tent?

  — Who? Oh, Julian. Yes, it was in the attic.

  — What kind of mood was he in? Did he say anything about me?

  — Not really, I said. — Who is he?

  — He’s a bit of a nightmare, actually. He and I had a thing going at some point. Luckily I bailed out pretty quickly.

  — What does he do?

  — Oh, some sort of Web design. He talks up the charity work, but it’s mostly corporate.

  I told her then that he was cooking me supper. For a bruised, long moment, she was soundless at the other end of the line. — He’s still there? Julian’s there in the house?

  — He’s just taken the van up to the deli, to buy what he needs.

  — He’s cooking you supper? I thought he came for his tent?

  — He came back again this evening.

  I didn’t mention the boxes.

  — I can’t get my head around this. Do you two know each other?

  — It’s just a friendly thing, because I helped him with the key. I was hungry, so he offered to cook.

  Hana took this in. — I see, she said in a voice so remote that it reminded me how far away Los Angeles actually was. — It’s weird, because he used to make such an issue out of being home for mealtimes with his kids.

  I didn’t try to explain that he was leaving his wife.

  — Oh, well, she said. — Enjoy. I hope he makes you something nice.

  JULIAN BROUGHT BACK muesli and fruit and poppy-seed cake, as well as the ingredients for supper. Cutting a chunk of bread, he told me to eat that to start with, and to drink plenty of water. There was a lot of sizzling and show and split-second timing as he cooked, and even a high leap of naked flame when he burned off the alcohol from his sauce. He complained that it was characteristic for Hana’s kitchen to be full of expensive equipment although she lived on takeaways; he told me that he only ate organic food, that he cycled fifty miles every weekend, and that he’d designed and built himself a loft studio in the house he was leaving, but didn’t begrudge the loss of it because he was always moving on and looking forward.

  I’d never have picked Julian out as a sensuous type if I hadn’t read Hana’s diary; he seemed too busy and prosaic, without the abstracted dreamy edges I’d always imagined in people
who gave themselves over to their erotic lives. And yet, because of the secret things I knew about him, I was fixated on him the whole time I watched him cook, and then afterwards, while we sat opposite each other eating at the little table he pulled up to my armchair. I told myself that if he left without anything happening, then I had lost my chance and I would die. I wasn’t melting or longing for him to touch me or anything like that; the desire wasn’t in my body but wedged in my mind, persistent and burrowing. I didn’t even like Julian much. But liking people and even loving them seemed to me now like ways of keeping yourself safe, and I didn’t want to be safe. I wanted to cross the threshold and be initiated into real life. My innocence was a sign of something maimed or unfinished in me.

  The food was delicious – couscous with a sauce made from peppers and pine nuts and mushrooms and pancetta. It would be good for me, Julian said, because it wasn’t too rich. He told me to eat slowly, and he finished first, wiping his mouth and sitting back in his chair to observe me.

  — It’s great to watch someone enjoying their food, he said.

  — Better than the chicken Kiev.

  — I should say so.

  I was uncomfortable under his scrutiny but gave myself up to it, hoping that I wasn’t dropping couscous everywhere.

  — I can’t quite make you out, Laura, he said. — I’m curious about you. You were as hostile as a little fox when I came for the tent this morning.

  — I’m not really a morning person.

  — Yet this evening I got the feeling you wanted me to stay – and not only because you were in need of a square meal.

  I bent my hot face over my wine glass. — I’ve been spending a lot of time alone.

  — Solitude’s like a drug, he said. — You use it. You can’t let it use you.

  (Really? I heard my husband querying in my mind – contemptuously, witheringly. Is it actually anything like a drug? I don’t think so.)

  Julian leaned forward and put his hand on my jeans above my knee, spreading his fingers and bearing down with an unambiguous pressure. Then I felt all the bodily part of desire kick into life all right – the melting and the thrumming and the longing. So this is how it begins, I thought: the passage over into the other place. Very carefully, readying myself, I put my glass down on the table. But just at that moment the phone rang and he pulled his hand away.