In Your Dreams

by Holt, Tom

  Paul had been asleep for several hours – he knew that because his left arm had pins and needles where he’d been lying on it – when something disturbed him and he sat up. At first he guessed that he’d fallen asleep with the bedside lamp still on, but that wasn’t right, he had a razor-sharp mental image of himself pressing the switch. In which case, where was all this bright stuff coming from?

  The answer was sitting at the foot of his bed. It was, by any objective standard, a very nice answer; beyond question the nicest human shape that had ever shared his bedroom with him, regardless of context. Where her short, flaxen hair ended and the pale glow began was hard to say, but the way it reflected off her golden skin was really quite—

  ‘Rosie?’ he muttered. ‘Bloody hell, can’t you find some other poor bastard to—?’

  She moved her head a little, and her eyes were like an unexpected brick wall across a railway track.

  ‘You’re not Rosie,’ Paul said, his throat suddenly dry. ‘Mr Tanner’s mother, I mean. You’re someone else.’

  Her perfect chin moved up and down, maybe as much as an inch.

  ‘You aren’t a goblin at all, are you?’

  She shook her head, but the glow didn’t move with her. Now it seemed to be coming from just behind her back, giving the ridiculous impression that she had a pair of graceful snow-white wings. But that was daft, because if she had wings it’d mean she was an angel—

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I mean, who are you?’

  She shook her head again. Fine, Paul thought; this no-names business is really starting to annoy me. On the other hand, she hadn’t winced or started when he’d said Rosie or Mr Tanner’s mum. ‘I can tell you what I am, if you like,’ she said.

  (Her voice was like many things; chocolate and milk and rain falling on the roof, autumn sunshine and the soft hiss of waves on a shingle beach, home and safety and Melze when she was nine, and a great many other things that he’d imagined but never got around to experiencing.)

  ‘That’d be nice,’ Paul croaked.

  Her lips curved round a smile. ‘I’m the girl of your dreams,’ she said. ‘Don’t you recognise me?’

  Chapter Nine

  ‘You what?’

  Paul said. ‘The girl of your dreams,’ she repeated. ‘Oh come on, Paul, get a grip. I’ve been visiting you since you were thirteen, you should know me by now.’

  Paul sat up, trying to get a better look at her face, but she shifted a little and the light dazzled him. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but you aren’t at all familiar. And I think I’d remember if I’d seen you,’ he added awkwardly.

  She giggled. ‘Silly,’ she said. ‘That’s just you. You always forget your dreams the moment you wake up. Pity,’ she added, in a tone of voice that he couldn’t quite identify, but which made the hairs on the back of his neck curl. ‘Some of them were really – nice. You should dream more often, you know that?’

  She’d said ‘Paul’, he thought – she could say names without doing the whole salted-slug bit. ‘I still don’t follow,’ he said. ‘If you’re, like, a recurring dream or something, how come I can see you now that I’m awake? I am awake,’ he added, mostly to himself. ‘I can feel the pins and needles in my arm. Ouch,’ he said, by way of vindication.

  ‘Of course you’re awake,’ she replied, ‘that’s why you don’t recognise me. Nice pyjamas, by the way. A lot of men couldn’t get away with red paisley. What happened to the green and brown check? You always looked good in them.’

  ‘They got frayed, I threw them out—’ He stopped dead. ‘How the hell do you know about my pyjamas?’ he snapped. ‘You’re not – real, are you?’

  She raised an eyebrow. Paul slowly turned a deep puce colour and pulled the sheet up to his neck. ‘Anyhow,’ she went on, ‘since you aren’t going to do the to-what-do-Iowe-the-pleasure bit, I’d better just tell you. Listening?’

  Paul nodded.

  ‘Splendid. Right, here goes.’ She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. ‘You want to know why I’m here, right? Well, we couldn’t help overhearing – we don’t eavesdrop as a rule, but it was pretty hard to miss, really – you were thinking, why should you get mixed up in all the stuff that’s going on, it’s none of your business, blahdy-blahdy. And that’s so wrong, Paul, really it is. It’s – oh, this is annoying, what I want to say is, after everything we’ve been to each other you really ought to trust me, but of course you can’t remember, so that’s no good. The point is, you really do have to get involved, because it’s very much to do with you—’ She hesitated, frowned. ‘And me too, if you must know, because it’s not just you they’ve got their claws into, it’s me as well. Us, in fact. All of us. And that’s just not right, because—’

  ‘Just a minute,’ Paul said grimly. ‘What exactly is that supposed to mean, all of us? You mean it’s not just—’

  Her smirk was plain as anything, even through the blinding glow. ‘Not just me, that’s right.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘That’d be telling. Oh, don’t pull faces. Several, all right?’

  ‘No, it’s not all right,’ Paul wailed. ‘You make it sound like a – a harem, or something.’

  She giggled. ‘You can be very sweet sometimes, you know that? All right, at least three. Will that do? Anyway, we’re doing the best we can, but there’s ever so many more of them than there are of us, and sometimes they just don’t play fair, and when we’re gone – well, we’re gone for ever, and I really don’t want to talk about that. I shouldn’t be having to explain. It’s your uncle’s fault, for not telling you when you were little. But you’ve got to be careful, Paul, you’ve got to pay attention, is the main thing. I know you, for two pins you’ll let the whole thing wash over you and carry on doing those stupid Mortensen things and never even notice who’s not there.’ She paused, as if she expected him to react. He didn’t. ‘Now I expect you’re thinking I’m just a by-product of really strong Canadian Cheddar on top of a long, hard week, and of course you’re absolutely right; but you’re not imagining the pain in your hand, I can tell you that for nothing. I know it’s all suddenly started piling in on top of you like a bookshelf collapsing, but there’s a reason for that, obviously. I mean, men like your uncle don’t up and die just like that; and I know they say for tax reasons and everybody assumes they know what that means, but there’s a hell of a lot more to it, you take my word for it. It’s war, Paul, and unless you get off your bum and start pulling your weight, we’ll all be really screwed, and then where’ll you be? Sleeping alone for ever is where, and that’ll be the least of your problems. Do you understand?’

  ‘No,’ Paul replied, with flawless honesty. ‘I’ll say this for you, though. You’re an improvement on the one where I’m giving the prizes at Speech Day with no clothes on. But on balance, I think I’d rather get some sleep.’

  ‘Oh, you.’ She folded her arms and scowled at him. ‘You’re just going to have to pull yourself together, figure out your priorities and which side your mirror’s glazed on. Otherwise it’s all going to be a disgusting mess, and it’ll all be your fault. Do you hear me?’ She leaned forward, and for a moment he thought he recognised her – except she couldn’t be two people at once, could she? ‘She’s counting on you,’ she said sternly, ‘and there’s nobody else who can help her except you. Now we’ve been to a lot of trouble, all of us. Your uncle even died. You’ve got everything you need – apart from the Door, of course, but that can’t be helped, and you’ll be able to cope now, in any case. You’re all set. Now it’s time for you to stop lolling about feeling sorry for yourself and start fighting. Or next time, it won’t just be a goblin who gets blown up, it’ll be you.’ Then she turned off, just like a light; and at precisely the same moment, Paul felt the switch click between his fingers, and the bedside lamp came on.

  He thought for a moment. ‘Aargh,’ he said.

  Just a bad dream, after all (it said something about the effects of overexposure to Mr Tanner’s mum that his bad dreams featured love
ly blondes). He relaxed a little, and reached for his glass of water; for some reason, his mouth was very dry indeed. As he picked it up, he dislodged something on the bedside table.

  Paul carried on and drank some water. It was only as he put the glass back that his conscious mind saw it. Between the alarm clock and his watch – a rubber band.

  He jerked convulsively, spilling what was left of the water; then he grabbed the rubber band and held it up to the light. Ridiculous thing to do. It was just a plain brown rubber band, such as the postman drops on your doorstep. That was how this particular specimen had entered his life; Sophie had found it there one morning. She’d leaned forward to get it, and her hair had fallen in front of her face. That always annoyed her, so she’d used the band to tie it back, and forgotten to take it out and replace it with a toggle. For some reason, Paul had commented on it, jokingly said it suited her, and thereafter (until she went away) she’d always worn it in the evenings and at weekends, even though she claimed it pulled her hair and was uncomfortable. When she left, she either threw it away or took it with her, because it hadn’t been there; he’d looked for it, sentimental clown that he was, even scrabbled about on his hands and knees in case it had fallen on the floor.

  He sat up in bed, with the band stretched around four fingers, staring at it. It couldn’t be the same one; it had to be one he’d absent-mindedly pocketed in the office, which had come out with his keys and handkerchief. Except that it wasn’t. He knew it wasn’t; and just to ram the point home as deep and firm as a vampire hunter’s wooden stake, there was a single black hair still trapped inside it. Sophie’s colour, Sophie’s length.

  Fine, Paul heard himself think. But the girl who was here just now was a blonde.

  That worried him; catching himself at a moment like this trying to figure out the mystery, Hercule-Poirot-inthe-library, instead of freaking out and screaming till they came for him in a plain van, was about as scary as scary got.

  It hadn’t been there before, but now it was back. Therefore someone must’ve brought it – we won’t go anywhere near the topic of how it came into that person’s possession – in which case someone must’ve been here, either earlier today or – God help us – just now. But in any case; why leave that, of all things? Threat? Ransom demand? If people wanted to get in touch with him, why the hell couldn’t they just write him notes, instead of cluttering up his life with cryptic artefacts?

  He caught sight of the clock. Mental arithmetic: if it’s three in the morning in England, what time would it be in, say, Los Angeles?

  International directory enquiries gave him the number, and a cheerful voice with a Spanish accent told him he’d reached JWW Associates, and how could she help him? He asked to speak to Ms Pettingell. Spanish-accent was very sorry, Ms Pettingell wasn’t in the office right then, but she’d be happy (deliriously so, to judge by her tone of voice) to take a message.

  ‘It’s all right, thanks,’ Paul muttered. ‘I’ll call again later.’

  Probably just as well. One doesn’t call up one’s ex-girlfriend on the other side of the world, probably dragging her out of a meeting with Leo’s people and Julia’s people and the numbers guys from Fox, just to ask her if she knew what had become of a manky old ex-GPO rubber band. Paul didn’t need to speak to her to know exactly what she’d say: his first name, caked in enough ice to preserve all the mammoths in Siberia. He could practically hear her saying it right now, her voice was clear and sharp inside his head—

  Paul. Help.

  He was out of bed and halfway across the room with a turn of speed that would’ve done credit to a greyhound, only pausing because he’d tried to run through the bedroom door without troubling to open it first. As he lifted his hand to rub his sadly used nose, he noticed that the band was still around his fingers. Frantically he tried to shake it off, as though it was a spider in his hair, but it wouldn’t leave him. Great; not only am I finally losing it completely, I’m going to spend the rest of my life with a rubber band twined round my hand. That’s going to play havoc with drinking tea and buttering toast. Then it occurred to him to use his left hand to peel the band off his right. That worked flawlessly, and he dropped the terrifying object on the floor.

  It’d be really nice, he reflected, if he was one of those people who had friends. Just pick up the phone, any time, day or night, and they’re there for you. Sorry to bother you, Philip or Chris or Justin, but just now I could’ve sworn I heard Sophie calling my name. Really? How fascinating. Did she say anything else? Actually, yes, she did, she said ‘Help.’ Gosh, Paul, perhaps you’d better come over here and we can talk about it. Better still, stay there, I’ll be round in about ten minutes. That, he thought, would be really nice. Instead, I have to deal with it on my own. Just me. No friends.

  Paul sat up the rest of the night in the armchair, with all the lights on, plus the TV, the radio and the CD player. They might as well have been unplugged, because all he could hear was her voice. Paul. Help. Not the most eloquent of speeches compared with, say, the Gettysburg address or We shall fight them on the beaches. Memorable, though. Dead memorable.

  He got dressed at a quarter to six, had a slice of toast and a cup of black instant coffee at six-fifteen, then sat by the door waiting for it to be time to go to work. Horribly, he’d rather be there than in his own home, which was no longer safe now that Sophie had come back to him. ( Paul. Help. Yes, all right, I heard you the first time .) He ended up outside 70 St Mary Axe at twenty to nine. The door was still firmly locked, as usual. The memory of her voice was slightly weaker now; he actually had to think of it in order to hear it, but it was like a loose tooth, impossible not to keep fiddling away at it just to see if it was still there. On the other hand, it helped pass the time like nothing else on Earth, because before he knew it, Mr Tanner was standing next to him, shouting, ‘I said, a bit keen, aren’t you?’

  Not the sort of experience you can recover from instantly. ‘Sorry,’ Paul mumbled. ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘So you came here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In preference to, say, counting sheep.’ That Tanner grin; like mother, like son. ‘Well, the Mortensen printouts ought to do the trick, but if not, come and see me, I’ve got some notes of meetings that’d tranquillise a rogue elephant.’ Mr Tanner turned his key in the lock and stepped through the door. ‘I suppose you might as well come in,’ he said, ‘you’ve already met the menagerie, after all. Oh, in case I haven’t mentioned it, if you ever do anything to encourage my mother, I’ll rip your head off and hollow out your skull for a very small toilet bowl.’

  The goblins were still out and about, scampering round reception in full armour, jumping on and off the post table, eating the fax paper and the toner cartridges. Paul managed a wan smile and a faint wave, which (he was vaguely touched to note) they duly returned. And to think; not so long ago, something as homely and folksy as goblins wrecking the front office had been enough to freak him out for days. How far he’d come since then.

  Mr Tanner was sifting the post; interestingly, he used a pair of blacksmith’s iron tongs for the purpose. ‘So,’ he asked, not looking up, ‘why the insomnia? Indigestion? Bad kipper?’

  ‘I—’ I have no conceivable reason to tell Mr Tanner, of all people, about what I thought I saw last night. Mr Tanner is not my friend Mr Tanner is half a goblin, and my boss. ‘I had this really weird dream,’ Paul said.

  ‘I get that a lot,’ Mr Tanner said. ‘But it doesn’t matter with me, because it’s all just biochemistry and stuff. What do you get in yours, then?’ He made it sound like they were comparing sandwich fillings.

  ‘Girls,’ Paul said, before he was ready.

  ‘Right,’ Mr Tanner said. ‘Serves me right for asking.’

  ‘No, not like that.’ Shut up, Carpenter. Embarrassing yourself to death is a really tacky way to commit suicide, not to mention criminally inconsiderate. ‘It was – well, this girl I knew. She was calling my name and saying, “Help.”’

&n
bsp; ‘This girl you knew,’ Mr Tanner repeated. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t know any girls.’ He frowned, tongs extended towards a brown window-envelope marked Inland Revenue. ‘Not any more, at any rate. She dumped you, right? That thin girl.’

  ‘Sophie.’

  ‘Like it matters, but yes.’ Mr Tanner put the tongs down on the desk. ‘Was that who you heard, then?’

  Paul nodded wearily. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So—’ Mr Tanner broke off, fished in his pocket, brought out a huge blood-red handkerchief and sneezed violently. ‘Bloody office cold,’ he muttered. ‘You had it yet? It’s a classic, you’ll enjoy it. So you had a dream where Ms Petingell was calling your name and pleading for help?’

  Not pleading, exactly. Barking in exasperation for help. ‘Yes,’ Paul said. ‘Well, actually, no, because that was after the dream. When I was awake.’

  Mr Tanner looked at him, like an early bird debating whether to send back an unsatisfactory worm. ‘Then it can’t have been a dream, can it? You only have them in your sleep, it’s one of the salient features of dreams. You heard voices.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Paul mumbled.

  ‘Like Joan of Arc.’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘All right, not quite like Joan of Arc. I accept that Sophie wasn’t urging you to drive Peter Mayle out of Provence. But you heard her voice, and you were awake.’

  Paul dipped his head. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. Out of interest, why’ve you got a rubber band looped round your fingers?’

  There was a short interlude, during which Paul had rather a lot of trouble breathing. Then he said ‘It’ a couple of times. Mr Tanner, oddly enough, was nodding his head.