The Dream Wife

by Louisa de Lange

  ‘Perfect,’ he says. ‘How do you do it? I think you can stay.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ I reply.

  David takes the ironing board from me, collapsing it in one swift movement. He carries it into the utility room behind the kitchen and I hear him clipping it to the wall where it lives. I am always surprised by these little flashes of domesticity nowadays, this man who knows where the ironing board lives and when the rice is done.

  ‘Do you fancy watching a film tonight,’ he asks me as he drains it and serves himself a large dollop of the chilli from the hob. ‘There’s the new Avengers, or there might be something girlie if you like.’

  ‘Avengers is fine.’

  ‘If you look in my jacket, you might even find a little something I brought back from the office.’

  I pick it off the chair and look in the pocket, pulling out a small box of expensive-looking chocolates. I go over and give David a kiss where he’s sitting at the table, a fork of food halfway to his mouth.

  ‘Now come on, stop getting all gushy. Download the film and let me eat my dinner in peace.’

  As I walk through to the living room to get the film sorted, the doorbell rings. David looks up from his plate and I glance at the door. I’m not expecting anyone to visit, not at this time of night. I open it, my puzzled expression turning into a smile I can’t help when I see who’s on the other side.

  It’s the man from Saturday, a large bunch of flowers in his hand.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me disturbing you,’ he says. ‘It’s just I wanted to thank you for the other day. You didn’t need to help us, and I have a horrible feeling I was very rude.’

  ‘You were fine, don’t worry.’ I step back to invite him inside, then think better of it.

  ‘Anyway, these are for you.’ He holds out the bunch of flowers, and I take them, inhaling their sticky scent. A bouquet of tulips: a mix of the brightest red with pure white, wrapped in brown paper.

  ‘They’re lovely, thank you.’ I can feel my cheeks getting hot; I’m blushing, unaccustomed to attention from handsome strangers. And he really is handsome. In all the fuss on Saturday, I didn’t notice the cheekbones, the deep brown eyes, the broad shoulders, the abashed smile with the perfect white teeth. And here he is giving me flowers.

  ‘What did the doctor say?’ I ask to distract from my embarrassment.

  ‘It was fine, it’s healing nicely. It just needed a bit of superglue from the doc and a Peppa Pig plaster.’ He holds out his hand. ‘I’m Adam,’ he adds. I shake it, awkwardly balancing round the flowers. His hand feels warm and soft to the touch.

  We stand for a little longer, the cold air of the evening rushing into the hallway.

  ‘Anyway, thank you again,’ Adam says, with a little bow. ‘Perhaps we’ll see you around.’

  I shut the door and look at the flowers. They really are beautiful. Tulips always feel like the beginning of spring to me; the relief of knowing that sunshine is just around the corner.

  ‘Who was that?’ David appears at my elbow, plucking the bunch of flowers out of my hand.

  ‘Just a neighbour. I helped him the other day, his daughter fell over in the street, there was blood everywhere. He was just coming over to say thank you, not a big deal.’ I’m aware I’m gabbling. I need to stop talking; I need to stop sounding so guilty.

  ‘No big deal? So why was he bringing you flowers?’

  ‘To say thank you. His daughter had a massive cut. They came in so I could clean her up.’

  ‘He came into the house?’

  ‘With his daughter, not just him. I couldn’t leave them in the road.’

  ‘You invited a strange man into the house and now he brings you flowers and it’s no big deal?’

  David moves closer to me, his proximity forcing me backwards into the corner of the hallway. His face is barely centimetres away from mine; I can smell the chilli from his dinner on his breath.

  ‘There’s no need to be jealous, David.’ I place my hands on his waist, trying to placate him. ‘I’m sure he’s married; he has a daughter. It’s fine. He was just being nice.’

  ‘Jealous?’ David says quietly. ‘Now why would I be jealous?’ His voice is low and menacing, the previous good cheer sucked out of the room, replaced by a vacuum of anticipation and fear. I can feel my body tensing, my hands starting to shake.

  He throws the flowers on the floor and places his hands on the wall either side of my head, leaning forward so our faces are almost touching. ‘My wife lets a strange man into our house and she thinks it’s fine?’ He’s shouting now, flecks of spit hitting my face. I close my eyes and turn away.

  ‘Look at me!’ he yells. ‘No wife of mine should be hanging out, alone, with some man. Not my fucking wife in my fucking house. You will not see him again, you understand me?’

  I’m still facing away, wincing at the onslaught.

  ‘Do you understand me?’ he screams, and I open my eyes to see his right hand ball into a fist, punching the wall next to my left ear with a loud bang.

  I nod, little movements, quick and frenetic.

  From upstairs we hear a faint cry, a small voice calling, ‘Mummy, Mummy, Mummy.’ David looks towards the sound, then at me. Johnny cries out again.

  David moves back and I duck under his arm, rounding the corner to the stairs. I go to run up, then stumble, my legs weak and wobbly.

  In Johnny’s room, I crouch next to his cot and stroke his hair, whispering soft words to placate him. I want to be somewhere else, anywhere else, but how can I leave? I sit in the dark long after he’s drifted off, my hands still trembling, using his gentle breathing to calm the nagging voice in my head. It’s getting worse, it tells me. He’s getting worse.

  In the living room, David has started watching the film, a bottle of beer in his hand. I walk past him into the kitchen, forcing myself to act as naturally as I can.

  I open the fridge and pull out a can of Diet Coke. I pour it into a glass, taking my time, watching the bubbles rise against the side. I silently will my body to stop racing, for the adrenaline to dissipate from my veins. There is no fight, there is no flight in times like these. As I go to put the can in the recycling, I see the flowers in the bin, the leaves ripped off, the stems broken in half, with David’s leftover rice discarded on top. One of the bright red petals has missed the bin and I pick it up slowly, stroking it delicately with one finger. I place it in with the others and shut the lid.

  I join David on the sofa, placing my drink next to the box of chocolates on the coffee table. The walls close in on me; the beige and cream suffocate and imprison. I sit with my husband and we silently watch the action and violence on the television, sanitised and somehow acceptable, ignoring the ferocity and aggression in our own hallway.

  Anyone looking in our window now would see a woman dressed casually in jeans and a jumper, a man still wearing his suit trousers, his shirt open at the neck, slippers on. An attractive pair you would think. Maybe the wife looks a bit scruffy and tired, the husband more and more handsome as he adds on the years. They are sitting side by side on the sofa, chocolates for her, beer for him, a film with noise and CGI and adventure on the big-screen TV. The baby monitor is silent in front of them as their child sleeps peacefully upstairs. A perfect life, you might think. Except for a slight dent in the wall in the hallway and an ice pack on his hand, it all looks normal, boring even. You might envy them, wish for a piece of what they have.

  Little do you know, I think. Little do you know.

  The stuff dreams are made of

  The first thing Annie felt was a release. Something let go and her body felt light; she was calm, her mind at peace. She took in her surroundings: she was at the park, sitting on a bench, enjoying the feeling of doing nothing. It must be Thursday, she thought. David’s never around on a Thursday and Johnny and I can do what we want. The warmth of the sun on her face felt good, her breathing slowed, the tension flowed out of her body, drenching the grass between her toes. It wa
s an unseasonably sunny day for winter, she thought, noticing her flip-flops discarded on the grass next to her, a half-drunk bottle of water, a glossy women’s magazine and an apple core keeping them company. It must be a Thursday.

  But if it was Thursday, where was Johnny? Somehow, Annie knew he was safe. But she couldn’t remember how she had got to the park, or even why she was there. Her brain felt empty. She remembered something happening, something with David, red and white, a nice smile, and then a black hollow dread, but she couldn’t grab hold of the memory. She just knew it wasn’t here, where she was now.

  Annie noticed the colours. Big, vivid blocks of colour, no fading or graduation. Just a large expanse of bright green for grass and sky blue for the pond. Cartoon colours. The clouds were white and perfectly fluffy, the epitome of soft cotton wool. At first she thought, how pretty, the stuff dreams are made of. And then: so that’s it. I’m dreaming.

  She took a closer look at the people around her and what they were doing. Walking a dog, throwing a Frisbee, lying in the sun. A young girl next to her did a perfect cartwheel and finished gracefully, hands in the air, to applause and laughter. Annie picked up the magazine by her feet, looking at the photos, something she hadn’t done since Johnny was born. She let her eyes drop to the rows of text underneath and struggled to gather their meaning. The symbols swam in front of her eyes; she couldn’t even start to understand what they said, an incomprehensible mess of lines and circles. Odd, she thought, and put it down again slowly.

  She felt herself stand up, and move across the park. She swept along in an invisible current, feeling herself talk to people she had never met before and listen to what they were saying, walking, her arms swinging at her sides. She was a puppet controlled by her subconscious; her body did what someone else told it to. She put her flip-flops on; she took a drink from the water bottle.

  What a waste, she thought. I could be doing anything and here I am walking through a park. What if I want to go somewhere else? She tried pulling her leg in another direction, and lifted it an inch off the ground. She thought about other places – a supermarket, a beach, a fairground – but nothing changed, nothing moved.

  What use is knowing I’m dreaming if I can’t do anything about it? Annie thought. What a waste.

  Suddenly, she heard a child’s voice, and her consciousness fought back.

  Wake up.

  10

  I open my eyes. I can hear Johnny chattering in his bedroom next door to mine. I remember the dream; I can still see the colours and the park, but more distant, watching from afar. As real life takes over, the memory starts to fade slightly, turning bright colours into pastel.

  It all seems very odd. I’ve always been someone who can fall asleep at a moment’s notice – any time, anywhere – and I remember my dreams in the morning, every single one. I realised from an early age that my dreams were more interesting than most. While other people would dream about their jobs, or being naked in public, I would be flying through the air, or shagging Zac Efron. Or both. But this sudden awareness that I know I am dreaming, this is new. And I like it.

  I realise next door has gone very quiet. I listen and hear a loud thud, then the slow wail of an upset small boy. I jump out of bed quickly and open the door; Johnny is sitting on the floor beside his cot, confused, still in his sleeping bag.

  ‘What are you doing there?’ I ask, scooping him into my arms and carrying him back into the warmth of my own bed. ‘Did you climb out of your cot?’

  He nods, Rabbit pushed up against his mouth.

  ‘Big bed,’ he says as we climb under the duvet.

  I glance at the clock. I know we only have a few moments before we need to be up for David and his breakfast, so I make the most of lying in the warmth, a small, soft body next to mine. I press my face into Johnny’s fluffy hair, enjoying the hot baby smell, knowing every day he gets bigger and more adventurous. Today: climbing out of the cot; tomorrow: school, and then what? I give him a big hug. For now he’s still my baby. It seems only yesterday he was born.

  The first thing I remember is the siren – loud and present, in my ear, pulling me awake. Then the pain across my middle, where a huge bump monopolised my body. It squeezed and held on, causing me to scrunch up in pain, my legs to my chest, muscles tense. I opened my eyes, and a man in a green jacket looked back. I could see David sitting behind him, his hand over his mouth, his eyes worried.

  ‘Annie, stay with me, we’re nearly there,’ said the man in green.

  ‘Nearly where?’ I asked, crying out as another cramp took over my body.

  ‘At the hospital, you’re in an ambulance.’

  I was wheeled through corridors, white lights blazing overhead and voices talking in urgent tones.

  ‘Female, thirty-eight weeks pregnant, fainted, period of unconsciousness, large laceration to the forehead, now in active labour.’

  I was passed from white coat to white coat, and came to stop in a room, monitors and equipment all around me. A woman leant over me and flashed a light in my eyes.

  ‘Annie, you fainted and knocked your head and we think the shock of the fall has caused you to go into premature labour,’ she said. ‘We’re worried because the baby seems to be in distress, so we would like to take you for an emergency C-section. Do you understand?’

  I nodded and winced as the movement caused a flash of pain across my skull. ‘Please just make sure the baby’s okay.’

  ‘We’ll do everything we can,’ the doctor said. Then it went black.

  ‘There’s no way any son of mine will go to that shithole down the road!’ David bellowed, marching round our kitchen.

  ‘It gets great Ofsted reports …’

  ‘Fuck Ofsted! He needs to mix with the best, he needs to be taught by the best, he needs to succeed. It’s fundamental,’ he shouted, crashing his fist down on the table so the breakfast bowls rattled. ‘And besides, I would have thought that you, of all people, would understand me not wanting to send him to the sort of rough school that we had to endure.’

  ‘This place is nothing like our old schools. And he’s not even born yet,’ I said, trying to keep it light, trying to make David laugh with the absurdity of our argument.

  He ignored me. ‘There’s no negotiation here. He goes to the best school and that’s that. And there’s a three-year waiting list. We need to act now.’

  ‘But the best school is a boarding school. I don’t want to send him away.’

  He waved the form in my face. ‘It’s not what you want, it’s what’s best for him!’ He gestured wildly and his plate went flying, splattering his suit with ketchup. ‘Now look! I can’t go out like this!’

  He stood up and stalked out of the room. Sighing, I heaved myself up from my chair with my arms, stomach muscles no longer functioning with a large baby pulling them apart. I picked up the form, now discarded on the table. ‘Application for Boarders’ it said on the top, decorated with a gold-embossed stag in the corner. ‘We welcome boys for boarding from age 4 to 16.’ I started to collect up the breakfast things. He would come round, I thought; he would see that no little boy wants to go away to school.

  ‘Annie!’ I heard a shout from upstairs. ‘Why is my black suit still dirty?’

  A loud thudding followed as David came downstairs and stood in front of me, comical in shirt, tie and boxer shorts, black socks pulled up to mid-calf. He held his black suit in his hand and thrust it in front of me accusingly.

  ‘It’s not been dry-cleaned? What the hell have you been doing except sitting on your fat arse?’

  ‘I’ll take it today.’ I reached forward for it.

  ‘Leave it, I’ll do it,’ David said, and pushed my chest, grabbing the suit with his other hand. I wobbled, my distended belly unbalancing me, and felt the corner of the kitchen sideboard hit me on the forehead as I went down. Dontfallonthebump, my body said as I fell, tilting sideways, dontfallonthebump.

  When I awoke for the second time, I was in the hospital. My mind cleared an
d a kind voice said, ‘Hello, Annie. Do you want to meet your son?’

  Yes. Yes, I did. And there he was, placed gently on my chest. A small, spindly person, with bright red uncoordinated limbs and tiny toes and fingers. Two weeks early and he needed some chub, but he was fine. He was better than fine, he was perfect.

  My stomach hurt, my head hurt, but I smiled.

  ‘Your husband said you fainted and banged your head,’ the nurse said. My hand went up to my forehead and tentatively explored. ‘You’ve got a few stitches, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

  ‘Where is he?’ I asked without really caring, gently touching tiny fingernails and fine black hair.

  The nurse smiled. ‘He’s gone to get a cup of coffee; he’ll be back soon. Good job he was there, otherwise who knows what would have happened.’

  Yes, I thought, good job my husband was there. Good old David.

  Mist

  The colours were brighter. The grass was a dazzling jade and the sky was the kind of blue only seen in children’s drawings.

  Annie could feel the sun on her face as she sat in the park. It warmed her to just the right level – she didn’t feel like her skin was burning, she wasn’t sweaty or overheated. She felt the crunch of the gravel underfoot, and a gentle breeze moved her hair around her face.

  Other people were in the park, but she couldn’t hear them. She could feel the roughness of the wood of the bench under her fingers but knew there was no way she could get a splinter. She watched the people around her. A couple cycled past on the grey asphalt path, another group picnicking under a nearby tree. They all seemed without a care in the world, moving fluidly in their activities.

  In comparison, she felt jerky and slow. She was unable to move her limbs quickly; every pull or push required a huge amount of concentration to contradict what her body wanted to do. Just crossing her legs had taken so much effort she was worn out and she sat back, enjoying the moment to rest. She ran her finger slowly over one of the rivets, taking in the rusted iron.