by Ross Welford
‘He’s back,’ I say straight away. There’s a long pause on the other end, and I wonder if she’s heard me. ‘Susan …?’
‘Yes, Malky, yes! He is! Oh, I’m so relieved. We’ve been waiting for you to call.’ Then I hear her shouting, ‘Mola! It worked! It worked!’ I can hear shrieking and whooping and I say, ‘Thank you, Susan! Thanks a lot!’ Then the line goes dead as my phone loses reception.
Wait. So they actually were in my dream? And Kenneth too?
I don’t know why any of that should surprise me, actually.
Anyway, I can’t think about it because Uncle Pete has overheard. ‘What worked? Who were you thanking?’ he says.
Should I tell him? Should I explain the whole thing again? There’s no more reason to believe me now than there was before, and any evidence is charred and melted and still hanging above my bed.
So I half lie.
‘Susan and her gran meditated in a very special way,’ I say. ‘They prayed underneath their prayer flags, and the prayers were carried on the wind.’
‘That’s nice,’ says Uncle Pete, and Mormor nods in approval.
‘Prayers can be like dreams, Malky,’ she says. ‘Sometimes prayers are answered, just like dreams can come true.’
‘You’re right, Mormor,’ I say through a grin. ‘You’re dead right.’
I’m in the back seat so they can’t see as I roll up my trouser leg to check my wounded leg, which is almost completely healed.
Dr Nisha is back on duty. She comes in while we’re all gathered round Seb’s bed, and we stand aside while she does things like shine a light in his eyes and tap things on an iPad. When she’s done, she tells us that Seb will be kept in hospital a little longer ‘for observation’.
‘All of Sebastian’s functions appear to be normal, ‘she says with a puzzled smile. ‘The injuries on his wrists and face have almost completely disappeared, which everybody here is saying is remarkable, and I have to agree. I have never seen anything like it. Are you feeling all right, Sebastian?’
He grins his gappy grin in reply and holds both of his thumbs up. ‘Pretty awethome!’
Dr Nisha sighs. ‘I warn you now: it may be that we never know exactly what happened. I can tell you, though, this was a close-run thing.’ She picks up a clipboard and flips a couple of pages. ‘His heart rate, for example, went crazy very early this morning. The duty nurse reported “very disturbed sleep, twitching, thrashing, excessive REM” – that is—’
‘Rapid eye movement,’ I chip in, just because I’m feeling smart.
‘Yes. It seems like he was having an extremely vivid dream.’
I say nothing, of course. But all of the adults – Mam, Dad, Uncle Pete, Mormor – exchange looks and I just know they are thinking about the incident yesterday with the deconstructed Dreaminators. Mam’s gaze eventually settles on me and, when our eyes meet, I know this won’t be the last I hear of it.
Dr Nisha looks at her notes again. ‘At six twenty-six, we thought we had lost him. Sebastian’s heart and brain activity stopped for twenty-two seconds.’
I do a quick metal calculation. That would have been the time Seb and I took our big leap off the cliff, and for a moment – just a second, really – my stomach turns over with the memory.
The fear, the sun in my eyes, the people chasing us, the fog below …
‘You okay, Malky?’ says Dr Nisha. ‘I know this is upsetting. It’s odd – at the precise moment his heart rate was most extreme, he said something, didn’t you, Seb?’ She smiles at him. ‘He opened his eyes, and said, “Let’s go, Malky!”’
I say, ‘It was, “Let yourself go, Malky!”’
Dr Nisha gives me a funny look. ‘Actually, you’re right! How did you know that?’
Eventually, the rest of them all head off for breakfast, but Seb’s already had his, and I’m just not hungry. So the two of us stay in his little room next to the intensive care unit. He’s not hooked up to anything. He’s sitting in his bed, propped up on fat pillows. There’s only one thing I want to know.
‘What happened to you?’ I say. ‘When you were asleep, and you were dreaming, and tied to that stake, and being beaten …’
Seb’s eyes look up as if he’s retrieving a memory.
‘Oh yeah,’ he says. ‘That wasn’t nice. But …’
‘Wasn’t nice?’ I am amazed. ‘You mean … you don’t remember it all?’
He thinks again. ‘Not really. Not all of it.’
‘Do you remember the mammoth?’ I start laughing. ‘Naked Mola?’
‘Naked what?’
I realise that he has never even met Susan’s grandmother.
‘Thing is, Malky – this was your dream … wasn’t it? I was just … in it, somehow. Now it feels just like it was a nightmare, you know? Not nice, but …’
I look again at his wrists. His bad dream is retreating from his memory like his wounds, and I could not be more relieved. I’m standing over his bed and I don’t know why I do this thing, maybe for the first time ever, but I kind of fall forward and gather my little brother in my arms and squeeze, and he squeezes back.
‘I love you, Seb,’ I say, and he laughs and says, ‘Yeah, whatever.’
Then he quickly adds, ‘Hey, did you see the wound on my thigh?’
‘No. What is it?’
He pulls back the bedsheet. ‘The doctors are a bit worried. Here.’ He lowers the waistband of his pyjamas to expose his thigh and the top of his buttock. ‘Can you see? There. Look closer. Closer!’ I bend over until my nose is almost touching his white bum. I still can’t see anything.
That’s when he lets off a huge fart, right in my face, and turns nearly breathless and purple with laughter.
I think it’s Seb’s way of saying, ‘I love you too.’
Later that day, Seb’s discharged from hospital and Dad’s heading back to Middlesbrough. He and Mam are over by his car while Seb and I wait on the same wall where I had been just a couple of days ago. Seb’s in his goalie top, of course.
Seb nudges me. ‘Look at Mam and Dad!’ he says, and when I do I see they are laughing!
Okay, not exactly laughing, but Dad has said something with a smile, and Mam has smiled back at him. Then she nods warmly and puts her hand on his forearm and keeps it there for a little while, then she moves away, beckoning us to follow her to Uncle Pete’s car.
‘Lads!’ calls Dad as we get up and go over to him. The three of us stand a bit awkwardly for a moment. Eventually, Dad says, ‘Erm, how about you’s two come and see me soon, eh? Middlesbrough versus Luton? I can get tickets?’
I have never been to a proper football match before and nor has Seb, whose face splits into a big grin. His favourite goalkeeper plays for Middlesbrough.
‘Awethome!’ He puts his arms round Dad and then recoils. ‘Dad! You … erm … you don’t smell too good.’
Dad’s brow furrows and he sniffs his hand. ‘Sorry, pal, I know. I’ve had this strange smell clinging to me all morning. Since I woke up, in fact. I’ve had a shower, honest!’
I step forward and sniff. ‘Crocodile guts,’ I say and his head jerks round as he stares at me, open-mouthed.
‘What? I … I had a … I can’t remember, but …’
‘You had a dream about being inside a crocodile?’
‘Erm … yeah. How did you know that?’
I shrug. ‘Just a guess, Dad. I daresay the smell will wear off, though.’
He looks at me closely. I don’t want to tell him more, not yet, anyway. Mam calls us to hurry up, and Dad laughs and gets into his car.
‘I hope you’re right! Boro v. Luton. See you then!’
I’d only been back at school a couple of days and already I was standing in Mrs Farroukh’s office. This time, though, I was not in trouble. Susan was there as well.
‘You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,’ said Mrs Farroukh. ‘But I am going and you will be welcome to join me.’
That’s how, three days later, Susan, Mola, Mrs Fa
rroukh and I are among a dozen or so people at Holy Saviour’s Church for Kenneth McKinley’s funeral. Kez Becker is there too, with Dennis slumped under the front pew.
‘Bless him,’ says Andi, looking round the empty pews. ‘Poor old Kenneth really didn’t have anybody, did he?’
In addition to us, there’s a couple who lived in the flat above Kenneth who Andi knows slightly, and another carer called Rosemary who did Andi’s days off.
In the centre of the church is Kenneth’s coffin with a tartan scarf draped over it. I have seen the coffin before, of course, but here it is much less spooky. I have never been to a funeral before, but this is fine. The vicar, a lady with a deep voice and a nice smile, says some prayers, and then looks to the back of the church. We follow her gaze, and from the furthest pew comes an old man with a big white moustache, walking slowly with a straight back down the aisle.
He turns to face the small gathering and clears his throat. I look at Susan. His face is familiar somehow, but I don’t know where from.
‘Good morning, everyone,’ he says in a soft, clear Scottish accent. ‘My name is Robbie Ferguson, and I did Kenneth McKinley a great injustice.’
I glance again at Susan who draws a small rectangle in the air with her fingers, and I nod.
This is the man who interviewed Kenneth on the TV show we watched!
‘Kenneth had a successful career north of the border, working in theatres with a mystery and mind-reading act, which always concluded with his famous floating illusion. By the 1980s, he had embraced a more, ah … philosophical approach to his mysteries, and, on the television show that I presented at the time, I ridiculed him.’
The man pauses and lowers his head for a moment.
‘I’m not proud. I played it for laughs. I demonstrated an old party trick and told everyone that that must have been how Kenneth did his wonderful levitation. The truth is, that floating illusion is a secret he has taken with him. I mocked the business venture into which he had sunk a modest fortune: a harmless toy that claimed to shape your dreams. Hardly anyone bought one. His career declined and never really recovered. And then there was his son, Uri – named, of course, after Kenneth’s friend, the world-famous psychic entertainer, Uri Geller …’
Susan has reached over and is gripping my hand hard. We both know something is happening before our eyes, but we don’t know what.
‘As some of you may know, little Uri died in 1988. One night, he fell asleep and remained asleep for days. It was as though he were in a coma. Doctors could not revive him and, after several days, poor wee Uri passed away. No one ever knew why, although it was said that Kenneth’s wife, Jeannette, held him somehow responsible. They parted shortly afterwards.’
Susan’s grip on my hand tightens.
The old man straightens his back and turns to address the coffin directly, as if Kenneth can hear him. I don’t think I breathe. ‘I’m sorry, Kenneth. If your life was made harder by what I did, I hope I have tried to make amends.’
Robbie Ferguson nods, clears his throat again, then walks back down the aisle, out of the church, and out of our lives.
The vicar is on her feet again, smiling weakly. I don’t think she was expecting that. She seems relieved to have something to do when she says, ‘Malcolm?’ Susan gives my hand a final squeeze and then lets it go.
I reach under the pew and bring out a flat box, wrapped up like a birthday present. ‘Go on,’ murmurs Mrs Farroukh. I stand up and walk slowly to the front, where I place Kenneth’s gift-wrapped, burnt-out Dreaminator on top of his wooden coffin. Kez’s dad, standing at the side of the church in his undertaker’s dark suit and tie, has no idea what is inside, or how I got it, and never will.
‘Thanks for your help with Cuthbert, Kenneth,’ I say, too quietly for anyone else to hear.
Outside the church, there’s a freezing-cold wind and we’re all sort of hunched up, not quite sure what to do. Andi says to us, ‘Well, that explains that,’ and gives a little nod of satisfaction.
‘What explains what?’ I say.
‘The people at Helping Hands, the care agency I work for, never really knew who paid Kenneth’s bills. A “mystery benefactor” would deposit money every month to pay for his care. I guess that was that Robbie fella’s way of making it up to him.’
A few metres away, something is going on between Mrs Farroukh and Kez’s dad. They are deep in conversation and Kez’s dad is nodding a lot, then he has to go and supervise the loading of Kenneth’s coffin into the long black car.
(I’ve already looked, and there doesn’t appear to be any damage on the car bonnet from where me and Susan jumped on it.) Mrs Farroukh is beaming.
‘Well, that’s all sorted then,’ she says. ‘I’ve just cleared it with your father, Kezia. You, erm … opted out of community visiting, although your dad says he has no knowledge of your, er … phobia.’
I glance over at Kez, whose expression is stony.
Mrs Farroukh continues: ‘So I’m assigning you new duties with COMMS. From next week, you will be leading a new initiative: the Great Beach Clean! From Tynemouth to Culvercot, keeping our wonderful beaches clean of marine waste, broken glass and dog mess! Thank you so much for agreeing.’ She claps her hands. ‘Isn’t that marvellous?’
Kezia’s face is a picture, and it’s all I can do not to laugh at the thought of Kez collecting dog poo. She replies with as little enthusiasm as she can get away with, ‘Yes, miss. Marvellous.’
Susan and I are standing with Mola and are just about to get into Mrs Farroukh’s car to go back to school when Andi comes over. ‘I almost forgot,’ she says, breathlessly. She hands me a carrier bag that she’s had with her all morning.
‘Kenneth often told me about his dreams. None of them made sense. But after you’d left the last time – you know, when we met on the river path? – he told me, “Give the lad this. I think he might need it.”’
I put my hand into the bag and my fingers curl round a familiar object and I pull out Kenneth’s dirk, complete with the leather sheath and belt. I can’t say anything at all: my head is swimming.
Andi says, ‘He added “good luck with Cuthbert”. Well, like I say, he often didn’t make much sense, poor old soul. But you know – it’s a nice thing to have, eh?’
She smiles at me and I manage to whisper, ‘Thank you.’ I catch Mola’s eye. She is smiling and she gives me a knowing little wink as if that explains it all.
I wish.
‘Come on, man – we’ll be late!’
‘Do I look all right?’
‘Seb, man, you can wear what you like so long as it’s clean, Susan said. It won’t make any difference to your ugly mug, anyway.’
At one point, not very long ago, Seb would have complained at that. He’d have whinged. He’d have threatened to tell Mam that I was being mean. I’d have sneered back at him, and then we’d be fighting and Mam would have to separate us, and …
Oh, you get what I mean. Instead, he says, ‘No – your ugly mug.’
I know: hardly top-class banter, but he’s only seven. Anyway, we’re on our way out of the front door when Fit Billy and Mam emerge from the kitchen where they’ve been chatting all morning. Honestly, the amount of tea he drinks at our place, I sometimes wonder if he simply doesn’t have a kettle of his own. They’re supposed to paint the new fence today, like it’s a two-person job. They’re grinning like mad.
‘Boys!’ says Mam, with a funny catch in her voice. ‘Where are you going?’
I stop in the doorway. ‘Sorry, Mam. Susan’s invited us over for Tibetan butter tea and cake. She says she’s got a special surprise and not to be late.’
Mam’s eyebrows go up. ‘Really? For both of you? Only me and Billy have got a surprise as well, haven’t we, Bill? Something to tell you.’
Billy nods and puts his big arm round Mam, which is a bit unusual, but maybe she’s cold because the front door’s still open.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Billy. ‘It’ll wait, won’t it, Mary?’ He
winks at her as we run down the path.
In Susan’s garden, the strong breeze is making the prayer flags flap so noisily that the people there are raising their voices a bit to be heard.
Susan meets me and Seb at the back gate and leads us down the path. She says, ‘Look at you two – smart and shiny!’
There are people there I have never seen before, plus Mola in a grand-looking crimson sarong. Everyone is dressed up, and I’m glad I put my best shirt on. There is a table laid out, and I spot butter cake and one or two other things I don’t recognise among normal stuff like sandwiches and crisps.
‘You must be Malcolm,’ says a slim lady with hair exactly like Susan’s and the widest, warmest smile. ‘And Sebastian. Tenzin – I mean, Susan – has told me all about your … ah, adventures. I am Susan’s mum. Or “mam” I believe you say here.’
‘Very pleathed to meet you,’ says Seb through a mouthful of butter cake. Susan’s mum pretends not to notice that he has sprayed her with crumbs, and grins back. ‘You too, Sebastian. We are very lucky you are here. Now excuse me.’ She glances at the sky. ‘The rain may not hold off much longer. We need to get on.’
She moves away and claps her hands together. People put their teacups down and stop talking while Susan’s mum takes a deep breath and begins a little speech.
Of course, it’s in Tibetan. Seb looks at me, puzzled, but I just shrug. People seem to murmur approval, and there’s the occasional ripple of applause. At one point, Susan’s mum breaks off to dab her eyes, and people go, ‘Awww!’ and smile.
I look around for Susan. Where is she? She can help me understand just what’s going on. I notice a little table supporting the framed photograph of the Dalai Lama decorated with flowers and some tealights flickering inside long glass tubes.
I edge over to Mola, who is smiling with such force that I can’t help grinning as well.
‘Mola,’ I hiss through my smile. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Shh. Special guest coming out now!’
As she says this, everyone turns and from inside the house shuffles Dennis, with a man holding his lead. Everybody chuckles and cheers and claps, and so do I because I’ve guessed what is happening, and I’m pleased for Susan that she gets to keep Dennis.
