‘I wish I could believe you, Bamford. I wish I could believe all that analysis stuff. But I know I’m having premonitions. I could have saved the lives of those people.’
‘Forget premonitions, Sam. They’re nothing more than lucky guesses. That’s all. Don’t get caught up down that alleyway.’
She felt a flash of anger. ‘Why not? Nicky could have been shot – any of those children could have been. I might have been able to prevent it.’
He shook his head gently, and it inflamed her anger even more. ‘Whatever you decided, Sam, let me give you one piece of advice. Stay away from the hokum guys.’ He tapped his head. ‘It’s all in here. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says. I know. The medical profession knows.’
‘God you’re a smug bastard,’ she said.
He did not react at all. There was a long silence, in which he continued to stare at her, and she felt her face getting hotter and redder, sorry she had said that, guilty that she’d taken so much of his time and had spat it back in his face.
‘Sam,’ he said, ‘you’ve come to me for help, for advice. I’ve given it to you. What do you want me to do? Tell you to go and see a clairvoyant? A medium? Send you off to a dream group? To a parapsychologist? I want to help you, not make things worse.’
‘If you want to help me, Bamford, you’ve first got to believe me.’
He pushed each of the sleeves of his jacket up in turn, scratched his nose, then put his elbows back on the desk.
‘I’ll tell you what I believe. I believe that you genuinely believe you are having premonitions.’
‘And you think they’re just delusions?’ She stared at him, the anger flaring again. ‘Do you want someone else to die? Will that prove it?’
He sat back in his chair and rested his hands on the arms. ‘Hooded men,’ he said. ‘Your hooded fellow – Slider?’
She nodded sullenly.
‘Sam, you’re a grown woman. You’re a mother and a successful businesswoman. And you’re still dreaming of your childhood bogeyman. There’s no living person I know of who can foretell the future consistently. There never has been. There are lucky guesses and intelligent guesses, and sometimes the brain whirrs away during our sleep and presents probabilities to us. That’s all. Your big ugly hooded fellow who stinks of onions is frightening the hell out of you, and you think you’re being haunted by the ghost of someone who died twenty-five years ago. Some creature that comes to you in your dreams and is trying to destroy you. If he wants to destroy you, then why does he keep tipping you off? Giving you warnings?’
She felt cold again, cold and empty and all twisted up. She stared up at the light bulb then out through the window at the rooftops and the leaden sky. ‘Maybe it’s some game he’s playing. Some macabre game to sort of . . . torment me . . . You know? Just playing with me – until he’s ready.’
‘We’re all haunted by ghosts, Sam; but they’re not
spirits, or demons that have come back from the grave. They are our own personal fears, anxieties.’ He tapped his head again. ‘We need to get inside there, Sam, and pluck him out. That’s what an analyst would do.’
She stared at him then shook her head. ‘I wish you were right, Bamford.’ She screwed up her eyes tightly.
Christ I wish you were right.
Sam sat in front of her dressing table, putting on her make-up. She was wearing the black lace bra, panties and suspenders that Richard had given her for Christmas the year before. She wondered if he would remember, and she wondered why she was wearing them now. A signal? An olive branch?
She eyed herself, then leaned closer to the mirror examining the crow’s-feet around her eyes; they were getting more pronounced all the time. This is it, girl, all downhill from here. Be a Wrinkly soon; then a Crumbly. Then . . . nothing at all. The void. Godless black nothingness. She touched the lines lightly, stretched the skin, making them disappear for an instant, then stared again at the photograph of Richard and herself on a yacht in Greece; the year after their wedding; nine years ago. They looked so young and carefree then. How much softer her face was, how much fresher. Now a new line seemed to appear every day. She frowned into the mirror and a row of wrinkles popped out along her skin that she had never seen before.
Maybe it was the photograph that was changing, not her face? Maybe her face had always been like that and the photograph was receding into the past? Showing a woman who was getting younger and younger. So
young sometimes she seemed like a total stranger. She unscrewed her lipstick.
Bamford O’Connell. Was he right? Maybe. Maybe. She shrugged at herself, and pushed her hair back away from her face. No grey hairs yet, but they’d be along soon.
Do you think there’s any chance at all you might be crediting your dream with more detail than was in it? That you might be making the dream fit the facts?
No. No way, absolutely not. Surely not?
Oh shit. You’re screwing up my head, Bamford. I had it all there, in sequence. Don’t mix it up for me, just because I don’t fit into any of your neat boxes.
‘Where are you going, Mummy?’
She saw Nicky in the mirror, standing in the doorway, and turned around, smiling. ‘We’re going out to a dinner party.’
‘Whose party?’
‘The Howorths’. Do you remember them?’
‘Are we going to the country?’
Sam carefully traced the lipstick across her lips. ‘Uh huh.’
‘Is it the weekend tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow’s Friday. Come and give Mummy a kiss.’
Nicky trotted over, and she stroked his hair.
‘Top of your class in arithmetic again today?’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘That’s very clever. Mummy used to come bottom in arithmetic.’
He looked around suddenly, at the sound of the front door, then sprinted out of the room. ‘Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!’
‘Hi, Tiger!’ she heard Richard say out in the hallway.
‘Daddy! Can we set the Scalectrix up? We haven’t had that set up since Christmas. Can we do it tonight?’
‘Stop bloody whining at me.’
‘Please, Daddy, can we set it up?’
‘Jesus, Tiger! Bloody leave off, will you?’
Richard stormed into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind him. ‘Fucking whingeing on and on at me. What the hell are you wearing that for? You look like a whore.’
‘You gave it to me.’
‘Been fucking Ken in it?’
She stood up, livid. ‘Are you drunk?’
‘No, I’m not fucking drunk, but I’m going to get fucking drunk.’ He charged out of the room, and Sam stared, bewildered, after him. The rage. She’d never seen him in a rage like this. He came back into the room with a whisky tumbler in his hand and slammed the door again.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked.
‘Get those fucking whore clothes off and put something decent on.’
The menace in his voice frightened her. He was like a madman.
‘I thought you liked—’
He marched over, grabbed the bra and ripped it away, so hard it tore, burning her flesh in the process. She shrieked in pain, then slapped him hard, really hard, on the face. ‘You bastard.’
He blinked, and stared at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to come at her, going to come at her and kill her. But instead he blinked again, as if half waking from a trance, backed away and sat down on the bed. He drank some of his whisky then bent down and untied his laces. He kicked off his shoes, swallowed more whisky and lay back, closing his eyes. ‘What time are we due there?’
‘Eight,’ she said.
She pulled the rest of the bra away, eyeing him warily and took a new one out of a drawer. ‘Don’t you think you’d better have some coffee rather than whisky?’
He said nothing.
She removed her lace panties, screwed them up and dropped them in the waste bin, and put on some fresh ones which matched the bra. She put on her dress, in silence, took her evening handbag out of the cupboard, and looked in her daytime bag. She noticed an envelope in amongst all the junk, and took it out. There was a magazine cutting inside it, which she unfolded and glanced at, puzzled.
‘DREAMS – BEHIND CLOSED EYES THE FUTURE OPENS UP.’
Ken. Ken had given it to her on Monday and she’d forgotten about it. She went out of the bedroom, holding the article, and closed the door. She heard Nicky’s bath running, and went into his bedroom. He was sitting sulkily on his bed. She went over and sat down beside him. ‘Daddy’s had a bad day, Tiger.’
‘He promised we could play Scalectrix tonight.’
‘We have to go out tonight.’
‘He shouted at me. I didn’t do anything wrong.’ He began to cry and she held him tight. ‘I’ll play Scalectrix with you until Daddy’s ready.’
‘No,’ he sobbed. ‘Got to set it up. Only Daddy knows how to set it up.’
Helen came in, ‘Bath’s ready, Nicky.’
‘Have your bath, Tiger, and I’ll tell you a quick story before we go.’
He stood up, his face long and wet and walked slowly over to the door. Sam followed him out, then went down the corridor through into the living area and sat down on a sofa in front of the television. She was quivering with the pent-up anger and confusion inside
her. This was a new Richard, something completely different; something she did not know how to handle. Maybe it was he that needed to see Bamford O’Connell, not her? Maybe the Market had been bad today. He was grumpy sometimes when the Market was bad. But never like this. She looked down at the article and began to read.
Dreams should be taken far more seriously than they are, claims David Abner, a clinical psychologist at Guy’s Hospital who believes that not only are dreams a rich source of creativity, but they also offer valuable insight into personal and psychological problems, as well as, on occasions, a glimpse into the future.
Perhaps the most famous of all ‘premonition’ dreams was that of the Biblical Pharaoh, whose dream of seven fat cows being swallowed by seven thin cows enabled Egypt to conserve food over seven good years and stave off potential famine over seven poor succeeding harvests.
More recent figures, too, have been profoundly affected by their dreams. Hitler was saved by one of his, when as corporal in the First World War, his nightmare of being engulfed by debris caused him to wake up and dash outside, only for a shell to land on his bunker seconds later and kill all the sleeping occupants.
Dreams have inspired great inventors. Elias Howe invented the sewing machine after he dreamed of natives throwing spears with eye-shaped holes at their tips, and thus solved the problem of where to put the hole in the needle.
And in religion, leaders have taken the view that God speaks to his prophets through dreams. ‘Many people still believe that today, and I’m sure to some degree it is still true, whatever God is, that dreams can be seen as messages from the universe,’ says Abner. ‘It seems
that some people are receiving stations. Jung called it ‘Collective Unconscious’. Whatever the explanation, whether it is ultimately scientific or spiritual, there is no question that in dreams some people seem to tune into a field of insight not open to the waking, conscious mind.’
In the next few months, Abner and a fellow group of dream therapists are planning to set up a phone-in ‘dreamline’, where people can both instantly have premonitions registered, and discuss their dreams with therapists working through the night.
In the meantime, people interested in learning more about their dreams can join in a series of dream groups being set up under his auspices. Phone 01–435–0702 for details.
Sod you, Bamford. Sam picked up the phone. Sod you and your stay away from the hokum guys. Sod you and your damned arrogance, she thought, as she heard the phone ring and a man’s voice answer, a soft, laid-back American accent.
‘Dave Abner.’
‘I, er—’ She felt foolish and looked around, making sure no one had come into the room. ‘I read an article in – er – about your—’
There was a silence, followed by a distant ‘Uh-huh’, then a pause, ‘Which article was that?’
‘Someone cut it out. I’m not sure where from – about your dream groups.’
‘Oh yeah, I remember.’ He sounded bored. ‘This number’s wrong. They shouldn’t have put this number. They should have put Tanya’s.’
‘Tanya?’
‘Tanya Jacobson. She’s doing the dream group right now. I’ll give you her number.’
She dialled the new number, and a husky woman’s voice answered, harassed, somewhat breathless. ‘Hallo?’
‘Could I speak to Tanya Jacobson, please?’
‘Yes, speaking,’ the reply came, somewhat irritable, and for a moment Sam was tempted to drop the receiver back down.
‘David Abner gave me your number,’ said Sam nervously. ‘I read an article about your dream groups, and I wondered—’
‘You’d like to join our group?’ The woman’s voice had changed, become friendlier. ‘You’ve called at just the right time. This is an amazing coincidence! We’re looking for one woman to complete the group. Listen, we’re starting a new group next Monday night. Is that too soon?’
‘No,’ Sam said.
‘Wow! Wonderful! You sound wonderful. I get feelings, you know, vibes. You get them too?’
‘Yes,’ said Sam hesitantly, dubiously. Feelings, Feelings. Everyone seemed to have feelings these days.
‘OK, what’s your name?’
‘Mrs Curtis.’
‘So formal. Wow. What’s your Christian name?’
‘Sam.’
‘Sam, that’s nice. You’re going to fit in wonderfully. We start at seven-thirty. If you come a little early, you can have coffee, meet everyone. I’ll give you the address. Do you know Hampstead?’
‘Hampstead?’
‘We’re very near the tube.’
A chill went through her.
‘Tube?’ Sam felt herself shaking. She wanted to hang up, now, hang up and forget it.
Hampstead.
The tube.
‘Hallo, Sam? You still there?’
Hampstead. Near the tube
. The words banged around inside her head.
Hampstead. Near the tube
.
‘Willoughby Road. Do you know Willoughby Road?’
‘I can find it,’ she heard her own voice say, as if spoken by a stranger.
‘Off the High Street. You come out of the tube, turn left, and just walk down.’
‘I’ll drive,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll be coming by car.’