Daniel's Dream (22 page)

Daniel turned the room upside down looking for the book; he could not remember what he had done with it. All he knew was that he had kept it out of sight for fear Lisanne would see him reading it: he knew she would question him on it, and he didn’t feel up to an inquisition on the matter.

He found the book eventually, stuffed away in a drawer in the bedroom: Lisanne must have tidied up recently and thrown his clothes on top without realising it. He opened the book where he had left off.

Daniel read three more chapters, trying, with some difficulty, to ignore the turgid dialogue and tedious commentary and to concentrate on what there was of plot. If Jameson’s ill-conceived novel had any relevance to Daniel’s dream, it lay hidden somewhere in the story-line.

He was about to investigate further when the telephone rang. He hesitated, unsure if he should answer it. If it was Lisanne, she would probably be calling to check up on him, and he was in no mood for that. And if it was Vince, it would almost certainly be because he felt obliged to keep in touch, now that they had re-established contact: if so, it could wait. And if it was someone Daniel had not spoken to for months, frankly he couldn’t be bothered.

The phone continued to ring, suggesting to Daniel either that the call was urgent or, more probably, that someone was calling for Lisanne: some neurotic author having a breakdown and needing desperutely to talk to her. That Lisanne had actually given out their home phone number ’in case of emergencies’ was something Daniel had never understood.

The phone kept ringing. Eventually, against his better judgement, he answered it, hoping like hell that it wasn’t some jumped-up wordsmith having kittens because he was ‘blocked’.

‘Hello, Daniel?’

He did not recognise the voice until the caller had identitied herself. It was Janice.

Thanks to some poor calculations on Daniel’s part, concerning both the distance between his home and Crouch End, and also an overestimation of his average walking speed, he was about twenty minutes late meeting Janice. Fortunately, the Acacia Tea-rooms, with its mix’n’match pre-war decor (which Daniel always likened to an ageing aunt’ s living room), was a pleasant place in which to while away an afternoon, and Janice was clearly not the least perturbed by his tardy arrival.

‘Hello, Daniel, how lovely to see you,’ she said, kissing him lightly on both cheeks. ‘You’re looking very well.’

‘Thanks. You’re not too shabby yourself.’

Janice laughed. ‘Oh dear, I’m sure that’s not the sort of thing you’d have said if you hadn’t spent an evening in Vince’s company recently. I swear these terrible expressions of his are contagious.’

Daniel sat down opposite Janice and beckoned one of the waiters over. The walk had made him thirsty, and he was looking forward to a pot of one of their speciality teas.

Ever since visiting Darjeeling on a photo-shoot some years previous, he had been a tea aficianado. Until then, tea - and in particular, chai (the commonly available drink served up all over the subcontinent, made from tea dust, powdered milk and copious quantities of sugar, boiled up together and strained through an oily rag) - had been something of a utilitarian beverage, something you drank more out of habit than intention.

But in Darjeeling all that changed. High up in the foothills of the mighty Himalayas, he photographed the cheerful teams of dark-skinned, brightly clothed women as they moved up and down the steep, verdant hills, picking the leaves by hand with all the swiftness and accuracy of automatons. The bright saris with their brilliant slashes of colour set against the deep, luminous emerald green of the tea bushes and the intense sapphire-blue mountain skies provided him with some of his all-time favourite shots.

And in the dilapidated, Victorian-era tea-rooms that could still be found, perched precariously on the edge of the town overlooking the valleys, he tasted the wondrous, fragrant tea - freshly brewed from the young, green leaves - and discovered that tea could be an exotic and refined beverage, with a variety of flavours and aromas that made it truly something special.

Although he had never since enjoyed a cup of tea to rival that which he had sampled in Darjeeling, the Acacia Tea-rooms was one of the few places locally that could provide a reasonable approximation to the real thing.

‘You know, it was great seeing Vince again,’ said Daniel. ’I felt guilty that it had been so long.’

‘You know very well that there’s no need to feel guilty where we’re concerned.’ Janice smiled, reached across the table and placed her hand gently on Daniel’s. ‘How’s Lisanne?’

‘She’s well... busy, as always.’

‘I must give her a call. Did you tell her you were meeting me?’

‘No, I just came straight here.’ Daniel paused, examining Janice’s face for clues. He had no idea why she had insisted they meet; why, in fact, she was being so mysterious. It was not, he thought, in character. ‘Janice, it is, of course, lovely to see you again but... well, what’s this all about?’

Janice nodded gravely, ‘I hope you won’t be angry with Vince: he told me all about the conversation the two of you had the other night. That’s why I thought I ought to see you.’

‘Ought?’

Janice was silent for a moment; Daniel could see her urgently trying to compose her thoughts.

‘I can’t begin to understand what you’ve been through, Daniel... the accident, I mean. Even now, all these months later, I’m sure it still hurts like hell, and I don’t suppose anyone will ever understand what that feels like. I can, however, appreciate that it must have turned your whole world upside down, thrown everything into confusion.’

‘You said it.’

‘Well, I’ve been through some pretty tough times myself. I don’t know if Vince ever told you about my sister?’

‘No, I didn’t even know you had a sister.’

‘She died about ten years ago. We were on holiday together and there was a terrible boating accident. I shan’t go into details, because they’re not important. What is important was that I was in the boat at the time. I escaped pretty much unharmed, but Mary drowned.’

‘I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

‘I tend not to talk about it; it’s a long time ago now.’

One of the waiters finally approached the table and Daniel ordered. He looked at Janice, at her large, soulful eyes, and for a moment felt a true empathy with her. It was an unfamiliar experience, for he had not previously experienced his own sense of loss as something that might be shared. He had held it to himself, clutching on to it with a sort of macabre desperation, the only thing he could salvage from the ghastly event that had nearly swept him out of this world for good, to become just one of other people’s sad, fleeting memories.

‘Death,’ said Janice with a solemnity that caught Daniel off guard, ‘affects people in different ways. Ever since Mary’s death I’ve been uncomfortable being around the bereaved, which is perhaps why I wasn’t much use to you when you came back from India. I’m really sorry about that now.’

‘Janice, you don’t need-’

‘No, not because I think I failed you. After all, one can only do what one is capable of, and the fact is that there was no way I could have helped you then. Or at least, I didn’t believe there was a way. It’s only since Vince told me about your conversation the other night that I’ve realised that I might be able to help you now.’

‘How do you mean?’ The tea arrived. Daniel poured for both of them while Janice stared out of the window, seemingly lost in thought. ‘Janice?’

‘What? Oh, sorry. Listen, Daniel, I’ve not spoken about this to anyone, for reasons that you will now probably appreciate.’

Janice raised her cup to her lips and sipped carefully. She gazed out through the window again, momentarily distracted. The brilliant blue skies that had accompanied Daniel’s walk had darkened, prefacing the onset of a summer storm, and the deep, reverberant rumblings of thunder boomed ominously in the distance. Within seconds the first few drops of rain splashed against the window pane, jolting Janice out of her reverie.

‘About a month after Mary died,’ she began, hesitantly, ’I had this remarkable dream. In the dream I found myself walking along a dry, dusty path. It was hot and sunny, and I seemed to be completely alone.’

Daniel’s interest was instantly aroused. Janice was not the sort of person to play games, and these first intimations of something so familiar caused his pulse to quicken. He leant forward and listened intently.

‘At first, I didn’t realise that it was a dream at all. It felt as if I was on holiday; you know, blue skies, hot sun... it was an automatic assumption. Anyway, eventually, having walked for a while, I came to a small, deserted café. It was so hot that I decided to rest for a while in the shade. It was incredibly peaceful; there was a stillness about the place, a particularly comforting quietness that I can remember to this day. Anyway, a waiter appeared and fetched a drink for me. I remember thinking how pleasant it all was, what a relief it was to be away from home and all the problems I had. I reached for the drink - coffee, it was - but as soon as I drank some, I blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was in bed at home. It was the middle of the night. Only then did I realise I’d been dreaming. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but then that night I dreamt about the same place. What’s more, the dream started where it had left off previously.’

Daniel could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘Was there a pump outside the restaurant?’ he asked urgently. ‘Like an old fashioned hand-pump? And Greek writing on the menu? And the owner was a tall American called Barry?’

A flash of lightning streaked across the rooftops opposite, attended moments later by a deafening report, an explosive crash of thunder that shook the windows. Janice stared at the rain streaming down the window.

‘No, no pump,’ she said distractedly, then returned her attention to Daniel. ‘No Greek either. And the owner, when I finally met him, was a German guy called Kurt. It was all rather odd.’

Daniel’s face fell. For a brief moment he had dared to believe the impossible: that someone else had visited Atheenaton. He sipped his tea unenthusiastically, having forgotten the raging thirst that had accompanied him into the tea-rooms.

‘But the thing is,’ continued Janice, so caught up in her recollections that she failed to register the disappointment on Daniel’s face, ‘it didn’t stop there. For several nights I returned to the same place. It was a small village set in this glorious, winda-heltered valley half-way up a mountain. And it was peopled with the most charming, friendly people. And whenever I was there I felt... well I felt great. But I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand what the place was. I didn’t understand how I could possibly be having this ongoing dream in which the same people always appeared. And I started to feel uncomfortable about it. Anyway, to cut a long story short, eventually I stopped dreaming of the village. But the memories of the place haunted me for weeks afterwards. In the end I went to see someone about it.’

Daniel frowned. ‘Someone? You mean a shrink?’

‘Janice smiled. ’A Jungian analyst, actually. I just had to talk to someone about it, and as I didn’t want to be treated like a lunatic I thought it best to discuss it with someone who understood dreams.’

‘And what did he tell you, this analyst?’ Daniel could not disguise the derision in his voice, but hoped Janice would not take offence.

‘Well, to be honest, he didn’t tell me anything specific about my dreams at all. He didn’t try to analyse or interpret them. Instead, he just allowed me to hypothesise about the village’s importance and what it might mean; you know the sort of thing: a safe haven where I didn’t feel threatened, an escape from reality and all that.’

Daniel nodded. ‘You’ll excuse me for saying so, but I could have told you that.’

‘Oh sure... like I said, he didn’t tell me anything revelatory. But he did make it seem okay to think about it, to question it. After the first few sessions I figured that, nice as it was to chat about these things, since the dream had stopped there wasn’t much point in carrying on. But this analyst insisted that we pursue the sessions for a short while.’

‘And how much he was charging, this analyst?’

Janice raised one eyebrow. ‘Your cynicism is misplaced. He didn’t charge me anything for the extra sessions. I think he was genuinely interested in my experience. He said it was rare, though not unique. He would talk about the place, the village, not as if it were imaginary, but as if it really existed. He said something about how he believed people co-created their dreams, that places in dreams are the active product of several dreamers.’