Dream On (33 page)

Isabel and Cecilia got on like sisters separated at
birth, the downside of this being that Isabel claimed that seeing baby Chloe
had made her 'all broody'. She'd been particularly enthusiastic for sex ever
since, and that made Dave wary; Harley was enough for him, he didn't really
want another child. Janice and Max were providing him with a brother or sister;
Dave didn't see why he should have to, as well.

He was happy with Isabel, though, as long as she
stayed on the pill. But then he'd bumped into Ariel's dad the other day, and
he'd said she'd emailed about possibly coming home for a short visit.

Ariel, coming home.

Despite Dave's successful resolve to buck up his
ideas and stop thinking about some time, way ahead in the future (
maybe in five
or ten years, she'd said
) when they might be together again, the thought of
her coming home still put the butterflies back in his stomach.

That was when it all started to happen.

Everything started to come together, just like
before.

Dave was waiting, at twenty past seven on that
bright summer morning, for Phil Wiseman to pick him up for work; his car was
off the road, yet again. That wasn't a problem, though; he could get it
fixed. He'd kissed a still sleeping Isabel goodbye, and left early, because he
wanted to have a think.

It was happening again.

The indications were all there, just as they had been two
years before.

There was talk of Ariel coming back. Okay, it was
just talk, it was just for a quick visit - anyway, he was with Isabel now
(though he was still his own man, of course), and for all he knew Ariel might
have a boyfriend; hopefully not that slimy dickhead Will Corrigan. But the
fact remained that there was a possibility of her return, and when Ariel was
coming back, magical things happened.

It was a bit like Narnia, he thought, when you
heard that Aslan was on the move; he'd been reading
The Lion, The Witch, and
The Wardrobe
to Harley the other day, and it had made him realise that
Ariel was magic, too.

As well as this wonderful news, Ritchie had a new
mate called Howie who was a shit hot guitarist, even better than Shane. He
wasn't a bad lad, either. Dave was a bit worried about the way that Ritchie
seemed to almost idolise him, but he'd promised himself not to think any of
that sort of stuff about Ritchie. Even though he'd put up this new Kylie
Minogue mirror in the kitchen, and - well,
those
sort of men, they always
liked Kylie, didn't they?

Anyway, best not to think about that.

And then the third thing happened. If he'd had any doubt
that things were starting to fall into place again, that it was just his
imagination running away with him, his mind was made up when, the other night,
he'd received a phone call from none other than Boz!

Boz had told him all about the farce that was
Genital Warthog, said he was thinking about moving on, that he might head back
to Fennington for a while, see what was going down. He'd been surprised that
Dave hadn't got a new band together; of course, Boz needed to earn some proper
money, too, but he hadn't played any decent music in ages and if Dave heard of
anything that might interest him, or wanted to get together again, he might
stick around, find somewhere to live back down there again.

See?

Dave knew he only had to wait, and
the signs
would appear.

Almost immediately, they did just that.

Isabel said people should listen to the universe
speaking to them, and so listen to the universe Dave had.

First of all, when Harley had been over last
weekend, he'd told him about a fancy dress party he was going to; could they go
to a fancy dress shop and look at some costumes?

Dave had thought he'd want to go as Spiderman, or a
zombie, perhaps, but no; he wanted to go as a Red Indian. Native American,
Isabel said you had to call them, these days. Harley had tried on the gear
when he got home, and Isabel had looked up some pictures on Google Images and
practised painting his face for him with her make-up.

He looked cool. He started rushing around, really
excited, as if he was a real Red Indian kid, making whooping sounds like on the
old fashioned western films, though Dave was sure he'd never seen one.  When
he'd had to take the outfit off to go to bed, he'd cried, and said he wanted to
wear it all the time.

"Perhaps he was a Native American in a former
life," said Isabel, who believed in all that sort of thing, too, which was
another good thing about her.

Then, later that night, they'd been watching
something on BBC2 about old punk bands, and Siouxie and the Banshees had been
on.

Sioux.

The next day he, Isabel and Harley had gone round
to his mother's for Sunday lunch. When Yvonne Bentley cooked Sunday lunch she
always listened to her favourite 'golden oldies' radio show. As Dave walked
into the kitchen to greet her, that morning, the song being played was an old
favourite by The Shadows.

Apache.

In the afternoon he and Harley had been looking
through the atlas, so he could show him where Ariel's cruise ship was (this was
when Isabel was helping his mother with the washing up, of course). They'd
ended up looking at the pages of North America, too, because Harley couldn't
believe how big it was, and for some reason Dave's eyes had fallen on Wyoming.

The capital of which was
Cheyenne.

It couldn't be just a coincidence, could it?

Sioux, Apache, Cheyenne.
The signs.

If, as Isabel had suggested, Harley was a
reincarnated Red Indian, then perhaps he was, too. As well as his other past
life as a Viking, of course.

Back at home that evening when Isabel was doing girl
stuff of some sort, plucking her armpits or whatever it was they took so long
in the bathroom doing, he started reading up about Red Indians on the internet.

They weren't so different from Vikings, were they? Apart from the fact that they were the conquered, rather than the invaders, of
course. Kind of a massive difference, really. But they were a fierce race,
proud and fearless, with their own gods, their own lore and beliefs, just like
the Norsemen.

Even as he looked at the pictures, read about their
history, Dave Bentley could hear the words and melodies begin to float around
his head, a sensation that had eluded him for so long. He could hear the
haunting cries of a young Apache warrior, on his horse, looking at his lands
laid waste by the white man.
Yes!
The magic had returned, his
creativity had been given a kick start, just like before.

That morning, waiting for the Phil Wiseman Construction van
to pick him up, Dave lit a cigarette, lifted his head to the cloudless sky,
narrowed his eyes as he imagined himself as that Apache warrior, gazing out onto
a vast, empty landscape, and experienced a moment of pure happiness.

He had it! The inspiration had come back, and this time,
with Ritchie, Boz, and this Howie guy, it was all going to germinate, flourish,
in the way that Thor had not been given a chance to do.

Glenn Hunter saying, "You're better than you realise, mate."

Yes, this time, they were going to make it!

He'd even thought of the name of the band.

TOMAHAWK!

He couldn't wait to tell the others all about it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. On the next page, Amazon will give
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tell your friends about it. Thanks! -TT

You may also be interested in
Terry Tyler's
other titles:

You Wish

Nobody's Fault

The Other Side

Terry is now working on a sequel to
"Dream On"
,
which should be out in early 2013.

Happy reading!