Dream Paris (10 page)

“I can’t. I have to look after Anna. I’m taking her to find her mother.”

“I don’t need looking after,” I muttered.

The children didn’t pay me any attention. They were completely enthralled by big, strong Francis.

“Well, at least take off that pack, mister! The clowns will follow you!”

“I need to wear the pack. If I don’t, how will other people know how to find their way home?”

The children looked at each other, they looked down the length of the wire. Oliver touched it, and hope bloomed in his pale, dirty face.

“Listen,” I said, “this gate out of this city. Where is it?”

“There are lots of gates. Watling Gate, Ermine Gate, Fosse Gate… I don’t remember the rest.”

“The Watling Gate!” I said. “That’s the one we need.”

Francis never questioned how I knew that. I’d guess he thought I remembered it from Dream London.

“The Watling Gate?” said Emily. “You’re almost there! Follow this road, it’s only five minutes’ walk. But, please, take off the pack!” Emily looked terrified.

“I can’t.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him. Nor was Emily. She folded her arms and gave us the benefit of her young wisdom.

“Then, whatever you do, don’t listen to the clowns! If they speak to you, cover your ears! They’re so persuasive! They’ll convince you that they’re doing you a favour, you’ll accept what seems like a good turn and then they’ll end up owning your soul.”

Oliver had seen something at the edge of the street. I saw it too. Shapes, moving towards us. And now I heard the faint shriek and chatter of monkeys.

“Emily! They’re coming! We have to go!”

“Follow the wire!” said Francis.

The children darted off, back into the house. I didn’t watch them go, I didn’t want to give away where they’d gone. I looked at Francis.

“Five minutes to the gate, they said. Can you jog with that thing on your back?”

“I’ll try.”

We set off down the road. The slope was to our advantage, and I followed Francis, staying to the right of the wire that played out behind him.

We hurried on down the road. The terraced houses rose higher on either side of us, eight, nine stories high now, casting a gloomy shadow over the road.

“The gate!” said Francis.

There it was. An arch of red brick at the end of the street. Beyond it I could see nothing but fields, glowing fluorescent green in contrast to the increasingly dim street.

“Come on! Last dash!”

My words were almost drowned out in a sudden cacophony of hooting and hooping. Red fruit splattered onto the road in front of us.

“Keep going,” said Francis. “They’re trying to slow us down.”

I glanced behind and saw why. Two black and white clowns were walking down the hill behind us, following the wire. They were moving faster than we were, their odd, jerky motion carrying them along at speed.

We pushed on, the red fruit splattering over our bodies, our faces. Sticky juice ran down my face, my neck, between my breasts, soaking into my bra. Still we pushed on, the gate coming closer, a widening arch of green light. And there, standing before it, two more black and white shapes. Two more dolls.

“Keep going,” said Francis. “Right through the gate.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t…” He was jerked backwards, landing on his backside on the cracked tarmac. Further up the road blue monkeys were turning somersaults in delight, they were cheering on their cousins as they took hold of the wire and began to slowly pull Francis back up the street.

“Dump the pack!” I shouted. Francis ignored me. He reached to one of the shoulder straps of the pack and pulled. There was a searing crackle and the monkeys shrieked and began to dance around, sucking at their hands.

“Go!” called Francis.

Too late. The two porcelain clowns had caught us up, and I recognised them for what they were. Pierrots, like in the pantomime. One of them reached out a hand to Francis.

“
Let me help you up
.” The Pierrot’s face didn’t move, the eyes, the lips were painted on the white china, just like the dolls from earlier. The voice echoed from somewhere inside the porcelain skull. It made me think of a jewelled insect trapped inside there, its buzzing wings amplified by the head. “
Take my hand!
”

“I’m fine,” said Francis, struggling to his feet.

“
Do you know where you’re going? Do you need directions?
”

Their immobile faces tilted, as if they were miming speech.

“We’re fine, thank you,” I said.

“
We have food, if you’re hungry.
”

“
Or we can show you where there is water if you need to fill your bottles.
”

“We’re okay,” said Francis.

We marched onwards, heading towards the gate. The Pierrots fell into step beside us.

“
You’re leaving the city? Why not rest for a while first? We can arrange transport to wherever you’re going.
”

“
Or perhaps we could give you directions?
”

“We’re quite okay, thank you.”

We were almost at the gates. The two Pierrots who waited there stepped forwards and joined in the gentle persuasion.

“
You’re leaving the city? Have you considered how dangerous it is out there? We can offer you a range of options to minimize the risk as you travel.
”

I looked out of the gate, out at the greenness beyond. I’d already had enough of the red brick of Dream London, the dust and the rubble, the chatter of the monkeys, the exotic perfume smell.

“Stand aside, please,” said Francis to the Pierrot that had moved in front of him.

“
Why not just…
”

Francis didn’t stop walking, he simply shouldered it aside. It fell back onto road, silk costume getting covered in street filth as it rolled, head cracking nastily on the ground. I followed Francis, under the arch and out of the gate, out into the greenness beyond.

DREAM KENT

H
AVE YOU EVER
wondered about where cities begin?

One time I went to the States with my parents. We visited New York for a few days before going to stay in a lovely little town in New England, all clipped grass and white painted houses, and all I could do is wonder how the two places were connected. If you were to walk from that pretty town, I wondered, where would New York start? Not in a solid wall of skyscrapers, surely, but rather in a gradual way. A building here, a petrol station there, a row of houses.

Not here. The red brick dust and pollen-scented sprawl of this annex of Dream London ended in a five-storey wall of haphazardly piled red bricks. On one side, broken buildings wrapped in vines; on the other, emerald fields glowing in the bright Dream sunshine, the stripes of green grass and yellow crops, red flowers and waving rows of corn extending to the horizon.

The country wasn’t a place for clowns or monkeys. We’d passed beyond their interest. Looking back through the gate, I could see the street had already emptied.

“They’ve gone,” gasped Francis. “We’ve left their territory.”

He seemed pleased with himself; it took some time for him to register the look I was giving him.

“What’s the matter?”

“Why the hell didn’t you let go of your pack? We could have been killed!”

His face shifted to that quiet, emotionless expression I’d seen before.

“Why do you think I’m here, Anna?”

“To protect me.”

“Yes. And that won’t be done until I’ve returned you safely to London. How am I supposed to do that if I don’t know the way back?”

“We don’t need that wire to find our way back! Through the gate, across one street, follow the canal…”

“Things change in Dream London! You told me that!”

“What’s the point of having a route back if we’re both dead? What if someone were to cut the wire? What if someone were to just walk into it?”

“They said not to worry about that. It would be okay.”

“And you didn’t question them?”

“I’ve not spent much time in the Dream World. Things are different here.”

“That pack isn’t just different. It’s weird.”

He didn’t care. He didn’t want to admit he was wrong, that was the problem. He folded his arms, put on the
older experienced man talking to a silly young woman
voice.

“A soldier without a rifle is no use, Anna. I ditch this pack, and I’m no use.”

“Doesn’t it get a bit boring, always being right?” But then I noticed the pack, I noticed the way he was standing.

“What’s the matter now?” he asked.

“How much does that weigh now?”

“I don’t know. About the same…”

He got it.

“I don’t understand it,” I said, half to myself. Francis was flexing his knees, bobbing up and down, weighing the pack. “It looks as full as ever. Although…”

“What?”

“Things changed in Dream London. Mobile phones stopped working, electric lamps became gaslights. Something’s happening to your pack, I think…”

I felt the edge of an idea. The roads moved around in Dream London. A path that was three feet long one night might be three miles long the next morning. I looked at the wire, and I imagined something, not something that unwound, but rather a lengthening path…

The wind blew, filling me with a delicious scent of freshness, of lavender and fresh baked bread. Of the salt sea and the open sky, and of everything good and natural in the world. Too good. Nothing was natural in the Dream World. Like a darling little organic café in the heart of the city, naturalness was something to be carefully cultivated.

Francis was gazing into the distance.

“How far was it from London to the channel?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It used to take about an hour to drive. Sixty miles or so?”

“That’s what I thought. I can see the sea.”

He was right. There it was, a silver line, just tucked between the land and the sky. Why hadn’t I noticed that?

“That’s not four miles away,” he said.

“The geography changes in the Dream World. Come on.”

“Hold on! How do you know that’s the right way?”

“Because, unlike most
girls
, I have excellent spatial awareness.”

“Don’t be sarcastic. I only asked.”

“Look, over there on the hill?” You could see it, blue on the horizon, a tiny castle perched just before the sea. “Remember what it said on the fortune?
Walking towards the ruined castle on the hill, furious at your companion?
”

“Why are you furious at me?”

“Time of the month,” I snapped. I was old enough to bleed, after all. And he was foolish enough to believe me.

T
HE COUNTRYSIDE HAD
been rucked up like a carpet. No, I’ve got a better analogy: it had been pulled apart, like toffee. All of the fields of that other Kent were pulled wide so that they stretched out in the middle, they became narrower and narrower, bringing the coast closer. We walked across stripes of elongated field, the hot Dream sun shimmering on bands of cabbages, rape, poppies, wheat. The narrow bands passed in orderly succession, a haze of little black flies hovering above the crops: tall tulips, yeasty smelling hops, yellow corn. There was no sound but that of our feet, of the whirring as the wire unwound from the pack that Francis adamantly refused to discard. I kept turning to look back at that wire, stretching out to be lost in the distance, reassured by the thought that back there lay the city gate, then the streets, then the canal, then the bridge, and then home.

“What’s the matter, Anna?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not true. Why do you keep being rude to me?”

“I’m not being rude,” I said.

“If I’ve upset you somehow, you should tell me. It’s not good to brood on things.”

We walked in silence past a field of black and white roses, spider webs stretched between the blooms, the pack whirr-whirring away.

I stole a glance at Francis, plodding patiently beside me.

“Why did you become a soldier?” I asked.

“Left school at sixteen. Wanted to serve my country.”

He wanted to serve his country.

“You never thought about staying on at school?”

“I don’t think they’d have had me,” he laughed. “I used to be in trouble all the time. Never paid attention in class. I was a fool, though, I see that now. You’re doing the right thing. Studying for university. Science, too. You must be clever.”

“I am,” I said. I can’t abide false modesty.

“Your parents must have been proud.”

“Not quite.”

I remembered my father.
Physics? You’ve got a good mathematical mind. What’s wrong with finance
? He’d laugh, he’d wave his hand around our expensively decorated house.
Knowing about quarks and string theory won’t earn you enough to buy all this.

“Were your parents proud of you when you joined the Army?”

“My mum was. I don’t really know my dad. He left when I was little.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“Oh, once or twice. He lives with a woman and her three kids down in Margate. She’s alright.”

“Okay.” More silence. “Do you like the Army?”

“Love it. Taught me how to look after myself. Great mates. Great laughs. Better than being stuck working in a supermarket. And you’ve got to do your bit.” He scratched his nose. “’Course, it’s different when you’ve got a little one. And I’ve got ’Chelle to look after now.”