(1989) Dreamer (35 page)

‘Why don’t you have a driving lesson?’ she said.

‘Can I have your tickets please, Madam? Madam? Madam?’

Sam fumbled in her bag and pulled out the small folder. She put it down on the desk top.

The girl pulled the tickets out and frowned. ‘You’re late for that flight. It closed twenty minutes ago.’

‘I – the – traffic—’ she said lamely.

The girl reached under her desk and pulled out a phone. ‘I’ll have to ring through.’

Sam stood, waiting, looking around to see if Richard had arrived yet. No sign of him.

‘All right,’ said the girl. ‘You’re lucky. How many pieces are you checking through?’

‘Two.’ Sam heaved the bags onto the conveyor and the girl glanced at the weight on her dial. She peeled two numbers off the chart in front of her, stuck them onto two orange and white boarding cards, and handed them to Sam.

Sam glanced down and saw the number on the top one.

35A.

No.

Joke.

The check-in desk came towards her, banged her knees. She stumbled backwards, tripped over the nodding dog’s trolley, grabbed his shoulder and sent his cases flying.

The check-in girl was watching her strangely, oddly, hostile.

Sam’s face was burning hot. ‘I’m sorry . . . is it possible . . . different seats?’

‘Absolutely not,’ said the girl. ‘The flight is completely full.’

Sam saw the bags beginning to move along the conveyor, and she lunged forward and grabbed them, pulling them back onto the floor.

‘They’re checked through, Madam,’ said the girl.

Her mouth tasted as if she had bitten into a lemon, and she screwed up her eyes, feeling spikes shooting into her brain like splinters of glass, and held onto the desk top for support.

The girl was looking at her as if she was mad.

Don’t you realise? You stupid dumb check-in girl? Your plane’s going to crash? They’re all going to be . . . ‘You can have these back,’ Sam said. ‘I’m afraid – you see – we can’t go.’

‘We can’t resell the tickets for you, and they are not transferable.’

‘Fine, that’s fine.’ Sam dumped the boarding cards on the desk top, heaved the cases back onto her trolley, and started to battle her way back across the concourse.

She saw Richard, sprinting, dodging through the crowds, dressed as if he was off for a day’s shooting, in his sleeveless puffa, striped shirt and green cords, his face sweating.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

She felt her face redden, then a tear roll down her cheek.

‘Oh, shit. We’ve missed it?’

Sam nodded.

He looked at his watch. ‘Forty minutes. It doesn’t take off for another forty minutes. This is fucking ridiculous. I’ll get the manager. I’ve met the fucking guy who owns this airline. Tom Chartwell – he’s a friend of Archie’s. I’ll sort them out.’

‘No.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Want to what?’

‘I don’t want to get on the plane.’

‘What do you mean?’

She lowered her head, and pulled out her handkerchief. She squeezed her eyes shut against her tears, against her hopeless feeling of foolishness. ‘I can’t do it.’ She waited for his explosion. Instead, she felt his arms around her, warm and gentle.

‘You really are in a bad way, aren’t you? I thought that – the two of us going away together, y’know?’ He sighed.

Someone barged into them, and apologised. She scarcely noticed. ‘I want to,’ she said. ‘I do want to. But I can’t get on that plane. Something’s going to happen to it.’

There was a loud pop and the sound of splintering glass, right behind her.

She shrieked and spun round. Then she closed her eyes and breathed in, as she saw a man kneel down and stare ruefully at the golden brown liquid gushing from his dropped duty-free bag.

‘Are you going to tell them?’

‘Tell them?’

‘Yes,’ Richard said, almost shouting. ‘Tell them.’

She dabbed her eyes.

‘Are you, Bugs?’ he said harshly. ‘Are you going to bloody tell them? Why don’t you go and announce it over the tannoy? Tell them. Chartair flight CA29 is going to fucking crash?

She tried to think it through. Tried to imagine walking up to Airport Information. ‘Excuse me. I’ve had a dream a couple of times . . . well, actually about your plane that crashed – the one in Bulgaria. Well, you
won’t believe it, but I think this one’s a-goner too. You see, Slider, this hooded bogeyman has turned up twice, in two dreams, with this boarding card. 35A. Well, you see – that’s the card I was given for this flight, so it’s obvious, isn’t it?’

‘We could drive, Richard,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind, if you’re tired, doing the driving.’

‘Have you dreamed this plane’s going to crash?’ he asked.

‘I can’t get on it.’

‘Is it going to crash?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are you going to tell someone?’

‘Something’s going to happen, but I don’t know what. I don’t know if it’s going to crash – or—’

‘Bugs, I’ve got to get to Switzerland. I have to be there Monday morning. Things are getting—’ He looked around nervously at a policeman who was standing near them, and lowered his voice. ‘I could end up with everything bloody frozen; I’ve got to move quickly now. If you don’t want to come, I’ll go on my own.’

‘I do want to come . . . it’s twenty to three now. We could be in Dover in a couple of hours, take the ferry or the Hovercraft, drive through the night and we could be in Geneva by two or three in the morning. It’s Sunday tomorrow, and you haven’t got to be there until Monday.’

‘Montreux,’ he said.

‘It’s only a short way further.’

‘I was looking forward to a nice day tomorrow. I was hoping we could take a boat out on the lake.’

‘We can,’ she said.

‘Are we all right to drive?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘No weird dreams about driving?’

She wiped her eyes again. ‘No.’

She waited whilst he went to fetch the BMW and watched the cars and taxis that pulled up, emptying out people who put their arms up against the sheeting rain and sprinted for trolleys. There was a mocking laugh right behind her.

Slider’s laugh.

She turned around. A man’s suitcase had burst open, spilling its contents over the floor. He knelt down to scoop them up, and his companion laughed again. An unpleasant gloating laugh that went on and on, getting louder, until it was so loud it was deafening her and she couldn’t stand it any longer. She pushed her trolley away through the crowds, pushed it along the pavement, until she was past the shelter of the awning and on her own, a solitary figure drenched in the torrenting rain and in her fear.

The bed felt strange. Huge. Soft. Too soft. She moved slightly, heard the clank of a spring and felt a slight reverberation somewhere beneath her.

There was a warmth and brightness in the light that flooded into the room soaking up her waking fears. Headlights strobing past. Stiff policemen at the border.
Non!
You are the woman who dreams. You are not welcome in Switzerland. Why are you coming here? Please go away. Take your dreams away with you.

We are coming to ski.

You are not coming to ski. You are coming to fiddle with the great Swiss banking system.

Sunlight streamed in through the gap in the curtains and lit up a section of the wall to her right. There was a
faint whirring sound above her and a gentle draught of air. She looked up and saw the blades of a fan turning slowly.

She pulled herself up in bed a fraction, watching the fan warily, then fumbled on her bedside table for her watch. She felt the base of a lamp, then the leather strap, and picked up the Rolex, holding it dangling in front of her face, staring at the twin dials. It took her a moment to work it out. Eleven-forty. She had a slight headache, she realised, heaving herself further up and taking a sip of water, the same ache she seemed to have had for weeks, a dull pain that sometimes got turned up and was sharper, but never stopped. Her back was aching too, from the soft mattress, far too soft. It felt as if the bed had half collapsed under her.

The noise of the fan altered slightly, became a fraction louder, and she looked up at it again. It seemed to be wobbling as if it were loose.

She wondered where Richard was. The door to the bathroom was ajar but she could not hear any sounds from in there. She sipped some more water and looked around the room. A huge elegant room, grand and comfortably old-fashioned. Louis XIV furniture. A frieze of a bas-relief moulding around the ceiling. Soft pastel colours. A glass chandelier over the dressing table.

The noise above her became louder still, and she was nervous suddenly that the fan was going to fall down on top of her. Great. Terrific. Get killed by a ceiling fan that falls on you. She watched it, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. It was spinning faster; the draught was turning into a bitter howling blast. Her top sheet began to flap.

Christ.

It was wobbling more now and it still seemed to be
accelerating. Lines began to appear in the ceiling all around it, like veins in an old woman’s hands. They got thicker, wider, and the ceiling began to sag, to swell. It looked like a huge cracked eggshell. Bits of the plaster fell away, crashing down around her, spraying fine white powder all around. The fan lurched drunkenly, and dropped several feet.

She screamed.

It hung at a weird angle, the blades only inches above her head now. Wiring spewed out all around it, the ceiling sagging, more chunks of white plaster tumbling all around her, the icy wind from the blades whipping her hair against her face, making her eyes smart and her lips hurt; the blades sagged more, lowering every second, lowering down towards her.

She threw herself sideways, rolling in terror to get away, but the sheets wrapped around her like nets, winding tighter as she rolled. She flung her weight against the side of the bed, feeling the chunks of plaster dropping around her, damp, icy cold, striking her head, her neck; she pulled, twisted wildly and flung herself sideways again; she felt the bedclothes give, and then she was free, falling. She tried too late to put her arms out, and hit the carpet hard with her face, painfully, rolled across and kept rolling until she crashed into the skirting board.

Then there was complete silence.

She lay back, gulping down air, feeling the perspiration trickling down her face and her body. There was a jangle of keys, and the sound of a door opening. A deep woman’s voice, embarrassed, said ‘
Excusez-moi
.’ and the door was shut hastily.

A spring clanked, and she felt a slight reverberation somewhere beneath her. Something felt odd, strange, not quite right.

Bed? Was she still in bed? The fan was still clattering, but it was quieter now. She opened her eyes and stared fearfully around. The room was filled with soft warm light, diffused through the heavy curtains. Everything was normal, calm. There was no wreckage. Nothing damaged. She glanced warily up at the ceiling, frowned, blinked. There was no fan. No cracked plaster. Just a crystal chandelier and elegant moulding. But she could still hear a fan.

Puzzled, she tried to put her hand out to the light switch, but could not move it. It was caught up in the sheet. Her whole body seemed caught up in it, as if it had been tied around her like a straitjacket. She sat up with a start, panicking, then realised it was just trapped underneath her, and she pulled it free.

She heaved herself up a fraction then fumbled on her bedside table for her watch. She felt the base of a lamp, then the leather strap, and picked up the Rolex, holding it in front of her face, staring at the dials. Eleven-forty.

That had been the time in the dream. Had it been a dream? She looked around, feeling disorientated. Her head ached, she realised, heaving herself further up, and taking a sip of water. Her back was aching too, from the soft mattress, far too soft. It felt as if the bed had half collapsed under her.

The pitch of the fan changed slightly, and it began to make a clacking sound. She looked up at the ceiling again, then realised it was coming from the bathroom. She slid out of bed, padded across the soft carpet to the bathroom door and looked in at the massive white bathtub and twin basins. It smelled of soap and cologne and there was a warm damp haze. A huge white towel was lying on the marbled floor, and the bath was wet, as if it had recently been used. Richard’s paisley dressing gown was hanging on a hook on the door. Then she saw
the fan, a small extractor on the wall above the lavatory seat. It sounded much louder in here.

She glanced in the mirror at her face and was shocked how puffy and tired she looked. She switched off the light, and the fan’s motor cut out; the blades hummed, clacked a couple of times then stopped.

The silence felt strange, uncomfortable. She wrapped a towel around herself and walked across the room, drew the curtains and looked out of the window. Quiet, everything’s so quiet, she thought. She opened the window. It was mild, warm in the sunlight, more like spring than February. She leaned on the sill and stared out at Lake Geneva, at the vast expanse of water that felt more like an ocean than a lake, except it was completely flat, as if the water had been stretched taut between the shores, like a giant canvas. Beyond, through the hazy light, she could see the French Alps, snow-covered, with craggy brown patches. Somewhere over to the right, through the haze, was Lausanne. And beyond, out of sight, at the end of the lake, was Geneva.

Below her an elderly well-dressed man with a bright cravat was walking a tiny terrier down a wooden pontoon; he stopped to gaze at the speedboats and small yachts that were moored to it, motionless, like toys, then peered down at the water, studying it carefully, as if trying to spot something he had dropped. She smelt a sudden whiff of cigar smoke, then the tang of the lake, almost salty.

Her head twinged. What time had they arrived? She tried to remember. About three. They’d stood outside ringing the bell until an elderly, grumpy night porter had opened up, and grudgingly carried their bags in.

A church bell rang twice then faded away into the silence. Peace, she thought. Peace. She watched a boat, a long way out, a smudge moving through the haze.