Dream Guy (17 page)

“Why’d you want to know? Are you going to have a bitch-fight?” Liesel asked excitedly.

Nell crossed her eyes at Liesel and said, “Nooooo! I just want to tease them about it at school tomorrow.”

Having established that Nell simply wanted to embarrass Joe further, Liesel happily catalogued a list of about six girls who she claimed thought Joe was hot. Joe did his best to ignore the implausible tally of names Liesel had gathered.

* * * *

Back home, Liesel headed for the TV. Upstairs, Nell watched as Joe repainted the piazza with arcade, food-laden table and train for the third time. This time there was no statue in the center of the picture, although he did include the female head that had appeared there. Then Joe took the other two pictures he’d drawn and carefully tore them up into tiny pieces.

“What time is it?” asked Nell when he’d finished.

He looked at his watch. It was half-past six. Nell noted it in her diary. “Let’s see what time Smokey comes out of his coma.”

A wave of disbelief suddenly swept over Joe. The last week began to seem to him so much nonsense, a bizarre fantasy game that he had somehow conned Nell into playing.

Nell continued her thought. “We have to find out how he got the drugs.”

Joe sat back in his chair, twizzling round slowly on its stem, his long legs dangling, his arms folded tight against his body. “Do we? Why?”

“So that we can work out how to put them back.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Because he’s already sold a shed-load, and we can’t replace what has gone.”

“You could draw the stuff that’s missing.”

“I just don’t see the point.” Joe knew he was being obstructive, but he couldn’t admit just how scared he was.

“We could sit back and wait, or we could go back and see if we can work out where he got the drugs,” Nell offered.

“Enough with the Nell Brennan, Girl Detective act. We’re not looking for the drugs. They came from someone giving them to Smokey for some reason and probably expecting payment. And do you know who I think gave them to him?”

“Who?”

“That doctor. Dolon. The guy who’s treating Smokey. He’s the guy I was talking about, Nell, but this time he’s outside the dream world and in real life. How does that work?”

Of course Nell asked whether Joe was totally, absolutely, utterly sure. He didn’t say anything, just rolled his eyes and huffed as he might do when his mother was on his case.

“At least you’ve got a name to work on, then.” Nell glanced again at her watch, then said that she needed to get home. Joe followed her downstairs, where he shrugged on his coat.

“What are you doing?”

“Coming with you. There’s no way you’re going home alone in the dark.”

“What are you? My mother?”

“No, but my mum would go mental if I let you go on your own.” He went into the kitchen where Ben and Liesel were sitting together drinking tea.

“I’m walking Nell home. I’ll be about half an hour.”

The walk was awkward. Nell wanted to start in on investigating Dolon, but something about the doctor made Joe’s skin crawl and he wanted nothing more to do with Smokey or Dolon.

“There’s Karabashi. I need to find out more about how this dream thing works before I get tangled up in any more stuff.”

Nell snorted when they reached the end of her street. “I can make it on my own from here.”

Joe nodded. Nell paused, looked hard at Joe, then turned and walked away.
In a movie
, thought Joe,
I’d have grabbed her and kissed her
. And if he had kissed her, she’d have kicked him or slapped him. Because this wasn’t a movie and Nell was intrigued by his situation, but not so much by him, he watched as she went through the little gate and into her front garden. He waited until he heard the door close behind her, then he ran back home.

Chapter Fourteen

Feast for Beasts

Back home, Joe had no time to himself. Mrs. Knightley was there, chopping vegetables, asking about Smokey and his mother, getting Liesel to lay the table, Joe to get drinks and Ben to stir the sauce, inquiring about Joe’s homework and eventually, casually mentioning the phone call she’d received from Mrs. Elphick that afternoon. Having poured out juice and water for the rest of the family, Joe slumped in his chair and did his best to evade his mother’s gaze.

“She’s genuinely worried about you, Joe. She said you’d been getting into fights.”

Ben’s eyes switched from his mother to Joe.

“There’s been a bit of hassle. Nothing I can’t handle.”

Liesel had stopped chucking the cutlery onto the table and was now positioning each piece with delicate precision.

“She said you’d been falling asleep in class.”

“I’ve just been a bit tired.”

“She thinks I should take you for a blood test, see if you’ve picked up mono.”

“You only get mono from kissing, and no one would ever kiss Joe,” said Liesel. Ben barked at her to go upstairs until she’d learned when to keep her trap shut. Both Mrs. Knightley and Joe snorted as Liesel wailed that he was really mean then shot out of the room. He muttered about good riddance then turned back to the stove and the sauce.

“So, Joe, fights, flaking out in class, friends falling into drug-induced comas…” The garlic under his mother’s cleaver was being pulverized almost to pulp under the forceful rhythm of her chopping. “I think I’d be negligent if I wasn’t concerned. Don’t you?”

“The fight thing was just Charlie Meek being stupid. Then a couple of his sheep thought it would be a good idea to play the same game.” Joe wanted to go no further. Neither his mother nor Ben would be happy to hear the reason for the scraps. Ben was hardly going to give up Zahid because having an openly gay brother made life uncomfortable for his little brother. Besides, however uncomfortable it made Joe feel, Ben’s sex life wasn’t really his business, even if it did get him into fights.

“And the sleeping thing?”

Joe had no ready answer for that one. Ben spoke. “It’s probably hormones, I should think. Joe’s growing like he’s swallowed magic beans. His voice has broken. He’s all over the place. I was a bit like that. Remember?”

“I certainly don’t remember calls from your anxious teachers about catching forty winks during lesson times.”

“I just never got caught. It’s a wonder more kids don’t fall asleep. Terminal moraines and the periodic table aren’t exactly gripping Most of the teachers in that place make ditchwater look like a zappy little cocktail.”

“Which brings us back to Smokey.”

“I told you everything I know last night, Mum. We haven’t been talking much to each other recently. He’s been getting into some stuff he shouldn’t have. Anyway, he doesn’t think I’m cool enough anymore, and he ignores me.”

Ben spoke up. “Joe’s on the money. Silas Murphy is a user and a loser. He tries to use people and he’s definitely into drugs. If he thinks Joe has something he wants, he’ll hassle him, but otherwise, Joe’s just too straight for Smokey’s kind of shit.”

Mrs. Knightley scooped up the garlic and put it into a jar with several tablespoons of olive oil and a splash of vinegar. She screwed the top on tight and shook it hard.

“I don’t know what to say to Maria. She’s terrified of telling Denny what the real problem is. He just thinks Smokey collapsed. She’s managed not to let on about the habit just yet—or the dealing. He was away on some golfing thing the whole weekend and had a work crisis as soon as he got back, on top of all this.”

Joe stood up and went over to the counter where his mum had left the lettuce in a dryer. He found the salad bowl and started tearing the lettuce and dropping it in. His mother handed him the salad dressing jar and turned her attention to the oven to check the chicken she’d been roasting.

“How did you leave things with Elphick?” asked Ben.

“I said I’d get Joe tested for mono. We agreed that we didn’t think he was on drugs and she said that Charlie Meek was facing yet another exclusion for some other misdemeanor, so hopefully the fighting will be curbed. She said that Joe was a target, not an initiator, and she wasn’t having that. She’s tough as old boots and not putting up with any further disruption with her school, thank you very much. You’d think she owned it. What does that head figure do? Sit in his office all day twiddling his thumbs?”

“He’s never there,” said Ben and poured the sauce into a jug with a flourish before dumping the pan in the sink and carrying the jug to the table. Then he drained the vegetables while their mother carved the chicken.

“You’d better go up and make you peace with Liesel, Ben. Get her down here as quickly as you can.”

Once they were all at the table, Liesel still pink about the eyes, Joe was grateful when the conversation veered away from school and him and onto Christmas and the hope that David Knightley might make it back in time for Christmas Eve. It was about five weeks away. Liesel began compiling a wonderful list for Santa, composed chiefly of plastic junk she had seen on TV, and Ben kept coming up with additional items of such sparkling pink girliness that Joe and his mother pretended to retch violently.

As soon as supper was over and cleared up, Joe went up to his room with his mother’s approval. “And turn that light out promptly, Joe. It’s the only way to crack this sleep issue. I don’t want any more phone calls from Ms. Elphick.”

He only had a couple of pages reading to do for the next day. He was in bed with the light out by nine-thirty, his eyes closed by nine-thirty-one.

When he opened them again, he was standing in a doorway leading to an enormous banqueting hall. The walls were hung in red damask, with gilded pillars on one side framing great swathes of red taffeta curtain that concealed huge windows. On the opposite wall, between each set of pillars, hung four immense tapestries in rich greens and blues. Beneath the tapestries were sideboards laden with four punch bowls of beaten silver, each shaped into the likeness of a cornucopia of fruits, matched in abundance by the platters of real fruit that punctuated the table with a tumble of apricots, peaches, grapes, strawberries, cherries and lemons, their peels razored off into crazy spirals. Joe was mesmerized by the length of the table and the variety of its contents. He saw peacock and swan, each dressed in its own feathers, suckling pig, hams, pies, pasties, jellies and marzipan favors shaped like chess pieces. He saw puce lobsters, crabs furled tight, melons cut and whole, capon, woodcock and, glinting between the food, crystal glasses blown in fabulous colors—cough medicine pink, lime green and turquoise, ewers of silver and crystal, chased gold goblets and salvers, knives with elaborately carved ivory handles. As the flames from hundreds of candles in sconces and in the two great chandeliers over the table flickered and spat, their reflections danced in the gleaming silverware and great mirrors.

He took a tentative step into the great room, terrified that someone would hear him or see him and tell him off. He looked up at the ceiling and saw it was vaulted into three sections, each one painted in scenes from Greek mythology. He could make out the strict stance of Artemis, her head sporting a bandeau with a crescent moon above her forehead, linen held up to conceal her shapely torso as she pointed at an abject Actaeon, discovered spying on the squealing maidens who attended their mistress at her bathing. In the center, the Olympians gazed calmly on as Persephone was restored to Demeter. Joe twisted around to look again at the tapestries, which displayed scenes of country life—a milkmaid at her post in an abundant copse just outside a wealthy village, a hunter preparing to fire his arrows at a skipping hare, a rural dance and a shepherd tending his flock.

Joe had been dragged occasionally to National Trust country houses by his mother, but he’d never taken much notice of the rooms. He could not remember seeing anything like this extraordinary abundance of food and art and artifacts. It was like stepping onto a movie set, but there were no actors, no cameras, no sound at all, just the disconcerting thump of his own heart. He took another step forward, then another, until he was standing at the table. He reached out to see if the food was real. He was not planning to eat anything, simply to squeeze a fruit. Then he heard a distant hubbub and he was paralyzed by the prospect of discovery. The doors at the far end of the room opened inward, and a crew of men burst in. They were not guests. They were serving men and boys bearing still more food, cakes and sweetmeats, cheeses, bread, great platters of vegetables, all laughing and joking and apparently oblivious of Joe standing in their midst. He listened to their chat, and as with Karabashi, he had no difficulty in understanding their speech, even though they were not speaking anything resembling modern English.

“What time is his lordship expected to sit down?” asked a crooked man, hunched and twisted.

His neighbor, stout and short with warts on his nose, replied, “At once, I hear. He’s starving. His guests are starving. He’s furious with Master Perkin, and the only thing that will soothe that savage breast is the finest feast our kitchen has ever seen, or we’ll pay for it with our hands and our heads.”

“He’ll cut them off?”

“Yes, and cook them up for a broth or a stew afterward, I’ve no doubt.”

The tide of men flowed around Joe, tweaking here, rearranging there, adjusting the contents of the table and the bottles and the urns around the room with purpose. They did not wish to lose their limbs in the service of their lord. If he was such a tyrant, Joe wondered why they continued working for him, but before he could pursue the thought, another man entered the room, and they all snapped into position. This man was blubbery and voluble, with a drooping moustache and drooping eyes and drooping nose, all hauling his face southward like guy ropes on a marquee. He walked down one length of the table then up the other, his inspection minute and accompanied by a commentary grumbled through his dark whiskers.

“Dolts, incompetents, fools, idiots, puny sheep-biting indigents, slobbering malmsey-swillers… How can I be expected to serve my art and my master when I am surrounded by malingering malcontents and butter-fingered wastrels?” He twisted around and grabbed a boy by the ear, twisting it until the child, several years younger than Joe, was howling and hopping. “You, you bloated, beetle-brained bladder! You’ve been sitting on your arse all day, snaffling titbits from all the trays, and yet you can’t be trusted with a simple arrangement of apples and pears.” He dropped the boy and lashed out at another servant then another, clipping one about the head, backhanding another, shouting in one’s face, covering his victim with frothing spittle. The spectacle made Joe feel nauseous and repelled, but he still seemed invisible.