Dreamside (20 page)

"The
baby was whole, pure, clean; and beautiful.
So beautiful that
I remember sobbing over her, from exhaustion and relief.
Then the dream
broke."

Ella let
out a deep breath. "You went through it alone.
All
alone."

"There's
no midwifery there, Ella."

"But
we went back there. We could never find you. Or you never came."

"I
never came to you. But I couldn't stop it. On dreamside I grew bigger, even
though there was nothing physical showing here. I carried it. I carried it and
I delivered it."

"But
you never told me anything. We could have helped. We could have done
something."

"But I
didn't want you, Ella. Not any of you, and least of all him. God, I can't even
speak his name. I delivered the child in that place, under that tree, and I did
it with a scream and a curse that had the place shivering. God help me, when
that child came out I named it a curse on him, a blasted curse in all the mess and
pain and blood. I know it was a terrible thing to do, and I know that curses
come back on you, but that's what I felt. I cursed it in his name and I cursed
him in its name.

"Remember
that time on dreamside when you swore at Brad— and didn't he deserve it!—but it
came out like a real thing? Words like real things? Well, I did the same and I
offered the tiny soul of that dreamside baby to the curse I put on Brad
Cousins."

"But
in the end it's only words, Honora. Words are not real things. They're only
words."

"Not
on dreamside they're not. Words
are
things there. I cursed the baby and
I washed it, and then I wished the baby away. Then the dream broke."

"As they always did."

"Yes."

"And
did you ever go back?"

"Never voluntarily.
I
was dragged back. I don't know if something was pulling me or whether I was
unconsciously driving myself back there to look for it. Anyway, it was never
there."

Ella gazed
thoughtfully at the cathedral spire pricking at the blue sky. "Do you
still go to mass?" she asked suddenly.

What?
You're joking. I haven't been since."

"Since
it all happened?"

"Yes."

"You
used to be a strong Catholic; do you think this could be why you keep returning
to dreamside?"

"I
never said I did."

"No,
you never said you did. Honora, you should go to mass."

Honora
shook her head, puzzled.

"I see
it.
Tomorrow's Good Friday.
You must go to Catholic
Mass."

"Don't
you go making plans for
me.
I haven't been near a
church since my university days and I'll not go to one tomorrow
nor
any other day."

"It's
important. I know it!"

"Listen
to you!
An atheist, telling me to get to church!"

"I'm
not claiming to be a believer; for you it's different."

"I
lost my faith years ago, and I feel better off without it, thanks all the
same."

"I
don't believe it; you know what they say, 'once a Catholic' . . ."

"What
do
you
know about being a Catholic?"

"I
know that you've had an experience that might be enough to derange someone
else, and that you're still carrying around terrible feelings about that baby
you lost-"

"Aborted.
"

"That's
your word, not mine. And it's exactly the point: you can't come to terms with
that guilt, so back you go to dreamside, night after night, trying to deal with
it, wanting to block it out so much you think or dream or know you've delivered
on dreamside. I'm talking
about guilt
Honora, something your church
knows all about, and it offers you a way out. I'm the first person you've told
in thirteen years. You've got to find someone you can confess it to, someone
who means more to you than me. You've got to go to confession!"

"That's
all very pat; but you've no understanding of the things you're speaking about.
For one, I've no faith and no
belief,
it doesn't mean anything
to me any more—"

"Maybe
not consciously; but isn't that the point?"

"And
secondly, you've no conception of what it means to walk into confession and
cheerfully announce, besides a few venial slips, an avalanche of mortal sin. Oh
no Father I haven't been to mass in thirteen years, no not even on Good
Fridays, and then there's this small matter of the abortion or induced
miscarriage call it what you will, and besides that the wee question of
attempted suicide.
Everyone a roaster, guaranteed apoplexy
for the priest.
Forget it."

"It's
your only way out."

"Ella,
I said forget it."

They drove
back to Lee's house in gloomy silence. Lee was dumb enough to ask what was
wrong.

"Talk
to her," Ella said as soon as Honora's back was turned, "she's more
open to you."

But Ella
finally relayed the whole story, while Honora sulked in her room. Lee sat in
silence and despaired. He was beginning to have serious doubts about
everything. He understood that Honora was neurotic and began to have second
thoughts about Ella's state of mind. He was afraid of the drama these two mad
women were creating, and wanted to stay well clear. Ella was still applying her
usual methods to force him into carrying out her will. He was looking for a
suitable opportunity to put his foot down, and thought that this was it.

"I'm
not sure what you're asking me to do," he said, "but if she's saying
no to the idea, then it just won't work."

"
It's
guilt; honest, natural, inevitable, abscess-forming
guilt. It just needs draining. Lance it with confession, out comes the pus,
stitch it up. That's what the Catholic Church is for, and that's what she's
missing. End of dreams. Talk to her; she'll listen to you."

"If
she says she doesn't believe any more, then you have to accept it. You can't
resurrect people's faith for them. It's not like renewing your membership down
at the tennis club."

"She's
a Catholic; she's not Sunday School C of E like us. It's scorched into them
from an early age."

"I won't ask her to do it."

"What's
the matter with you? It makes no difference if she feels she's lost her faith.
She's Catholic through and through. She's like a stick of seaside rock with the
letters running through."

"Or the wick
running through the candle, is what the priests told us," said Honora,
appearing behind them. "I've thought some more. Maybe you're right. At
least I'll try."

Ella smiled, but only at Lee.

FOUR

When I say,
My
bed shall
comfort me, my couch

shall
ease my complaint; then thou
scarest me with

dreams
, and terrifiest me through
visions

—Job

It was Good Friday.
Honora had protested seven changes of
heart, but Ella
had managed to deliver her that afternoon to a small modern Catholic church
near by. Ella watched her go in with her head bowed, and sat waiting in the car
with the radio turned up.

Inside, Honora sat through the service with a hardened
resistance. She dutifully kissed the cross when called, and took the sacrament,
though mechanically, feeling nothing. But in the confessional she asked for the
young priest's blessing and revealed the entire story in terms of a catalogue
of sin until the priest, at last realizing the depth of her distress, asked her
to stop.

She emerged
from the church and got into Ella's car.

"Well?"

"It's a bit like going to the dentist after a
long absence. I've got to go back tomorrow and have some more done."

"Is
that usual?"

"Only for us very bad mortal sinners," she
smiled. "Actually, it was me; I asked if he would talk to me tomorrow.
There was a whole row of people ready with their fictitious confessions, and I
was holding them up."

"What's
he like?"

"Young.
Quite nice."

"Tasty?"

"Get
on, Ella. He's a priest!"

Ella was relieved that Honora could be light. They had
a private joke about the priest, which they kept from Lee, who wanted to know
what they were giggling about. That night Honora slept deep and free of the
pull of dreamside. It was the first time since the dreaming had started up
again.

In the morning, Ella drove to the church, watched
Honora go in, and waited in the car again.

But Lee had not been free of dreams. Although spared
the direct dreamside experience, he'd spent feverish nights in the grip of
anxiety. Now there were two strange women in his house, conspiring to draw him
into complex plans of action, all based around phantom events. Something was
closing on him, something he'd held off for a long time. Ella and Honora, just
by being there in his house, opened the crack between the worlds and made him
believe in things he'd had to work hard to dismiss. They undermined his sealed,
ordered world.

Still Lee
maintained incredulity at Honora's story of dreamside conception and delivery,
but Ella had refused to let him challenge the idea.

"Get a
grip on reality," he had urged.

"You've
forgotten everything you learned," Ella hissed. "Try telling that to
Honora. In reality, in the dream, in the mind," prodding
her own
head for effect with an angry, stiff finger,
"you're sure you know the difference?"

"There's
a clear difference.
A very clear difference."

"Is
there?"

Lee had remained awake for hours, staring into the
gloomy shadows of the darkened bedroom, looking for very clear differences.

But it was only when he had the house to himself that
he had the space to think things through. He wanted to chart his own course.
After all, who was this Ella? Not the same person he knew thirteen years ago,
in the days when the desire to believe anything (so long as it was bizarre
enough) far outweighed any interest in seeing things clearly. Lee had heard
precious little about what had happened in the intervening period, only that
it was X-rated. What was he supposed to make of that? And what was he to think
about being rewritten into the script? So much had happened to them; they
couldn't possibly be the people they once were.

But why had it taken only moments to put the clock
back, make love on the rug and reopen this obsession with dreaming? The answer
to that, he knew, was Ella: it was what Ella wanted. He only ever seemed to
figure passively. She blew into his house like a high wind, undressed on his
rug and stood over him: she slept in his bed and she made him dream again. Then
after that she dragged poor ill Honora all the way over from Ireland to be mad
in the house with them.

Lee began to suspect that it might be Ella, after all,
who was in the business of dream resurrection. He strode out to the garden shed
and emerged with a stepladder. He brought it indoors and set it up on the
landing directly beneath the hatch to the attic. Then he went off in search of
a torch.

Inside the church Father Boyle was watering a vase of
irises. Otherwise the church was empty. On a blue wall, painted in golden lettering
were the words HERE I AM LORD.

He was a couple of years younger than her, with a
freckle face and close-cropped sandy hair. His piercing blue eyes were moist
with enthusiasm. Honora had only ever experienced priestly powers vested in men
much older. She had never been expected to respect the spiritual authority of
someone younger than herself.

He looked up as he heard the door close. "Come
in, Honora; see, I didn't forget you. You know, a funny thing happened last
night. I went to sleep and I had a dream, well it was all mixed up; but the
thing is, I knew that I was dreaming." He set down his watering can with a
bump.

"At least, that was the only thing that was
clear. What do you make of that? Isn't that something like you were saying to
me yesterday? "

"Something
like
that,
Father." It seemed slightly ridiculous to call this smiling boy
"father."

"Do you want to tell me again? Not as in the
confession; I think we dealt with that—as far as I understood it to be a
mountain of mortal sins." He seemed to make light of it. "But I got a
bit confused about whether or not these sins were actually committed or dreamed
about."

"You're not going to be much clearer whichever way I tell
it." Try me.