ALL IN THE MIND
by Richard Banks
Yeah,
I like Rayleigh. Better than the Mile
End Road any day of the week. Made the move six
months ago. Best thing I ever did. Right from the start felt at home. Strange
that for an East End boy born and bred. It
never would have happened but for Angie. Came here to visit a friend and next
day returned with a fist full of leaflets about houses for sale.
“Kenny,” she says, “it’s a really nice
place, better for the kids and near your Aunt Ada in Canvey.”
“Aunt Ada,” I say. “Haven’t seen the
woman in years. Never liked her, anyway.”
But I might just as well have saved my
breath; once Angie sets her mind to something it usually happens, and when she
got me to drive her down there one day I had to admit that she had a point.
Yeah, I definitely like Rayleigh. Like the High Street and the white stone
church at the top end. Like that it’s out in the sticks, near open country, and
the sea at Southend. And yet it’s close enough to London for me to go there whenever I want.
Not that I do. Rayleigh’s where I live now, and that suits me fine. Blimey, I
even dream of Rayleigh, clear, sun-shiny pictures of nearby places: of the
windmill, white sails against a blue sky, of stalls and bunting in the High
Street, of squirrels on Rayleigh Mount, and other places I can’t quite place.
And then there’s that one of the sun going down over Hollytree, our house in
the Eastwood Road,
and Bob next door still tinkering with his old Vauxhall. Sometimes I hear the
faint blur of voices and passing traffic; familiar, reassuring noises I
wouldn’t be without.
Then one day I hear, “Scilly”, a man’s
voice speaking, sounds a bit like the guy at the garage. But why Scilly? I’m
seeing Rayleigh when the voice is saying Scilly. Not only that, but it’s said
in a way that’s puts Rayleigh well and truly in the shade. Funny that, how just
one word can say so much. To him there is no better place and nothing else
comes close. Perhaps it’s a premonition, I think; later today Angie’s going to
arrive home with holiday brochures all about Scilly, but it never happens, and
thoughts of Scilly slowly fade from my mind.
It was in the High Street museum that
things started getting weird, odd stuff that couldn’t be explained. Angie had
become a volunteer there, so one Saturday when there was nothing else on I went
down there with her. Was thumbing my way through a book of old photos when I
found one of a building I had dreamed of only the night before. Captioned,
‘Premises of North Thames Gas Board, 1981’ it was they said the very building I
was sitting in, except now it was a Pizzaland restaurant on the ground floor
and the museum up above.
That was when I realised that my dreams
were not of the present but of the past, a past I could never have seen because
I wasn’t there. The discovery went through me like an electric shock. Someone
or something had got inside my head, no permission asked or given, and me not
knowing it had happened. So far there were only good dreams but supposing they
turned bad and I couldn’t shut them out. What then? For better or worse my mind
was no longer my own. How to get it back? I didn’t have a clue.
At first I tried not sleeping. No
sleep, no dreams I thought. Keep awake long enough and what’s inside me might
lose patience and bugger off somewhere else. Kept it up for three nights, one
mug of coffee after another long walks in the night, Angie looking at me like
I’m mad, and mad I nearly am. At last I fall asleep on the sofa.
I wake up in day light with no dreams
in my head. Then I move on to the bathroom and while I’m showering they start
rushing in. I see Rayleigh Station and a London
bound train coming round the bend in the track, white steam billowing up into
the usual blue sky. There’s a goods yard where now there’s a car park and on the
other side of the track a gasometer long disappeared. On a dull, overcast
morning the weather in my dream world is always better than the waking day.
Grateful I am not.
This is the earliest of my dreams. The
line was electrified in 1956, twenty five years before that photo of the Gas
Board. With the help of the museum I am able to date another of my dreams to
1970, while the stalls and Union Jack bunting in the High Street are probably
those put up for the Silver Jubilee celebrations in ’77. Then I dream of the
Roebuck and what I’m seeing can’t be any earlier than 2003 when the pub opened.
“Thank God for that!” says Angie. “At
least you’re now in the right century. Who knows you might soon have some
dreams of your own.”
Angie is doing her best to make light
of it all. Did my best not to let-on what was happening, but with her working
in the museum and me trying not to sleep it was only a matter of time before
she found out. What I didn’t tell her was that my dreams now have a blot on
them, a ragged black spot that started no bigger than a saucer, hovering above
the optics at the bar. For the first time I sense fear, angry despair, and
above the clatter of bar room voices hear, once again, “Scilly.” There is a
sigh, followed by a groan and the blot seems darker and a little larger.
Scilly, that once happy place is now the cause of deep concern. If I am to find
out why, it will surely be in my dreams.
In the next few weeks the untroubled
skies of my night time world change from blue to grey, and instead of the
random ordering of their coming each dream moves forward in normal time. At
least that’s how it feels, and if I need any proof it’s in the slow expansion
of the blot. The saucer that became a dinner plate is now the size of a car
wheel. Like a black hole it is steadily devouring all light and colour around
it. There’s no hope now, only the contemplation of disaster soon to come.
“But this ain’t my problem,” I say,
looking into my shaving mirror, but the pallid face that stares back tells me
it is and that when the dreams end so will I. It was then that everything in my
day time world began to fall apart: how I couldn’t think straight no more, how
I nearly drove the car into a bus, how I was signed off from work. So now I’m
at home all day trying again not to sleep but having to nearly every second
night. And when I do, I see the blot grow ever bigger and blacker. There’s more
black now than picture. A few more dreams and everything will be black, all
colour gone.
Angie’s also gone. She didn’t want to,
but it’s all for the best. “Don’t want the kids to see me like this,” I say.
“Go stay with your mother for a while. Come back when I’m better, when the new
pills kick-in.” But there ain’t no new pills. In fact I’m not taking the one’s
I got. They can’t help me, nothing can.
The dreams keep coming, the blot
pushing the pictures deeper and deeper into each corner. What’s happening in
them is no longer clear. The little I can see is of an inside place of ceilings
and floors, of strip lighting on white ceilings, of wooden paving blocks and
floor standing furniture that might be beds. This is a bad place to be, none
worse. All hope has gone, tomorrow there will be no more day. Time stretches out;
every minute seems like an hour, each one more awful than the last. There is
fear; numb, helpless fear turning warm blood to ice. And once again I hear,
“Scilly;” the voice wavers, the speaker weeps. One more dream and it will all
be done, everything lost and never seen again.
I delay things as best I can. I will
not sleep, black coffee on black coffee, Scotch from the bottle, but it’s no
good. I sink down to my knees and fall forward onto the floor. If I am to stay
awake I must get up. Get a grip I tell myself, up on five. I start counting,
but five never comes.
*****
I come to, my head aching, but no more
dreams. What I’m seeing now is the real world, colour grey, the first light of
day creeping into my living room through uncurtained windows. I’m not alone.
“Good morning,” he says from the
armchair on which he is sitting. How do you like my house?”
“Your house! It’s my name on the
deeds!”
“Of course it’s my house. Been here
ever since it was built nearly fifty years ago. And you? Six months and twenty
one days; that’s how long you’ve been here. You’re scarcely across the
threshold and me still in residence. You’re nothing more than my tenant. But
you must admit I’ve been a more than generous landlord. Not a penny in rent
have I charged and in return for nothing I have given you my fond memories of
the town you now live in. Happy thoughts you were only too pleased to have
because, like me, there’s no place you like better.”
“They ain’t happy now!” I bellow.
“Scilly’s put an end to that. Why Scilly? Why torture me with that? Never been
there, don’t want to. Why do I have to suffer for Scilly?”
He looks surprised. “You’ve got it
wrong,” he says. “The dreams I gave you were never about Scilly. I said Cicely
with a C, the name of my wife. The only woman I ever loved, more important to
me than everything else put together.”
“So why give me nightmares about her?”
“So you would understand, how important
she is to me, how I will stop at nothing to get her back and how you have no
choice but to help me. You have a wife of your own. Imagine her slowly being
taken from you. Day after day, each one darker than the one before; cancer it
was, too advanced to stop. Nothing to be done but watch her die and that I did.
And when she was gone I wanted nothing more than to be like her. Was going to
top myself, then a heart attack saved me the trouble. I’m not a religious man
but I’ve never shut my mind to the possibility of life after death. Now I know
it’s more than just a Sunday school tale. But being here is not what’s it’s
about. There’s something better, far better and it’s only a few steps away, but
how can I go there when Cis might still be in that hospital ward. I can’t leave
if she’s still there. So, if you want to be free of me you will have to take me
back to the hospital. It’s easy done. You just let me step into you, this time
it’s a complete takeover of brain and limb, then I walk your legs down to
Southend, to the hospital ward where we were parted. Once there I promise you
I’ll be gone and you back to normal. Until then I’ll be needing both your mind
and body. Do we have a deal?”
*****
We had a deal. Of course we had a deal,
what choice did I have, and the next thing I remember is being picked-up off
the floor of the ward where Cicely Bembridge died, three months to the day
before we moved into Hollytree. Her husband was a good man so I’m told, devoted
to his wife and the town in which he lived all his seventy seven years. A local
Counsellor he was also a supporter of every good cause that needed a helping
hand. I didn’t know him for long but I too liked George, even though he nearly
drove me crazy. Who can blame him for that? I don’t, not now.
Did George find Cicely in the hospital?
I don’t know. I’ll be lying if I said I did. Maybe she decided to go on ahead
by herself and wait for him in that good place they thought might be life’s
next stop. Either way, I figure they’re back together. Amen to that. As for
myself the dreams I now have are mine and mine alone. I dream them in a house
full of memories, the good ones far out numbering the bad. Angie says we have a
lot to live up to. I agree. It won’t be easy, but we’re sure going to try. How
can we not.
Copyright Richard Banks
