Just Dreaming

  “No, thanks,” she said. “Looks like too many calories and saturated fats.”

  “I wonder how I knew she was going to say just that?” murmured Henry, dropping into the chair beside me where Florence had been sitting before, and giving me a light kiss on the cheek. Meanwhile, Matt took the chair that the Boker had just vacated.

  And I felt, well, rather hemmed in.

  Lottie handed both of them a plate of blueberry tart, pointedly ignoring Charles.

  “Come on, let’s go somewhere there isn’t so much testosterone in the air! We’ll use my room.” Florence led Emily offstage—sorry, I mean out of the dining room. Emily still seemed to be looking for something appropriate to say, but nothing occurred to her. Instead, she swayed her bum in her close-fitting jeans. It was a terrible theatrical show. Charles for one hadn’t been able to follow the course of events for several minutes and was just looking crestfallen.

  “Would you girls like some blueberry tart yourselves?” Lottie asked Mia and me.

  I’d have loved some, but with Matt and Henry at the same table, I felt rather choked. “Maybe later,” I said. First I had to phone Persephone, whose nerves must be worn to a shred by now. And I had to know what Secrecy had written in her blog. “Could you lend me your iPad, Lottie?”

  “It’s in the kitchen,” said Lottie, whereupon Mia ran off at once to grab it herself.

  “This is the most delicious tart I ever ate,” said Henry, and Matt nodded, with his mouth full. Charles went on looking crestfallen.

  High time for me to make my own exit. I had to get the iPad out of Mia’s hands.

  When I pushed back my chair and stood up, Matt swallowed his mouthful and said, all of a sudden, “I had a dream about you last night, Liv!”

  Oh no.

  Both Henry and Grayson raised their heads and looked at me too. I quickly let my hair flop forward so as to hide as much of my face as possible, because it was sure to be going scarlet. At least, it felt very hot.

  “I hope it was a nice dream,” I said as casually as I could. I had my voice at least under control.

  “Well … well, kind of nice.” Matt grinned. “Rather crazy, but yes … nice. We were in the Leadenhall Building together.”

  “Should I know it?” And could I simply walk out, or would that really make me look suspicious? Henry was still looking at me attentively, although I couldn’t see the expression in his eyes because my hair was hiding my view like a curtain.

  “The Leadenhall Building is a skyscraper in the City,” he said, and then turned to Matt. “Tell us more about that dream. It interests me a great deal.”

  “Me too.” Grayson gave me one of his penetrating glances.

  “Oh, well.” For a split second Matt looked embarrassed, which was long enough to tell me that he remembered the details of the dream very well indeed. “It was all confused stuff, the kind you get in dreams.…” He cleared his throat. “I … there were these escalators. And I, er, I was playing the saxophone as I rode up on one. Liv came past me at high speed carrying some heavy folders.” He was getting increasingly fluent; obviously he enjoyed inventing all this nonsense. I just wished he hadn’t turned his eyes up in such a striking way. “And then there was this circus clown juggling coffee cups and cookies on the escalator ahead of us and giving everyone his business card. He wanted to give one to Liv too, but she didn’t have a hand free, and she was ranting and raving because she couldn’t get past him. He simply put the business card in her mouth, and that shut her up. I don’t remember any more. Oh, I do, the clown’s name was Mr. Smith. Yes, that’s what it said on his business card.” Laughing, Matt forked up a piece of blueberry tart. I could see how proud of himself he was. “Funny, don’t you think? I’d like to know what an interpreter of dreams would make of it.”

  “Hmm. I’m not an interpreter of dreams,” said Henry regretfully. “But I’m a fairly good amateur psychologist, and as such, I’d say you’ve just made up the dream out of your head.” While the smile temporarily disappeared from Matt’s face, Henry turned to me again. “What do you think, Liv?”

  “I’ve had crazier dreams than that,” said Matt, sounding slightly hurt, but Henry and I took no notice. We were much too busy staring at each other.

  “Me?” Instead of feeling I’d been caught out, I was rather angry. With Henry and his claim to be an amateur psychologist, and also with Grayson, who was watching from the other side of the table like one of the Spanish Inquisition at a witch trial. “I think you’re showing a hell of a lot of interest in the dreams of perfect strangers,” I said aggressively. My God, there really must be something in the air today.

  “Only when you come into them,” replied Henry.

  I swept the curtain of hair away from my eyes and looked straight at him. With a little luck, the color of my face would be back to normal. “Oh yes? Or only when it’s about the dreams of good-looking characters?”

  “Good-looking characters who play the saxophone.” Henry was smiling, but there was a glint of suspicion in his eyes. I could see that clearly.

  “Oh, thanks,” said Matt, back to his old confident self again. “Although I play better in dreams than real life. Unless I’m having the dream where I’m on the stage at Carnegie Hall, and I can’t play a single note.… But that’s the best of dreams: there’s no one to see you making a fool of yourself.”

  “Exactly.” Grayson had exchanged his inquisitorial look for a remorseful one and rubbed his forehead. “Dreams are very private, and they’re no one else’s business.”

  “That’s a nice way of closing the subject,” I said. I gave Henry a quick kiss on the forehead and smiled at the other two. “Well, I’ll leave you to your studying, then.” And this time I didn’t hesitate; I left the stage without a backward look at the other actors.

  All I regretted was the blueberry tart.

  15

  “NO LEOPARD TODAY?” Anabel was leaning back against the blue door that I still thought belonged to Mrs. Cook, the headmistress. When I glanced at it a moment ago, Miss Possessed-by-a-Demon (if she didn’t take her medication) had not been there. That’s to say, she had been there, all right, but she hadn’t made herself visible until I was almost past her. Presumably she wanted to enjoy seeing me jump in alarm, which of course I did.

  “Jaguar,” I automatically corrected her.

  Anabel shrugged her shoulders. “It comes to the same thing. Are you meeting Henry? He went past here a little while ago.”

  “That’s nice to know.” I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help staring at her. In the twilit corridor, her turquoise eyes were trying to outshine her golden hair, and her complexion was like a work of art. It was as if she had a hidden spotlight fitted to show her—and only her—in soft focus in gentle evening sunshine. Anabel really was astonishingly beautiful, like a painting that you can’t see enough of, and it was hard work making myself remember that she didn’t look so supernaturally perfect in real life. All the same, I instinctively wondered whether Henry hadn’t stared at her just as fascinated, if he had really come this way recently. When Anabel went on, I felt irrational jealousy rising inside me. Jealousy and a certain amount of anger.

  “I hear you met his mother this afternoon.” She smiled gently at me.

  I gritted my teeth. Did her information come from Henry? And if so, why had he told her, of all people?

  “Amazing!” Anabel’s delicate nostrils were quivering. “How long was it before he took you home with him? Only six months?”

  I tried to make her shut up by frowning, but it didn’t work. She simply went on probing for sore spots. “Do you at least know why he always tried to keep you away from his family? Or was it just a kind of proof that he trusted you, so that you’d finally sleep with him?”

  How on earth did she do it? She was saying exactly what that suspicious little voice inside me whispered, the one that I thought was the voice of my inferiority complex. The inferiority complex that had landed me with Rasmus—and indirect
ly with Matt. I had steered particularly clear of his dream door tonight. Although Henry hadn’t said another word about Matt, I’d put my flight-simulator plan on ice for now.

  Not very clever of you, Liv, the inner voice whispered. Because it’s soon going to be spring vacation, and you’re still an inexperienced virgin with no idea of anything, so people feel sorry for you!

  Anabel was smiling as if she heard every word the voice said. But I didn’t want to listen to either her or my inferiority complex. They were both poison to me.

  “Jaguars and leopards are not the same at all,” I replied firmly. “Jaguars have a broader forehead and wide jaws, and their coat patterns are different. The jaguar has larger rosettes, and leopards have no light spots inside their rosettes, and in addition jaguars like to swim, whereas—”

  Anabel folded her arms and gave me a pitying smile. “I understand that you don’t want to talk about your relationship problems,” she interrupted me. “Although maybe I could give you a tip or two. I know Henry really well. Even the way he kisses.”

  Oh, I hated her.

  She laughed. “Don’t worry, that was long before your time. Henry and I have a lot in common. For instance, dark family secrets, and a childhood that … that has left us scarred. That kind of thing brings people together. We both have mothers that we can’t necessarily feel proud of.” Her glance seemed briefly to turn in on herself, and I promptly felt a surge of pity. Poor Anabel—it must have been dreadful, growing up in that sect. “Although my mother was kind enough to hang herself with the belt of her bathrobe after she’d ruined my childhood,” she went on, “so at least I never had to introduce my friends to her.”

  Immediately a small horror movie unreeled before my mind’s eye, featuring an older version of Anabel sharpening a ritual dagger. Poor Ana … stop that! I had to force myself to remember who this was, the most manipulative person in the world, well known for her subtle insinuations. And comparing Henry’s childhood with her own was only another trick to make me feel sorry for her. Stupidly, it had worked.

  But the comparison was very misleading. Henry’s mother certainly wasn’t going to win any prizes for Mother of the Year, but compared to Anabel’s, she was harmless. At least, our meeting this afternoon had gone off perfectly smoothly—in fact, it had been positively boring. I was still wondering why I had been imagining all kinds of ghastly scenarios this whole week. Maybe because Henry had issued such a solemn, official invitation to afternoon tea and had even baked a cake with his little sister’s help. And because he had been even more nervous than me.

  But it hadn’t been a solemn, official occasion at all.

  I hadn’t been sitting at the table for long before I realized that Henry’s mother had no particular interest in me. It was as simple as that. I hadn’t been exposed to keen glances or embarrassing questions, as I’d secretly feared, nor had she lapsed into babbling, risen from her chair, and pointed an accusing finger at me claiming that I was going to take her eldest child away from her. And although I looked out for cliché signs of addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs, like wide pores, bloated features, and a drinker’s nose, I couldn’t see any. Henry’s mother was tall, very well groomed, and had one of those pretty faces that you think you’ve seen hundreds of times before. Strange that she should have had three such distinctive children. She seemed perfectly normal except that she never really looked you in the eyes. Her gaze passed fleetingly over everything, as if she didn’t want to look closely, not even at the display on her cell phone, which kept lighting up and distracting her attention. She contributed almost nothing to the conversation, although she smiled in a friendly way, and she was taking only half an hour to sit having tea with us, saying she had an engagement after that.

  She shook hands with me when she left, and dropped kisses on her children’s foreheads. When she said she might be home late, and they weren’t to keep supper waiting, they all nodded as if they were used to that. Maybe she ate almost nothing on purpose to keep her model’s figure. At least, she hadn’t eaten any of the cake that Amy and Henry had “baked,” but that could have been because half of it consisted of M&M’s, and that’s not everyone’s idea of the perfect cake.

  I was astonished to find how quickly and easily the afternoon had passed. Henry, too, seemed relieved when he escorted me to the door. We’d really meant to have a little time on our own in his room, but that didn’t work out. First, Henry’s little brother, Milo, spent half an hour asking me questions about kung fu (which I can heartily recommend as a hobby if you want to impress your boyfriend’s little brothers), and then Amy dragged all her thirty-four favorite stuffed animals into Henry’s room so that I could say hi to them all by name and shake paws with them.

  But even without romantic moments alone, and despite my fears, it had been a really nice afternoon, not at all embarrassing, and I was positively exhilarated when I left, after Amy had solemnly invited me to her birthday party in August.

  At the door, Henry had difficulty in kissing me good-bye because he was carrying Amy and Amy was carrying Molly the donkey and Herby the crocodile. But he managed, and Amy chuckled with delight and wanted a good-bye kiss as well.

  “Even the cat didn’t misbehave,” said Henry with a funny little smile. “Odd, don’t you think? And a bit weird.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it will turn out as expected next time,” I consoled him. “When you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security.”

  There was a gleam in Henry’s eyes, but before he could reply, Amy wanted me to kiss her toys good-bye too. It seemed the crocodile couldn’t get enough of it, and I finally had to slap his long muzzle.

  “Put your tongue in, Herby!” I said sternly. “That’s not the way to kiss when we’ve only just met.”

  Amy fell about laughing, and Henry’s eyes gleamed a little more.

  “Well, there’s one toy misbehaving at least,” I said.

  “See you later at Mrs. Hon … at headquarters,” said Henry, “and maybe we’ll find a little peace and quiet there for … er, misbehaving.”

  Yes, a bit of peace and quiet would definitely be welcome.

  That is, if I ever arrived at Mrs. Honeycutt’s door. I wasn’t even out of my own corridor yet, and unfortunately Anabel looked as if she had a good deal more to get off her chest.

  “I don’t entirely understand why you two don’t simply fix to meet in your own dreams,” she said.

  “Well, I’m sure you’d like to know,” I replied, trying to match her own supercilious smile. Although I didn’t quite understand it myself. Of course I realized that no one could follow us into Mrs. Honeycutt’s dreams when they didn’t know her door, and so couldn’t get hold of any personal item to let them in. But our own doorways were well protected, and furthermore they were much closer. That would mean far less danger of meeting Anabel and Arthur and that encroaching darkness.

  But then again, the unconscious mind was more powerful in your own dreams than anywhere else, so I was glad that our headquarters were not behind my door, where presumably a chow called Rasmus might appear every ten minutes.

  Anabel tilted her head on one side and looked at me curiously. “But that’s probably too … intimate for you and Henry, right? It would be typical of him not to let anyone get a real insight into his mind. The question is, does that secretly bother you, or do you find it sexy?”

  Both, to be honest. But that was no business whatever of Anabel’s. I wondered whether to have another shot at telling her the difference between a leopard and a jaguar, but then I decided to go for the direct approach instead. “Look, is there anything in particular you want, or are you simply spraying venom around the place at random?” I asked, as if I were very busy, glancing at the watch I’d conjured up on my wrist at that very moment for purely dramatic reasons. “I’m in a hurry.”

  Anabel smiled again. “Yes, you are, aren’t you? It’s terrible the way time passes so quickly.”

  Sad to say, that was right. It was particul
arly terrible the way time passed so quickly when you didn’t want it to. And vice versa. The last week had raced past me, whereas to Persephone it must have seemed like the longest week of her life. But she was bearing up better than I’d feared, thanks basically to Secrecy and her nasty remarks about the lemonade stain on Maisie Brown’s dress.

  “However bad what I did was, and however hard everyone was staring at me and making silly comments—wetting yourself is a hundred times more embarrassing than anything else,” Persephone kept saying. I refrained from pointing out that, even if Secrecy’s story was true, Maisie had wet herself only because she was scared stiff of Persephone. I was glad my friend was putting up such a good fight, and I genuinely admired the self-possessed way she strolled down the school corridors, although I knew she’d rather have kept out of sight at home until grass had grown over the entire incident. Persephone had guts—you had to give her that. When she wrinkled up her nose and tossed her hair back, many of the students probably decided against saying the unpleasant things that had been on the tip of their tongues, ready to let fly. And she could cope with being on Emily’s silly brother Sam’s list of people he thought should be “ashamed of themselves.”

  “It’s tough, but so long as they don’t print T-shirts with my name I’ll survive,” she assured me.

  Speaking of names, one positive side effect of the whole thing was that, at long last, Jasper knew Persephone’s. All week he called her Persephone, if not in a particularly friendly tone, but in the circumstances she could understand that. Especially since Jasper was much nicer to her than her sister, Pandora. Pandora had taken it badly when Persephone borrowed her new dress, and wasn’t speaking to her.

  At home, on the other hand, the atmosphere was rather better. Florence and Grayson had buried the hatchet, the Boker was busy with a golf tournament in aid of a charity and was leaving us alone, and Lottie—well, Lottie was baking for all she was worth.