In Dreams

Jonathan

“I went deep into the recess of her mind and found that secret place. And I broke in.” - Christopher J. Nolan, Inception

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“Night in London,” sketch by Michael B. Morgan

Chapter Two

You never really know what goes on in another person’s mind. And you don’t know how their nerves twist the pain they’re carrying. People say you can comfort someone. That’s a lie. Pain scares us, so we keep pretending there’s a remedy. There isn’t.
The woman Danny, my roommate, had spent the night with left as soon as I walked in. We crossed paths at the entrance. She looked at me. She didn’t smile, just held out her hand, expecting to be paid. I glanced around, picked up one of Danny’s china pieces, and placed it in her palm. I couldn’t see her eyes, it was too dark, but I knew they were fierce and sad.
“Tell your friend I’m not coming back. He never pays me right.”
“Then why’d you come back?” I said.
She lifted her head. Her reddish hair bounced against her forehead, stubborn and dirty. The air stank of sex, her sweat, and the Thames.
“You think you know this world better than I do, blond boy?”
“No. But I know the worth of china.”
She weighed it in her hand.
“If this’s worth a bit, maybe I’ll come back and give your friend another night.”
She started toward the door, then stopped just past the threshold.
“Could give you a night too, if you want.”
“I don’t collect china.”
She laughed, then closed the door, and I was left with the silence. I was in the darkness. The only thing visible was a strip of couch, the one Danny was stretched out on, shirt open, a blanket over his legs. The orange lamplight from the street pressed down on him. His neck bent back too far, like he was dead. But Danny wasn’t the sort to die without making it known.
I walked over and sat beside him. His breathing had gone shallow.
Then he spoke: “You’re a bastard, Joe.”
Danny liked to insult me with affection.
“I thought you were asleep.”
He pushed himself upright, bumping my shoulder. We stayed quiet for a while. Then he wiped his nose with his shirt sleeve and stared at the yellowish stain he’d made. I looked at his profile. His eyes were pits in the dark, but I could see the fine nose, the full mouth, the sagging cheeks. He was balding, and the double chin didn’t improve with age. Especially now, stripped of all his usual composure, he was the worst version of himself.
“You alright?” I don’t know why I asked.
“You really are a bastard, boy.”
I laughed. “You could have a decent woman, if you wanted.”
“I know how to pay whores. I don’t know how to pay decent women.”
“You don’t pay decent women.”
“Bullshit. Everything’s paid for in this world.”
He sighed and sank into the couch.
“Your philosophy collapses under the weight of your own actions,” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You didn’t pay the woman who just left. I met her on the way in.”
“And you gave her what was due.”
He placed a hand on my leg. I looked at him. His face was turned toward mine, but all I saw was a black canvas.
“I gave her one of your china pieces,” I said.
“You did right, especially since that stuff wasn’t mine.”
“Whose was it?”
“Does it matter? It paid a good working girl. That’s what counts.”
He stood up on bare legs. I lowered my gaze as he pulled on his trousers. He grabbed two glasses, filled them with whatever he found, and handed me one. I looked at the glass with a kind of hunger. My throat tightened, my lips parting just a little, as if I could already taste the liquor glowing in the dark.
“No. Not now.”
“Why not?”
“Been drinking already.”
“That’s rubbish. You haven’t been drinking.”
“How d’you know?”
“I do.”
I looked at him. “You do?”
He pushed the glass into my hand anyway.
“Drink. Believe me, you need it.”
I took it.
“Someone telling you what I do? You don’t trust me?”
“Joe,” he said, dragging a chair and sitting in front of me, “it’s not trust. It’s opportunity.”
I took a sip. Brandy. A bad one.
“What I do isn’t your business,” I said.
He leaned forward a little. The chair creaked under him. His heavy, middle-aged body seemed to grow in the dark, getting rougher, more dangerous. His gaze dug straight into me. His pupils caught the bit of light coming from outside, a scarlet ring around them. His reddish beard was the kind a man wears when he lives without rules.
“Trust is a fine thing. But if you want to reach my age, when your hair grows thin and the road behind you is long, you let go of the idea that trust keeps you alive. You can’t trust. You don’t. Not ever. I haven’t had you followed. I don’t need to. I watch you. I know what you think, what you’re about to do. I see the shadows in those blue eyes of yours. They move like waves, like wind and storm. You’ve been restless for days, beating yourself against the rocks. Your soul’s a rag. Nearly as the clothes on your back.”
He drank deep.
“You’re planning something, boy.”
I set the glass on the table.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not about trust.”
“I didn’t poison the brandy. I’d never do that to you.”
“To me?”
“God… don’t mind me. It’s been a night.”
“Who’ve you set on me, Danny?”
“Wake up, Joe!” he shouted, leaning back so hard the chair groaned. “You don’t understand. You watch people like they’re beasts behind glass. That’s your trouble.”
Silence again. He lowered his head, a gesture close to apology, though he didn’t offer one.
“You’ve no notion of what’s right in front of you.”
“Bullshit.”
“The one who just left,” he said, “she likes you.”
I laughed. “You’re drunk.”
“You walk in the light thinking it’s darkness. You don’t even recognize it when it’s right in front of you. And that’s worse than the dark itself.”
I stood, knocking the glass over. Brandy spilled across the carpet, its cheap smell filling the room.
“There’s nothing to see,” I muttered.
“There’s a whole world to see. You’ve got young eyes, a good sight. But you must want to use it. That woman comes here knowing I can’t always pay her. Yet she comes.”
“Good for you.”
“She doesn’t come for me, fool. She comes for you.”
I pulled my handkerchief from my pocket and began blotting the carpet. My hand was trembling.
“This is pointless.”
“You need to start making plans,” he said.
“I don’t make plans.”
“You should. Life reaches for you, and you turn your back.”
I felt his stare on me. I knew his eyes were fixed on me, worried in some distant way. I sat down on the carpet, holding down the anger I could’ve thrown at him, if Danny weren’t the closest thing I had to a friend.
“I don’t make plans,” I repeated. “And stop having me followed by your damned spies.”
“Spies? Come now. I’m no Frenchman, and neither a Venetian.”
“But you’re a bastard, and that’s enough.”
Danny rose to his full, dark bulk and bent toward me.
“You’re guarding yourself from the wrong man.”
“You said it yourself, trust doesn’t exist.”
“I didn’t say that, and you know it.”
He paused. A long, heavy pause. I was about to stand and walk out, but he went on: “I know you went to the docks. Again.”
I stuffed the stained handkerchief back into my pocket.
“That’s my business.”
“It sounds like a plan, Joe.”
“It’s not a plan. It’s a way out.”
“Out to where?”
“Didn’t your spies tell you?”
I moved toward the door to my room. He blocked the way.
“Shipping out won’t help you. Going to sea won’t help you. Losing yourself won’t help you. You need to find your bearings, not drown them. You need a sure course, not unknown waters.”
“And staying here will help?”
“Yes, boy.” He stepped closer. “I’m your only chance at giving your life some meaning. I’m the only one who gets you thinking straight, gets you dressed like a Christian, and gets you drinking cheap brandy of excellent quality.”
His eyes were glossy with drink, or something else, I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t hold his gaze.
“I need to leave, Danny.”
“No. You need to stop running.”
Darkness was a black splendor around us, thick and scratched by lamplight. For a moment, I thought he was right. Then the dark changed, lost its shape, turned warped and dense.
“I don’t need anyone,” I said through my teeth. “And this time you won’t stop me.”
“What are you saying?” His voice had lost its certainty.
“I received a berth.”
“From whom?”
“Captain Elias Rooke.”
“That’s a filthy name. A jailhouse sort of man. You can’t board with him!”
“I already signed. I’ll be a sailor on his ship, the Kestrel.”
I sensed Danny’s arm drop heavy at his side. Cloth against cloth. I walked past him. He didn’t stop me.
I entered my room and closed the door behind me. I lit the oil lamp on my desk; the flame rose slow, a thin breath of light. I reached into my pocket and took out the letter I’d carried with me. I slid it from its envelope and read.

To Jonathan Bryan Hornblower,
You are hereby requested to present yourself for assignment to His Majesty’s Merchant Vessel Kestrel, under the command of Captain Elias Rooke. Upon appearance, you shall be offered a berth and the articles of agreement for your signature. Report to Wapping docks within ten days.
Signed,
E. Rooke

I stood at the desk a moment, looking at the flame. Then my eyes went to the small frame beside it. And I looked at her. Her face. Her smile. The delicate hand that held the hat. I could sense the faint trace of her scent filling my mind. Where the memory of her still lurked. I picked it up, held it in the lamplight, then turned it face down on the desk. I didn’t want her watching me. Not that night.

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No one ever notices when they cross the threshold into dreams. I didn’t.
I found myself on a shore. A cold shard of memory. The sand stung underfoot; the lake slid in with thick, dark water over strange, almost transparent stones. The water had the weight of whale oil.
I was sitting against a stone arch, half-ruined, holding a book. No title on the cover. No name. The pages were torn, and the lines were torn too, the words shifting before my eyes, breaking into bits of languages. A wave of nausea rose in my gut.
I looked toward the horizon, already swallowed by a yellowish fog that gave off a ghostly glow. Everything was drowned in that vapor, dissolving the truth of things. I knew that sense of threat seeping in. I wanted to run, but my legs wouldn’t respond. Then I heard something, a sound I can’t describe anymore. The whole scene lurched, one sudden jolt, as if something had changed at once.
And I saw her.
A girl. Bare feet. Shaded face. Hair catching the light like a flicker of flame.
“Who are you?” I said. Or thought I did.
She flinched, as if she hadn’t expected to be seen, and ran toward the tree line. I didn’t move after her. Just watched the fog swallow her shape. Then came the snap of a branch, and a thin breath of pain. I took a step closer, and she looked at me.
For a moment I was inside those unfamiliar eyes, and I knew she didn’t belong to me.
“Who... are you?”

I woke with the lamp dead beside me and the cold all around. I’d fallen asleep at my desk. When I stepped into the other room, Danny was already dressed for the morning, bright as a man with no troubles.
He looked at me, amused. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I sat at the table. “Pour me some brandy.”
“Brandy? Now? That’s how the river drunks say good morning.”
“Just pour it.”

To be continued…

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Chapter one