Sam Cooke was singing '…It's hard on a fella, when he don't know his way around. If I don't find a honey to help me spend my money, I'm gonna have to blow this town…' It reminded Dominic of one of his last dates with Odette; the song had been playing at a fairground they'd visited in Draguignan. Another Saturday night. Bright lights, candy floss, a fluffy baby blue toy cat he'd won for her at the rifle range. But the single candle burned through, the sullen but proud profile half in shadow reflected against the glass. He found it hard to get the image of Monique Rosselot out of his mind.
EIGHT
Session 1: 11.06am, 16th February, 1995
Stuart Capel looked anxiously at the door ahead. Through it he could hear only muted mumbling; only the occasional word could be picked up clearly. He leant forward keenly, his arms resting on his knees.
Around him were a mixture of diplomas — Dr David Lambourne, PhD, MR Psych — and theatre posters. Collection of magazines on a small coffee table. No receptionist, just an answerphone that would kick in. Only two calls the past fifteen minutes.
But despite Stuart's posture — every nerve and muscle tense, his jaw set tight — his eyes were dull and unfocused. Dulled by the nightmare of the past two months. Clinging to one last chance as his hands clasped and unclasped. Oh God, I hope this will help. I hope this will help…
'… and so you'll be twelve soon, Eyran. Is that right?'
'Yes, in April. The fifteenth.'
'And what would you like for your birthday?' Lambourne asked. 'Any thoughts?'
'I don't know, really. I was going to get a surf board in San Diego.' Eyran drifted off for a second, scanning the ceiling. The couch he was laying on was old and over-stuffed, with a fading floral print. It would have looked more at home in a country cottage than a psychiatrist's office in Holborn. 'Perhaps a new bike. Some more computer games.'
'Have you thought of asking for a pet? A dog, maybe.'
'No, not really. But the boy two doors away has got a red setter. We went playing in the fields with it a few days back.'
'Did you get on well with the boy?'
'Yes, sort of. His name's Kevin. He's two years older than me. He was asking a lot about San Diego, said that he'd like to go there.'
Fresh faced, light-brown hair. A few faint freckles across the bridge of his nose. It was difficult for Lambourne to relate the boy before him with what he knew from the report on his desk: Accident victim. Nineteen day coma. Temporal and parietal lobe trauma. Both parents lost in the same accident. And now possible psychological discordance: increasingly violent dreams and development of a secondary character to push away acceptance of his parents' death.
'Have you ever had a pet before?' asked Lambourne.
'No. But I like them, dogs more than cats.'
'Maybe you should ask your uncle for one. With all of those fields around, it could be fun. The perfect place for a dog.' It had come out of his discussion with Stuart Capel the day before: new object attachments to help diminish what Eyran had lost. 'And at school. Any friends yet? I understand that you started at the beginning of last week.'
'Only one. Simon. He was at my primary school from before in England. I didn't know him so well then, but we're becoming friendlier now.'
'And how are you getting on with Tessa?'
'Okay. But she's a few years younger than me. She has her own friends.'
David Lambourne looked down at his notes briefly, was about to ask another question about home or school, trying to gauge how Eyran was settling in, when Eyran continued.
'My other old friends from before are too far away. Though I went over to Broadhurst Farm the other day with Kevin. Being there with his dog reminded me of Sarah and Salman, her labrador. We used to play there years ago, before I went to America. They were in one of my first dreams.'
Too early. Lambourne didn't want to explore the dreams yet. His first aim was to put Eyran at ease, establish comfortable ground: birthday, presents, friends, possibly a pet. From his two hour meeting with Stuart Capel the previous day, he'd planned his guideposts welclass="underline" he knew that the mention of a pet would trigger Eyran mentioning one friend, school another. But the past kept interjecting — San Diego, old friends and memories — spoiling the rhythm.
'How are you settling in at your Uncle's house. I understand you're right out in the country. It must be nice.'
'Yes, it's very nice. My room looks over fields at the back.'
'So, they've given you one of the best rooms in the house.'
Faint smile from Eyran. The first so far. Stuart Capel had told him Eyran smiled rarely, uneasily, was generally slow to respond. It was one of Stuart's main areas of concern. 'And you've got all your favourite things around you…'
Lambourne continued building on areas of familiarity — but the answers gradually became more stilted and relied on past reference. Understandable. Eyran had only been in the house six weeks; his main memory of it was from when he lived with his parents nearby. Eyran was still pre-occupied with the old house, its position and distance from his uncle's house.
'It's only four or five miles away, and Broadhurst Farm is just at the back. When I look out of my bedroom window now, there's a hill in the distance. It's not too far the other side of that.'
'And that's where you went with Kevin the other day? That's quite a distance to walk.'
'It wasn't too bad. I wanted to see how it had changed from before. Perhaps I might have bumped into some of my old friends there. It was strange, the pond was much smaller than I remembered. And in one of my dreams, it was enormous.'
Present. Past. And now the dreams again. It was a hop-scotch. Each time Lambourne dragged him to the present, Eyran leapt back.
'The week before, I drove past there with Uncle Stuart. But we just looked up from the field behind that leads up to the copse. We didn't go in.'
'I see.' Stuart Capel had mentioned the significance of the copse, that at least two of Eyran's dreams had taken place there. But Lambourne didn't want to let on that he knew. It was important that Eyran revealed the significance in his own words. Although Lambourne had planned to delay exploring the dreams until the second session — one area of the dreams might be worth exploring now.
'In the dreams, who do you see most? Your mother or your father — or do they both appear equally?'
'My father appears more. In the first two dreams, my mother didn't appear at all. Then when I did finally see her, she was distant, out of reach. In another dream, I wasn't even sure whether I saw her or not. It was misty, and I thought she was just ahead of my father, but I might have just been imagining it. It wasn't very clear.'
'And do either of them speak to you in the dreams?'
'My father has twice, my mother never. On the one occasion I was sure I saw her, she was turned from me, walking away. And I was trying to catch up.'