Читать книгу Feather Boy онлайн | страница 18
Once I’ve decided to use the dream alarm, the evening normally passes mournfully slowly. But not tonight. It only seems a moment before I’m in bed. Then it’s just a matter of going through the ritual. I lie on my back, close my eyes, and relax my body, starting with my feet. When all my limbs are so heavy that the mattress seems dented with them, I turn to my mind. This is when it can get tricky. I think about the problem – in this case Chance House – but I try not to direct my thoughts. It works better if I can keep everything loose and unfocused. If images come, and they do, I attempt to follow them, but not to pursue them, so they can choose their own way. It normally takes a while for the vague, meandering flow to begin. But Chance House conjures itself at once, arriving exact and massive in my imagination. It’s a huge edifice of dirty cream brick. Wide, concrete steps lead to a forbidding door. The door handle is a twisted ring of metal, fashioned like a rope. I imagine myself walking up the steps, grasping the handle in both hands and passing boldly into Edith’s past and my future. But that’s not what happens. I do walk up the steps. But the moment I touch the door, there is a flash and a bang and the house disappears. Or that’s what I believe at first. A little while later, as I stand in the dark, it occurs to me that maybe I have disappeared.
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Next thing I’m aware of is Mum shaking me by the shoulders.
“Robert,” she says gently.
At once I’m in action mode, it can’t be more than three seconds before I’m bolt upright, pencil in hand.
“Room,” I write in my dream diary. “Small, cosy, warm, not unlike my bedroom.”
“Robert?”
“People: me, Mum. Atmosphere: everyday, normal. Colours: pale but bright, morning colours.”
Mum gets up and opens the curtains. It is bright. In fact, it is morning.
I grab for my clock, focus. Focus again.
“You set the alarm for three am,” says Mum. “You silly chump.” She smiles, touches me lightly on the head.
“What!”
“Lucky I noticed, eh?” says my mother.