Dreamside - By Graham Joyce Page 0,9

the past."

"It's not in the past. It's back and it's not nice."

"But don't you see what it is!" Honora cried. "Just this talking about it is what does it. You're dredging it all up again. Why can't you leave it alone? The more you want to discuss and analyze and toss it back and forth the more you bring it all back again. It was a mistake, something we did when we were young. It's something we shouldn't keep going back to; like an old—"

"Like an old affair?"

"Something like that."

"Lee said some very similar things, about not wanting to open it all up."

"Well, he's right. Me and him both."

"But he's a different kind of person. Remember what we used to call the repeater? He's been having some of those dreams again. Only it's not a joke any more. Some mornings it's panic . . ."

"Are you living with Lee?"

"No, but I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. We didn't get together and resurrect this dreaming thing. It started happening to both of us independently. I got frightened, so I got in touch with Lee. That was when I found that the same things were happening to him. I'd already decided that one of the original circle was muddying the pool; so if it wasn't me and it wasn't Lee . . ."

"You thought it might be me."

"I had to come and find you, at least. You can understand that, can't you?"

"Yes, I can understand it."

Dusk had rolled over the street outside the tea shop. A hand switched on dim lights. Now half of Honora's face was in grey shadow, the other half washed by unhelpful amber light. Another patrol passed by the misted window.

Ella was still trying to get Honora to pick up the ball. "So you haven't been troubled by any of that . . . weird stuff? No repeaters. No flashbacks. None of it?"

"Not at all." Honora's eyes were too wide open to be telling the truth.

"Never, over the years?"

"Not since what happened at university. For a year or two after that I did have the occasional nightmare, but that was more of the regular order of bad dreams. If you want my opinion, I'm glad I can't help you. It's dead and gone, and I'd like to keep it that way."

Honora said all of this too cheerfully, working a fraction too hard at trying to keep it light. She was smiling at Ella with those delicate features, but now she was looking like a toy left out in the rain. Yes; there was a pallor under the skin left by the sleeping pills, Ella could guess that; but most revealing were the very fine lines, a tiny chain of folds in her skin which she saw as knives, daggers turned inwards on the subject.

"And over the years you've never had any contact with—"

"None." Honora cut Ella very short. "I don't even want to think about him, far less talk about him. Can we pay this bill?"

Ella sat back.

"I wasn't going to ask you to stay," said Honora with a smile, "but I can't really not, now can I?"

"No, you can't really not. We've got a hundred other things to catch up on."

They threaded their way through the streets of the town, Honora once again linking arms with her old friend. Her house was a two-up two-down brick terrace, its interior painted in bold primary colours. It was almost obsessively tidy, except in the back room which was cluttered with the unframed canvases and rolls of cartridge paper which Honora used for painting and drawing.

"In the summer I still go into town and paint portraits for American and German tourists," Honora explained. "And sometimes I get commissions to paint people's pets. Dreadful!"

"Stinking!" Ella agreed brightly.

One painting rested on a chair, draped with a chequered tablecloth. "Can I see?" Ella asked. But Honora ushered her gently out of the room and switched off the light. Ella suddenly knew exactly what lay under the cloth, as if she herself had splashed it on the canvas in luminous paint.

"What would you like to do while you're here?" Honora asked hurriedly.

"You mean apart from talking about dreams?"

Honora looked defeated.

"Why did you lie to me, Honora? You never used to lie."

Honora turned to the window. "All right, the dreams have been back. I don't even like talking about it. I don't know what's happened, why the . .. repeaters are frightening me again. I hadn't experienced them for over ten years. I