where the sound is coming from.
“I’m in a bedroom. Heavy curtains close off the windows, and it’s quite dark, but I can sense that the furnishings are entirely antique—late Victorian, I think. There’s a large four-poster bed, with its curtains drawn. Beside the bed is a small night table upon which a candle is burning. It is from here that the music seems to be coming.
“I walk across the room toward the bed, and as I stand beside it I see a gold watch resting on the night table next to the candlestick. The music-box tune is coming from the watch, I realize. It’s one of those old pocket-watch affairs with a case that opens. The case is open now, and I see that the watch’s hands are almost at midnight. I sense that on the inside of the watchcase there will be a picture, and I pick up the watch to see whose picture it is.
“The picture is obscured with a red smear. It’s fresh blood.
“I look up in sudden fear. From the bed, a hand is pulling aside the curtain.
“That’s when I wake up.”
“Bravo!” applauded someone.
Lisette frowned momentarily, then realized that the comment was directed toward another of the chattering groups crowded into the gallery. She sipped her champagne; she must be a bit tight, or she’d never have started talking about the dreams.
“What do you think, Dr Magnus?”
It was the gala reopening of Covent Garden. The venerable fruit, flower and vegetable market, preserved from the demolition crew, had been renovated into an airy mall of expensive shops and galleries: “London’s new shopping experience.” Lisette thought it an unhappy hybrid of born-again Victorian exhibition hall and trendy “shoppes.” Let the dead past bury its dead. She wondered what they might make of the old Billingsgate fish market, should SAVE win its fight to preserve that landmark, as now seemed unlikely.
“Is this dream, then, a recurrent one, Miss Seyrig?”
She tried to read interest or skepticism in Dr Magnus’ pale blue eyes. They told her nothing.
“Recurrent enough.”
To make me mention it to Danielle, she finished in her thoughts. Danielle Borland shared a flat— she’d stopped terming it an apartment even in her mind—with her in a row of terrace houses in Bloomsbury, within an easy walk of London University. The gallery was Maitland Reddin’s project; Danielle was another. Whether Maitland really thought to make a business of it, or only intended to showcase his many friends’ not always evident talents, was not open to discussion. His gallery in Knightsbridge was certainly successful, if that meant anything.
“How often is that?” Dr Magnus touched his glass to his blonde-bearded lips. He was drinking only Perrier water, and, at that, was using his glass for little more than to gesture.
“I don’t know. Maybe half a dozen times since I can remember. And then, that many again since I came to London.”
“You’re a student at London University, I believe Danielle said?”
“That’s right. In art. I’m over here on fellowship.”
Danielle had modelled for an occasional session—Lisette now was certain it was solely from a desire to display her body rather than due to any financial need—and when a muttered profanity at a dropped brush disclosed a common American heritage, the two emigres had rallied at a pub afterward to exchange news and views. Lisette’s bed-sit near the Museum was impossible, and Danielle’s roommate had just skipped to the Continent with two months’ owing. By closing time it was settled.
“How’s your glass?”
Danielle, finding them in a crowd, shook her head in mock dismay and refilled Lisette’s glass before she could cover it with her hand.
“And you, Dr Magnus?”
“Quite well, thank you.”
“Danielle, let me give you a hand?” Maitland had charmed the two of them into acting as hostesses for his opening.
“Nonsense, darling. When you see me starting to pant with the heat, then call up the reserves. Until then, do keep Dr Magnus from straying away to the other parties.”
Danielle swirled off with her champagne bottle and her smile. The gallery, christened “Such Things May Be” after Richard Burton (not Liz Taylor’s ex, Danielle kept explaining, and got laughs each time), was ajostle with friends and well-wishers—as were most of the shops tonight: private parties with evening dress and champagne, only a scattering of displaced tourists, gaping and photographing. She and Danielle were both wearing slit-to-thigh crepe de Chine evening gowns and could have passed for sisters: Lisette blonde, green-eyed, with a dust of freckles; Danielle light brunette, hazel-eyed, acclimated to the extensive facial makeup London