In Your Dreams (53 page)

Paul nodded. No point in saying anything, really.

‘Well.' Mr Wells was looking at his watch. ‘By my calculations, Miss Pettingell should be due to wake up in approximately three minutes and seventeen seconds. We should just make it.'

Paul followed him out of the office, thinking,
Three minutes to the closed-file store, that's cutting it fine even if we run.
He needn't have worried. The corridors of 70 St Mary Axe clearly knew what was expected of them when the senior partner was in a hurry. They shortened. The number of stairs in each staircase diminished. Paul told himself to deal with it and be grateful, and threw the matter out of his mind.

‘Excuse me,' he asked nevertheless, as they turned a corner where usually there was a fire door, ‘but what's happened to the Countess di Castel'Bianco? Is she—?'

Mr Wells didn't pause or turn, but the back of his head waggled from side to side. ‘Not at all. By intervening when I did – timing was critical, of course – I was able to save the fundamental essence of who she was: her memories, experience, knowledge, personality. It has been removed for ever from this world and can do no further harm, but it will survive. She has gone away to the enchanted Isle of Avalon, where her kind can enjoy a hybrid existence, real but outside our reality. There she will not fade or wither, she will walk for ever beside the silver waters, through the silvery mists; and she will also be available to do a certain amount of work for us on a consultancy basis, which will be extremely helpful vis-à-vis looking after our long-established clients in the political and entertainment sectors. It's also worth noting that since she will not be technically dead, the remaining partners won't be obliged to pay out the value of her share of the business to her estate.'

‘I see,' Paul said. ‘So that's all right, then.'

‘Indeed,' replied Mr Wells, who obviously wasn't noticing sarcasm today. ‘A most satisfactory outcome for all involved, considering the desperate nature of the situation. Since the Countess remains technically alive, she cannot be succeeded as Monarch of the Fey, nor can she give orders, formulate policy or direct operations. Had she died, we would have faced a renewed threat in a matter of days. Now, I'm delighted to say, the threat from the dream-folk has been effectively countered. Thanks in no small measure,' he added, ‘to you. And, of course, to your great-uncle's watch. I assume that that was what he had in mind when he arranged for it to come into your possession.'

Paul bit his lip. ‘I guess so,' he said.

‘In any case,' Mr Wells said, as the door of the closed-file store came in view, ‘it was in the right place at the right time, whether by accident or design, and that's what matters. The firm will, of course, compensate you financially for the loss of your property.'

‘Thanks, but no, thanks,' Paul said. ‘It wouldn't feel right, somehow. Besides—'

‘As you wish. Now, if you would be kind enough to give me the key.'

‘Key?'

Mr Wells pushed open the door. Probably just Paul's imagination, but he could have sworn that the folders and dog-eared manila envelopes all stood to attention on their shelves as he entered the room. ‘The key to the weapons locker. Come along now, we don't have much time.'

‘Oh, sorry.' Paul reached into his pocket. The key wasn't there. Instead, there was a hole.

‘Come along,' Mr Wells snapped. ‘The key.'

‘Um,' Paul mumbled. ‘I think I've lost it. There's a hole in my pocket, you see, and it must've dropped out somewhere—'

‘Oh.' Mr Wells's forehead crinkled in annoyance. ‘No time to look for it, I fear. Never mind. If you'd be good enough to let me have your great-uncle's screwdriver.'

Paul handed it to him without a word; glad to be rid of it. A touch from its flat tip, and the screws fell out of the locker door's hinges. A moment later, the door itself clattered on the ground.

Sophie didn't appear to have moved at all; her head still rested on Benny's rolled-up gown and her eyes were still beneath their lids. She was also still deathly pale, and even her lips were white.

‘She doesn't look right to me,' Paul said. ‘Not like she's just about to wake up. What if something's gone wrong and she's – well, stuck like it?'

Mr Wells shook his head. ‘She has just passed out of the shadow,' he replied. ‘She has been far away. It will take her a little while to come back.'

‘I still think she looks pretty bad.'

‘Well, she was no oil painting to begin with.'

Then Sophie stirred; her eyelids twitched, and so did her mouth. Her head lolled a little way onto her shoulder, and she grunted. It was one of the loveliest sounds that Paul had ever heard, even if it did remind him a little of a warthog eating a turnip, because it was the noise she usually made, just before she woke up. ‘Sophie?' he said. ‘Sophie, can you hear me?'

She snorted softly, but her eyes and mouth were still and set once more; she was slipping back into the shadows, and all Paul could do was watch. Or was it? No, certainly not, he was being even thicker than usual. Of course; he'd known exactly what to do in this situation ever since his mum had read to him from
My First Fairy Tale Book
in his pram. Rather tentatively, and wishing Mr Wells wasn't standing next to him with his left eyebrow raised, he knelt down beside Sophie and, gently, tenderly, kissed her on the lips.

‘Gerroff,' she mumbled, and hit him in the mouth.

At least it proved beyond any faint lingering vestige of a doubt that she was the real Sophie, not some forgery concocted by the Fey out of mist and shadow. The real Sophie, as Paul now remembered as he massaged his cut lip, didn't like being disturbed when she was just waking up. She tended to react with violent spasmodic (but usually very well aimed) movement. Mostly she tended to catch him in the eye rather than the mouth, but there weren't any hard and fast rules.

‘Miss Pettingell.' Mr Wells's voice was deep and solemn, like Gandalf reading the shipping forecast. ‘You must wake up now. The dream has ended. You will not remember any of it. It has been wiped from your mind. Open your eyes now, if you please.'

Sophie's eyes flicked open. She blinked a couple of times, then wriggled up onto her left elbow. ‘Paul,' she said accusingly, ‘what the fuck am I doing lying here surrounded by stupid swords and stuff?'

‘It's—' He'd wanted to tell her it was a long story, but he'd run out of words. ‘Tell you later,' he said. ‘'S all right, though. Tell you later,' he repeated.

‘But isn't this the—?' She frowned. ‘And what's
he
doing here? Look, just what exactly is going on here, because—'

‘Miss Pettingell,' Mr Wells said. ‘You are at the office, in the closed-file store. Several weeks have passed since you fell asleep, during which time you were a prisoner of the Fey. You are safe now, and everything is under control.' He peeked at his watch again. ‘I suggest that you and Mr Carpenter go home now; and, under the circumstances –' a ghost of a smile flitted across his face ‘– I think you might as well have tomorrow morning off work. I shall, however, be grateful if you would both report to me in my office at two o'clock sharp.'

Paul breathed out, something he hadn't done for some little time. ‘Right,' he said. ‘Thanks, we'll be there. Um, Mr Wells, what about Mr Wurmtoter, and Mr Shumway? And we'll need a new receptionist, won't we, because that wasn't the real—'

‘I shall deal with all of that,' Mr Wells said firmly. ‘You two run along; it's well after half-past five, and the goblins will be about, so please be careful on your way out.'

Paul reached out his hand to help Sophie to her feet; she ignored him (she didn't hold with patronising gender-stereotypical conventions) and wobbled for a moment before her legs remembered how to cope with her weight. ‘Is that right, Paul, what he just said?' she asked. ‘I've been held hostage for
weeks
, and all we get is one lousy morning off? Didn't I always say, this firm is such a—'

Paul smiled feebly at Mr Wells, put his hand behind Sophie's shoulder and shoved her out through the door.

Chapter Sixteen

P
aul and Sophie arrived together at the office next day, and immediately separated. Sophie didn't say where she was going; Paul headed for his office, where he sat down and started to work his way through the bauxite pictures, which were now severely overdue. As he ran his fingertip over the smooth surface of the photographs, he did his very best to keep his mind from wandering; but it was as hard to control as a large, bouncy dog that's been kept inside for a whole rainy week.

All the way home Sophie hadn't said a word. Hers was the sort of silence that well-meaning chatter sinks into and disappears without even a ripple, so he didn't try. Paul sat next to her on the bus, staring at the back of the seat in front of him, and tried to figure out a few things, trivial as well as crucial. He didn't get very far. He couldn't concentrate.

When they got home, he'd offered her a cup of coffee. She said, ‘All right,' in a neutral sort of voice, so he'd fled into the kitchen and made the best possible cup of coffee that he could engineer, using all his skill, experience and flair. He took it through and put it on the table beside the chair she was sitting in. Sophie made no move to drink it.

That was Paul all gambited out, so he sat on the sofa with his hands folded in his lap. By rights he should be shattered – violence, precious little sleep, fear, outwitting the Queen of the Fey, near as made no odds killing her, dying, let's not forget that, and when was the last time he'd had anything to eat? He just felt numb, the way your mouth feels when you've had a tooth pulled but the effects of the jab haven't worn off yet – you know the pain is there, smothered under the anaesthetic, but it'll be along soon enough, and when it gets loose it'll be no fun at all. He could sleep now, actually close his eyes and stop fighting off the pack of ravening sheep that had been poised at the foot of the wall for as long as he could remember; but he didn't feel sleepy. Or anything much.

‘Paul,' she said at last.

‘Hello?'

Sophie wasn't looking at him. ‘When old Mr Wells told me I wouldn't remember anything about the dreams, he was wrong.'

‘Oh,' Paul said.

‘I can remember it all,' she said, ‘right from the start.'

‘That's—'
Yes, Paul, what was that? Sum up in one appropriate word everything Sophie's gone through. Alternatively, shut up.

‘Everything,' she said. ‘Being her – that
thing
– all that time. Being someone else, someone who wanted to kill you, and everybody, all the people in the world.'

Just a minuscule flicker of annoyance sparked across the back of Paul's mind;
right
, it said,
I think I've got that, but what the hell am I supposed to do about it?
‘That must've been – pretty bad,' Paul mumbled.

‘Pretty bad,' Sophie repeated. ‘Yes, you could say that. The whole fucking deal was pretty bad, actually. Like feeling great chunks of me, who I am, just leaking out and not being able to do anything about it. You see, she was sort of growing inside me all the time, getting stronger, I don't know; but every time she grew, a part of me got displaced; and it's not coming back, Paul. It's gone for ever. Memories, feelings, things I used to like or hate. Like, when I was a kid we used to go to the seaside, and I know that one of my happiest memories was scrabbling about in rock pools for those little snail things with the shiny shells. But I can't
remember
that, Paul; there's just a hole, like an empty folder with nothing inside it.'

‘I see,' Paul said.

‘While she was still there I didn't really notice,' Sophie went on, ‘because all the gaps and holes were filled with her stuff, her memories and emotions and all the things she was. Now she's gone, there's just the empty folders. I don't know, maybe they'll fill up again as time goes by, but the stuff that I lost won't ever come back. It's all gone.'

Paul knew what she was going to say next. ‘Drink your coffee,' he told her. ‘It's going cold.'

‘One of the things I lost,' Sophie went on, cold and precise, as though giving evidence, ‘was us. I think she made a point of getting rid of it quite early on, because it was something I could hold on to, fight her with, even. But she just sort of flushed it out, and I could feel it drifting away, like a dream when you wake up. I know, in an abstract sort of a way, that I'd felt a certain way about you, before she came; but it's just a historical fact, like I know who Edward the Third was. I can't find those feelings again. They won't be coming back.'

‘Right,' Paul said. ‘I understand. That's it, then.'

Sophie nodded. ‘Yes.'

‘You don't think – if we tried really hard . . .'

‘No.' She turned her head away so that he couldn't see her face. ‘I'm sorry,' she said.

‘Not your fault,' Paul said.

‘I mean, you did save me,' Sophie said quietly. ‘Sort of. You got me out of that place she took me to; and I know it was Mr Shumway who did all the fighting and had the plan and everything, but at least you tried, as best you could. So I probably owe you my life.'

‘Don't worry about it,' Paul said. ‘Any time.'

Sophie shook her head. ‘No,' she said, ‘it's important, because you came to rescue me because you thought we were still, well,
us
. It'd be wrong just to say, “Very sorry but it was all false pretences.“ I need to make it right, or else she's won.'

Paul closed his eyes. ‘But there's nothing you can do, is there?'

‘I suppose not,' Sophie said. ‘It's over, I can't pretend or anything. I'm sorry, Paul. I did love you, and I thought, maybe now she's gone, maybe I'll fall in love with you all over again, from scratch. But now I look at you and I just feel guilty.'