Dreams of Fear

Twelve

After Vogel and Saslow left the Bay View Road house, Felix asked his mother if she would look after the twins whilst he took the dogs for a walk.

He told her he needed to clear his head.

And that, thought Felix, as he set off along Abbotsham Cliffs, the dramatic coastal heathland which stretches for miles to the west of Westward Ho! could be the single most true thing he had said since his wife’s death.

He so needed to clear his head.

Through all the years of their marriage, until very recently, Felix had managed to cope with his wife’s nightmares. He and Jane had both coped. Or he’d thought so, anyway. The nightmares had been the sole blot on a bright horizon. And only in the last months had the dreams which, in spite of what he had told Vogel, had grown more and more frequent and extreme, gradually become his nightmare too.

He realized he’d probably been naïve in thinking that Jane’s death would bring them both release. The horror of it all seemed even bigger now. And the fear too. How could he have even hoped for anything else, he wondered.

He had been kidding himself to ever allow the possibility that everything would turn out all right. In any case, he’d never really believed it, had he? After all, his excessive drinking bore testament to that.

Felix didn’t think he was a bad man. He knew, however, that he was lazy, and that he was a coward.

Two thriving businesses with trusted staff had been offered him on a plate. Felix had never had any ambition for anything else. Why would he? He’d led a privileged childhood, and sailed through a minor public school where little or no pressure was put on him to succeed academically, certainly not beyond a pretty lowly average.

Felix knew that he did have his talents. His easy manner and generally relaxed demeanour meant that, both in business and in his personal life, he was often able to deal successfully with tricky people and situations where a more focused and driven man would probably fail.

Felix’s father had always recognized this. In addition, the self-made Sam Ferguson was a control freak. And this suited equally well both father and son. There was none of the friction between them, common amongst successful fathers and their sons. Felix had never been competition to his father nor had any desire to be. He had remained content to run his side of the business according to his father’s wishes, and to reap the considerable rewards for so doing. And his father was content to let him do so, leaving him alone in the areas in which he was able, whilst stepping in when a firmer hand was needed at the helm. Felix never minded. Why would he? That was how he had been brought up. A privileged unstressful childhood had drifted into a privileged unstressful adulthood.

He was also protected. If stress threatened, in almost any form, his mother clacked and his father acted. Again, both father and son exhibited complementary characteristics. Both accepting, and indeed actively enjoying, their roles as protected and protector.

But marriage proved different. Sam Ferguson could not reasonably be his son’s protector within that institution. In any case, one of Felix’s stronger and better characteristics was loyalty. When he’d married Jane he’d fully intended to be loyal to her for the rest of his life. In every way. Which for him went way beyond mere sexual fidelity.

And for the first time in his life, when the cracks began to show in this union, which he had been so sure would be perfect, Felix had not run to his parents to share his misery and seek their assistance. Although he knew they had guessed all was not well. He had not turned to his father and stood aside whilst Sam made everything all right again. Like he usually did.

Upon reflection, it may have been better if he had confided more in his parents.

As it was, he was not at all sure what they did and did not know. He suspected that his mother was, as usual, sticking rigidly to her own vision of her son’s life — which varied from day to day in many aspects but never much swayed from adoration and a total conviction of his lack of blame in anything. In other words, Mrs Ferguson senior’s head remained firmly buried in the sand. If she had suspected anything beyond the ordinary in her son and daughter-in-law’s affairs, she would probably have pretended not to notice.

Felix’s father, on the other hand, was a different prospect. Sam Ferguson didn’t miss much. Although Felix had no idea at all what conclusions his father may have drawn from what could only ever have been a disjointed and incomplete view of his son’s married life.

If Felix had shared with his father what was really going on things may have turned out differently. Sam Ferguson might, like his wife, love his only son unconditionally. But he was a realist. And he had the steadiest of heads on his shoulders.

If Felix had gone to his father, told him the truth, the whole truth, he supposed it was possible that Sam Ferguson may have found a better way out of the whole damned mess. Although Felix didn’t know what the hell that could have been. And neither did he know how he, the man who previously had always told his father everything, could have shared the details of the last few weeks of Jane’s life with anyone.

But one thing was for certain now. It was too late. Irrevocable decisions had been made. Jane was dead. The beautiful wife Felix had fallen head over heels in love with was no more.

Felix bent down and picked up a stick which he threw for the dogs. Pedro and Petra took off after it in yelping writhing delight, every pace, every leap, every sound, a chorus of total happiness.

The sea breeze of earlier in the day was growing stronger and there were dark clouds gathering. The first drops of rain were beginning to fall. Felix didn’t care. He stood still for a moment looking out to sea. This part of Westward Ho! the start of Abbotsham Cliffs, where the tors reached up to the south and the ocean stretched to the north, was quite possibly his favourite place in all the world. It was beautiful whatever the weather.

Lundy Island, jewel of the Atlantic, standing dark and proud on the horizon, had yet to disappear within a gathering mist.

Pedro galloped back to Felix and was at his feet, excited, joyful, insistent on another throw of his stick. Felix bent forward, and took the stick from the dog’s mouth.

When he stood up, ready to oblige, there were tears pouring down his cheeks.