Dreamside

EPILOGUE

Ella checked her face in the hotel room mirror. After packing and clearing her room she decided to forgo breakfast and leave early. Carrying her split-leather holdall down the stairs, she crossed the polished parquet floor to the reception desk, where she learned that Lee had already taken care of the bill. She was grateful for that since money was going to be a problem for a while. Then she went outside and crossed the deserted hotel car park, unlocking the door of the Midget before swinging her bag on to the passenger seat.

The sun was well up in the sky. The morning was fresh but tranquil, and it promised to be a beautiful spring day. She readjusted the soft-top of the Midget to its down position, and the clip which Lee had repaired for her came apart in her hands. Since there was no one else around, Ella allowed herself another weep, last one before leaving.

“Come on, Innes, you’ll see worse than this,” she said into a crumpled tissue. But she was crying for a whole host of things. Ella had agreed to stay behind for a few days to tidy up the details. In the end, she had felt most responsible, particularly for Brad.

It was she, after all, who had raced down to Cornwall to bring him back. She had cooked up the whole plan; and it was she who had gone alone to the hospital that morning after the ultimate dream. When she had woken the morning after the storm on dreamside—incredibly only three days ago—she had not waited for the other two. She had got into her car and had driven to the hospital with a terrible foreknowledge. It echoed an earlier experience in her life. It had been a fine morning, like this one, of diffuse yellow sunshine and the grass wet with a heavy dew.

She had thought of the time she had washed him and shaved him and cut his hair and dressed him, ostensibly in preparation for meeting the others but really for their last walk on dreamside. There had seemed to be a tiny measure of hope, but that was then. Of course she wished she hadn’t done any of it, wished she had left Brad to his mouldering alcoholic decay in Elderwine Cottage. But she knew that bringing him back to face that final dreamside rendezvous was as unavoidable as daylight coming after dark. Or the reverse; Ella wasn’t sure.

She tried hard to recall the thing which he had begged her to remember. It grieved her deeply that she hadn’t been able to see how important it might have been to Brad if she had just been able to lie— if indeed lie it was. But no; surely that would have made the entire dreamside business nothing more than a conspiracy. A conspiracy of what would at worst be a nest of liars, and at best a coven of hysterics. Yet it had all happened. And whatever they were, she was not about to betray or deny a single moment of the reality of dreaming.

At the hospital they told her that Brad had died during the night, that he’d never come out of his coma. There was some bewilderment on their part, and talk of a post-mortem. Ella had said “Thank you” to the doctor who had broken the news. It had been an odd thing to say. What Ella had meant was thank you for the clarity, thank you for the confirmation of what she already knew, thank you for the permission to grieve. When she had returned to the house, to tell Lee and Honora what they too had already guessed, that’s when her tears had come.

On her way out of town, Ella drove up to the lake to take a final look. After he had held her for a while, Lee had cleared the house. He had suggested they stay in the town while the formalities of Brad’s death were taken care of. That night they had checked into a hotel, where Lee had booked three single rooms.

In the morning, when Lee found himself alone with Ella, he told her that he wanted to return to Northern Ireland with Honora. Ella was not at all surprised.

“Honora wants it; but she won’t do it because she thinks you will feel betrayed. I know that’s not so, and I think you would have been leaving me anyway.”

“Tell her I understand.”

“I love you, Ella, but I’m no match for you and I’ll never be enough for you.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean by that.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Lee, will you do me a favour and leave today? I’ll stay here for another night or so.”

“I can’t leave you with all of this.”

“I would prefer it. Really I would.”

Lee knew that Ella didn’t say things for the sake of form. She wanted Honora and him to go, so they did. Before they left, Ella hugged Honora and kissed her and they made unkeepable promises about seeing each other again. Then she went to Lee.

“Ella…” he began.

But she stopped him. “Now you’re going to kiss me, and then you’re going to go,” she said, as if she were directing an actor.

Lovers were easy to come by, thought Ella. They were as thick on the ground as used dreams. But a relationship that would stand the test was rare. So she and Lee parted for the second time, and she never let him know that he was right, that she would have been leaving him anyway. The sun was warm, and at the top of the hill overlooking the lake she stopped the car and climbed out to see what was happening. A small army of volunteer conservationists had already begun the task of cleaning the polluted water. They were busy dredging, draining and replanting. Ella felt heartened. She wanted to go over and wish them luck, but she felt shy about it. She knew they would do a fine job.