Prologue - Before
Jennifer is still dreaming, though she won't recall the details when she wakes. It's the same dream she has been having for more than twenty years and she's not managed to remember it yet. Nonetheless though, it insists on coming back. At first she'd had it almost every night, and back then in the early days its fading afterimage, all she has ever retained in her conscious mind, had left her with a terrible sense of loss. She'd wept on waking, grown to dread those mornings, had to work really hard just to deal with the days after the dream. Then over the years it would come progressively more rarely until, with months having passed sometimes, it seemed almost certain it was gone for good. A blessed relief you might well think.
But somehow as time had gone on her feelings toward the dream had changed. The impression of loss had metamorphosed by tiny increments into wistfulness, then eventually nostalgia, which she found after these interludes that she missed. And then eventually after a season, or two, maybe even once after a whole year had passed - out of the blue it would be back. One morning, long after hope had faded and resignation grown familiar, she'd wake excited, knowing it had happened again.
And now, joy of joys, over the last few months she's been waking two or three times a week with that familiarly shaped fragment of a memory skipping smoothly away out of focus. Slipping tantalisingly out of reach when she tries to grasp hold of it, like a mote of dust suspended on the water's surface, skating out from between questing fingers.
And, though despite all her efforts, even now she cannot recall the specifics, still each day following the dream is always instilled with a hint of its flavour. A flavour which has changed yet again to a different and finally evolved character - no longer nostalgia now but an emotion she can't even name. It puts a hint of a bounce into her step though, a roll into her stride, a humour into her manner. Something which those around her can't explain but equally can't fail to notice.
Occasional puzzled glances have been passing covertly between friends and acquaintances. There have, in recent weeks, even been two short light-hearted conversations, between different pairs of people who know her particularly well, half in jest (but not really in jest) about what's going on with Jen.
It wouldn't be right to say exactly what she's dreaming about, when she doesn't even know it herself. But the important thing, the wonderful thing, the delightful, the magical, the glorious thing, is that Jennifer...
...is still dreaming.
Morning
It was the day that Lynne was coming to stay and her impending arrival had been messing with Jen's mind since she had first woken up. It was filling her head, draining her of all the mental processing power she might have been usefully assigning to other tasks. Effortlessly breaking her various trains of thought to the point that she could hardly even keep her attention focussed long enough to make breakfast.
If Jen had been thinking rationally she might have considered that Lynne wasn't much of an early riser, and that it was several hundred miles down the country from the far north where she lived. But rational thought was in short supply this morning so whenever she heard, or more often imagined, a sound outside in the yard, she would glance out through the window yet again.
In spite of this distraction she had managed to put out food for her son Mike. He had also woken early, though not as early as Jen, and had come down to the farmhouse to eat from the cottage where he and his wife Julie lived. Then Jen had also fed Ray and Sarah when they had surfaced quite a lot later, mid morning really. That was understandable though she had thought, they were on their holidays after all.
While washing up after everyone had finished eating Jen was well placed to continue her irrational vigil - the sink stood in front of the kitchen window so she was facing directly out onto the yard. It was a modern kitchen, fitted only a few years ago, and there was a perfectly good dishwasher, but old habits die hard and she had fallen absentmindedly into the routine of running a bowl of water once she had finished her coffee.
Sarah had eventually noticed that Jen was doing all the clearing up and, feeling suddenly guilty for being a lazy guest, she'd grabbed a drying up cloth to help out. Ray had joined in too, gathering up the last of the crockery, a few mugs, a couple of plates, and bringing them through to the kitchen.
Ray was just getting on with the work, the undercurrent of emotional tension passing over her as ever as if it didn't exist at all. Sarah however was entirely in tune with Jen's nervousness and it was making her jumpy as Jen was. Eventually, as the older woman's gaze flicked back up to the window yet again, Sarah flinched, fumbled the plate she was drying and dropped it. It shattered loudly startling them all as it hit the stone floor. Then of course Ray had reached down without thinking in her rush to help pick up the pieces and cut her hand.
"Look Ray do you mind if we go out for a while." Ray was perched on the side of the bath with her hand over the sink. The bleeding had finally slowed and, having wiped the small but impressively messy wound clean, Sarah was carefully positioning a second plaster to hold the first in place.
"Jen's so highly strung today she can barely speak and it's getting to me. I could do with some clear air."
Although Jen's mood was essentially invisible to her Ray had learnt not to question this kind of statement from her girlfriend. What's more she was entirely happy to adapt to the plan anyway. For Ray a day out with Sarah was always one of the best things which could possibly happen in the world, so really this turn of events was a small dream come true.
"No problem, we can borrow Julie's car for the day, she won't be needing it. What about Glastonbury? Full of druids, hippies, and other assorted nutters. Quite fun at this time of year although not as good as it is in the summer. We'd best avoid Wells, the Christmas market will be good but it'll be overcrowded, and a bit over-the-top churchy too."
Sarah finished up her first aid and, crumpling the packaging into her hand, kissed Ray on the forehead. "There you go, all fixed up, don't do it again. Glastonbury sounds perfect then. We should get changed, it's going to be cold."
Not long later the two of them were tucked snugly into the Mini and on their way down the track to the main road. Folded in Ray's wallet was the last minute shopping list from the front of the fridge (Jen was never one to waste the opportunity to delegate some housework) but other than that they were free for the day.
After the girls had driven off Jen had the house to herself. She took fresh linen upstairs and made up the bed in one of the spare rooms for Lynne. Then she brewed another cup of coffee and went with it to her armchair in the sitting room where she read for a while. Although it was a decent dose of caffeine, and she was quite enjoying the book, her early rise that morning had left her short of rest and her eyes gradually closed. She was pulled back awake a couple of times from the edge of sleep by little hypnic jerks, resolving each time, as you do, to concentrate better. So she would straighten up in the chair and, finding the beginning of the last paragraph she could remember, start reading again.
And then inevitably despite her best intentions, she slept, only jumping awake much later, with half a mug of cold coffee still on the table beside her and the book in her lap where it had come to rest. The vigorous knocking which had roused her was coming from the kitchen door.
Noon
Of course Lynne hadn't found some miraculous shortcut. Some handy fold in time or space which was going to shave several hours off her journey. Instead she had been trapped for most of the morning on slow roads and in pouring rain on the motorway. The tide of traffic edged forward in tedious starts and stops, often far more slowly than she could have walked. Every time she looked at the sat nav her destination seemed to have skipped another twenty minutes or so further into the future, which was boding pretty ill for the road ahead.
Annie Lennox looping on the CD player was on her third time around and sweet dreams were quite definitely not made of this and hadn't been for some time. But Lynne couldn't summon the motivation to rummage through the chaos on the passenger seat and find an alternative so the band played on. Could have been worse, she thought, could have been Talking Heads.
*****
She wasn't even quite sure how she had ended up driving south, but the initial seed which started it off was that both her kids were going to be elsewhere for Christmas. Adrian reasonably enough because he was spending a year abroad in New Zealand and it wouldn't have been sensible, or even feasible, to come all the way back for a long weekend at home. But then, only a couple of weeks ago, Erica had mentioned that she was going to spend the holiday with her boyfriend and his family.
The cynic in Lynne half suspected that the deed had been done by email rather than on the phone to make things less awkward for her daughter. To allow her to present this as a fait accompli without discussion. Erica was, and there was no kind way of putting it, going through a phase of being a bit of a manipulative cow at the moment. She'd grow out of it sooner or later but for the time being the best thing to do had been just to shrug and move on. She'd only have ended up being a misery all weekend if Lynne had talked her into coming over anyway.
And after all it hadn't been as if it was going to be the first Christmas without Carol. Realistically she couldn't expect the kids to keep reorganising their lives around her forever and they'd both been there for her the year before.
Still though the point in this instance was that she'd been left at a loose end. So when Jen had asked after her plans she'd let it slip out that she'd not got any, and then nothing had seemed more natural than to take her up on her offer to come and stay for a few nights.
Once it had been agreed though, dates set and all the rest, Lynne had had time to dwell on the idea and give it a decent overthinking. It had started to seem less and less sensible. The practical logical side of her, holding court at the surface of her thoughts, asked what exactly they were to each other now. Old friends separated by half a lifetime of experience? They might not even get on any more it argued. And going down to the farm again after the way it had turned out last time - well it seemed like a chancy prospect to say the best.
