Claire dreamt that she was in her own house, one that she had bought with her own money. She dreamt that she was standing by the window in the bedroom of the house looking out over a lake. It was a loch, actually, and it was early morning. It was summer, but summer mornings in Scotland are crisp and cold and so she had a shawl, made of thin red wool, wrapped around her shoulders. The loch was dark grey, and the water wrinkled in the breeze. On the other side of it were brown hills, springy with heather.
He was there too, in the dream; asleep in the bed, on his front, with his hair falling over the left side of his face, his back rising and falling. Claire thought about waking him, but then, she thought that maybe if she woke him, she would also wake herself, and that the dream would be over. So instead she left him there, stretched out, with one arm hanging over the edge of the mattress.
Claire dreamt that the front door of the house that she had bought with her own money was open, and that she should probably go downstairs and close it. There were woods at the back of the house, and Claire found herself there, the red shawl still wrapped around her shoulders. The ends of it trailed behind her, brushing over ferns that were curled up tight like babies’ fists. It was quiet; almost silent. But when she looked up, she could see the clouds rushing overhead like a waterfall, air fizzing with biting insects. Claire could feel her feet in the wellingtons slurping and squelching as she walked uphill. She remembered that this was still a dream, and that soon she would wake up.
The woodland path took a turn uphill and the fir trees thinned out. Up there the sky was a milky blue, and then the fir trees were gone, and an orchard stretched out in every direction, all at once. The apple trees bent and curled in on themselves and grew larger as Claire moved through the orchard, and the grass grew taller too. Drops of dew like glass eyes gazed at her as she walked past. The grass trailed like seaweed in the watery air and rolled out ahead for miles.
There were apples nestled in the grass, russet-coloured and overripe. Claire stopped, and crouched down to look at one of these too-large apples where it lay in a hollow of cool grass. It was warm when she touched it. It uncurled at her feet, and then wasn’t an apple, but a fat brown bird with a long neck. The bird rolled onto its front, found its feet and bobbed away through the tall grass. Around her, more of these apple-birds uncurled across the floor of the orchard (whose trees now were huge, like cedars, rainforest trees, telegraph poles) and began hopping away.
Claire wondered whether they were pheasants, or grouse, seeing as how this was Scotland. Scotland is a place to feel remote; detached. When she thought about it, Scotland was the only place for her to have this dream. Thinking too much about the reasons for the dream was a sign that Claire was waking up. She didn’t want to do that, because she wanted to get back to her new house with the wooden floors and the old-fashioned bed where he was asleep on his front, or maybe awake now, making coffee, sitting down to read in the old armchair whose leather was split and warped. He could read a whole book while he waited for her. He did that sometimes, even in real life. In real life he was a fast reader and could remember books off by heart. He could pull the names of poems out of the air. He wouldn’t mind waiting at all.
By now a carpet of birds stretched out across the forest floor, all running, all bobbing along like the rushing waters of a stream that had burst its banks and before Claire realised what was happening, the birds had swept her up, tipped her onto her back and carried her along, their feathers tickling her bare arms, their little bodies slipping and rustling through the long grass. The orchard fell away as the tide of birds swept out onto the moorland, across the brown springy heather, skimming and rushing forth under the sky.
They stopped on the shore; a stony beach. They were on the edge of the loch. Claire was on her feet again then, and the birds were all around her. Far away on the other side she could just make out the house that she had bought with her own money. She panicked, wanting to know if he was still there. What if he left? What if this part of the dream was almost finished? The birds stood together on the shore, tightly knit, their little beaks like arrows, gleaming in the sun. There was a wooden boat, attached to a rock with a blue painter. Claire ran her hand along the rope, it was dry and frayed. The boat had no oars, no motor. The birds stood and watched, each one of their hard, black eyes alight with reflections of the noon sun.
Claire crouched down in front of the birds. Perhaps they could take her back to him before it was too late. She could get back there, surely; she must. She closed her eyes and willed the birds to sweep her up again, take her back to the house that she had bought with her own money, upstairs and into the bed in the middle of the room and underneath the duvet, underneath one of his arms with her face pressed up against his, with his eyelashes touching her cheek. Instead, the mechanical trill of a blackbird washed in on a grey ache of daylight, making her eyes water and forcing them open.
Claire Carroll writes about nature, technology and dysfunctional relationships. She is currently working on a collection of short stories about an imagined, futuristic Britain. Find Claire at @c_crrll.
