Dreamside Read Online Free PDF Page B

and my influence is on the wane. You wasted a
journey. You can go." He leaned back and closed his eyes.
    "Just came to have
a little talk with you, Brad."
    "Are you still
here? I thought I was only—"
    "Dreaming?"
    "What do you
want?" Brad scowled play-time over.
    "The booze doesn't
keep the dreams away, does it?"
    Cousins got up and
wobbled over to the other side of the room, steadying himself against a heavy oak sideboard. "Away at bay I pray they stay."
    "You're still
pissed."
    Cousins drew a circle
in the air and punctured it with a
nicotine-dyed finger. "I'd forgotten how telepathically perceptive you
were."
    "Do you sleep
well?”
    "I sleep like a
baby log. Thanks."
    "No bad
dreams?"
    "Ah! Dreamscreams ?"
    "Any
repeaters?"
    " Dreameaters ?"
    "Ever
go back^ there?"
    " Dreamscare ?"
    "You like this
game?"
    "Why
not. How long can we play?"
    "How long can you
keep it up? How long can you go on pretending?"
    "You were always
boring; did I ever tell you that? Always boring."
    "Why won't you
talk about it?"
    " It. What is it, exactly?" The cabinet door in
the sideboard had lost its handle. Cousins expertly prised it open with his
fingertips. He lifted out a third-full bottle of Scotch and a dusty,
gluey-looking tumbler with a long human hair, probably his own, stuck at the
rim.
    The whiskey splashed
into the tumbler as if it were Cola. No companion drink was offered. " It is an unappreciated visit from an unwanted past.   It appears
when you're least expecting it, and when you least want it . It comes when you are asleep, when you thought you were enjoying yourself,
defences down, getting in the zeds.   It knows that it's not
welcome, but it sits there uninvited in your comfortable squalid little nest
with its ridiculous mouth open asking for answers to questions."
    "I can't say that
age or booze has had a mellowing effect on you."
    "Mellowing? Spare
me. You've come to discuss my spiritual development."
    "People like you
don't develop; they ferment. I've come to talk about dreaming."
    At that last word,
Cousins moved to the window, glass in hand. He leaned
against the window-sill and peered over at the neighbouring tumbledown cottage.
"No, don't change the subject. Really. I'm always
interested in your observations concerning my moral and social progress. Who will you be reporting back to, I wonder."
    "I've seen Ella,
if that's what you mean. That's why I'm here."
    "How is the old
slag? Has she slept her way to prominence? Good luck to her and all who sail in
her." He seemed to have spotted something and leaned toward the window.
    "What about
you?" Lee trying to be barbed in return. "Did you ever see Honora Brennan again?"
    Cousins tried to spit
out the hair that caught in his mouth. He kept his back turned as Lee spoke.
"You know why I came here. Someone's been stirring things up. Now either
you've been back there muddying the water, or if it's not you, then at
least like Ella and myself you've been caught in the
backwash."
    "What can I do
against such dazzling logic?"
    "You can drop the
act; you're as frightened as we are."
    "Aw, shaddup ."
    "What are you
afraid of? Don't want to be reminded of what happened back there? Don't want to
remember your special part in it?"
    "All
right! All right! I did go back
there as a matter of fact. I didn't want to go. In fact I tried bloody hard
not to go. I spent night after bloody night fighting to keep it away. But it
was too strong. It got so I was afraid to go to sleep at night, because I knew
what was going to happen. I used pills to stay awake for three or four days,
and then when the inevitable happened I didn't have the strength left to resist
it." He turned to face Lee across the room. "You wouldn't recognize
the old place now: they've got penny arcades and fat lady shows, and hot-dog stands and end-of-pier comedy acts. It's quite a
tourist pull these days; you should get Ella to go down there with you for the
bank holiday."
    "You're scared,
Cousins." Lee stood up. "You live