Jack was writhing now, his lips pulled back in a rictus grin as scream after scream tore from his throat. As awful as it was, Caleb felt he had to let it go on, for Jack's sake, he told himself, his vision blurring through tears.
The only problem was Polly, standing in the doorway, screaming at him to make it stop. He tried to explain what was happening, but it was no good. She ran to the bed, gathered Jack up into her arms, and carried him from the room. Caleb sat there, appalled at what he had done. At what he had failed to do. The terror wasn't Jack's alone, he felt. It was his nightmare too.
Throughout the day Caleb struggled with his fears, barely able to keep his mind focused on his students. Their demands oppressed him, their need for reassurance wore him down. He grew more irritable and short- tempered, so that for the final session of the day, forewarned by the morning's students, fewer than half the afternoon group turned up. Afterwards, he sat alone for an hour in his office, trying to make sense of what was happening to him.
The persistence of Jack's nightmare scared him and his need to make sense of it had become an obsession. He had come to feel connected to it in some way, to believe that the key to deciphering it lay somewhere in his own past.
All day he'd dredged his subterranean memories but had come up empty. As he left the building after 6:00pm, he wondered if in fact he was afraid to probe too deeply. Maybe there was something there he wasn't ready to deal with, some secret he didn't want to discover about himself.
He stopped in the Joiner's Arms on the way home, but found neither relief nor pleasure in the two pints of Three Cliffs Gold he drank, nor in the company of the few regulars who acknowledged his presence but who, faced with his patent desire for isolation, left him to his fretful ponderings.
Jack was watching TV in the living room when Caleb got home. He glanced in at his son then walked by the door and on through to the kitchen. Polly was reading a book at the kitchen table, sipping a glass of red wine. She looked up as he came in and managed an uneven smile. 'You okay?' she said.
Caleb shrugged, took a glass from the wall unit and poured himself some wine. 'How is he?'
'Okay, I think. Keeps asking about you.'
'What's that?' he asked, meaning the book.
She showed him the cover. It was called
'And does it?'
'It helps me.'
'I'm going to sit with him tonight,' Caleb said. 'Watch him. I'll try to wake him before it takes hold.'
Polly frowned. 'You really think that will help him?'
'As much as that book.'
She got up from the table and took his hand. 'Caleb, can you be honest with me?'
'I thought I was.'
'About Jack, I mean. About why he's so afraid for you.'
'Jack's not afraid of me,' Caleb said, agitated.
'That's not what I said,' Polly said, confused. 'Jack's afraid for you — not of you. Why? Have you told him something? Something you're not telling me?'
Her questions shook him, filled him with doubt. 'Don't — don't be stupid.'
'I'm not,' Polly said, her voice rising. 'I'm scared for our son and I'm worried about you. You're not yourself, Cale. Something's eating you up.'
'Please, Polly,' Caleb said, trying to hold himself together. 'Don't presume you know what's going on in my head. Can you do that? Is it asking too much?' He didn't wait for an answer but hurried upstairs where he stripped off his clothes and took a long, almost scalding shower, as if to burn away the stain of some long forgotten sin.
Later, Caleb apologised to Polly and told her he'd look at the book she'd bought. Maybe it would help him understand what Jack was going through. After dinner, he went to his son's room. Jack was already tucked up in bed, and despite the broad smile that crossed his face, Caleb could see none of his usual vitality and zest for life.
'Mum said you're going to stay.'
He stood by the edge of the bed, feeling a sudden, intense pang of guilt. 'That's right,' he said. 'Keep the bad dreams away.'
'Are you going to read to me?'
Caleb saw
'D'you read it when you were a boy?'
'Yes, though I'd forgotten most of it until I started reading it to you.'
'D'you forget your dreams too, Dad?'
Caleb stared at his son, not sure how to respond. He wanted to say the right thing, but he no longer knew what that was. 'Most of them.'
'Did you dream about —»
'Ssshhh, Jack. Go to sleep.'
Jack was silent a moment, his face troubled. Then, as if having plucked up the courage, he said, 'Will I die if I dream at thirteen o'clock?'
Caleb leaned over the bed and took hold of Jack's hand. 'No,' he said, squeezing. 'There's no such time as thirteen o'clock.'
Jack nodded but seemed unconvinced. He reached up and kissed his father's cheek. 'I'm okay, Dad, really,' he said, but Caleb saw a wariness in his eyes.
'I hope so, son,' he said, letting Jack's hand fall. He moved to the window and sat in the armchair, watching as Jack turned on his side to face him. He'd brought Polly's book upstairs, but after flicking through the first few pages, he let it fall to the floor and focused his attention on his son.
He woke that night with the sound of screams still echoing in his head. Violent tremors shook his body as he crouched in the shadows, clenching his teeth to still their relentless chatter.
A sickly, cloying dread hung in the air, and his flesh recoiled from its touch. Through the fog of dreams that swirled all round his semiconscious mind, he recognized Polly's voice, splintered to a thin, fragile whisper 'Caleb,' she was saying, 'what happened to you? Where have you been?'
The stench of foam was in his nostrils, the taste of salt on his lips. 'Poh-Polly?' he groaned.
'Jesus Cale.' Her arms were around him and he felt the heat from her body seep into his cold, damp flesh. 'It's okay, you had a nightmare.'
He saw the darkness outside the kitchen window. He was crouched on the opposite side of the room, the slate tiles wet beneath him, and the distant pounding of surf reverberating in his head. Cyril cowered behind Polly, as if wary of him. 'How did I get here?' he asked.
Polly shook her head, her face drained of colour in the pale light. 'Something woke me and you weren't there. I was going to Jack's room when I heard you cry out down here.'
'This can't happen, Polly,' he said. 'I–I can't let it happen to him.'
'What can't happen, Cale?' Her grey eyes searched his face. He felt cut off from her, drifting beyond her zone of familiarity.' What are you talking about?' she said.
He wondered at her inability to comprehend the vague shapes and shadows that flowed around him. Nothing he saw reassured him, not even her face. Her lips were moving but the words were drowned by the sound of the blood rushing through his brain. Someone had been outside, watching the house. Was he still there, waiting? For Jack?
'Listen to me,' he said, trying to warn her, but there was something else too, something he needed to know. The shadows beyond Polly were melting into the floor.
'It's all right, Cale. It's over.'
She didn't get it. The dream was there, but all scrambled in his mind. He'd seen this before. Years ago, he
