Chapter 2 – Four Nights Earlier...
1.
Rays of burning light highlighted the unique green shades of each blade of grass on the primary school playing field. Dressed in black, white and blue, the children ran together, sat together, made daisy chains together, and laughed together. Only Oliver was alone, silently cradled in the branches and leaves of a tree. No-one had seen him climb it and so, when the sound of the school bell pierced the air, the other children hadn’t looked to see where he’d hidden himself.
The field rapidly emptied but Oliver didn’t move. He stayed where he was, watching the grass grow; barely visible but still moving and changing in the pure quiet.
“Nice hiding place, mate,” he heard a boy say from the roof of the school that was behind the tree.
Oliver adjusted his position to look at where the voice had come from. The boy was crouching down and looking back at him.
“Oliver isn't it?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
Oliver sat upright and turned to face the other boy.
“Well, I'm Johnny.”
Neither of them said anything until curiosity got the better of Johnny:
“So is there a reason you're up that tree?”
Oliver shrugged his shoulders and watched while Johnny stood up and smiled.
“Yer see I was just wondering cos Miss Coyle hates me and...”
He paused only to jump from the roof onto the concrete below. He looked back up at Oliver.
“I reckon you can probably get down now.”
“I thought I'd stay here.”
“Why would yer wanna do that?”
Oliver shrugged again. This time the boy grinned at him and, for some reason that he couldn’t work out, he did the same thing.
“You don't say a lot...” Johnny began, before being cut off by the voice of someone he should have expected.
“JOHNNY YOUNGBLOOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE?” Miss Coyle shouted, in a tone that was both annoyed and concerned.
“I... I'm...” Johnny stammered, strangely lost for words.
“Causing mischief no doubt!” she added sharply.
She stood with her back to Oliver and that was when he realised he didn’t remember her face. He knew she had short, straight dark hair and he thought she might have had glasses but he’d never paid much attention to her. It was all such a long time ago.
“Who were you talking to?” she asked Johnny.
“Nobody Miss, it's just me.”
Although he couldn’t see it, Oliver could tell that she didn’t entirely believe him. She didn’t argue though.
“Oh all right. Let's get you back to the classroom.”
Miss Coyle walked away with Johnny following behind. She didn’t look back but he did, with a smile and two thumbs up to Oliver. Then he was gone and Oliver was alone.
2.
Climbing down from the tree, Oliver realised he wasn’t an eight year old boy anymore. This made the climb down much easier and, because he was almost twice as tall, the wheat in the field where he stood only came up to his waist.
He waded through the pale warmth of yellow with long strides. And then when he saw her again, his pace, like his heart, became quicker. The girl ran towards him with a smile that lit up her whole face and she swiftly took his hand in hers.
“Hey!” she said.
“Hey there,” he replied.
“You're right on time.”
Her words confused him. He didn’t say anything and as she turned her head away he quietly admired the dark tendrils of her hair, shining like wet ink in the sunlight. She pulled him towards a perfect circle of flattened and battered crops, which had a red and green trimmed blanket at its centre.
They sat down on it, facing each other, with a hamper between them
“So, what happened to you before?” she asked.
“What? When?”
“When you disappeared. I didn't know what happened.”
“Oh right,” he said, “I don't really know.”
“I tried to look for you... I missed you.”
“You don't even know me,” he told her.
“So what?” she said, “What difference does that make? Besides, I think you know what you can do to change that.”
She was right, of course. He did know but fear was holding him back. Silence descended until they heard the distant sound of thunder. Their eyes followed the sound to a shadow and a rainstorm, hanging over a hill in the distance.
3.
The rain flattened Oliver's hair onto his head in seconds. Below where he and the girl were standing was a city that brightened the darkness with spots of multi-coloured light; a field of stars, full of movement and energy. The water weighed him down but Oliver was mesmerised by the sight of it all.
“You still haven't worked out where we are, have you?” the girl said, “I'll give you a clue if you want... Knickers Off Ready When I Come Home.”
He quickly turned his head and accidentally flicked water from his hair at her. It landed on her bare white shoulder. She didn’t notice.
“You what?”
“Knickers off Ready When I Come Home,” she repeated, with a smile.
“Right... That's what I thought.”
He looked away and back again with a laugh that tickled his throat and cut through the rain.
“And that's your clue is it?”
“Yep!”
“Right.”
He didn’t understand and he didn’t mind. Instead, he looked up at the angry sky:
“Cats and dogs isn't it?”
“Nah,” the girl told him, “It's just a bit of rain.”
There was a glance, a look, a smile, a moment of purity that meant Oliver had to ask her the question that had been going through his mind all day and all night.
“So,” he said, looking back at the city below, “What is your name?”
It was already too late. She was gone. He stood on his own, weighed down by more than just water. Then quite suddenly and unexpectedly, the rain stopped.
4.
The bright white football goalposts were the first thing Oliver recognised about his high school playing field. On second glance, he also saw the athletics track, hockey goals, and the red brick school buildings in the distance. He wasn’t alone there either. Johnny Youngblood was beside him, dressed in the way Oliver remembered him best; in a black leather jacket, blue jeans and white shirt.
“It's good to see yer, mate,” Johnny told him.
“I've missed you.”
“I know mate, I know…” Johnny said, pausing to look around, “Although, I’ve gotta say, it’s good to be back at the scene of most of our triumphs.”
“That's bollocks!” Oliver told him, bluntly, “If there were any triumphs they weren’t mine.”
Johnny looked sadly at Oliver, put his arm around his shoulder and told him, “That’s not how I remember it my friend... Now, take a walk with me.”
Oliver didn’t protest and the two young men slowly made their way around the field. As they walked, Johnny carried on trying to make Oliver feel better:
“The least yer can do is be honest mate. Because we had plenty of good times even if we got into a fair bit of trouble because of it.”
Oliver smiled at these words and soon saw that Johnny was too.
“Okay, fair enough, it was usually me that caused the trouble... But yer know we were pretty cool in our little gang of two.”
Oliver disagreed but said nothing.
“I definitely can’t think of another eight year old kid who could stay up a tree for a whole afternoon without getting caught by a teacher.”
“That's only because no-one ever noticed I existed.”
Johnny stopped walking and looked at Oliver for the first time with genuine hurt and anger in his ageless eyes.
“Shut the fuck up, will yer! That’s bullshit! I noticed and I always wished I could do things you could do.”
r /> “I guess that works both ways,” Oliver said, under his breath.
“Besides, you know that she's noticed too.”
“Who?”
“Oh, yer know. Nice girl, kind of delicious. The one who’s so pretty it actually hurts yer feelings!”
Oliver turned away.
“Oh right... She's not even real.”
“And you’re completely sure about that?”
“No but…”
“Take a chance on something mate,” Johnny said, cutting him off, “She seems sweet and it's not a coincidence that yer keep seeing her.”
“But it isn’t reality either.”
“JESUS CHRIST!” Johnny shouted, “Haven't you ever met someone and felt like you'd known them forever?”
Oliver shrugged and Johnny walked all the way up to him. His eyes were wide and his voice was calm as he begged his friend to both listen and hear what he was being told:
“Please don't make yourself into a lost cause my friend. I'm trying to help yer. These things happen all the time. It just isn’t usually like this. When people meet in dreams, it’s because they're meant to get to know them. That's why there's sort of deja vu when they see each other in reality. It's cool that it happens but it's usually only one way... I dunno why, but you two have both been in each other’s dreams. And now she's started giving yer clues to finding her in the daytime.”
“So?”
“So, she seems like a sweetheart.”
Oliver shook his head.
“Then why doesn't she just tell me where she is?”
“Because she can't. I don't really understand why. It’s just that you’re not meant to use other people's dreams to directly affect their reality. Or something like that anyway. I dunno… It just means that giving yer clues is a pretty big deal… Look, I can’t tell yer what to do but in the end you've gotta make up yer own mind on what yer wanna believe mate.”
It was suddenly quiet, almost as if everything surrounding Oliver was holding its breath while he made his decision. It wasn’t necessary. He already knew what he wanted to believe. He wanted to believe in her.
“All right,” he said, “But why did she... Well you know...”
“Disappear? She woke up. Simple as that. That's how you ended up here and that's why yer probably haven't got long left.”
They started walking again, managing only three steps before the red brick shell of the school building was in front of them. Oliver saw it and felt hatred and fear rise up in his throat.
“Shall we?” Johnny asked, tilting his head towards the glass doors.
Oliver was afraid and he wanted to be sick. He managed to spit out words instead:
“I can't! I can't go back!”
“What's the matter? Johnny asked, “Are yer afraid something bad's gonna happen to yer?”
Oliver looked at him and his eyes had changed. For an instant, they were black and empty and then they went back to their usual watery blue. Johnny looked at his watch and shouted, “SHIT! I've gotta leave... Help me pack will yer?”
“What?”
“Help me put my stuff in the car.”
5.
Oliver stood with Johnny next to a black car in a tree lined cul-de-sac. There were four sealed cardboard boxes at their feet. Oliver looked down at them and understood.
“Oh, okay,” he said.
With a box under each of their arms, they carried them over and put them in the car. Johnny turned to Oliver again. There was quiet desperation in his voice:
“I need some money! Can you help me with money?”
“Right... Okay I'll uh see what I can do.”
He ran off along the pavement, along the cul-de-sac, and away from his friend. Searching the concrete, grass, and ground, he saw nothing of any use until he noticed a tree growing from the tarmac at the far end of the road. He ran towards it, hoping that the leaves fluttering from the branches would turn out to be money.
They weren’t but they weren’t just leaves either. Grabbing at handfuls from the branches above his head, he felt green paper book tokens between his fingers. Then he was running again, back to Johnny. He stopped at the car, almost out of breath.
“Couldn't... Couldn't find money,” he spluttered, holding out the tokens to his friend, “I got these though.”
Johnny barely glanced at the tokens. He took them anyway.
“That'll do fine,” he said, “Now, get in.”
They got into the car.
“Where are we going?” Oliver asked.
Johnny didn’t answer. He simply started the car and drove to the bottom of the cul-de-sac to turn around. As he did this, Oliver tried to put his seatbelt on but there wasn’t one. His heart rate quickened as he searched frantically for the safety he needed. He looked to Johnny for help but he was already gone.
The face he saw was one he recognised. It was thin with unpleasant features, short blonde hair and eyes that were dark and empty. It was the face of a boy that Oliver knew he would always hate. He looked away and out of the windscreen as the speed of the car increased.
He didn’t try to stop the driver. He just sat and watched a red brick house get nearer. There was a heavy thump from below, as the front wheels of the car hit the kerb and pushed it slightly upwards and into the house’s front garden. No time seemed to pass before the car, the boy, and Oliver were all destroyed by the impact.
6.
Oliver woke with a start, surprised to still be alive. There was dull pain in his muscles and joints but it didn’t last long. In fact, in many ways, he felt more awake than any time he could remember.
In a single fluid movement, he rolled off the mattress and onto his feet. He’d already decided he wouldn’t go to work that day. His heart definitely wasn’t in it and for the first time in years he actually had some idea of where he would rather be.
He made breakfast and, while taking several chewy crunches on bran based semi-goodness, he studied what was on his pine bookshelves. A thin paper calendar hung down from a drawing pin in front of the top shelf and covered some of the books on the shelf below. Oliver pushed it to one side to pick out an Encyclopaedia.
He finished eating, put his navy blue and white bowl down on the kitchen table and perched himself on the sofa. He sifted through the alphabetically sealed wealth of information and soon found what he was looking for.
The entry on page 373 began, 'Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte, (29th September 1758 - 21st October 1805) an English Naval Officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He won several victories including the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) in which he was killed.'
Oliver didn’t read any further. Instead, his mind centred on one word and the possible clues it might provide. 'Trafalgar,' made him think there was only one logical place to go.
7.
It was overcast when he left and jeans, t-shirt, and a blue polyester suit jacket quickly proved they weren’t up to withstanding the intense downpour that occurred on his way to Harrow and Wealdstone Tube Station. Worse than that, he had left his umbrella in a briefcase on his bedroom floor, meaning that by the time he got on the train he was soaked to the skin.
Stumbling outside at Charing Cross, he found the rain had passed. It remained grey overhead but there were still plenty of people in Trafalgar Square. Most were carrying cameras and were snapping away at the fountains. As lovely as they were, they didn’t interest Oliver. He still wasn’t entirely sure what he was expecting to find but he hoped it would be somewhere near Nelson's Column.
He sidestepped and twisted through tourists and squinted up, pretending he could actually make out the great man's carved head. There was no revelation though. He walked around the monument and found nothing.
When the rain returned, he had an excuse to leave and arrived home to find two answerphone messages waiting for him. The first was from his boss, asking if he was all right, where he was, and when he was likely t
o be back. Oliver didn’t wait for the end of the message to press the delete button.
The other message was from his older brother, Stephen. He barely even listened to the words. He’d heard all of them before. His brother was a bully and Oliver knew that the only way to carry on with what he was doing was to try and ignore him.
It was while he changed out of his damp clothes that he thought he’d worked out a better way to understand the clues and riddles the girl had given him. However, with the passing of another two hours on the sofa, the words in his notepad made no more sense than before.
The problem was that the combination of clues and words didn’t seem to fit together in any sensible way. He knew that Nelson and Wellington were British heroes from the Napoleonic Wars but he had no idea how 'Knickers Off Ready When I Come Home' could link to them. The worst part of it all though, was that he could tell that somewhere within the jumble of words and letters, the truth was hiding just out of his reach.
He decided that he needed a break and to look at something else for a while. Standing, Oliver placed the pen and pad on the sofa and walked over to his bookshelves. Before deciding what to look at, the calendar hanging down from the top shelf distracted him. He noticed the page and month on it were wrong. 'Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland,' was displaying February in the middle of September. Taking the calendar in his hands, he folded over each of the pages, until he reached September and a sight he hadn’t expected.
“Fuck!” he said out loud.
The photograph for September answered all his questions. It was a picture of a familiar sun-drenched statue described as, 'Statue of the Duke of Wellington, Norwich'. He felt a leap of joy in his chest when he remembered reading about Nelson's ties to Norwich and Norfolk and realised that the silent 'K' in 'Knickers' can mean the same thing as no 'K' at all in Norwich.
8.
Oliver didn’t waste any more time that day. Normally, he would have packed carefully but this was nothing like normal for him. Instead, he simply threw an assortment of shirts, t-shirts, trousers, jeans, socks, and underwear into his suitcase and made his way to Liverpool Street Station.
Within the relatively pristine confines of the station’s mixture of glass, metal and stone, he bought a ticket to Norwich. There wasn’t a long wait and he was aboard the train within ten minutes.
Oliver deposited his case and found a window seat; feeling a little bump and push when the wheels below him began to move. Soon enough, quiet descended on the carriage and within minutes there was hardly a sound other than the engines and distant conversations he had no interest in. Oliver smiled to himself and watched the city turn into the countryside and the clouds slowly turn into sunshine.
Two hours on the train also saw the day pass into evening. With his suitcase in hand, Oliver stepped out onto the smooth white platform and briefly wondered if he looked as tired as all the people around him. He rummaged through the pockets of his jeans to find his crumpled ticket and smoothed it out enough to be allowed straight through the barriers.
He strolled on, his right hand clutching his suitcase tightly as he walked out into the car park. The fresh air was a gentle breeze that was just enough to stop him. He looked back and was surprised to see that the building he’d just left was actually a fluid combination of sandstone pillars and arches, red brick, and glass windows. It was a pleasant surprise, although it was unimportant in comparison to the next building he saw.
He didn’t notice much about how it looked other than the large white letters on the wall that read, 'The Nelson,' which were shining out through the darkness. In every sense, this was a sign he couldn’t ignore; this was the hotel that he knew he had to stay in while he was in Norwich.
It wasn’t far for him to walk and he was able to see the polite flow of the River Wensum for the first time as he crossed a small bridge and came to the door of the hotel. The reception area was as neat and tidy as he expected; well-lit and light coloured yellow walls gave a feeling of warmth and homeliness, while the smell of the flowers that sat on the reception desk was sweetly enticing.
He went to the desk and the receptionist smiled at him. He smiled back, as her kind brown eyes peered through thick eyelashes and mascara, and her luxurious dark blonde hair caressed her shoulders. Oliver filled out all his details and when the formalities were completed, the receptionist gave him the key card for room 2346 and asked if he needed any help with his suitcase. He didn’t but thanked her anyway, before making his way to the lift.
The stainless steel doors opened and he stepped inside. He pressed the button for the third floor and waited for the doors to open again. When they did, a new scene was revealed; a long hallway with walls the same pale yellow as in reception, and this time he noticed the light green of the carpet as well.
With his first few steps away from the lift, he saw the room numbers displayed in silver on the wooden doors. At number 2346, Oliver put his key card in the slot and removed it. The lock clicked open and he stepped inside; searching for a light switch until he eventually realised there was a slot by the door for the key, which turned on the main light in the room.
Oliver walked to the bed and put his suitcase on it. Then he opened the curtains to see what kind of view there was. As he did this, he also opened the window and the breeze that blew in briefly refreshed his mind and body.
The world outside the window was the same river and road he’d seen earlier except that it somehow seemed to be better. The city lights rippling on the river, endlessly brushing up against the riverside wall, made him want to see the rest of the city; to take it all in at once. It wasn’t really an option for him then. He was too tired and he knew there was no rush.
Fortunately for Oliver, there wasn’t much left for him to do and, after unpacking and having a small snack from room service, an early night was the only option that really remained. With lights out, the softness of the mattress and the duvet enveloped him and when sleep approached, he offered no resistance.