Late November twilight. A cigarette outside the call centre. Dark blue sky, passing shoppers. Cold air hanging over everything like some faltering premonition. Back in the call centre. A 20 pence coffee from the vending machine. Close the door of the office on the Friday afternoon sales teams. No more work to do. Clock out. Watch the strip of twilight outside the window, the brick wall overshadowing the slope down to the call centre car park, a half-concealed street lamp, beige yellow, setting up watch for the night over a similarily half-concealed street. Say goodbye to T. Alone in the office.
Staying on A's sofa until I get a flat sorted. He hears me sleep talking in the night, wrote down what I said the other morning; 'Hands and vision. All vision will be checked'. Have no memory of the dream that led to this, what it might mean, if anything. Dreams cut through time. Years, decades, seconds. Told N. at work of a dream I had more than twenty five years ago. She came up to me the next day, said that the dream had kept her awake, made her afraid to go to the bathroom in the small hours. She seemed strangely pleased by this though.
I don't know why I remember my dreams so well, and this is not the earliest dream I can remember. One of my first memories was a dream, (a failed expedition to a doomed planet, astronauts attacked by spiders. Exploding volcanoes).
The dream I told N. was set in the second flat we lived at in Malta. In the dream I ran from the hallway into the living room. It was night. I remember the midnight blue sky through the porch windows. A distant moon over dry plains. There were two women in the living room, sat on the sofas. They were both identical, or if there were any difference between them, I do not remember. Headscarves. Sensible shoes. Floral pattern dresses. Blitz-era London chic. Typhoid-white skin, staring eyes, drinking tea from china cups balanced on saucers. One looked at me and spoke. I do not remember her voice. She said 'we don't come here often'. It was the most terrifying voice I've ever heard. I woke up.
The dream has followed me for years. I do not, of course, trust my memory of the dream, aware I must have embelished it, changed it, re-ordered and disordered it over the years. Dream rumours. Nightmare factories.
Did I even dream it in Malta? Sometimes I still think I dream of that woman, but when I wake I'm never sure.
Nearly full-dark outside now. Barely any differentiation between the blue of the sky and the black of the building. See the calendar reflected in the window. Andy Warhol's poster of Marilyn Monroe. Desk littered with coffee cups and warning notices 'QA use only, not for agents'. Busy weekend dawning. Moving flat, maybe. Hopefully. A friend's birthday tonight. Helping out at an exhibition on Sunday.
Put on my jacket, prepare for the consolation of a late November walk, all cold air, rain-scent, night-blackness and street light.
Put things in my bag; sketchbooks, notebooks, the free newspaper I picked up on the bus this morning. Three days left of November. Five weeks left of the decade. The faltering premonition suddenly rights itself. I am not sad it tolls the end for this decade.
Roll another cigarette, ready for the walk to A's house, where I am, temporarily, dreaming.
