consciousness. Terry was addicted to his dreams: they constituted the purest, most vital, most precious part of his life, and for this reason he spent at least fourteen hours a day pursuing them through his sleeping mind. But it maddened him that he was able to remember only the most teasing fragments, so that he could never describe them to anybody else, or take comfort fromtheir memory when he was awake. Every so often, it was true, tiny shreds and scraps of a dream would suddenly bob to the surface, and he would write them down as quickly as possible, on anything that came to hand: so that it was not uncommon for his lecture notes on (for instance) constructions of femininity in film noir to be punctuated by cryptic phrases such as ‘the smell of roses; the warm breath of a lion’, or ‘a valley; a woman; thistledown’, or ‘naked, between the branches of a pear tree’. But this was small recompense; not nearly enough, he felt, to compensate for the terrible knowledge that he was being offered nightly visions of a better world which was fated to dangle forever out of reach.
‘You look dreadful,’ said Robert as he sat down.
‘I feel it. You look pretty dreadful yourself, if it comes to that. What are you doing here, anyway?’
‘Looking for someone. And you?’
‘Waiting for Lynne.’
Lynne was Terry’s latest girlfriend. He had a habit of drifting in and out of relationships, none of them lasting more than a month or two: women who initially found him interesting were soon, it seemed, put off by his eccentric sleeping habits and his single-minded obsession with cinema. (On a bad day he was quite incapable of conversing on any other subject.) Terry himself rarely noticed when any of these relationships had gone into decline, and always professed himself surprised and baffled when finally confronted by the irrefutable evidence that they had been terminated: the sudden disappearance from his wardrobe, say, of all his girlfriend’s clothes, or his dawning realization, emerging into the mid-afternoon sunshine from the blackness of some screening room in the university’s Film Department, that it was more than a week since he had last seen the woman who was supposed to be sharing a room with him. Whether something like this was about to happen with Lynne, Robert had no idea. He merely asked a non-committal question:
‘How is she?’
‘Fine,’ said Terry, taking a cautious sip of his scalding hot chocolate. (He never drank coffee, because it kept him awake.) Then he scowled. ‘We’re meant to be going for a drive this afternoon. A day out, sort of thing.’
‘Sounds nice.’
Terry shook his head. ‘Waste of time. There’s a Douglas Sirk film on BBC 2, as well.’ He looked up at Robert hopefully. ‘You wouldn’t like to come with us, would you? There’s plenty of room for three. It might liven things up.’
Robert had been on excursions with Terry and his girlfriends before. The prospect of listening to several hours’ worth of mutual sniping held little appeal.
‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘You know how it is, when you’re with a couple… I’d only be in the way.’
‘No, but it’s different with me and Lynne,’ Terry insisted. ‘We’re getting on really well together at the moment. No arguing, just lots of… companionable silences. You wouldn’t feel uncomfortable at all.’ He stood up and searched through his pockets. ‘I wouldn’t mind something to eat. You haven’t got any money, have you?’
Their collective resources came to little more than three pounds, as it turned out, and Terry thought that he would need most of that for petrol. However, with a conspiratorial look around the Café, he said, ‘Don’t panic,’ and from a bookshelf above the adjacent table he fetched an old hardback copy of Great Expectations. Opening it carefully, he said; ‘Look at that – page two hundred and twenty.’ Inside was a ten pound note.
Robert was impressed. ‘When did you put it
‘You look dreadful,’ said Robert as he sat down.
‘I feel it. You look pretty dreadful yourself, if it comes to that. What are you doing here, anyway?’
‘Looking for someone. And you?’
‘Waiting for Lynne.’
Lynne was Terry’s latest girlfriend. He had a habit of drifting in and out of relationships, none of them lasting more than a month or two: women who initially found him interesting were soon, it seemed, put off by his eccentric sleeping habits and his single-minded obsession with cinema. (On a bad day he was quite incapable of conversing on any other subject.) Terry himself rarely noticed when any of these relationships had gone into decline, and always professed himself surprised and baffled when finally confronted by the irrefutable evidence that they had been terminated: the sudden disappearance from his wardrobe, say, of all his girlfriend’s clothes, or his dawning realization, emerging into the mid-afternoon sunshine from the blackness of some screening room in the university’s Film Department, that it was more than a week since he had last seen the woman who was supposed to be sharing a room with him. Whether something like this was about to happen with Lynne, Robert had no idea. He merely asked a non-committal question:
‘How is she?’
‘Fine,’ said Terry, taking a cautious sip of his scalding hot chocolate. (He never drank coffee, because it kept him awake.) Then he scowled. ‘We’re meant to be going for a drive this afternoon. A day out, sort of thing.’
‘Sounds nice.’
Terry shook his head. ‘Waste of time. There’s a Douglas Sirk film on BBC 2, as well.’ He looked up at Robert hopefully. ‘You wouldn’t like to come with us, would you? There’s plenty of room for three. It might liven things up.’
Robert had been on excursions with Terry and his girlfriends before. The prospect of listening to several hours’ worth of mutual sniping held little appeal.
‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘You know how it is, when you’re with a couple… I’d only be in the way.’
‘No, but it’s different with me and Lynne,’ Terry insisted. ‘We’re getting on really well together at the moment. No arguing, just lots of… companionable silences. You wouldn’t feel uncomfortable at all.’ He stood up and searched through his pockets. ‘I wouldn’t mind something to eat. You haven’t got any money, have you?’
Their collective resources came to little more than three pounds, as it turned out, and Terry thought that he would need most of that for petrol. However, with a conspiratorial look around the Café, he said, ‘Don’t panic,’ and from a bookshelf above the adjacent table he fetched an old hardback copy of Great Expectations. Opening it carefully, he said; ‘Look at that – page two hundred and twenty.’ Inside was a ten pound note.
Robert was impressed. ‘When did you put it
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