Clare’s keys

 

Clare is sitting in the garden of their terraced home in East London, she smokes and watches the wisps drift up in to the sky, wondering on their journey as they disappear up to the clouds.  When she speaks she sounds happy . . . . at first :

“I had a really strong dream last night . . . . “

“Oh really”, Will perks ups from his sombre mood, he loves Clare’s dreams.

“Yes.  I was a grown up, like I am now, but I was back in the attic of the home I used to live in as a kid, the one in Rochester, that I dream about all the time.  I was sat in Granddad’s battered old grey chair, thinking, ‘this is a brilliant place, I must spend more time here’.  The attic suddenly looks very neglected and uncared for.  Looking round, I start to reconnect with all the objects I had found and stored there, physical signposts to so many memories.  I notice that by the back wall, there is an opening I had never seen before, it is hidden by a clutter of furniture and objects which I push past, only to see that the attic is much bigger than I thought, with dark corners, echoes, creaking and packed full of strange and fascinating objects gathering dust.  I think, ‘I must tell Mum and Dad’ and I go to look for them but they have sold the house already, and gone . . . . .and then I am in a market.  It is familiar yet I do not recognise it.  I feel obliged to try on a jumper.  It does not fit very well.  I look at myself and the stall-holder asks me: ‘would madam like to try a smaller mirror?” . . . . . . . . and then I am running.  The police are trying to catch me.  I have been found red-handed, trying to paint a white line down the middle of the hard-shoulder on the motorway.  I run and run . . . . . .”

“Weird”.

“You always say that but it never feels weird.  My dreams are normal.  It’s this all that’s weird”, Clare stabs her finger at the rest of the world.

“What is it?”  Will senses something is up.

“Us, pretending everything is ok”.

Will feels the ground shifting underneath him,  Clare always manages to do this, to magic from thin air,  something disturbing.  ‘She never blames me so why do I feel so guilty?’ thinks Will as he frowns at her, noticing her face is free of lines or worry, like a child’s, or like a mask.

“We are ok”

“No we’re not”

“Yes we are”

“No we’re not”.

Will sighs, knowing Clare could keep that up for hours.  He dives right in, foreboding pushed to the side:

“Why  . . .   do you think we are not ok”

“I don’t think it.  I can barely describe it.  I feel it.  Like a dream.  I feel it like a dream.  It’s as real as my attic in Rochester.  An attic in a building long pulled down yet latent still with  . . meaning.   Some meaning  . . . . . ”

“Are you saying that this attic is more real than us, more real than our relationship?”

“What is, our relationship?”

“You’ve lost your keys again, haven’t you?”

“Yes”

“God Damn it.  Clare!  How many timers is it this year?  Five . . . . seven times?   Have we got to change all the locks, again?   Please  . . . “

“The locksmith will be here  in an hour or so.  I am sorry”.

“You don’t look sorry at all”.

“I guess, that’s not what I am sorry about”.