door herself. She looked very bewildered and concerned, I was not the only person who lacked sleep it seemed. Putting on a brave face, I entered the house confidently.
“Good morning Mrs Winfield! Julian rang me last night!” I explained that it had been late and that I did not want to disturb her, although I immediately sensed she would have preferred it if I had.
“He’s alright, believe me. He said he was a little down and had decided on a whim to go to the South of France. Apparently, he intends to stay a while until his mood has lifted.” I hoped she would not see how transparent my tale was.
I intended to leave it at that, a little vague to give me room to manoeuvre, but in the true tradition of all white lies I nervously compounded my tale, painting myself into an increasingly tight corner.
“He is much better now and will probably be back in two to three days” I finished lamely.
To my surprise, Pamela started to cry. I had no idea whether it was out of relief, joy or sadness. With women I generally found it impossible to tell. I guessed it was the latter as she looked so depressed and miserable. Not knowing what else to do I asked if she wanted me to fetch a doctor. That made her smile through her tears, and she immediately composed herself.
“I am so sorry, Michael!” She wiped her eyes with a small lace handkerchief, “You are sweet. I’ll be fine!” Pamela turned briefly to look at herself in the mirror, and I busied myself by examining the oil painting mounted on the opposite wall.
“Thank you, Michael, for your help and support. You must stop this ‘Mrs Winfield’ nonsense. It’s Pamela. I’ll be fine when Julian is safely home again. As you know, I lost my husband last year. It was a great loss to me and the thought that Julian may not be safe….”, she left the sentence hanging, then concluded, “I can’t take another loss. Sorry, but I am babbling a bit!” Pamela used her hanky to blow her nose daintily, and then absent-mindedly tucked it into her sleeve just as my mother did. “I just want to see him back safely as soon as possible”.
At this moment, I could have killed Julian for what he was putting his mother through. It was now out of the question to mention my conversation with Julian on the previous night, concerning his nightmares and his birthmark.
CHAPTER THREE
Julian: Sussex, England
9th September 2003
Julian returned to England some four days later. Despite my intense questioning as to his previous whereabouts, he declined to answer other than, “Don’t worry about me! I’ll tell you later.” He said no more, but harboured a wry grin behind sparkly, yet penetrating eyes. He certainly had me intrigued.
On the other hand, Pamela appeared to be over the moon at her son’s safe return. Uncharacteristically, she chose not to question his strange behaviour. Maybe in some way she thought she was to blame for his mysterious disappearance and thought it best not to drive him away again with too many prying questions. Only one thing had been important to her: Julian had come back and now that he was home, she stopped worrying. In fact, she looked positively radiant, and no trace remained of her previous melancholy. Her worry seemingly put behind her, she busied herself about the house doing nothing.
Pamela still knew nothing of his nightmares and of the mysterious birthmark, as I had remained silent about these. Personally, I felt she must know of his birthmark having probably seen it since he was a baby, but had probably thought, as did I, that there was nothing significant in it. Certainly, she would have no idea of the torment it had put Julian through. However, I felt that I possessed a great secret and longed to talk to Julian to see if this indeed had been connected with his disappearance.
It was two days later before Julian arranged to meet me at a café near the train station. I arrived first and took advantage of the good weather by sitting outside. Ironically, I noted that it would probably have been preferable to sit inside at the non-smoking tables than be assaulted by the clouds of cigarette smoke outside. So much for fresh air! Julian arrived just as I was contemplating placing an order for a second coffee. He was not alone and introduced a pretty young woman to me whom I had not met before. I had pulled over a chair, a little surprised at the extra company, as Julian had made no mention of her when he telephoned earlier.
“Michael! This is Nicola. Nicola, Michael”, and to Nicola, “I told you about my best friend. Do you remember?”
“Of course. Hi Michael!” Nicola stretched out a slender hand in my direction smiling. I remember only that I was bemused by her presence and had not been sure how to react. I took her offered hand and she gently squeezed my fingers. Despite the introductions, I was still none the wiser as to who she was, and Nicola simply babbled on about ordering tapas with the drinks.
As far I knew, Julian’s girlfriend was called Roberta. She was a student at Manchester University. Apparently, she was studying linguistics and was due to graduate that year. Sometimes he and Roberta spent their holidays or the occasional weekend together. I had never met Roberta but had heard Julian talk with her on the phone. As she only had shared student digs in Manchester, it meant he did not get to see her as much as he would have liked. As far as I was aware they were still an item. I had even attempted to contact Roberta when Julian had gone missing, but I could not get anyone at the university to give out her number. Just how serious their relationship was nobody knew, and as always, Julian didn’t volunteer much information on the subject. It was therefore with some discomfort that I sat watching Nicola flick some imaginary crumbs off the table top with the laminated menu. Glancing up, she caught me staring at her and I was rewarded with a broad smile to which I am afraid I grimaced in return. I wondered where Nicola fitted into the scene.
We decided on coffee rather than having anything alcoholic (it’s too early, and it will go straight to my head! More giggles from Nicola.) Julian had disappeared inside to place the order, leaving us sitting outside together. Nicola asked almost immediately;
“So, what do you think about all this then, Michael?”
The question had been quite unexpected, “Pardon?” I responded rather lamely, and then I felt somewhat foolish, as I appeared to have lost the thread of the conversation somewhere. Julian fortunately came to the rescue by returning with a sour faced waitress in tow who took our order and departed with sagging shoulders as if the entire third world’s debt sat upon them. Nicola’s question, for the moment, had remained unanswered.
As Julian sipped his coffee, he at last started to put me in the picture. Nicola, he explained was a friend of Roberta. She had finished University two years previously having majored in psychology. Roberta had apparently introduced her to Julian because she wanted a professional opinion about Julian’s nightmares. I now understood Nicola’s early question which I had fortunately not answered (the term ‘bunk’ might not have been appreciated). For now, at least, I was more interested in what Nicola thought had disturbed Julian. I listened as Julian and Nicola described their story.
Julian had apparently been having the same recurring dream, which had interested Nicola. Coincidentally she was writing her thesis on ‘Human memory and the subconscious brain’. Nicola explained that the subconscious memory was useless in everyday life because we are not able to use it at will. Instead, current theory indicated dreams to be no more than disjointed memories that are a deep-seated jumble of many memories being ‘fired’ off by the brain when in a period of rest. In her thesis, Nicola said she hoped to challenge this belief by researching cases of where subconscious memories appeared to hold intelligence or a ‘message’. Rather than being random, she felt it was possible that the dream is encoded within our very DNA, and therefore very personal and relevant to the individual. During her research Nicola hoped to discover what these dreams meant to the individuals themselves; she enthused,
“These books on dreams where they try to describe in general terms what your dream means are, I believe so totally wrong! The Dream State is small glimpses