‘Stop it right now, you dizzy tart!’
Marissa Nalletamby was giving herself a telling-off in front of the mirror.
‘He’s married, you’re married. You don’t even like him much. Dresses like a nerd. Probably a control freak’
Her brain delivered moral rectitude and the logic of actuarial evidence but her body knew better and overrode it with a wistful sigh that steamed up the cold glass on the wall.
They had met, the two couples, at a neighbour’s anniversary party four years ago and, while there had been no common ground upon which to build a more than superficial relationship, Marissa had found herself oddly drawn to Samuel whose slight but distinct distance set him apart from their Chardonnay-swigging crowd. Not particularly reserved herself, Marissa had cavorted and caroused with the rest, laughed more loudly than was entirely merited, and engaged in some juvenile hi-jinks left over from everyone’s undergrad days. Samuel had watched quietly from the sidelines, glass of shandy in hand, and with the faintest of smiles that seemed almost fatherly.
As she waggled her tush to ‘The Birdie Song’, executed exotic-bordering-on-comedic manoeuvres to a West Indian carnival number, and pogo’d enthusiastically to an old punk track, Marissa’s eye had sneaked covert glances at Samuel. Sometimes he would be looking at her. Mostly he wasn’t. Mostly he seemed to be in another world, somewhere intellectual, sober, more transcendent. Marissa’s imagination, somewhat alcohol fuelled, had assigned to him the role of alien visitor – distant, detached, observing their child’s play with benign humour and placing it in a context of worlds seen and experiences lived that were beyond primitive comprehension.
‘The Man Who fell To Earth!’ she giggled, recalling an old sci fi film.
‘What?’ This was Marcus, her husband.
‘Samuel – not of this world really, is he?’ chuckled Marissa. ‘Don’t look!’ she hissed as Marcus wheeled round to check out the intriguing tag. Instead, they both pantomimed covert glances and armed fantasy phasers as they prepared to repel an alien invasion of suburban Surrey.
Their next encounter had been at the village fete; she in charge of a stall exhibiting the product of the local art and photography group and hoping to offload a few items on passing punters. He a passing punter paying respectful attention to the wares as he followed his wife dutifully around the festive encampment.
‘He wouldn’t buy any of this if you threatened to cut off his arm!’ Marissa thought, observing Samuel’s dignified and polite perusals. As Rita, his wife, waxed lyrical on the angle, the focus, the drift of the eye and the captivating atmosphere generated by the use of this or that lens, that or this paint medium, Samuel responded with understated nods, quiet but non-committal noises and a range of non verbal packing that served to keep his (plainly superior) views to himself.
Marissa had shuffled awkwardly to one side as his small procession arrived at her corner of the stall. She made a stab at a sales pitch.
‘This local artist is quite famous actually’ she said, holding up a nicely composed snap of the nearby river.
‘Really?’ he had responded, raising a pair of elegant eyebrows in a manner that could be construed as interest if you didn’t think too hard about it. ‘It’s a delightful area for artists and photographers. Perhaps that’s why he is successful’ he added graciously.
‘Oh he’s not a professional photographer, he used to be in a band. They had a Top 20 hit about 15 years ago. That’s what he’s famous for. So he’s not really a photographer.’ Marissa thought the advice about stopping digging when you found yourself in a hole ought to kick in about now but shovelled on anyway.
‘Well he is of course, just not a famous one. Not as famous as being in a band that is. Although by now I imagine most people will have forgotten. You probably never heard of them I expect’. She tailed off, wilting under his bemused gaze, a child whose garbled ramblings were being tolerated by the Supreme Being. Marissa apologised, plucked at her skirt then her hair.
‘Mouth in gear before engaging brain!’ she offered by way of distraction and reversed without looking into a display of water colours. A hand, long fingered, graceful, extended downwards through the clutter of collapsed treasures. Marissa took the hand, looked along it up to the ascetically arranged face and the eyes that displayed gentle amusement.
‘You could probably have done without that’ he said, a slight smile playing on a mouth pulled inwards rather than spreading out across his face.
‘Contained’ Marissa confirmed to herself silently, feeling particularly uncontained. Another elegant hand appeared and she grasped it, finding herself lifted carefully towards the vertical to stand directly in front of Samuel, their hands still clasped together in a cliché of first contacts.
Something in his eyes changed. A slight puzzlement, confusion, a recalibration of expectations. It was fleeting; there and then gone in less than a breath. They released each other’s hands simultaneously, Samuel uttered concerned noises, hoping she was recovered from her fall and Marissa responded with a cut and paste selection of generally acceptable expressions. Samuel’s wife had moved on and so he followed, even paced, no hurry, governed by some internal guidance system that eliminated the need for haste or searching. That he might choose the wrong direction or have doubts about where to go was inconceivable, Marissa thought, he just knew, or the world would wait, or it would reconfigure itself according to his requirements.
‘That’s aliens for you!’ she thought, checking herself over and finding to her relief that her clothing was as it should be; intact, not tucked into her knickers or suddenly and inexplicably transparent. She set about retrieving the scattered art work and talked herself the while into a more personally enhancing perspective on the earlier events.

---

Back home, the clanging noise from the sofa was diabolical. Jali, a beginner guitarist with more enthusiasm than aptitude, had only two speeds – minstrel (plink plonk two bars of caterwauling) and George Formby. The latter rendered ballads at breakneck speed and with only marginal attention to accuracy so that they became unrecognisable but nevertheless constituted an unbroken wall of sound as prescribed by the teacher.
Saskia hurled a sandal across the room. It described a graceful arc above the coffee table and walloped Jali on the ear. The caterwauling and clanging stopped to be replaced by a stream of creative invective and the sandal executed a similarly aesthetic arc on its return journey.
Marissa opened her mouth to deliver a parental rebuke, reconsidered in view of the resumed electronic assault and went off to stash the cash from the fete in a box marked ‘Art Club Funds’.
‘Fifty two pounds, not bad’ she observed. ‘Should just about cover the breakages’. Ruefully, she rubbed a nascent bruise on her hip and began putting together a tale of heroism and sacrifice to explain the shattered frames of three precious (to their creator anyway) but undistinguished watercolours. A smash and grab! A ram raid with howling Harleys! She had thrown herself in front of the would-be steal-to-order art thieves! She mimed displaying her injuries. ‘Ha!’
The dreams had begun that night. She would be in a strange but slightly familiar place, with others she knew somehow but could not quite place. Often a library or gallery. Samuel would appear in the distance and their eyes would meet. He would raise one of those exquisite eyebrows in acknowledgment. An invitation? She wasn’t sure and by the time she had decided to pursue the matter, someone would intervene or she would wake, heart pounding and with a sense of vague but unmistakable disappointment hanging in the air.
As time passed, itself adhering to the conventions observed in the real world, Marissa’s dreams occupied a period that seemed anchored in the past. Samuel and his family had moved away so that she no longer saw him, leaving an inexplicable gap in a tiny corner of her heart that had no right or reason to be there. The gap was largely silent, making no move and not exposing itself or her, to the conflicts borne of the need to give loving and caring attention to a faultless husband. Occasionally, it woke her with a deep throbbing emptiness that darkened her soul and brought her close to tears. Often for much of the following day.
Other dreams began to insinuate themselves into her night, Samuel still much as he was when they were both younger, she similarly unchanged. Both seeking each other out, searching the air above the crowds, feeling the presence of the other in the footsteps left behind as corners in corridors were turned, and finding emptiness on the other side.
The dreams were infrequent at first. Marissa got on with her life, brought up her children, looked forward to her later life with Marcus on the substantial pensions they had both accrued. So why the uneasy sense of dissatisfaction? Why the inexplicable emptiness? Why the longing for a man she had never encountered in any real sense?
Today she scrutinised the woman in the mirror. Mid-fifties, pretty well preserved she thought, tilting her head side to side to check her profile, and successful. She and Marcus had trundled comfortably along, climbed their respective career ladders and launched two children onto the university/career market. Saskia had just begun a PhD having, unaccountably, got herself a First in physics from Oxford. Jali had sensibly ditched the music and gone into accountancy so at least one of them, Marissa smiled to herself, would know how to see the rest through to their pensions. A theoretical physicist with her head in a quantum universe and a practical number cruncher who enjoyed doing tax returns; how on earth had she and Marcus managed to produce that, she wondered.
The dreams about (and with?) Samuel had followed her even though she had not seen him for many years. They knew of each other though via their status in their different professions that conferred on them public profiles which were hard to avoid so Marissa was aware of his aging as he must be aware of hers. Still, in the dreams they remained young. Younger actually of late, a puzzling development that Marissa could not really explain, as if dreams could be subject to rational analysis. Odd though she thought when she did dwell a moment on these encounters. She realised that the scenes in which they were played out were less recognisable, more contemporary and an undeniable closeness was developing. Marissa began to look forward to what she saw increasingly as ‘the next instalment’ of this bizarre love affair. She wondered if Marcus knew and hoped not. Always loyal, always there, no part time partner he, full on and wonderful, attentive and loving. She couldn’t ask for more, except…
Another ‘night’ with Samuel. They had never actually made love in her (their?) dreams but there was a growing sense of intimacy so that she hoped, unreasonably and guiltily, that soon they would.
‘Mum!’ It was Saskia, back from university for Christmas and with her new man in tow. Two physicists for the festive holiday – what joy! Marissa gave herself a final check over and trotted downstairs to get going on the greetings already begun by Marcus and grunted at by Jali from the lounge. Saskia was standing holding the arm of her new love.
‘Mum, this is Ken’. She adored him. So did Marissa. How could she not? She had seen him almost nightly for the past few years and many times before that. It was Samuel.
Stunned into silence, Marissa stood, mouth open, incapable of uttering the expected courtesies. How? What? Who…?
‘I look like my dad don’t I?’ Ken laughed. ‘He asked me to say hello’.
‘Your dad….?’ Marissa was dumbfounded.
‘Sam Jones. We used to live near you when I was a kid’
‘Ken Jones?’ Marissa was mystified
‘You probably don’t remember me, we were quite a big crowd’
‘And we called him Barbie…!’ put in Jali from the other room with a snort of amusement.
Ken was shuffling his feet and looking at her with his father’s deep grey eyes, smiling his father’s pulled in private smile. Barbie? Jali’s pal from school? No, surely not! Marisa could barely breathe.
‘Yes Mum. Told you. On Planet Palaeolith as usual’ Jali turned a screw he didn’t know he held. ‘Sam’s dropping by later to pick Ken and Sazz up. I said you wouldn’t mind if he stayed for the Ritual Unveiling of the Christmas Tree…’
‘What?!’
‘Well, if he’s going to be an in-law…’ Jali pulled a face at Saskia who was mouthing an emphatic ‘SHUT UP!’ at him from the hallway.
Ken was not fazed it seemed. ‘I hope that’s ok’. Recovered from his embarrassment, he raised a concerned eyebrow and Marissa thought she might pass out. This was the man with whom she had spent her nights, her daughter’s lover, a man half her age. She was horrified, it was inconceivable, thank goodness their dream selves had not been intimate. But what if they were in the future? Who could control dreams? It didn’t bear thinking about.
The next hour or so passed in something of a blur for Marissa as Saskia, Ken and Jali traded taunts about impending matrimonials and Marcus made a play of scrutinising his bank statement to show that it would be too expensive so they should elope. Only Marissa was not laughing, at least not with conviction. The face and mouth moved but the eyes were somewhere else, looking inside herself for answers to the questions causing turmoil in her mind and heart. The closer the time drew to Samuel’s arrival, the more anxious and detached she became. Fortunately, they had all been consuming festive libations of one sort or another and so no-one noticed. She sat, frozen in desperate isolation with her thoughts of impending disaster. Samuel would be an old man. She would look on him with affection but not attraction. She would confirm to herself that it was the son she was ridiculously infatuated with and not the father. Worse, the son was undoubtedly making love with her daughter and there it was, jealousy.
To be jealous of her own daughter over the love of a man she had never actually met and who would not, should not, consider her as anything other than the safe and trustworthy parent of his partner.
The doorbell rang. Samuel.
Marissa could not bring herself to answer but luckily Saskia was up and over to the door in a flash, opening it and delivering an enormous hug to the man framed there. Over Saskia’s shoulder, Samuel looked at Marissa. Elegance. Kind eyes. Those quizzical eyebrows. He detached himself from Saskia’s grip, smiling down at her with affection, the way he had smiled down at Marissa on that embarrassing encounter at the village fete. Saskia went to re-join Ken who had moved off into the lounge with Jali and Marcus, leaving Marissa and Samuel in the hallway.
They stood for a moment, looking at each other, Marissa feeling she knew him better than was possible and he regarding her with that same benign distance he had always presented to the mere mortals who came into his presence. But wait, his expression showed puzzlement as it had the day he had rescued her from the wreckage of the water colour display.
‘I’m so sorry’ he said, shaking his head slightly and breaking their mutual searching gaze. ‘For years I’ve been having the most peculiar dreams’.

Conboy-Hill 2009