Dream of Home
On a clear day you can see the
And because the sun was shining, and the air was autumn honey clear. And because
the door was unexpectedly open. She walked out into the garden, through the wide
stone gateway, along the grey slabbed pavements and somehow found her way there.
It was a long walk. Hazy at first through pushing strangers, noisy, uncaring.
Shopping people, turned inward on a quest to satisfy, hurrying people hard
walled against magic. Somehow she knew the way, direction slipped softly into
her brain and directed her pacing feet, step after step the memory came,
familiar sensations of having walked this way before.
Arrow straight a pale pathway across a broad level triangle of green. The Level.
Who observed her passing? Perhaps grey stoned St Peter spying through the trees.
Certainly stern faced
Upwards. Endlessly. Had the upward struggle always been like this? Breath
snatching, limb dragging. There, crouching on the final shoulder of the climb
lay the hospital, monolithic, ugly grey. A sharp stabbing memory pain flashed
darkness across the sunshine, swift images of blood and loss quickly retreating
behind her magic veil of not wanting to know. Until suddenly air, sunlight, blue
blue sky and somewhere too high to see a sweet bird singing.
The grass scratched her legs, dry brown on its stalk, jewel green deep buried
over the chalky ground. Here was the place. Another magic triangle of grass,
this one rough and solitary, but alive with the invisible chirrup of crickets.
High above the world, almost touching the sky.
It felt like flying.
Arms stretched wide, chin lifted, eyes full of blue. A sensation of soaring.
Slowly she turned, revolving on the hill top full of light and pure blue sky
high above. Ecstatic. Her eyes drifted down through the limitless blue until
they rested on the subtle hazy line where sky meets sea. Way down below her the
rolling green carpet of downland led out towards jewel sparkling water.
A tiny boat, smaller than a toy, a craft built for a sailing ant, sat sharp
edged in the languid expanse of sea and sky. It was a small dark hook to catch
her mind, reel it in from the magical cushion of infinity. Like the prick of a
needle a memory came. The island. The reason for being up here. High on this
triangle of land just below the sky. Shielding her eyes with a hand she searched
the distance, her gaze passing over the circling terraces of white painted
houses - Roundhill - searching past the glass boxed station roof and the
seafront towers like toy bricks upended. She located the familiar landmark of
that cheeky chimney, sticking one rude finger upwards in defiance, and beyond it
the curving shoreline disappearing into hazy afternoon.
The
Straining her eyes she peered out at the distant horizon, but it was cloaked in
haze. Desperation dropped on her like fat raindrops, and at that very moment a
rogue cloud, single puffy white in a clear sky, passed across the surface of the
sun.
She shrank under the shadow of cloud and despair. Knees weakening, her body
slumped into the coarse grass, curled in protection around her aching heart.
Insects rustled close by, tiny flowers lay open against her face. She lay still,
the curtains of denial drawing around her as the minute world of the busy
downland drew her in.
* * * * *
"So who left the door open?"
"We don't know. It just happened."
"These things don't just happen. That's why we have rules, working
practices. We are responsible."
"But it's impossible. We don't have the staff to watch every patient all
the time."
"I don't want to hear this now. Staff shortages, cutbacks, funding
deficits. I live with this all the time. Other people making decision. People
who don't understand how we have to work and telling me to cut back. But when
something goes wrong are they around to take the blame? No, it's my neck on the
block. Just find her. Now."
"She's not in the house, we've searched thoroughly. And the garden.
Nobody's seen her since breakfast. She could have been gone a couple of
hours."
"I'm calling the police. She's in no fit state to be out on the streets on
her own."
"We don't know that. She's a sensible intelligent girl. At least she was
before the accident. There's is no reason to think she would do anything
stupid."
"She has a serious head injury. She's badly traumatised after losing her
mother and sister. We can't possibly know how she would respond out there on her
own. I'll get the authorities on to it. They'll alert the trains and buses in
case she tries to leave
Martin paused at the gate, deciding whether to turn right of left. He realised
he didn't know where to begin. Even after caring for the girl for several weeks
he knew so little about what went on in Madeleine's mind. She was 19 years old,
a happy intelligent girl, until one day disaster fell on her out of the blue.
She was the only survivor of an horrendous car crash that killed the rest of her
family. Physically she survived, just about, but no one could tell if she would
ever fully recover. She seemed to exist in her own dream world, a land of
imagination and magic, shut off from cruel reality.
If a girl like that found an open door and walked through it, where would she
go? After months in the cotton wool cocoon of hospital and care home how would
she respond to the real world?
He tried to remember what he knew about her. The family were Scottish. After the
break up of the parents' marriage the mother had taken her two daughters away
from their remote home on a northern island and settled as far away as possible
on the south coast of
It sounded unlikely, It was a long walk, she couldn't get that far on foot in
her condition. Better try locally first. Martin turned left and headed for the
nearby park.
* * * * *
The sun came out again, creeping shyly from behind the cloud. His warm fingers
stroked her gently, as if apologising for his lapse of attention.
She lifted her head and slowly sat up. Hidden in the long brown stems of grass
and weed she peered out cautiously on the world.
The sun still shone on the wide hilltop and sparkled on the distant sea. But the
magic had gone. No euphoric glitter, no magic island.
For the first time she noticed traffic A steady line of cars and vans crossing
the contour of the hill. She had forgotten about cars. Perhaps that was why she
had not noticed them on her walk up the hill. Or perhaps the magic had kept them
hidden.
No more magic. The world was real again. Hard and full of noise like it had been
once long ago before the blue sky fell. The grass around her felt hard, prickly,
rejecting. She stood up and walked away from the roof of the world towards the
metal stream of traffic. Rising cream and rotund from the valley a bus
approached. Double decker, glass glinting the sun's reflection. There was an
unexpected break in the traffic flow and unthinking she slithered down the grass
bank, crossed the hard dark tarmac and stood on a patch of concrete, placed
specially for her on the opposite side.
The bus glided to a halt and its doors flopped open "You gettin' on luv?"
She stepped inside, hesitating.
"I don't think I've got any money."
The driver was hot, tired and impatient to get back for his break. In no mood to
deal with awkward kids. He looked at her more closely, noticed her for the first
time.
"Go and sit down."
She drifted to the back of the bus, sat against the window and leant her head
against the glass, gazing through the white rails of the race course for one
last view of the sea caught behind green downs.
The bus driver was talking into his radio, then the doors shut with a hiss and a
rattle and the big vehicle pulled away.
This time there were vehicles everywhere. The journey was a downhill zig zag
between parked cars. A stop start queue through traffic lights. People came and
went, the bus stopped and started, roared and crawled as it followed its route
into the city's heart. Everyone got up and moved towards the door, she joined
the shuffling group and found herself on a crowded pavement. It felt
uncomfortable, but not unfamiliar, she had been shopping in
She followed a group of young people across the road, slipping between towering
cream bus mountains, round the corner and across another road, then lost them
when they turned into a coffee shop.
"Big Issue!"
She followed the sound of a voice across one more road into the backwater of a
traffic- less side street.
"Big Issue love"
He was young. Not hard edged and busy like others on the street. There was a
look of lostness in his eyes which resonated with her own isolation.
A blanket was spread on the pavement at his feet and a puppy lay curled asleep
there. Feeling safe at last she sat down and pulled the puppy on to her lap,
stroking its funny floppy ears as it snuggled back into sleep.
"Big Issue"
He accepted her sitting there on his blanket, with his dog asleep on her lap. He
had so little of his own it was easy to share.
Feet passed by at the edges of her vision as she sat head lowered over the
sleeping puppy. White trainers, black boots, smart slim heeled shoes all going
somewhere, al1 with somewhere to go. Now at last she knew, she was the person
who had nowhere to go.
A pair of scuffed black shoes under navy cord trouser legs stopped in front of
her. "Madeleine. Thank God. We've been searching for you all day. Are you
all right?"
"She with you mate? Big Issue lady. She's OK, just been sitting here."
Madeleine looked up into a face. It was a familiar face. She had forgotten there
were familiar faces in her world.
"I wanted to see the
"No magic Maddy," said Martin.
"It 's real isn't it. I'm alone now. It happened."
"Yes, it happened. You remember?"
"I remember". She reached up a reluctant hand and gently touched the
deep scar across her face, stroking its hard ridge with questioning fingers.
"Come along. Let's take you home."
"I wanted to find the magic island, I thought that was where my home would
be."
"No magic island." Martin gently lifted the sleeping puppy from her
lap and helped her to her feet.
"Welcome back to the real world Madeleine. Welcome home."