I don't like Belgian waffles.
I enter the kitchen and sit down to the plate Donna sets before me, and, like an Alzheimer's patient, I look at the waffles as if I'd never seen them before. I smile my thanks and take a healthy bite. It turns into sawdust in my mouth, and I wash it down with coffee, which I also hate.
Donna pretends to be surprised when I push away my plate and eye my coffee with distrust. I think she practices that expression in the mirror when I'm not looking. It's a face she wears often these days, but I'm not in the mood to jump into her comedy this morning. I'm too tired.
I had the nightmare again last night.
I should have expected it. I have the same nightmare every time I'm forced to talk to telephone solicitors. I don't like it that they have the control to engage me in conversation, trying to sell me things it would otherwise never have entered my mind to buy. It annoys me that no one seems to believe I don't read magazines. Surely it's not that unusual?
Donna's no help. She'd been trying to hide a smirk as she reminded me that this was Britain; I could hang up the phone without legal repercussions and my soul would not rot in hell. I suspect it's the challenge. I feel a perverse desire to win some sort of tacit victory over these wanna-be salesmen, and so I go along with their sales pitches until I find something they don't say about their products. Then I move in for the kill, the avenging consumer advocate, the smallest part of my brain just knowing that if I can render them speechless, they'll stop annoying people with their phone calls.
It never works; they are so much more clever than I.
I don't know what these calls have to do with my nightmares. Perhaps it's the knowledge that if I were working instead of collecting pay for being 'ill', I wouldn't be here to answer the phone. Because that's what my recurring nightmares are all about. My desire to go back to work. I lately dream I'm in a pit, deep enough to know I shouldn't even bother trying to climb out, but not so far down that I can't see light above me. I'm up to my waist in what I hope is only water, and when I try to move around, my feet are stuck in muck. I refuse to think of this pit as a sewer, because even in my dreams, I'm much too fastidious to suffer such indignity with poise.
And Jason is above, his shadow blocking part of the light. He's shouting something to me, but I only hear garbled echoes of his words. I don't feel reassured, and I don't believe help is on the way. I'm on my own here, and though Jason is above me, I can only feel he's come to gloat over my misfortune. Else why wouldn't he be tossing down a rope?
I begin to feel about in the muck under the water, and my hands come into contact with something that causes me to pull away in alarm. I don't want to know what's down there. Jason is still calling down to me, and now I begin to make out his words. I choose to ignore them, because he's not saying anything I want to hear. Does he really think I'm going to pull up what my hands felt down there? Jason's words become clear at this point; he's telling me I'm not fit to even file paperwork in his department, let alone head it. Because I realize then that he's the one who'd dropped me into this pit, I begin to look more earnestly for escape.
That's when I notice something off to my side. The pit is cylindrical, and there is no sun above, yet I know this hatch is on the east side of the pit. It opens much like a bank vault, and I move toward it to test the lock. I no sooner than get my hands on it when I wake up, bathed in a cold sweat and shivering as if with ague. Donna usually murmurs incoherently and rolls over to resume her sleep. I can't even snuggle closer to her for comfort, because I'll only feel guilty if she wakes up.
And then she feeds me Belgian waffles for breakfast. It must be a conspiracy.
"Will you go to the bank for me today?" Donna asks me, ignoring the rumbling of my unsatisfied stomach. "I won't have the time, and if we don't renew the standing orders, we'll lose the telly and stereo."
She wants me to leave the house?
"Of course." I can fake sanity if I have to. I can live without the telly, but the stereo still offers me comfort. "Just make sure you leave the necessary paperwork on the table in the foyer."
"You don't need paperwork; just give them our names. And don't let them talk you into an extension of terms. We should probably just pay it off entirely. I'm tired of dealing with the bank. They're never open when I'm ready to do business."
"It's still an excellent way to build up a credit history," I argue. I don't know why. My credit has always been good, and Donna, when it comes right down to it, couldn't care less what creditors would say about her.
"Suit yourself. Shall we go out for dinner tonight?"
"I was going to cook lasagna. Don't you trust my cooking?"
She smiled. It was a sweet moment. I think she actually meant the smile; her eyes said so. "I love your cooking, David," she said. "I just didn't know you wanted to do that tonight."
She stands up, smoothing down her dress and leaning to place her warm lips on mine. Before I can reach for her, to take more than what she'd offered, she is heading down the hallway to the side door. "I'll see you after work, then."
As the warm spray of the shower cascades down my back, I close my eyes and force myself to relax. It takes a conscious effort nowadays. With my eyes closed, my hearing and sense of smell seem to get stronger. I focus on the sound of water gurgling down the drain, and it takes a while for me to realize I'm smelling something that seems so familiar...
I open my eyes and try to pinpoint the memory. It's lavender. It's not a scent I associate with Donna, and it certainly wouldn't be found among any of my bathroom articles. But before I can reason out where it came from, it's gone.
Just a fleeting glimpse of what could have been a memory. Gone so quickly I can't even decide if it was truly something from my past or if it's the first symptom of a brain tumor. My shower is ruined now, and I shut off the water and towel off. After moving the comb through my hair, even I begin to think I had better visit my barber soon. As much as Jason lets me get away with, this would be too much for him to accept. He's old school, and a trim, at least, is in order. I could go back to work at any time, and I should be prepared.
I had done a good job with my shave this morning; my hands, for a change, were steady and sure. I even felt brave enough to trim my mustache, and that's saying something. Perhaps I'm closer to my return to normalcy than I gave myself credit for. I'm feeling so optimistic this morning that I mentally agree to any sort of mundane, brain-numbing chore Jason would graciously assign me, so happy am I at the thought of returning to work.
Inspecting the knot of my tie, I grin at myself in the bedroom mirror. Even my eyes are blue again, and I leave the room, heading down the hallway toward the front door. That's the last thing I remember, until I open my eyes and find the ugly sofa in front of me, my neatly pressed trousers getting dirty from the dusty floor upon which I sit. The most obnoxious of the pigeons is pecking against the glass of the window.
I'm not wearing my watch; the window is so dirty I can't look outside and get a good sense of the time. How long have I been in here? Had I even made it to the bank? And how do I find out without calling the loan officer and sounding like a moron? Do I wait until the claims officer comes to the door to repossess the telly and stereo?
I sulk in this room, wanting to put the blame on Donna. If she were more open to talking about my troublesome situation, I wouldn't hesitate to keep her informed about things like this. If our positions were reversed, I'd look after her, wouldn't I? It's her own fault she won't know until it's too late to do anything about it that we're losing the telly. I sit back against the peeling paint of the wall, enjoying my snit, until my stiffening joints force me to stand and leave the room. For no apparent reason, I remember the scent of lavender from this morning's shower, and my eyes, inexplicably, dart to the end table. I don't understand why I'm short of breath, but I somehow know not to question it as I lock the door behind me and return the key to its hiding place in the vent.
The first thing I do is look at the clock in the kitchen. It's a quarter to six, and the bank will close in fifteen minutes. Even at warp speed, I couldn't get there in less than forty minutes. I grab the phone directory, then dial a number. After a quiet voice picks up and gives me a five-minute spiel about how happy she is to serve me, I ask for the loan officer. After a few questions, he assures me that I had indeed renewed our standing orders, and, bless his heart, he doesn't make me feel like an idiot.
Donna need not learn of my missed hours.
But how could I have accomplished the trip to the bank? The necessary procedure to renew the orders? The trip back home again?
My optimism of this morning is gone, but I gamely open the refrigerator and warily eye the ground beef, the ricotta cheese. I'm sure I can at least begin cooking. By the time I, in my fugue state, might do something awful like add poison, Donna should be home to stop me.
I'm beginning to wonder if I can force a fugue on myself in Donna's presence. It would prove to her that I'm not making this up. I have no desire to pull her down into my purgatory, much like a drowning victim would imperil the life of his rescuer, but the only thing more frightening about descending into madness is the certainty that one is truly alone while it's happening.
Yet as I hear the sound of Donna's car pulling into the drive, my smile comes automatically and falsely to my face. I take a deep breath and face her as she comes in the door, knowing it's cowardice that causes me to hide my newest fear. If she didn't want to hear about my theories regarding Jason and his preventing me from learning about the removed evidence from the Barrington case, I know she won't want to sit still for my tale about missing hours.
She presses her body against mine as she kisses me, running her fingers through my hair. "Well done, David," she says. "Does this mean you're going back to work?"
"What do you mean?"
She steps back and tugs at my hair lightly. "You've been to the barber. I'm glad you're keeping most of the length. It looks good on you."
I smile my thanks and nuzzle her neck so she can't see the anxiety that surely registers in my eyes. Another errand I'd managed while my mind was orbiting Jupiter? What else had I done while... away?
It's all this idleness, I'm sure. I'm going back to work tomorrow. Even if it requires a heart-to-heart conversation with Jason, I'll do it. We were once close friends; surely he wouldn't turn his back on me in my time of need. I can no longer just sit and wait for darkness to descend over me. There's a reason my conscious mind is trying to escape, and if I can't trust Jason, I'm for it.
Donna winks at me and walks out of my embrace. I watch her as she leaves the kitchen, wondering if it's my imagination or if she really is discouraging my advances. I can't remember the last time we made love.
I've never felt so lonely.