I Tried On Your Wedding Dress

Pointless Dream Post 2

So...

It was one of those rare days when school holidays and a busy work schedule had put Nathan in his mother's care at the same time she was expected in the office, so they travelled to Salford early one Monday morning, him with legs pursed up to his chin, sleeping with his forehead against the cold front seat window, her driving, listening to Radio 4.

During the car journey the engine sounded to Nathan like the soothing chant of a crowd of friendly monks. He felt himself ponderously crossing the long estuary between waking and sleeping, never quite reaching the end, but getting far enough, in the end, for the counter on his memory of that day to click back to zero. When he awoke, the darkness of that journey felt like the night before.

They parked in the underground car park and walked up a flight of metal stairs and out into the cold March air. Nathan was old enough not to hold his mother's hand, but not so old he didn't enjoy the protection her sizable shadow offered. Mrs Banks had moved offices to Salford when the project she was working on had been moved. Nathan had never been to her office before. It towered over him, at least a hundred feet high he guessed, a modern, nice-looking building with lots of bright, shining windows and all clean.

Parked outside the offices was a mobile shop, a little van made to look like an old-fashioned wagon, with a large opening on the side through which a man was selling coffee. He was wearing a striped red and white overall, and was happily chatting to two office workers who had just purchased coffee. Mrs Banks approached the van.

"I've never seen this here before," she said to Nathan, who was still adjusting to the glare of a winter morning. "I think I'll have a cappuccino. Do you want anything?"

The menu contained lots of Italian names. He asked for a can of Coke.

"I don't think they sell Coke. Medium Cappuccino please; and do you sell cans of Coke?"

The man smiled and reached into the van, towards a machine with lots of valves and vents and with a thin line of steam pouring from it. He produced a cardboard beaker and started to fiddle with the buttons on the coffee maker. The machine started up with a choking sound. A cloud of steam emanated from one valve; Nathan could see a jet of thick brown liquid filling the cup. The man fixed a top to the beaker, and, dipping below the counter, reappeared with a bottle of Coke.

"There you go Madame,"

Mrs Banks thanked him and paid for the drinks. Nathan took the bottle but didn't open it. He didn't like coke from bottles. It tasted different, and it left a horrible stickiness in his mouth. He found the only way to drink it was to pour a lot down his throat at once and try to avoid any touching his mouth. Mrs Banks stood taking little sips of her coffee, before fixing the top back on and, taking Nathan by the hand, she led him towards a large pair of opening automatic double doors.

The reception smelled familiar, like the shop that sold cheap furniture that Nathan was forced to walk around every Sunday while his parents bought chairs and lamps. There was a brown tint to the windows, giving the whole room a twilight shade that forced those inside to use electric lights all year round.

A man in a suit and with a thin moustache held the door open for them.

"Good morning, Sheila."

"Good morning, Bill."

The man called Bill hurried out behind them. Mrs Banks gave a little tug on her son's shoulder as she often would when she wished to tell him something secret.

"That man is my boss, Nathan."

Nathan watched the man leave the building and rush over to the coffee stand.

"Good morning, Lois."

"Good morning yourself!"

While his mother chatted to the receptionist, Nathan stood watching the coffee stand through the brown tinted windows. The funny man with the moustache was saying something to the man behind the counter, who looked upset and was pointing towards the car park with his eyes wide open and his eyebrows pointing inwards towards his nose. The man with the moustache continued to talk, quite calmly it seemed to Nathan, and eventually the other man closed the doors of the van and it drove away from outside the office. Nathan wondered if the man called Bill was his boss too.

"Is this Nathan? Hello there!"

The receptionist was fat and had a funny orange face that matched her orange blouse. She was talking very quickly to Nathan's mother, so quick that she hardly seemed to finish one sentence before she was halfway through the next.

Mrs Banks had both hands crossed on the counter and was leaning her whole upper body over it; she stood almost on tip-toes, the muscles on her arms contracted as she put weight on them. The receptionist was also leaning forward. Their eyes flashed.

Nathan had never been to Salford before. He couldn't imagine his parents having a life anywhere other than at home. It was a bit strange seeing his mother like this, chatting away to an ugly woman, paying him no attention.

He started to kick his feet together to see if she would notice. She didn't. He put his finger up his nose, and the ugly woman saw him and he quickly took it out and felt ashamed. He got angrier and angrier, until he could bear it no longer. Holding the bottle of Coke in one hand, he broke the seal. He held it up to his lips and poured a lot into his mouth, opening his gullet to let it all pour straight into his stomach. Immediately he could feel a gassy bubble develop deep in his stomach, and a painful, hot sensation developed around his heart. This feeling grew and grew, and widened to fill his whole chest, seemingly intent on causing an explosion. Nathan opened his mouth to gulp in a great breath of air and out came a furious burp.

"Nathan!"

His mother was angrily staring at him. The ugly woman had her eyes wide open, stretching her make-up and revealing little fault lines on the tops of her cheeks; she was fighting against letting out a fit of giggles. Seeing this, his mother calmed down and said a friendly goodbye to the lady. They entered the lift with another ugly woman, who had on a long green skirt that almost swept the floor as she walked. The woman stood in front of Nathan as the doors shut, and he watched to see if her skirt got caught. With a little disappointment he saw that it hadn't.

"I can't believe you've just done that, I thought I had taught you better manners!"

"It's not my fault," Nathan replied, "I couldn't stop it."

"Well, in future don't gulp your fizzy drinks so much. I want you to stay in my office and out of trouble today. The computer has got games on it; you can play with those or write a story for me if you like? You can do that."

Nathan started to think of a story. He liked writing stories, and had done very well in school when they'd had to come up with new bits for popular books. He'd written a new bit for 'James and the Giant Peach' where the heroes were attacked by sharks. His teacher had said it was very well written and now Nathan wrote stories whenever he could. He mainly wrote about animals that could talk and wore armour and fought in battles against each other. His favourite hero was a fox named Edward, who ruled over a great land and whose closest friend was a squirrel named Peter. Nathan's best friend was called Peter.

The lift took a long time. There were 10 different numbers on the controls and Mrs Banks had pressed number 7. The other lady hadn't pressed one.

The little numbers appeared one by one on a screen above the lift doors; finally number 7 lit up. The lift stopped, but the doors didn't open. Mrs Banks pressed the number 7 button. It lit up again the first time she pressed it, and remained lit, but the doors would still not open.

"It's never done this before."

She pressed the button once more and the light went off. The lift rose a tiny amount and made a stiff, grinding noise. The lady in the green skirt turned around with a look of concern on her face.

"It's never done this before, has it?" she said.

"No, I don't think so," replied Mrs Banks "I've only been here for two weeks."

The lady pushed the button again.

"No, it's never done this before."

Nathan felt his mother's hand on his shoulder. It rested there, her palm open against his collar bone, then she closed it slowly and gave a little tug. He looked up at her, but she was still staring at the little number 7 on the controls.

The doors opened.

Mrs Bank's office was very wide and separated into lots of smaller areas with desks and computers. There were a lot of people around talking on phones and taking soft, padding steps across the thin carpet, lazily streaming to and from a photocopier next to the lift. There was a water machine which bubbled as Nathan watched, and several people said "Good morning" to his mother as they passed, heading across the faded red carpet with the boring design to a wooden doorway with the words Sheila Banks - Project Manager on a little plaque. His mother opened the door for him.

"This is my computer," Mrs Banks said, hanging her coat on a little wooden hat stand, "which you're allowed to use, as long as you don't mess around. I'm likely to be running around the office all day, and I'll be going to other floors in the building sometimes, so I want you to stay in here and not doing anything silly. If you want a drink you can speak to Helen, that's the lady you saw in the lift."

And with that, Mrs Banks hurried out of her office. Nathan took his coat off and hung it on the rung below his mother's coat. He took his scarf off and hung it over his coat, wedging it in around the collar. He put the bottle of Coke in his coat pocket and turned to survey the office. There was a plant in a large white plastic pot against the window that covered the entirety of the wall behind his mother's desk. This window wasn't tinted, and provided an impressive view of the industrial estates nearby.

Nathan looked out over the canals, surveying the area, imagining himself as king over it. He imagined looking out over an army of proudly dressed animals; badgers like great strongmen in ruffed shirts torn open to the waist, otters with bows and quivers of arrows; mice with short swords and smocks. And he, the king, Edward, Lord Fox, with his royal breastplate flecked with gold. Next to him stood Peter and the royal family. He tried to imagine his mother.

Nathan reasoned that if he'd made the office, he would have put the desk facing the window. Then he remembered his mother's fear of heights.

Mrs Banks had her own black swivel chair behind her desk which you could change the height of. Nathan had seen one at his friend's house; he jumped on top and automatically began to fiddle with the controls.

"Nathan!" Mrs Banks had slipped back into the room unnoticed.

"What did I say about not messing around? If you keep on and I have to take you home and miss work I'll be so annoyed with you."

Nathan knew he was in the wrong, and, like all young teenagers, he blamed the closest parent. It was her, after all, that had brought him to the office. It couldn't be helped if he got into a tiny bit of trouble. And what was so wrong with changing the height of her chair? It wasn't anything serious. He sometimes thought of her as an evil queen who controlled his life, forcing him to do silly things that didn't matter, and shouting at him when he didn't. She shouted at him for walking mud into the house when he'd been playing football; she shouted at him for falling asleep with the light on; she shouted when he jumped on his bed.

"What are you going to write your story about?"

"Don't know."

Mrs Banks looked at him with an eye experienced in the art of noticing when a child is sulking.

"Why don't you write it about your fox? I liked that last one you wrote, about the magical diamond."

Nathan didn't reply; the chair dropped an inch.

"Stop that!"

His mother left again. Nathan raised the seat so as to be able to reach the keyboard and began to type. He opened the story where the last one had ended, with King Edward, tired from his latest battle against the Rats, resting on a stone seat in his palace gardens. As he typed, he kept one eye on the office outside his mother's little room. He saw the woman Helen chatting with his mother; Mrs Banks didn't look nearly so thrilled to be talking to her as she had been with the ugly receptionist. She stood very still, with one hand raised over her head, rubbing the back of her neck in a rude gesture that seemed to imply she was tired of the conversation. The Helen woman was talking to her about something important and Mrs Banks was ignoring her.

Nathan looked back to the screen and typed a few more lines:

The King was looking at his tatty armour. It had taken a heavy beating in the battle at Lake Blacksands, and he was determined to fix it and make it like new; it was important for a king to have good, shining armour, he reasoned. He put his finger in one small hole near where his heart would be. It had been made by a Rat pikeman, and had gone deep enough to cut the King, who still had the tiny scar, just above his left nipple.

The King put his little finger through the hole.

"How's it coming along? Have you started yet?"

Nathan looked up to see his mother in the same pose as she had been with Helen. He wondered if she was really listening.

"It's ok. I've just started."

"Well I hope you finish it. Maybe you should put a cat in it this time. I'm surprised you've never put one in your stories, you do own one."

The boy was typing again, so Mrs Banks left him to it and stepped out into the office, still rubbing her neck from where it had stiffened up when the lift had jumped. She hated the lifts in the other buildings she'd worked in, that was why she'd come to Salford. The other places had been old Victorian office blocks with ancient metal box-lifts and great steep flights of stairs. She'd hated stepping into those boxes, looking out through the slats and seeing drab grey concrete and endless wires. She'd hated having to watch them go flying past as the lifts lurched down the several floors she'd had to climb in the morning.

She'd expected it to get easier, staring at the same wires, getting used to the rhythm as the electrical currents switched and span wheels, tugging the metal box up and down. Every day she got in the lift she hoped to feel safer, and everyday she had frozen, too scared to move less she should dislodge some gear or cause some wire to fray and end it all forever. In her heart of hearts she hated mankind's invention, the lift. In her heart of hearts she knew that it would forever be a necessity.

"He's got a terrible sense of humour about these things."

"What harm's it doing parked down there, that's what I don't see."

"It'll be something to do with the license. Perhaps the guy's just some loner; they have loads of those vans up around Old Trafford. Maybe he's just looking for some extra business."

"Suits me, anything to get nice coffee."

"He'll be up there now, looking out over his kingdom."

"Oh Sheila, he's not that bad," a heavy gust of wind battered the long windows of the office block "Besides, I've just been up there, he's got all the blinds closed."

"On a morning like this?"

Sheila pushed open the door to her office softly. Nathan sat, entranced by the computer screen. She grabbed her coat and let the door swing shut behind her. Helen was still waiting by the copier.

"I'm going to go down and see if I can find that coffee van again."

"Well get me a cappuccino if you do. He's probably just gone round the corner anyway."

Sheila put on her coat and crossed the office towards the lift. It was either take the lift or walk down fourteen flights of stairs. She was wearing new shoes. She took the lift.

The king felt he could no longer trust his closest friends. Peter was, of course, to be trusted. The badgers were kind and very honest; besides, their leader Mr Timmins had been like a second father to him when his own father, the last king had passed away.

But since the battle at Blacksands the new Dog nobility had taken over the animal parliament. Many of his closest supporters had died in the battle, especially amongst the Otters, and the victory was almost forgotten.

Edward stood at his balcony and watched as another group of Horse traders passed through the gates of Fox Castle. He had served his people well, who could deny that? He had paid for new wells, had built new houses and protected his people from the Rats. Yet his father's shadow would forever be cast over his former kingdom, and no matter how many wells he dug, or houses he built, he would never be anything but the son of the great King Henry Fox, continuing his work.

Oh for a kingdom of his own!

The lift doors pulled apart and Sheila quickly strode out and through the reception, waving to Lois as she did.

"If you're looking for the coffee man he's outside again!"

Sheila turned, surprised. At the same moment she noticed that the cart was indeed parked in the same spot it had been before.

"Bill hasn't moved from his office all day. He's not taking any calls, not doing anything. I was beginning to get worried before that guy came back. He'll be back down here any second now I would have thought."

The tower stood a hundred feet above the battlements of Fox Castle. Down its length hung a great awning of gold and red; the royal colours. Edward hung his head, facing the cloth almost upside down, his eyes half open. He noticed for the first time that the tower was not straight but at a slight incline, so that you could feasibly roll a ball all the way down to the battlements, from where it was a steep drop of some fifty feet into the moat.

Who would mourn if he fell to his death? Not the dogs. They'd be only too happy to see him disappear; there'd be a revolution, maybe even a dog king. They held so much sway in parliament that it shouldn't be too difficult to force their own man onto the throne.

"D'you want anything?"

"If I were you I'd wait for a second, if Bill catches you buying something he might not take too kindly to it."

"Why should he be bothered?"

"Well, if there's a reason why the guy shouldn't be here in the first place…"

Behind them, the lift doors closed. It had been called.

"And I'll bet any money that's Bill on his way down."

Sheila saw herself rushing out of the main doors. If she went now she could probably get what she wanted before Bill made it down, and be back, leaning on the front desk, coffee stashed safely away behind it, before Bill arrived.

"I could just run over and get one quickly."

Lois made an annoying clicking sound with her teeth.

"You'd have to be very quick."

Way above them, they could hear the lift shunting to a stop.

The gold for the gift of the king from the Maker; the Red for the blood of those who fell in the Revolution. Side by side, the crest that promised protection and justice to all animals that lived within the castle walls.

"What's it worth? Just wait 'til Bill's gone and get one before the van goes."

Sheila saw herself chasing the van down, rapping on the side with her knuckles to stop it. The little numbers above the lift doors started to light up. 7, 6, 5…

Where can you go when all outside the walls is wilderness? Who would tolerate a second home for animals? Who would dare split a kingdom?

The automatic double doors slid open. Sheila saw herself passing through with quick, rattling steps. Uncomfortable shoes, like walking on uneven paving stones. Is there time?

…5, 4, 3, 2…

A jet of thick brown liquid; a cloud of steam.

Who would live in this second home? What becomes of a kingdom without a king? Gold for the gift of the king; Red for the blood of those who fell.

…1…

The metal braces of the coffee van exploded; a cloud of faux-mahogany shards were flung up into the air, and the brown tinted windows of the Work and Pensions building began to blacken with blood. Glass was still falling from the seventh floor window that Bill had ran his swivel chair through. The chair, and Bill, had disappeared into the wreck of the van.

The lift doors opened.

Nathan looked out, across the drab red carpet, out of the big double doors, to where his mother lay.

He began to walk slowly through the office, past the screaming receptionist, who was holding both hands to the sides of her head and trying to crush her own skull. Nathan turned and looked at her, and she stopped. Her hands fell to her side. With a whimper she forced a smile. Tears dropped off the edges of her lips.

Nathan stepped out into the morning air and kneeled next to his mother. He stroked her hair away from her eyes with one hand. Her blouse was steaming where the coffee had been thrown onto her. He looked up and saw a glittering ring of light falling down the building.

He put one hand on his mother's shoulder and gently gave a little tug.