All I could see was my friend Harry, straining to lift up the huge piece of rock, murderous hatred in his eyes as he prepared to smash it down onto my face to kill me.
I was lying at the bottom of the mountain, in a gulley, in agony, unable to move because it felt as if every bone in my body was broken.
Thank heavens!
I woke up from the awful nightmare sweating and panicking, but to such immense relief it was hard to describe. I briefly remembered the sequence of my night-time horror: travelling on the bus to go to the work ‘bonding event’ – a trip down to Kent to learn rock climbing. The bus stopped in traffic and a magpie perched on its bonnet, and the driver quipped, “Oi mate you after a free ride?” And my friend and work colleague Harry – the joker of the office – commenting: “Oh dear, one magpie means one for sorrow. Someone’s in for some bad luck.”
We all laughed, that is the four of us who were on the ‘away day bonding experience’. None of us had wanted to go, but the company insisted.
In the dream I could recall seeing a particularly bright shaft of sunlight reflecting from the coach window while Fergus and Tom chatted about football, and me and Harry were putting the world to rights.
Then it was much later in the day. We were all standing at the top of the cliff and Fergus and Tom were some distance away talking to the instructor, leaving me and Harry alone. Then, quick as lighting, Harry punched me in the guts, really hard, then ripped off my safety helmet and pushed me over the cliff edge before I even realised what was happening.
He had thrown me to my death. Or so he thought, until he realised that he would have to finish the job himself.
God, how I hate nightmares. The subconscious is a horrible enemy, they say it reflects your fears and distorts reality. It was true. I hated the idea of rock climbing and I certainly resented having to go on tomorrow’s ridiculous ‘bonding away day’.
As I lay there in the spare bedroom I’d been sleeping in for weeks now, I reflected that all in all, my life my life was pretty shit at that moment: discontent with my work life had followed me home, and I found that I was constantly rowing with Maggi, my wife, to the point where we were discussing divorce and the various financial repercussions. Harry and his now ex-wife and Maggi and me had often gone out on foursomes in the past, and once we’d all been close. But now Harry was on his own, the three of us didn’t go out together anymore, it just didn’t seem right. It was as if everything was going wrong at the same time, and I just couldn’t win whatever I tried to do. I wanted to change my job, sort out my marriage or make the break, reassess my life completely, but I just couldn’t be arsed to get round to doing anything about it.
Anyway, it was time to get up and take the train to work and make the best of our ‘away day’ in Kent. According to Jungian philosophy, I’ve heard that dreams are just the manifestation of our fears and desires, unrelated to the real world. Indeed, some say that dreams actually indicate the opposite of what is actually going to happen: for instance if you dream about babies someone is going to die, and a dream about weddings means a funeral. So maybe today’s course would be the beginning of my getting my life on a proper track – starting my life afresh rather than ending it.
I got to work early and met the other three, and we all chatted away about the equipment they’d supplied us with, and how we might be able to skive off the rock climbing and spend the day in a pub somewhere. The bus set off promptly at 7.30 for the long journey from central London to Harrisons Rocks, in the heart of Kent.
That’s when, put of the blue, I had a really strange sensation. Call it déjà vu, or that weird feeling you sometimes get in a situation when you feel as if you’re not actually in your own body, that you’re looking down from above, as if you’re observing events in which you’re actually taking part, or you’re just watching events that have already happened. My mouth went dry, I felt sick.
And suddenly, for some reason, I began to feel not just scared, but absolutely terrified.
My phone rang.
“Hi, is that Mr Peters?” said the cheery voice.
“Yes.”
“Ah good morning sir, this is Jason Wannabe of Ajax Insurance Services. I just wanted to check that you got the email about your new policy?”
“New policy?”
“Yes, the enhanced life insurance policy, with the double indemnity – that means we pay out double in the event of you dying in an accident. We sent the policy last week and you signed on docusign.”
“Did I?”
My thoughts raced. Maggi knew my password to get into my computer at home and I was registered with that document signing service. She could digitally sign any document sent to me in my name.
Suddenly I remembered entering the room when Maggi was on the phone last week, and her hanging up quickly. And the way that in the past weeks Harry had stopped gossiping about his unhappy love life, when he used to talk of nothing but the girls he was chasing. The way he’d stopped wanting to go to the pub with me at lunchtimes, claiming to have ‘too much work on’.
Then the bus stopped at traffic lights. And, just as in my dream, a bright shaft of sunlight lit up the interior brightly, and a magpie perched on the bonnet and the driver said: “Oi mate you after a free ride?” And Harry said: “Oh dear, One for sorrow! Someone’s out of luck today.” And the others sniggered.
And I was right inside my dream.
Only this wasn’t a dream.
This was actually happening.
I grabbed my rucksack from the rack and ran up to the front of the coach.
“Look mate, sorry but I feel sick, can you let me out?” I asked the driver.
“Sorry, but this is a red route, I’ll get massive fine if I stop here, even for a second,”
I found all the cash in my pocket and dropped it in front of him on the dashboard.
“There’s the fine,” I told him. “Keep it whatever happens. I really have to get off this bus!”
Behind me I could sense that the other three were staring at me. But it was Harry who was on his feet, his face red, hand on my arm trying to stop me leaving, as the bus ground to a halt.
“Hey, Roger, what’s got into you, are you mad?” he yelled. “Are you scared of learning a bit of rock climbing? What the fuck are you playing at?”
He grabbed me and we struggled for a few minutes, everyone staring at us and wondering what to do. In the scuffle he dropped his phone and I picked it up and put it in my pocket.
“If Maggi gets to be the Merry Widow she can keep the house, can’t she?” I told him. “What’s more a life insurance policy pays double in the case of an accident, did you know that? They call it double indemnity.”
“What the fuck are you talking about…” But even as he said it, Harry’s face froze, and I had my answer. His hands fell in shock as I punched him in the face, then jumped off the bus and ran away as fast as I could.
And ran and ran. . .
When I couldn’t run any longer, I bent double and panted for breath.
Harry’s phone rang, and I answered it.
“Can you talk, darling?” Maggi’s voice said.
“Yeah.”
“Harry, darling, I’ll be thinking of you, my love,” she said. “I know it’ll be awful but just steel yourself to do it. Once it’s over we can start our lives all over again. Maybe even emigrate to Australia.”
I didn’t reply.
Two magpies swooped down onto the bench beside me, started strutting their stuff. Crazily, I recalled the old nursery rhyme about magpies:
One for sorrow, two for joy. . .
“Harry? Harry? Are you still there?”