CHAPTER 27

One December morning, Moira Craftsman woke up with a start. She had dreamed that a tribe of cannibals had taken her son Atticus prisoner, lowered him into a pot of boiling water, and were planning on eating him like a prawn, cooked and pink, while the boy screamed, “At least toss a few tea bags in the stew, you pack of savages!”

As a devoted disciple of Freud, Moira was a compulsive reader of The Interpretation of Dreams and was in the habit of asking her friends to let her analyze their dreams, from which she drew the most unexpected conclusions. It was obvious to her that guests at the house in Kent often dreamed of running water, streams, and waterfalls because the copper pipes made a tremendous noise when the boiler was on. If it was cold, they tended to dream of polar animals or white objects. If it was hot, they dreamed about airplanes not taking off. If they experienced a dizzying sense of speed—scenes that changed constantly, fast thoughts, races, flights, et cetera—she would lay the blame on an empty stomach.

Moira was more cautious when it came to erotic dreams. Desires, fears, and inhibitions were all tied up with an individual’s private matters, she said, or his or her sexual history.

“We were making love in front of my stepmother.”

“You lack intimacy.”

“I was sleeping with an elephant.”

“You lack affection.”

“Our dreams expose what is missing from our everyday lives,” she would explain to her rapt audience, “but they also respond to external stimuli, noises, changes in temperature, or recent experiences. For example, following a traumatic experience, or after eating a lot, one is very likely to have nightmares.”

As for the predictive power of dreams, Moira was of the belief that, like all premonitions, only the ones that the dreamer really believed in would come true.

“I dream that I’m falling. The next day there’s snow on the ground, and it’s icy. I slip. I fall,” she would explain. “Does that mean that my dream has come true, or would I have fallen anyway?”

Moira Craftsman was a sensible woman. But that morning, after dreaming that her son was being cooked alive in a cauldron of tea, she pushed aside all her years of rationality.

“Wake up, Marlow, we’re going to Spain!”

It was three weeks until Christmas and they hadn’t heard from Atticus since August. However hard Marlow tried to convince her that all was well, that the boy was busy resolving a terribly complicated situation in Madrid and would be home soon enough, Moira suspected that her husband was hiding something from her. Marlow wasn’t much of a talker, but the silence to which he had subjected her of late was going beyond a joke. He had even stopped saying good morning to her. He had been getting up in a hurry, jumping in the shower, grumbling something incomprehensible from the bathroom, and racing out to the office without drinking his usual cup of coffee.

He had spent most weekends hunting in Scotland, in the Highlands, as he liked to call those impassable hills upon which roe deer, dogs, pheasants, geese, and men all ran amok: some fleeing from others, and others fleeing from their wives and from explanations they didn’t want to have to give.

It crossed Moira’s mind at one point that Marlow might be having an affair. She soon dismissed such a stupid notion.

No. Any other vice but women. Marlow preferred his club, his brandy, his games of bridge, and his hunts. He didn’t have the time, or the motivation, to get caught up in an affair at this late stage of the game. Nor did he have any chance to, really. At work, Atticus kept an eye on him; elsewhere, his friends, mother, wife, and the headaches caused by his elder son Holden kept him busy.

But the silence . . .

“Atticus is in danger,” she said that morning, trying to get Marlow to understand. They were still in bed, her hair was a mess, and he was in his flannel pajamas. “We have to go to Madrid and bring him home as soon as possible.”

“What’s got into you, darling?” he managed to stammer, having just woken up from a dream in which he had taken a long run up before jumping and taking off heavily and clumsily, like a goose.

“A mother knows when her child needs help,” Moira said, cutting him off, “and I can sense that Atticus is in real trouble, Marlow. We have to go and rescue him.”

Marlow sat up against the pillows. He scratched his head. He took his wife’s hand.

“I tried to tell you a few days ago, Mo, but you were too tired. You’re right, we must go to Spain. There’s no other option.”

•  •  •

Moira Craftsman immediately sprang into action. She consulted her huge black planner, in which she kept track of all her engagements, and decided there was no way they could go and save Atticus before December 15. That was ten days away but, unfortunately, back in April she had accepted a dinner invitation from Lord Norfolk for that very Tuesday. What’s more, on Thursday they had front-row tickets for La Bohème, bought seven months ago, before they sold out—after all, one has to be prepared. Then, on Sunday, the rector of All Saints College was coming to tea. They couldn’t cancel a visit like that at such short notice. It was Monday, only six days until Sunday, and if they changed their plans now, the rector would crucify them for being so bad-mannered, and he would be entirely justified. And the following Wednesday, Moira had an appointment at the hairdresser’s. Religiously, once every two months, she dyed her hair mahogany; otherwise the gray started to show. What’s more, canceling would mean that the hairdresser would have to reorganize her entire schedule, and Moira didn’t want to be responsible for such chaos.

She also needed to talk to the housekeeper, organize the pantry, pay the suppliers, prepare guest rooms, hire the help for New Year’s Eve, sort out the menus, the Christmas tree, and the Christmas pudding, and many other things besides.

All told, the earliest they could leave was the fifteenth. And they would have to be back on the twentieth at the very latest because, if not, Christmas would be a complete disaster.

“Marlow and I have to go on an unexpected and urgent trip,” she explained over the phone to Victoria Bestman. “It’s about Atticus. We’re worried that something might have happened to him. We haven’t heard anything from him since August.”

“Dear God!”

“I’m telling you because I don’t think I’ll be able to play bridge on the sixteenth. You’ll have to find another partner.”

“The sixteenth! That’s less than ten days away!”

“I know. It’s all happened terribly suddenly, Victoria. I’m awfully sorry, but as I said, it’s very urgent. It’s about Atticus.”

“Oh, Moira, you poor thing! You must be so worried. I’d come and give you a hug, but as it happens, back in August, I promised I’d help with the fund-raising auction for the rectory today . . .”

“I understand, Victoria. An engagement is an engagement. Don’t worry. I’ll call you when I get back.”