CHILDHOOD DREAMS

When the distant past meets the present, and seems to merge with it...

“I get to worrying sometimes,” whispered Rick to Rosie, “about the way I think and the thoughts I have…”

“Now what are you going on about?” asked his wife. They had just woken after a night’s sleep, there was a suggestion of sunshine outside their curtained window and a new day promised… what? They had no plans as such. It was a Saturday, so neither of them had to go to work and anyway they were both rocketing (or so it seemed) towards retirement.

“What’s wrong with the way you think?” asked Rosie, snuggling up to him just in case he felt unhappy about something, though if he was she couldn’t for the life of her think what it might be.

“I keep getting these sort of dreams,” he began.

“What do you mean, sort of dreams? They’re either dreams or they’re not, and if they’re not they’re real life,” she said teasingly.

He liked the way she was snuggling up to him, and inched towards her in bed.

“I get these dreams,” he said, “not proper dreams because when I have those I’m fast asleep and can barely remember what I actually dreamed about when I wake up. But if I’m half awake I get images from my childhood, maybe memories, I don’t know, but they’re set round about where I was brought up. The old house, you know, they’ve pulled it down now and put a supermarket in its place, but way back I lived in it, and I find myself living in it again while you’re snoring softly next to me.”

“You’re funny,” Rosie smiled, “because don’t we all find ourselves going back in our memories, maybe to happy times or maybe to less happy ones, it’s like a random selection.”

“What do you like dreaming about, love?” asked Rick.

She smiled at him. “I dream about you sometimes, Rick,” she said affectionately, “remember when we were courting? In our teens? I know it’s years and years ago, but there are some things I remember quite clearly, almost as if they were yesterday. Like the time you had to play rugby at school one weekend afternoon, I’m sure it was a Sunday because my folks, who were very churchy said it was against their principles to even think about playing rough games like rugby on a Sunday. And it had been raining so you got all muddy, down your shorts, on your knees, everywhere. But the school showers hadn’t been opened, it being a Sunday and the caretaker not about, and you had to go home all muddied up. I went with you, and that was the very first time I saw your you-know-what because you had a bath and I went into the bathroom with you, and sat on the toilet while you washed off all that mud. Your folks were out somewhere, which was fortunate. Maybe it was then that I sort of learned to fancy you!”

“We didn’t have a shower back then,” sighed Rick, “but I can actually remember that day! I found out afterwards that the showers at school were unlocked after all, but we’d already set off home. Fancy, no shower back then at home, and now we don’t have a bath but only a shower!”

“And you haven’t played rugby for fifty years! But go back to what you were saying about your dreams.”

“Well, if they are dreams they seem to want to rebuild my childhood. Can you remember the seasons back then?”

“Spring, summer autumn, winter? We still have thm, darling.”

“No, not them. I mean the important seasons. Starting in the autumn term at school, there was the conker season. We went around looking for horse chestnot trees and collected conkers, and if we got a good one we bored a hole through it, and threaded some string through. We even cheated, like soaking them in vinegar to make them stronger. Then we had mighty battles, trying to smash each others conkers by swinging our own conkers onto another boy’s.”

“Boys would be boys even then,” sighed Rosie, “I can remember us girls watching in disbelief as your mighty battles raged!”

“Then there was the cigarette card season and the marbles season… And another, I forget what.”

“I know,” sighed Rosie, “and we girls had our handstand season.”

“All of you in rows, upside down against the school wall.”

“With out skirts tucked into our knickers, so it was decent!”

“I remember watching you and wondering what the world was like upside down,” smiled Rick.

“Then there was the skipping season, then hopscotch, childhood was fun,” sighed Rosie.

“But when I dream it isn’t about things like that,” Rick told her, “it’s about the road we lived on, and the houses, and who lived where, and who I knew and didn’t know, some kids I thought I’d long forgotten until suddenly there they are walking down forgotten streets in my mind. And the other games we kids played, cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, you know, copying things off the Saturday morning pictures. And then I veer away from what we really did and seem to imagine things we didn’t do as if they were actually real. It’s as if the boy I think is me, in his grey shorts, is alive and walking today and might come into this room any moment.”

“And what’s troubling you about kids playing in your dreams?” asked Rosie. “Don’t you want to meet the little boy Rick? Does he scare you?”

“It’s as if… well I don’t know, but maybe I’m trying to recapture something that I’ve lost, and when it’s there grab hold of it before it’s gone for good,” Rick hesitatingly tried to explain.

“You silly chump!”

“No, Rosie. My mum did that, and remembering how she ended up does scare me. I remember. She’d sometimes laugh at the things she recalled that she did when she was young, and then get it mixed up with that day, with things in her stories that can’t have existed back when she was a kid, like the television. She went all dreamy, and mixed her rag doll up with the Robin Hood on the television.”

“That’s easily done! It’s not anything to worry about.”

“But mum ended up stepping out of the present and staying in a hybrid version of her past.”

“I knew your mum, Rick. She was… okay.”

“Some of the time.”

“Memories don’t always tell the truth, love.”

“They might, Rosie, they might.. Look, I’m getting up, I know it’s early, but do you mind? I need a wee and a shower. You get an extra forty winks if you want to.”

He made his way out of the bedroom, and Rosie stared thoughtfully after him. There was something different about him these days, but she was pretty sure it had nothing to do with memories of the good times of childhood, because they sure weren’t always that good.

She snuggled down and closed her eyes.

Then there was a clattering from outside he bedroom door, and it alarmed her.

“What is it, Rick?” she called, opening her eyes in alarm.

He opened the door and stood there, stark naked.

“It’s the bath, mum,” he almost shouted, “someone’s come and taken the bath!”

“Don’t be silly, Rick,” she said, “we had that taken out years ago! Now go and use the shower, and I’ll make breakfast.

He watched him as he backed out, suddenly covering his groin with both hands.

“When I was a boy I had one bath a week, on Sundays so that I’d be clean for school next day,” he explained. “And I need a bath now, mum,” he added, wild-eyed, lost, maybe in a better age. Then he stared at Rosie, the long-term love of his life.

“Who are you?” he asked, and as afterthought added, “what do you think you’re looking at? Don’t be rude!”

© Peter Rogerson 16.05.23

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Reviews

[AYVID N]

There is something seriously wrong with Nick and its probably early and sudden onset dementia. Rosie must realize the seriousness of it and rush him to care. It may be a temporary phase and he may emerge from it. An interesting story.

[Peter Rogerson]

I based the dementia on my experience in the early 1960s of th decline of my own mother. ^0nyears llater, it still haunts e.

[AYVID N]

Very sad indeed. Those memories never leave us.