SINNIE'S OWL DREAMS

(This Port Brokeferry project should reach completion this summer, along with at least one other big writing thing I have on the go. So here's another 'postcard' for Thursday in PB. By the by, I am looking forward to the summer... and now there's the football on the tele and soon the tennis and soon the holidays will be upon us. All in all, this is a good time of this year. Even Sinnie is having good dreams... read on!)

READING SINNIE’S DREAMS

Sinnie sits with the old woman from the fair. They are under a painted canvas parasol in Sinnie’s backgarden, like they are having a picnic. Spears of purple and white foxgloves are busy with bees and orange geraniums run riot in one corner. Beyond the wall at the bottom of the garden the sea looks blue and endless. The woman from the fair is dressed in dark clothes, her hands folded in her lap and her plaited hair tied at the ends with brightly coloured torn pieces of cloth. Sinnie notices there’s dirt under her fingernails.

On the table between them there is a blue delftware teapot and a milk jug. Two cups on two saucers, one in front of Sinnie and one in front of the other woman. There’s a plate of digestive biscuits, too. Sinnie realises then that she has forgotten the sugarbowl and wonders if that will matter.

‘I’ve been having dreams.’

The woman leans forward, looking interested in what Sinnie is saying.

‘I write them down in case I forget them. It’s a habit. I keep a book by my bed just for the purpose. And a pen. I try to record them quickly, without thinking about what they might mean. I am better at it now than I was.’

Sinnie withdraws a small notebook from the pocket of her summer dress and lays it on the table.

‘Do you read dreams?’ she says. ‘Only I thought you might know what they mean?’

The old woman clears her throat as if she is about to say something. ‘A little,’ she says. That’s all, ‘A little.’

Sinnie tells the woman about the waistcoated owl. She mentions in passing how like the waistcoat of Mr Struan Courtald the owl’s is. The silver buttons and the small pockets like half cups.

‘And then I was on the back of the owl and we were flying above Port Brokeferry.’

The old woman raises her eyebrows at this.

‘High, where the air is thin and I could scarcely breathe. I woke up out of breath after that. See how the words do not sit quite on the lines where I have written about that dream. I was still light-headed when I was writing. It felt so real.’

Sinnie shows the woman the relevant pages of her notebook. The woman takes the book and reads for herself what Sinnie has written.

‘Then last night the same, only this time I lost my grip and fell and the owl laughed. All the owls laughed to see me throwing my arms about and still falling. And I did fall. From my bed, I mean. Never before. But waking on the floor this morning and a man’s face peering in at the window and he was laughing. And that did not seem like it was part of the dream.’

The woman clears her throat again. ‘Is there sugar?’ she asks.

When Sinnie returns the woman helps herself to three heaped spoonfuls of sugar. She does not stir the cup. Then she sets aside Sinnie's book of dreams and asks about Mr Struan Courtald.