Rêveries

Weird sad siesta dream of which I remember the core.

When others start to recount a dream it usually sends me into my own snores; plus, to paraphrase the quip about the Sixties, I hold that if you can remember it you prolly didn't dream it.

Background: Hightailing it off Bainbridge involved a lot of hasty selling, giving and chucking of stuff precious to me, many of which I'd toted round the world and were part of my marriage and life as a family man.

I was back in my fully "furnished" room, CD and book shelves and paintings.

I'd forgotten some of the really good stuff I'd parted with - music I'd bought with the pleasure of sharing, books that had kept me up nights or been given with precise inscriptions of sacred occasions; paintings I'd loved but just couldn't justify packing.

It was like some cocktail party with the wraiths of my old possessions emerging from their jewel cases, jackets or frames and hovering round me with fond smiles and interested hopes that my new life was going well and offering some future.

Sophie's Choice: What made their good wishes sad was that I should have taken them with me and they should have been part of the easy life I'm enjoying now.

Instead, I stood there in agonised embarrassment, nodding and smiling and assuring them that all was well and unable to come out with it and apologise.

Meanwhile, *they* were all too nice to deliver the home truth of

You daft pathetic prick. You blew it. You blew everything. All your lah-di-dah words and smoothie Mr International ways ... reduced to gumshoeing our some Seatac back door like a thief in the night."

I woke damp-eyed and went straight into the pool so as to plead chlorine at the breakfast table.

Sergeant Whopper's Lonely Hearts Club Fib: Dream #2, a Hercule Poirot mystery.

I spent 1967 in France's Touraine region during which I fell under the spell of a chanteuse of local group who specialised in singing Beatles in her inimitable Françoise Hardy accent. Rival was a bully boy from north of England, a stout carl for the nones, big of brawn and eke of bones, who I feared and knew had the lead on me.

The evening the Sgt Pepper album came out, we rushed out to buy it and, next morn, I saw Roland and Chantale huddled over croissants and coffee in a hideaway caff. It was too early for them to have met so I made some feeble protest, instantly answered by Roly that they had indeed spent a gruelling night together, he transcribing the words of the lads' songs for C to learn in time to sing for that weekend's gig.

In my dream, I was lovingly handling the vinyl album and, as I turned it over, there were the full lyrics on the back, black against the red.

I rose in an instant and padded down to the basement where are stored 40 years' LPs and sure enough, the lyrics *do* appear in full.

Thirty-nine years too late, I reddened at the cuckolding.

Bastards. You're not getting away with that. As soon as I've greased the zimmer frame and primed my musket, I'm coming after you, Rolie.

Choose your seconds. Queensberry Rules. Viagra and hot chocolate at dawn