We eat outside, in Warren’s garden (which is really just a patch of yellowed, wasteland-style grass and a headstrong Cornish palm tree angled against a fence). The air’s briny from the beach, a cardigan of cloud across the early-autumn sky.
Warren unwraps his food. “This has been a long time coming.”
“Hungry?”
He laughs. “No, I meant this moment. I dreamed about it. Well, this and when you turned up last night.”
I stare at him. “You dreamed about... what we’re doing right now?” Weird. I’ve never stopped to think about how it would feel to be the subject of a dream.
“Dreamed you got the coffee black too.”
I raise an eyebrow.
Warren peels back the lid of his cup. “Chip off the old block.” He smiles. “Can only drink it neat.”
Between sips of black coffee and bites of egg roll, I tell Warren about Diana. But I deliberately steer clear of my dream about Callie. Maybe because I can already see he has high hopes for my love life.
“Diana’s right, you know,” he says, when I’m done.
I look at him, take in the folds of his skin. The creases at the corners of his eyes. He has the kind of weather-worn complexion that always carries a tan. Even in the middle of winter, when the sun hasn’t shone for about six weeks. “About what?”
“Well, maybe she could stop the dreams. Maybe. After a few years of you as her lab rat. But she can’t change the future.”
“What are you saying?”
“We have this affliction, Joel. But we also have each other now. Ever since I dreamed about this weekend, I’ve been trying to get myself sorted. Make the house a bit nicer, go surfing more often. Stop being quite so much of a hermit.” He pats his belly. “Lose a few pounds.”
It’s a heart-warping thought, strangely sweet: Warren beavering away all this time, preparing for my arrival.
“I want to help, if I can. Don’t make the same mistakes I did—mess up your relationships and career and—”
“Ship’s already sailed on that front.” I tell him the story of how I became the world’s worst vet. Then Warren reciprocates with the tale of his own promising surfing career. How he screwed the whole thing up with booze, recreational drugs.
“But we can getyouback on track,” he says. “It’s not too late.”
My thoughts drift to Dad, to everything he denied me by turning Warren away. Warren could have been my confidant all this time, seen me through some of the toughest periods of my life. “I’m not sure I can ever forgive my dad,” I tell Warren now.
“Don’t be too hard on him. He was probably afraid of losing you, afterOlivia died. I guess he saw it differently from me—he’d done all the hard work, then I turned up uninvited expecting to muscle in.”
I frown, sip my coffee.
“So what now?” Warren asks.
“All I’ve ever wanted is for the dreams to stop,” I say eventually. “I’ve been fixated on that for so long, but...”
“Now it comes down to it, you don’t think you can handle not knowing what’s to come?”
I exhale. Consider it. “Maybe. How messed-up is that?”
“Well, you’ve lived with this for so long, it’s understandable you might struggle to live without it. Like those old folks who spend their whole life waiting for retirement, then haven’t got a clue what to do when they get there.”
“So what’s the answer?”
“Forget science, forget cures. Just go out and live—you and Callie. Make the best of your lives.”
“I have no idea how to do that,” I say. Because the dark cloud of my dream overshadows us now, the threat of devastation just a heartbeat away.
63.
