Chapter Seven

The Concern of Noémi

"Are you all right, Clementine?" Noémi asked one morning, a couple of weeks later. Clementine was sat at the table in their kitchen, her hands clasped around a mug of hot tea, whilst Noémi leaned against the fridge and stirred a vanilla yoghurt.

"Hm?" Clementine looked up at her friend, confused. She'd been in a world of her own, thinking of the dream she'd woken up from only half an hour earlier. There had been explosions and feathers and blood, so much blood…

Suddenly Noémi was sat at the table opposite her, the yoghurt pushed to one side. "Clementine, you've not been looking…" Noémi seemed to struggle to find the right words. "You've been looking more and more tired. There are bags under your eyes. You're always yawning. Are you sleeping properly?"

Clementine sighed. "No, not really," she admitted, her voice a low mutter.

"Is everything all right?" Noémi said. She touched Clementine's hand lightly. "You can tell me, you know; if there's anything you need to talk about…"

"It's just dreams," Clementine said. "I've been having some…odd dreams."

"Nightmares?" Noémi suggested.

"Not in the traditional sense, although they feel like it," Clementine replied, thinking of the blood and screams and gunfire. "I'm just…Sometimes, I don't want to go to sleep because I fear what I might see. Does that make sense?"

Noémi nodded her head slowly. "Yes, it does," she said. "Do you mind me asking what these…dreams are about?"

Clementine snorted. "Jean."

"Jean?" Noémi echoed. "Who is Jean? Do you mean that boy from our Greek history class? The blond one with the glasses? You're dreaming about him?"

Pauline chose that moment to make her grand entrance, bringing with her the scent of chocolate perfume and apple shampoo.

"Who is dreaming about who?" she demanded, heading straight for the fridge. She grabbed an apple from her shelf and bit into it with a crunch.

Clementine shot Noémi a look that she hoped clearly said, not now.

Fortunately, Noémi seemed to get the message.

"It doesn't matter," Noémi said, returning Clementine's look with one that said, we're talking about this later.

III

That night, she dreamed of Jehan kneeling in the street, head bowed forward, guns trained on him; there was a triumphant shout from him that twisted her chest; "Vive la France! Long live the future!"

She woke, sweating, her limbs trembling. Long live the future was ricocheting around her head and refusing to leave; she lifted one shaking hand to touch her face and realised that her cheeks were wet with tears.

Heart pounding, she swung her legs out of bed and stood up. Grabbing her dressing gown from where it lay on the floor, she made her way out of her room and into the kitchen, shrugging on the dressing gown as she walked.

The kitchen lights weren't on, and she could not hear any sounds of people moving around. The whole flat felt very quiet and still. She tried her best to be as quiet as she possibly could whilst she padded around the kitchen trying to make herself a cup of tea in the darkness.

As she waited for the kettle to boil, she hitched herself up onto the counter and set about tying the belt on her gown. Over the hum of the boiling water she heard the sound of one of the other girl's bedroom doors opening and closing. A moment later, Noémi poked her head around the door, confusion etched across her sleepy face.

"Is everything all right, Clementine?" Noémi said through a yawn, stepping fully into the room and pulling out one of their plastic kitchen chairs to sit on. "It's half-three in the morning."

"I had a bad dream," Clementine replied.

"Another one?" Noémi asked, wiping sleep out of her eyes.

"Yeah, another one," Clementine confirmed. "They're basically the only think I've been dreaming for weeks now."

"Go to a doctor?" her friend suggested, bringing her feet up onto the chair and wrapping her arms around her knees.

"And say what?" Clementine couldn't help but snort. Beside her, the kettle finished boiling, but she ignored it. "Sorry to trouble you, but I've been dreaming of a man who died in the June Rebellion of 1832 whose book I recently bought from a junk shop."

Noémi's eyebrows rose. "That sounds rather complicated. Do you mean the man from your book? The Aeschylus one?"

Clementine nodded, a glum expression on her face. Her friend sighed.

"This isn't healthy," Noémi said. "It's stopping you from sleeping, Clementine. And you need your sleep. Maybe…"

"Maybe?" Clementine prompted.

"Maybe you should get rid of the book."

The idea of losing that book felt like losing a limb to Clementine. She couldn't imagine going anywhere without that book with her, couldn't imagine not being able to open it and read through his poems whenever she wanted, couldn't imagine not being able to run her fingers over his elegant handwriting…

"I couldn't," Clementine said. "Besides, this isn't the Chamber of Secrets…It's just – it's just a book of plays…"

"You think you're dreaming of the man," Noémi said, a note of exasperation in her voice. "How do you even know it's him?"

"I've seen people mention his name," Clementine answered, her throat closing as she thought once more of the last dream she'd had of Jean Prouvaire.

"Yes, because you're thinking about him so much," Noémi said, gently. "That doesn't mean it's him. It's a dream."

"It's always the same man," Clementine countered. "Also, he knows my name."

Exasperation turned to sympathy in Noémi's eyes. "That doesn't mean a thing," she murmured, voice soft and sad. "It's a dream, Clementine. It's in your head. It's not real."

"It feels real," Clementine said stubbornly.

"Exactly my point," Noémi said. "It feels real, you say…It only feels that way. Do you get what I'm trying to say here?"

Clementine pushed herself off the counter top and began to pour the water from the kettle into her mug. Ignoring the weight of Noémi's stare on the back of her neck, Clementine fished for a spoon in her cutlery drawer and set about stirring her tea.

"I'm not getting rid of the book," she said, pouring milk into the cup.

Noémi shook her head. "Fine, then, don't," she replied. "But at least try not to fixate on the book too much…Stop reading it so much, and stop carrying it around with you. Maybe that will help and you'll be able to get some sleep."

Clementine sighed, considering Noémi's advice as she stirred the milk into her tea. Sleep sounded like such a nice idea right now.

"I suppose I could try that," she muttered, dumping her spoon into the sink with a noisy clatter. Raising her cup of tea to her lips, she considered the ways she could stop herself from reading the book too much.

Vive la France suddenly shouted through her head and she flinched. Tea sloshed over the sides of her mug, burning her fingers and staining her dressing gown. She set her mug down with a thud and swiped at the damp stains on her clothing. Her fingers tingled and she grabbed the nearest thing to her – a tea towel – and wrapped them around her hand.

Noémi's words were making a lot more sense considering how much she was struggling to force the words from her dream out of her head.

Maybe she would have to get rid of the book…

Long live the future!

She jerked again, covering her face with her hands. No. She couldn't. Whatever was going on, it would not be ignored.

"Clementine?" She felt a hand touch her shoulder gently. Clementine glanced around; Noémi was hovering behind her, one arm outstretched, concern written all over her face.

"Sorry, I'm just very tired," she said, through a yawn. "Thank you for talking to me, Noémi. I really appreciate it."

Noémi stepped back. She didn't look convinced.

Clementine picked up her tea again. "I'm going to try and get some sleep," she said. "And before you say anything, I will try not to think about the book, I promise."

The two girls bade each other goodnight and retreated to their respective bedrooms. Clementine placed her tea on her bedside table and then sat on the edge of the bed. She felt tired, the sleepiness gnawing down into the depths of her bones. Staring around her little, cluttered room, it was almost easy to forget the dream. There was nothing in here to remind her of Jean Prouvaire…

Except that book.

As that thought entered her head, she turned to look at the small leather bound tome that sat next to her cup of tea.

She reached out and picked the book up. As she laid her hands on it, the sights from her dream came rushing back to her. Long live the future, and then gunshots…Blood, too much blood, and pain…

Closing her eyes she stood up quickly crossed the room to her wardrobe, carrying the book under her arm and dragging her desk chair with her. Yanking the wardrobe doors open, she positioned the chair in front of the wardrobe and climbed onto it. Then she shoved the book beneath a heap of bed sheets and towels she stored in the very top of her wardrobe. Stepping down, she shoved the chair away and slammed the wardrobe doors shut.

Sliding the chair back over to its place under her desk, she flopped back down onto the bed and covered her arm with her eyes, hoping that she might get a good night's sleep at last.