The DREAM

They had got to the bottom of the nightmare’s meaning, how could they atone for the past?

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THE STORY SO FAR: Renowned sleep specialist Dr Roopa Banerjee is excited to have met Lena James, a beautiful young patient suffering an incapacitating, recurrent dream of being trapped inside a house. For decades, Roopa has experienced the exact same dream, and is determined to discover what she and Lena have in common and how they can be freed from the dream forever. As the unhappily engaged Lena talks Roopa through her latest version of the dream, the pair end in the same place at the very top of the house, confronting a closed room. It is only as Lena opens the door and discovers her mother waiting for her that Roopa believes she may finally understand the dream’s meaning. Faced with her own mother when she dreams of the house, Roopa knows that she must atone for a grave wrong committed against her sister. But what, she asks, has Lena done?

They sat in the office, the windows dark with the London twilight pushing against them. It had been a long day, and a busy one. In the seven hours since Lena had told her of the final sequence of the dream, Roopa had found it difficult to maintain focus on her other patients. But she had managed it, of course. Just about. She was nothing if not professional. Now, though, with the waiting room empty and the receptionist about to head home, it was time to welcome Lena back. There remained so much to discuss.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind staying late?’ Lena asked.