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For one thing, he wasn’t trying to play the cello with no clothes on in front of an audience of his relations, enemies and former headmasters. For another, he never had dreams about girls.
    One of the ditzy-looking boats pulled in to the bank, and its passengers climbed out. Ah, he thought, that’s more like it. Goblins. Normal service has been resumed, we apologise for any inconvenience.
    But the goblins simply strolled past, chatting pleasantly among themselves, pausing very briefly to tip their hats politely to him in a charmingly old-fashioned, courteous kind of way. He reciprocated; the goblins went on their way, chatting about the century that Fry had just made at the Oval.
    Century. That was cricket, wasn’t it? Colin despised cricket, much as a cat relates badly to water. Arguably that made sense, within the dream’s own frame of reference. He didn’t like goblins much, either (not that he’d ever encountered one, because of course there’s no such thing) so it kind of followed that they’d like a game that gave him a pain in the bum. Dream logic. So that was all right.
    Let’s sit down on the bench, the girl was saying, and feed the ducks. There was a bench. There were ducks. In his hand he discovered a brown paper bag full of little bits of stale bread.
    Bloody odd dream, since he didn’t like ducks much either.
    Colin opened the bag and offered it to her, she took a handful of stale bits and hurled them daintily onto the surface of the water. The ducks closed in, like cruisers cornering the Bismarck. So far, apparently, so idyllic.
    But then she turned her face toward him (didn’t he know her from somewhere? No, but her face was completely familiar all the same) and looked him in the eye. That made her uncomfortable; she looked away, folded her hands in her lap. I’ve been thinking a lot lately, she said, about us.
    (Two ducks were racing for the nearest chunk of floating bread. One of them, mottled brown, beat the other, sort of blue-greeny grey, by a short head.)
    Oh yes? he said. Stupid thing to say.
    Yes, she said, and - hesitation. Her voice wobbled a bit as she said. And I don’t think it’s going to work. You and me, I mean. I just don’t think we’re right for each other.
    (Not to worry. Only a dream. Cheese on toast before going to bed.)
    You can’t mean that, he heard himself say.
    I’m sorry, she replied (in a dream, the people speak but you hear the words inside your head). I suppose I’ve known it for some time now, but I pretended it wasn’t true. I thought I could make it work, but I can’t. I’m just not the person you think I am.
    (And if all this was cribbed straight out of Mary Poppins along with the sets and costumes, it must’ve been one of the bits that he’d slept through, because it didn’t ring any bells at all.) That’s simply not true, he was saying - hurt, incredulous, angry - we get on so well together, I’ve never felt like this with anybody else and I know you feel the same really, you must just be—
    No. (A passing goblin turns to stare, then looks away hurriedly in embarrassment.) No, we’ve got to stop lying to ourselves, it only makes it worse. We’ve got to face it, we can’t go on like this any more. It’s just wishful thinking. If I could make myself love you, I would; but I can’t, and that’s all there is to it.
    On balance, Colin decided, he preferred the cello-playing dream, even the version with the goblins and the pack of red-eyed howling wolves. At any rate, this would be a good moment for him to wake up, bolt upright, bathed in sweat, tangle of bedclothes in a white-knuckle grip. Please?
    I don’t know what to say, he replied, perfectly truthfully. This is such a bolt from the blue. I thought— Damn it, we’re supposed to be getting married in a fortnight’s time. (A dream with plot twists; sophisticated or what?) We’ve made all the arrangements. What am I going to tell my parents?
    I said I’m sorry, she was saying. I know, it’s