‘Please don’t,’ Simone says, resting a hand on my knee.

The gesture takes me by surprise. It feels invasive, but perhaps not altogether unwelcome. It reminds me of a time before all of this, when things were easier. When we had less to forget.

I raise my palms up slowly. ‘This feels pointless.’

‘Dreams can admittedly seem abstract,’ the therapist says, ‘but if you take the time to listen to them I think they can have an immensely positive impact. Sleep is ultimately a time for introspection. A chance for the mind to explore itself. And so much of what and how we dream is controlled by our emotional state. Our surroundings, the realities we deal with each and every day, all of it takes a toll.’

VII

In my dreams my mind walks like a trapeze artist between the topology of my history and my desires for the future. A delicate balance between what is and was, and what now can never be.

Each night I become a younger version of myself. I sit beside Simone in a coffee shop and rub my clammy hands so much it looks like I have a skin condition. I make silly self-deprecating remarks and she assures me that everything is fine. She puts her hand in mine and smiles in a way that makes her eyes shine brighter than I thought possible.

She moves in gradually, the walls of my apartment filling with art deco prints and needlepoint, the hallways teeming with lush ferns and colourful rugs. There are shelves in each room overflowing with various ornaments and trinkets, the spoils of our adventures together. In our bedroom is a noticeboard covered in ticket stubs and photographs. On our windowsill sits a ceramic maneki-neko, a lucky cat that neither of us can remember buying.

At some indiscernible point the apartment ceases to be mine and instead becomes ours. Her contentment seeps its way into the fabric of throw cushions and bedsheets. Her perfume settles on clothes and lingers in the air. The very smell of her makes me feel like I am home. She becomes my place in the world.

We marry and save for years before taking a belated honeymoon across Europe. We travel by steam train and ferry, by bus and gondola. We sleep in hotels and hostels and sleeper cars. We read together in coffee shops and slowly we learn the richness of the continent’s history.

We walk hand in hand along endless cobbled streets. We visit medieval churches and amphitheatres. We stand at the foot of fjords. We visit vineyards and rustic wood-panelled taverns. We eat on rooftop terraces, beneath rose-covered trellises. By day we explore the geography of the continent and at night we explore the geography of each other. Two shapes that come together as one.

We buy a house and before the last of the boxes are unpacked Simone tells me she is pregnant. Later, she gives birth to a healthy baby boy. We name him Phineas, and at night I sit and listen to him taking tiny breaths in the dark. In the mornings we have whispered arguments over nothing, born from sheer exhaustion.