The next installment. Still not sure where I'm going with this, but at least I now have a kind of structure in mind. Pick away.
(Some ruderies)

Opportunity.

Did I tell you I'd had a bad year?  I was never what you might call a high flier, but I'd always managed to make ends meet.  I travelled the length and breadth of the country repping for a firm that produced toys.  I'd go out and try and persuade buyers large and small what was going to be the next thing.  I mean, what did I know?  I was just pushing my company's crappy little products.  They never once had a top fifty Christmas seller.  After a while even bargain warehouses get sick of the sight of you.  Anyway, soon after that Christmas they went bust and I was out of work.  Of course, they took their crappy little car too.  So there was I, unemployed, time on my hands and the telling of my grandmother's dream worming away inside of me.  

 Now in my position I just know you'd have done the same.  It wasn't a great leap in logic, just a small step into the unknown.

At the time I was living in a flat above a row of offices.  My front door was wedged between the entrance to Richards, Walker and Irving, solicitors; and Carsons the estate agents.  It lent my little enterprise an air of professionalism.  I mean, it just wouldn’t have looked the same between an off license and a pet shop.  Gibson, the solicitor who comes to see me almost daily, works for the very same partners I set up business above.  You’d think proximity would lend a greater understanding to my “misdeeds” but it appears not.  In fact I sometimes think he’s even more incredulous when I tell him all this was happening just above his head.  

 The first thing I did was get myself a brass plaque.  “A. Freeny  B.Sc, Dream Clinic.”  It wasn’t even untrue.  I’d toyed with the idea of using an assumed name, something European that might sound like one of those dead psychologists.  In the end I decided to use my own because I felt honesty was the best policy and I didn’t want to sound like some second generation Second World War refugee.  I mean you’ve got to have some pride.  I wasn’t even lying about the degree.  I am a Bachelor of Science and I didn’t think it mattered my degree was in Business Studies and not some airy-fairy subject like psychology or sociology.  I even set up a room in my flat.  I had myself a clinic.

 The front door of my flat, which opens directly off the street, leads immediately to a short flight of stairs and opens onto a small landing.  The landing has two doors, one of which leads into my flat.  The other door hides a windowless but rather large storeroom.  I didn’t keep very much in there except old bits of stock I’d been trying to flog.  I took the whole lot to the nearest second hand shop, painted the walls white, laid a smart oilcloth floor and hung an unremarkable Monet print.  I’d swapped the toys for a pair of matching, deep plum, easy chairs, which softened the otherwise harsh white, clinical atmosphere.  Now I don’t know about you, but I’m not much for interior design.  However, stepping back, I was quite pleased with what I had achieved.   It looked comfortable but professional.  I added a small filing cabinet (also from second hand shop) and brought in my tape deck from the flat so I could either play music or record conversations. 

 I attached the plaque to my front door at eye height where passers by would notice it.  I couldn’t help thinking of my mother at that moment.  I could hear her clearly.

“Look at that love,” she’d say to my father.  “His own brass plaque.  Isn’t it lovely.”
 
And for once I’d have had to agree with her.  It was lovely.  For once, I think I’d have actually made her proud.

 So far this was the only thing that had really cost me any money, so after signing on I sat back in the flat and waited for the doorbell to ring.

 Now I know what you’re thinking.  What person in their right mind would see a brass plaque on a door and think, “Hum, that was a strange dream I had last night, I wonder what it all meant?"  In my enthusiasm, I did.  I mean, I never said I was perfect did I?  What I came to realise after four days of fruitless waiting was that no one in their right mind would just call on speck.  I had to advertise.  It was when I sat and thought what I ought to put in the newspaper ad. that I realised what I had to do was attract the loonies, losers, vulnerable and desperate.  I’d been pitching for the wrong clients. 

 I put some ads in the local paper.  Under personal I placed, “Troubled by dreams? Clear the mists. Visit A. Freeney B.Sc."  Under relationships, "Dream your way to the perfect partner."  I liked that one, so under the business column I placed, "Dream your way to success."  It's amazing what crap the local rag will allow you to print but I suppose they get as desperate as the rest of us.

 Now if you're anything like me, by the time the adverts went in, you'd be getting a bit restless and sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring.  So, when the very same evening the phone rang at about half past six I let it ring for a respectable three rings and then picked up.

 "Hello, Andrew Freeney, Dream Clinic."

 "Dream what?"

 It wasn't my first customer but my girlfriend, Amanda.  Not called for days and then just when you don't want her on the phone it's her.

 "Oh, it's you," I said.  I suppose I could have been more effusive but I really wasn't in the mood.

 "What do you mean, 'Oh it's you.'  And what's a dream clinic."

 As you can see, Amanda was not one to beat around the bush.  In fact it's fair to say she was pretty direct.

 "Never mind.  Actually I rang to say I think we should cool it for a while.  Take time to think if we've got a future.  I mean you don't seem really bothered."

 Well that was a bit of a shock.  I mean, we'd not seen so much of each other recently but I was looking forward to the next time she came round so we could share a curry and have a quickie.  What would you have said in the situation?  Unfortunately my newfound ability to think on my feet deserted me and all I could think to say was, "Er, okay then."

 There was a sharp sigh and the line went dead.  What was I supposed to say?  It was her who rang to give me the elbow.  It should be me who was upset but when I thought about it I wasn't really that bothered.  I mean I enjoyed the sex but other than that we really didn't do much.  In fact the time we did spend together, like on a Sunday morning, dragged interminably.  I don't really like all that domestic stuff, like sharing the Sunday paper and making each other breakfast in bed.  On those kind of Sunday mornings I couldn't wait until she left to go and visit her parents.  No, on the whole I thought I was well rid.  There were plenty more women around.

 I'd just got all this squared in my head when the phone went again.
 "Hello, Andrew Freeney."

A silence and then very timidly, "Andrew Freeney the dream person?"
 Well can you imagine?  I was made up.  The very same night my ads went out and I get my first call.  On top of that, it's a woman.  One door shuts, and another, as they say, opens.

 "Yes, that's me.  How may I help you?"

 "Er, I'd like you to tell me my dream.  I mean I'd like you to tell me what it means." 

 "Okay, well I'll have to book you in and we'll talk about it," I told her.  "When would you like to come?"

 "Well Saturday morning would be alright."  Still that timid voice, but she sounded quite young and after my latest news I was quite hopeful.  I mean you have to take fringe benefits from any job when they're available don't you?

 Anyway, I won't bore you with the details, but we settled on a time and that was it.  Two days to wait and I'd be in business.

Now I told you I'd sort of got into a habit with Amanda, and like most of us, after the first few weeks of seeing each other, I started looking around at other women again.  I don't mean I was looking for another woman, just at other women.  I mean, unless you include the odd encounter when I was away flogging those shitty little toys, I'd stayed as faithful to her as the next man.  What I'm getting around to telling you, and this my lawyer finds ever so distasteful, the prissy bastard, is that even though I was as faithful as you could expect to Amanda, I masturbated like crazy.  Not in parks or in front of old ladies in the market or anything like that, just at night when I was on my own.  And here's the surprising thing, until that night it was only over some woman I'd met and memorised while I'd been at work.  It was never Amanda, even though it was her body I knew so well.  If masturbation counts, my wanking had made me the worst cad in the Western Hemisphere.  In my imagination I'd shagged almost every secretary I'd met. To get back to the point, that night, perversely enough, all I could think about was Amanda.  Isn't it funny how things turn out?

Now please don't think me crude.  I'm only telling you this because it has a bearing on the rest of my story and I don't want you thinking badly of me.  The context of my crimes may not be important to many, but they are to me.  It seems they are to Gibson too.  He says there's no chance any sane jury would find me innocent, so he's got me pleading guilty and hoping all this background crap will make the judge take pity on me and knock a couple of years or so off the sentence.  I don't really know what to think anymore, but it is good running through all this again.  I wonder if Gibson gets as big a kick out of it as I do.  Doubtful, he looks as boring as dad.