Bad Dreams Collection Notes

Structure of the text

This section includes a summary, analysis, and questions to explore the stories and the collection 'Bad Dreams.'
The title story, 'Bad Dreams,' foreshadows the unsettling experiences of Hadley's characters.
The young girl's dream disrupts her certainty and changes her mother's outlook on her marriage.
Hadley suggests that everyone has dreams and aspirations that don't always end well.
The stories explore family quarrels, new motherhood, lack of fulfillment, old age, secrets, betrayal, sexual encounters, activism, illness, death, childhood, marriages, and parenthood.
Each story can be complicated and mysterious.

‘An Abduction’

The opening line poses immediate questions about whether an abduction can occur unnoticed.
Hadley reveals the events leading to Jane's 'abduction' to provide context for her journey toward womanhood.
The story is set in Surrey during the 1960s when children created their entertainment.
Jane disdains outdoor activities, preferring to read despite her mother's urging to go outside.
Mrs. Allsop is depicted as attractive and confident, qualities Jane admires but cannot emulate.
Jane wants to experiment with makeup rather than play childish games.
She is aware she lags behind in the 'fated trek towards adulthood,' indicated by 'coy' biology lessons signalling increasing sexual awareness.
Playing Jokari near the road, Jane's accidental ball smashing against her father’s car elicits insult.
Hadley’s imagery, ‘The wings of her spirit, which had been beginning to soar, faltered and flung her to earth …’ (p. 6), conveys Jane’s pain
Mr. Allsop notices an expensive convertible, glad his son is a ‘drip’.
Hadley observes that had he ever known of Jane’s abduction, he would likely have recalled ‘these visiting aliens’ (p. 7).
The youths in the car are Oxford students on a mission to find girls.
After a day of drinking and drugs, they decide to find girls to 'crown' their day.
Initially dismissive, they reconsider Jane upon seeing her physical features in the sunlight.
Daniel invites her for a ride, leading to an unexpected twist: Jane becomes an accomplice in shoplifting.
She is disoriented by this crime but enjoys the new physical sensation of contact with Daniel.
The boys praise her theft of alcohol as Jane recognizes their masculinity.
She tells them she doesn't drink but ‘might start’ (p. 12), hinting at her desire for new experiences.
Jane absorbs the modernity and privilege of Nigel’s house, forming perspectives on each boy.
Nigel is torn between bravado and responsibility; Paddy is clever and detached; Daniel exerts power.
Jane draws on her observations of her mother, knowing ‘it was her role to fill in the awkward silences’.
She feels ‘transplanted out of her familiar world’ (p. 13) and now is moving in a different skin
Hadley’s deliberate use of brackets conveys extra information about Daniel’s drug use at Oxford, bypassing Jane’s awareness.
Jane’s blushing, Nigel’s mocking ‘Bo Peep’ remark, and Daniel’s suggestion of nude swimming reinforce her naivety.
However, Jane surprises the reader by pulling off her dress, feeling ‘capable of almost anything’ (p. 16) after drinking barley wine.
Fiona, Nigel's worldly sister, arrives unexpectedly and contrasts with Jane's innocence.
Jane recognizes Fiona’s ‘yawning’, ‘stretching’, ‘pretending’ and ‘showing off’ is for Daniel’s benefit. (p. 17)
As Jane swims, she accepts defeat in her quest for Daniel’s attention.
Daniel is drawn to her ‘acutely responsive, open to anything’ manner.
He creates an excuse to stay alone with her while the others go to the pub.
Hadley uses Fiona’s discoveries to reveal Jane's loss of virginity through a shift in time.
Jane is conscious of her new self and Daniel’s nakedness as she invents an excuse for her absence.
The reader’s apprehension is appeased through Jane’s willingness to embrace what lies ahead.
Daniel’s remark ‘Not for nice girls’ (p. 22) separates her from their world.
Fiona angrily cleans inside whilst the boys compete with philosophy and poetry.
Filled with desire for Daniel, Jane is disappointed when he turns his back on her.
She discovers him naked and asleep with Fiona in the master bedroom.
Jane insists Nigel drive her home, seeing it through new eyes.
Jane never saw Nigel’s house again or any of the boys, but perhaps Fiona once at a party.
Her period comes early, relieving possible pregnancy concerns.
Mrs. Allsop is maternal, bringing aspirin, tea, and hot water bottles.
Jane's reversion to childhood, reading Chalet School books, contrasts with her incursion into adulthood.
Hadley leaps in time to a divorced, mid-fifties Jane in counselling, who has never revealed the summer's events.
Misjudged as lacking imagination, she catches the counsellor's interest by describing a summer day by a pool.
The epilogue about Daniel, who has no memory of Jane, reminds us of the story's beginning.
He has lived a life of experience and happiness, while Jane feels cut off from real life.
He has forgotten what Jane has not – the ‘extraordinary offer of herself without reserve…’ (p. 28).

‘The Stain’

The story is set in a small English village, where a dark history is concealed.
The author does not name ‘the old man’ or reveal specific details of his past, creating curiosity.
Marina, his cleaner, learns of his unspecified sins, affecting her life and his family’s.
The opening establishes the tension of an old man needing someone to keep an eye on him.
Marina ‘needed the money’ (p. 31).
She is seen as ‘reliable and thoughtful, an oddball … just the right choice for handling a difficult old man.’ (p. 32).
Marina fantasizes about the old man’s house, never having experienced the world outside her village.
References to South Africa are made.
Gary warns that she is working for a family used to being waited on by black servants, while Wendy never wants to return because of the violence.
Marina is non-intrusive, waiting for the old man to talk first.
She cleans with determination, highlighted by vocabulary choices such as ‘scouring’ and ‘scrubbing … stubborn greasy dirt.’ (p. 32).
Wendy lives in luxury, while her father lives in the unrenovated house with possessions from South Africa.
His tanned skin makes Marina wonder if he was a farmer, while his ailments elicit sympathy.
The old man’s repair of the vacuum cleaner marks the next step in the story.
He reveals he had a pilot’s license but responds: ‘Better not. Better to keep it all up here where it’s safe.’ (p. 35).
He divulges more information about the weather, landscape, and animals in South Africa as he starts to help Marina in small ways.
Marina decides he’s depressed and prone to sulks.
He snarls on the phone and pushes Marina’s hand away in irritation.
He offers to buy her a new washing machine to ‘make up for it’ (p. 36), which she refuses.
More about Wendy is revealed; her expensive car, upsetting staff at her gift shop and financially lucrative divorce.
Yet she does all her father’s shopping, gardening and takes him to appointments
Wendy tells Marina that her father took up her grandparents’ farm in the Cape to keep him busy after he retired.
Hadley embeds an inference of suspicion from Wendy into this exchange: ‘Is that what he told you?’ (p. 38).
Gary warns Marina that some old men get funny ideas, heightening a sense of unease.
She assures her husband that nothing wrong ever happened although the narrative focus questions her inability to see what others might see.
Marina does not reveal that the old man had tried some physical contact.
The old man's efforts to give her extra money each week
Marina ‘knows where to draw the line’ (p. 40).
His regret at putting career before family and admission of paying for prostitutes after his wife’s death.
He calls Marina ‘beautiful and graceful’ (p. 42), words that secretly gratify her in a shameful way.
His stories of travel make her aware of the limits and timidity of her own life, but instinct warns her that the old man is holding ‘something back, some knowledge or intimation …’ (p. 42).
‘Then he wanted to give her the house.’ (p. 42).
Results in a confrontation with Wendy who accuses them of scheming resulting in Marina quitting.
Daily routine resumes and the old man falls back into old habits which she rejects.
The familiarity of the house increases and it even feels like her's for the moment
The old man’s ninetieth birthday party arrives, prepared by Wendy with a BBQ reminiscent of the South African tradition.
Her husband and son have left but the old man pressures her to stay, making a speech in which he praises ‘his treasure’ Marina that seems deliberately directed at his family.
Anthony warns her about his grandfather’s involvement in the South African Defence Force and the ‘murky’ accusations that followed.
Anthony tells of the old man’s involvement in the South African Defence Force and the ‘murky’ accusations that followed.
Marina chose not to search more via internet.
The old man has died but he has exerted one last grasp of power by leaving the house to Marina in his will, thus ignoring her wishes.
Her refusal of the house, and even an offer of money, creates trouble with Gary.
Wendy renovates the house beautifully from top to bottom and moves in, erasing all traces (or stains?) of her father.

‘Deeds Not Words’

This story is set in the era of the suffragettes protesting in London just before WWI.
The narrative focuses on Edith Carew, a Latin teacher, but starts and ends with Laura Mulhouse.
‘All the girls at St Clements loved Miss Mulhouse.’ (p. 57).
Once her arrest is discovered by the girls, loving Miss Mulhouse becomes a cult-like requisite as they decorate in WSPU colors and pictures of the Pankhursts.
Some girls compose and print angry posters bearing suffragette slogans.
Edith Carew approved of women getting the vote in principle ‘but was too sceptical to be an enthusiast for any political cause.’ (p. 38).
Laura is called the Lady of Shalott as Edith has an affair with Fitzsimmon Briers, the French teacher.
He assures Edith, he ‘knew what he was doing’ (p. 60) as they make illicit love in the French office
The use of alliteration, ‘skins were slick with sweat’, adds to the intensity of their sexual passion.
Miss Mulhouse is being force-fed in prison.
Force-feeding is barbaric but says Laura had gone to Oxford Street intent on suffering and dismisses her as a martyr.
Consequences of suspension flow through to Edith and Fitz who find the French cupboard door daubed with slogans: ‘End this outrage now!’; ‘Stop the torture of women!’ (p. 61).
School governors suspend the headmistress and suspending some teachers and students.
School holidays start as does WWI and news comes that the Pankhurst campaign is abandoning its Paris office for the duration of the war.
A shift in time is further indicated by Fitz now dressed in military uniform
“Touch him emotionally now becomes Edith’s goal; Fitz gleams in anger when she asks what his wife thinks, dismissing her question.
She feels contaminated now, under Fitz’s power because the affair means she has ‘forfeited the white flower of a blameless life’ (p. 64).
Edith aligns herself with Laura: ‘Both of them were broken … In their shame, they could hardly bear to look at each other.’ (p. 65).

‘One Saturday Morning’

Three important elements of the story are introduced in the succinct opening line: ‘Carrie was alone in the house.’ (p. 67).
It’s a Saturday morning in the mid-1960s; Carrie is practicing piano whilst her brother is playing outside with friends.
Carrie’s mother is the homemaker whilst her father is a teacher explaining why they can only afford ‘a dilapidated Georgian terraced house’ (p. 68).
She reflects that the piano was not the answer ‘she’d hoped for, to what was unsolved in herself.’ (p. 69).
The letters is their response to being teased by a fat boy in their class, an ‘enemy’ because he had asked if they ‘were wearing itchy knickers’ (p. 70).
She’s nervous upon seeing the shape of a man peering through the glass door and filled with dread at the thought of engaging in conversation with a stranger.
The man is Dom Smith, a friend of her parents who has moved to another city.
Dom starts playing the piano in a manner so opposite to Carrie’s bumbling exercises, she cannot help herself, creeping out to listen and ‘feeling the music for once as if it were inside her.’ (p. 74).
Dom makes a revelation that drastically changes the mood in the kitchen; his wife, Helen, died in the spring
The narrator is reflecting on events long past – ‘In those days, news didn’t travel so fast’ (p. 77)
Carrie creeps back upstairs to avoid the ‘stricken, changed voices.’ (p. 77).
He wants to leave and ‘for the whole ordinary process of living to start into motion again.’ (p. 79).
Hadley breaks this story into two parts, the second set in the evening as Carrie’s parents host their dinner party.
The lost letter, cause of much angst earlier in the day, has been found.
Helen is still weighing on her mind, and she is thankful Dom hasn’t come to ruin the dinner party bringing ‘his weight of sadness’ (p. 81).
Carrie sees Dom on the balcony below: ‘So he had turned up after all.’ (p. 83).
The act of grabbing her mother, burying his face in her neck, and trying to kiss her hair and ears takes both mother and daughter by surprise.
Dom is pushed away and told ‘I’m so sorry … but I can’t.’ (p. 84).
Their happiness in that moment … squeezed Carrie’s chest like a tight band.

‘Experience’

The casualness of the phrase ‘When my marriage fell apart one summer …’ (p. 87) immediately evokes a sense of narrative distance.
It is a time of transition for Laura as she re-arranges the practicalities of her present situation.
The three storey London townhouse is personified as ‘intimidating’, ‘big-boned and gushing’.
Laura is twenty- eight, now on her own after six years of marriage but feels very inexperienced in life when she first meets Hana.
Hana’s house sounds idyllic
There’s even a cleaner twice a week
He has calculated the worth of jointly bought possessions and given her some money for them.
When the money runs out … I’ll start looking for work
Hana lives a life in contrast to Laura’s past sheltered existence; she is always flamboyantly on display.
The constant use of ‘I’ reinforces the growing feeling that Laura is edging towards reidentifying herself as Hana.
She accidentally finds the key; ‘a long iron key, like something in a novel or pantomime’ (p. 90).
Laura admits: ‘I feel ashamed of this now, needless to say’ (p. 91), hinting at tensions created by her ‘slipping inside Hana’s privacy’
The narrative perspective fast forwards in time
Returning to the setting of the attic
Startling sums of money Laura sees on business papers, the porn DVDs and sexy underwear shock her.
Laura is like a child-bride in a dull marriage
It starts to make sense to the reader that an older, more experienced, and independent Laura is narrating this episode of her younger self.
The narrative style and voice enable us to distinguish between innocence and experience as Laura works her way towards an understanding of moral boundaries.
The door phone buzzed in the kitchen, it's Julian (Laura and Julian atracted to each other).
Laura thinks Julian looks nothing like the man she imagined when reading Hana’s diary.
It presents a moral dilemma as she knows exactly where it is in the attic plus the key is sitting right in her dressing gown pocket.
Laura enjoys secretly holding it back from him, liking the ‘feeling [of] its weight against my leg.’ (p. 97).
Julian tells Laura he will only need use of the attic for a week or two.
He laughs with disbelief when she asks if Hana is the reason he is leaving his wife.
Julian recognises the distinctive necklace Laura is wearing as Hana’s: ‘She gave it to me, I lied.’ (p. 101).
Laura’s disguise, and the wine, give her confidence as she and Julian converse.
‘What are you doing here in Hana-land?’ (p. 102), asks Julian.
Hana phones to find out what happened that afternoon and whether he had talked of her.
Truth is stretched once more as Hana claims: ‘Luckily I bailed out pretty quickly’ (p. 104) of her relationship with Julian.
Laura suddenly becomes unwell, nearly falling over and reveals to Julian that she has run out of money to buy food after eating her way through the contents of Hana’s freezer.
I wanted to cross the threshold and be initiated into real life.
Hana’s phone call has changed the dynamic between Laura and Julian. He must literally disengage himself from the clinging, crying Laura to make his departure.
Usefully, he has left her a 50-pound note.
Laura commences extracting herself from ‘Hana-land’ by changing back into her own clothes and retrieving her own box of possessions.
She never finds out when Julian collected his stuff, but Laura has other elements of her life to concentrate on now.
She starts looking for a job, quickly picking up work as a receptionist and finding a room to live in a share house.
One consequence she believes of her evening with Julian is that she now comes across as older and more experienced: ‘People seem to take me more seriously – as if I’d been initiated into something after all.’ (p. 110).
Hana visits Laura and she is sure that something had happened with Julian, although not said specifically.

‘Bad Dreams’

The succinct opening line, ‘A child woke up in the dark’ (p. 113), is an experience with which every reader can associate
What is different about ‘Bad Dreams’ is that Hadley divides the story into three sections: as we firstly follow the thoughts and actions of ‘the child’; then shift to ‘the child’s mother’; and finally pull back to view both mother and daughter, as well as glimpses of the husband and brother.
The story is told from the third person perspective with the characters left unnamed.
The girl is an advanced reader, knowing what prologues and epilogues are, but flounders to understand she has authored this shocking ending on her own.
“Appallingly, to the child, she has written the deaths or illnesses of five of the children, only allowing Susan, her least favourite, to live ‘to a ripe old age’. (p. 116).
The child is cognisant that her parents have their own adult concerns and a shared past beyond her reach.
It is as though she has just realised that what happens in the present will quickly become the past, unable to be returned to again.
There’s just one explanation; her husband has done it. (p. 123).’
‘The young wife’ is frying bacon for her husband who is preoccupied packing his bag for work.

‘Flight’

Claire lives in Philadelphia and returns to her homeland, England, for a business meeting
Claire is still recovering on her plane flight, her hand shaking as she sticks with just tonic water.
Claire has carefully selected a hotel near Liverpool Street Station for its convenience to the train lines needed for her business commitments; however, she has decided to add a personal journey to see her niece’s new baby.
Claire has not spoken to her sister Susan, the baby’s grandmother, for several years.
Her travel schedule has room to fit in a train journey north to go home and surprise the family, hopefully achieving a reconciliation after failed past attempts.
Leaving her suitcase at the station, carrying just the presents and a change of clothes ‘in case she was invited to stay’ (p. 132), Claire gets the taxi to drop her at the end of the street.
The homes are red-brick Victorian working-class with front doors opening directly to the street.
“All Claire is initially aware of is the shocking pink painted hall; ‘Nothing was the same.’ (p. 132)./n* “What are you doing here” asks Amy (p. 133).
Claire’s observation that Amy’s breasts are ‘swollen and shapeless’ (p. 133) under her t-shirt and that she’s still wearing yesterday’s makeup seems hypercritical
Claire’s view is that the couple are quite happy in their cocoon ‘as if they were playing house …’ (p. 134).
Ryan arrives home acting as if there had never been a ‘dreadful falling-out’ (p. 140) between his mother and Claire.