The House of Sleep (21 page)

‘Well you were,’ said Sarah. ‘And you were making noises, too.’

‘Making noises? You mean I was talking?’

‘I suppose you could call it talking.’ She was surprised that Ruby seemed to be taking this in her stride. ‘Why, have you done it before?’

‘I do it all the time, Mummy says. She was worried about it, and she took me to see the doctor, but he said she needn’t be.’

‘And what do you talk about, in your sleep?’

‘Mummy says it’s just nonsense.’

They turned a corner, and the cottages were visible now, only a few hundred yards away.

‘If I had a bicycle,’ said Ruby, turning and looking back towards Ashdown, a bold silhouette on the horizon, ‘I could come and see you all the time, couldn’t I?’

‘But you don’t have a bicycle,’ Sarah pointed out.

‘I’ve asked for one. It’s my birthday soon.’

‘And what did your parents say?’

‘They said it was a lot of money.’

‘Well, it probably is.’

‘Yes, but I really,
really
want one. Not just a bit. If I had a bicycle,’ she said, ‘I could come up to your house, and you and Robert could take me to the beach every day. Except when I was at school.’

‘You’d soon get bored if we went there every day,’ said Sarah. ‘But we will go again. Next time we might go with Veronica.’

‘Can she make sandcastles?’ Ruby asked.

‘I’m sure she can.’

‘As good as Robert’s?’

‘Bigger and better, probably.’

Ruby clearly found this hard to believe. In any case, she would not be deflected so easily from her theme. ‘Well, I
still
want a bicycle,’ she said. ‘I’m going to ask them again tonight.’

Sarah had an idea: a rather mischievous idea. It came to her quite suddenly, and then she toyed with it, turning it over flirtatiously in her mind – slightly shocked at herself – until they reached the gate at the bottom of the Sharps’ garden. Ruby swung the gate open and was about to run up to the front door when Sarah stopped her, tapping her shoulder. ‘Listen,’ she said, and sat down on one of the low walls which ran on either side of the garden path, so that she and Ruby found themselves face to face, in conspiratorial closeness.

‘What?’ said Ruby.

‘Here’s what you should do,’ Sarah whispered, ‘if you want that bicycle.’

Ruby waited breathlessly.

‘You should ask for it
in your sleep.
’

A baffled pause. ‘In my sleep?’

‘Yes. Your mother’s heard you talking in your sleep, hasn’t she?’

‘Mmm…’

‘So the next time she comes to your bedroom at night, you
pretend
to be talking in your sleep – yes? – and you say lots of stuff about how much you want this bicycle.’

Ruby met her gaze evenly. ‘But why can’t I ask for it when I’m awake?’

‘Because if you talk about it in your sleep, then your mother will know that you mean it. She’ll know how important it is to you. So she’ll
have
to get it.’

Comprehension was beginning to dawn, making slow progress across Ruby’s freckled face: so Sarah pressed the point home.

‘She’ll have to believe you. She’ll know it’s the truth. Because nobody–’ (and of all the many strange things Ruby had
heard that day, this was the second that she would never forget) ‘– nobody would ever tell a lie in their sleep. Would they?’

∗

The other thing Ruby would never forget was the sound of Robert’s voice as he talked to her, late that afternoon, believing her to be asleep when in fact she had just been woken up by the careful movement of Sarah rising to her feet. The sound of his voice as he spoke to her, softly, almost inaudibly, of something which she didn’t understand. The sound of his voice as he said:

‘I can’t see… How this will ever…’

And then: ‘I have never wanted anything…’

And then, after a deeper and longer breath: ‘I have never wanted anything so badly, Ruby… You don’t mind if I tell you this, do you?… I may as well tell you… While you’re asleep, because then… My secret will be safe… Though I wonder if it is a secret, from her… Or anybody… Not that anybody else matters… What they think…

‘Ruby…

‘I’m only young… Though to you I must seem old, quite old… But I feel young… Or did, until… Recently… But even so… Even so,
I know
… Or at least imagine…

‘I can’t imagine… Ever… Not wanting her…

‘
Ever
…

‘Though perhaps… In the fullness of time, at the end of the day…

‘But then this is the end of the day…

‘The point is…

‘You’re right, of course… I
am
young, there
may
be others… But personally… I can’t see it… And in any case… That’s not what I want… I want… I
have
to win… To earn her, somehow… And if…

‘You see… If she doesn’t love me, now… If she
can’t
love me, as I am… That’s all right… Because neither can I… If she can’t love me… Then I can’t love myself…

‘And there are no limits… None at all, Ruby… There is
nothing
I wouldn’t do… To make her want…

‘Do you understand? Do you believe that? Do you know what I –?’

And then Robert fell silent, having looked down, and having seen that Ruby, whom he had imagined to be asleep, was not asleep at all. She was lying quite still, but her limbs were stiff and tightened, and her eyes were open, as wide open

Stage Three

10

open and ushered Terry into a darkened room in which two sounds competed for precedence: a low hum, as from some unidentified electrical device, and a sort of quiet scuttling, the continuous patter of small frantic footsteps which seemed to be coming from every direction. Then Dr Dudden switched on the overhead lighting, and the following scene presented itself.

The room was not extensive – it was about the size of Terry’s room overlooking the ocean – and it contained twelve small tables, arranged in three rows of four. On each of these tables stood a large glass tank. Terry looked closer at the first of these. Its floor consisted of a shallow basin of water, and just an inch above this was something resembling a turntable, about one foot in diameter. The tank was divided in half by a glass partition, and in each half there was a white rat, its head wired up to electrodes which in turn were connected to a single master computer standing in the centre of the room. The turntable was revolving slowly, so that the rats had to keep in constant motion: otherwise they would have been swept into the water when they came into contact with the glass partition. The two rats appeared to be in radically different states of health: one was clean, sleek and bright-eyed, the other had ragged and thinning fur, and its eyes were haunted and bloodshot.

‘Well, Mr Worth, what do you say?’ asked Dr Dudden, beaming proudly as he paraded between the glass tanks. ‘Your initial impressions would be of great interest to me.’

‘Remarkable,’ said Terry in guarded tones, as he crouched
down to inspect the distressed animals more closely. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything… quite…’

‘The principle of the experiment is quite obvious, I assume. Elementary, really.’

‘You forget that – unlike yourself – I have never been a man of science. You may have to give me a little help.’

‘Of course.’ Dr Dudden switched on the monitor attached to the computer, and in a few seconds the screen was filled with ragged, constantly shifting lines, scrolling horizontally against a blue background. ‘All twenty-four of the animals in this room have been wired up to the computer,’ he explained. ‘It records the electronic impulses from their brains, just like the machine which has been recording your own brain activity every night. This one, however, is slightly more sophisticated. I imported it from America myself at great personal expense. It monitors each of the animals simultaneously. With a few keystrokes –’ he tapped a few times on the computer’s keyboard, by way of demonstration ‘– I can switch from one reading to another.’

‘Yes, I can see that: but what makes the turntables go round?’ Some of them were revolving, others were stationary.

‘It’s a simple experiment, once you understand the principle. And I can’t claim any credit for inventing it: like most of the great innovations in sleep research, it originated in America. Let me explain.’ He pointed at the healthier-looking of the two rats in the glass tank. ‘This rat here is the control. The other one is the test animal. When both rats are awake, the turntable is stationary. When the test animal falls asleep, the computer recognizes its slower brainwaves, and the turntable is automatically activated. Both rats have to start moving, to avoid being pushed into the water.
But
, when the test animal is spontaneously awake, on the stationary turntable, the control animal is able to sleep, because
its
brainwaves don’t activate the mechanism. And so the control animal is allowed a reduced but still significant amount of sleep, while the test animal is allowed no sleep at all.’

‘Until it dies, presumably.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And how long does that take?’

‘Usually two to three weeks. This little fellow,’ he said, pointing at the emaciated, wide-eyed creature, ‘still has several days to go. Whereas this one –’ walking to the furthest tank ‘– is on his way out, I’d say. Another few hours: six or seven at the most.’

Only at this point did Terry realize that not every tank contained a pair of rats. The middle four each contained a pair of white rabbits; and the last four contained Labrador puppies. It was to one of these that Dr Dudden had just directed his attention: a pathetic, skeletal, slavering creature, its eyes pools of exhausted blankness.

Terry swallowed hard. ‘Why don’t they bark?’ he asked.

‘A simple injection neutralizes the vocal cords,’ said Dr Dudden. ‘A precaution which slightly contaminates the experiment, in the case of these animals, but a necessary one.’

‘I still don’t quite understand,’ said Terry – the words coming with some difficulty now – ‘the role of the control animal in this experiment. Why must there be two of them?’

‘That’s easily explained,’ said Dr Dudden. ‘Come with me.’

There were two further adjacent doors at the back of the laboratory. From the inside of his jacket Dr Dudden produced two golden keys on a fine chain, and unlocked the left-hand door. It swung open to reveal a large and curiously furnished room. There was no bed, and only one chair, with a straight back and a thin, uninviting cushion to sit on. But there were, in addition, numerous pieces of exercise equipment: a treadmill, a rowing-machine, an exercise bike, and even a basketball hoop fixed to one of the walls. Another wall was covered with shelves full of books and magazines, while further shelves were stacked with computer and board games. There was a television, video and stereo system, along with racks of videotapes and CDs.

‘This, as you’ve probably guessed, is our sleep deprivation
room,’ said Dr Dudden. ‘It’s where we experiment on human subjects. Not too Spartan, is it?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘You’ll notice that my priority in equipping this room has been to find ways of stimulating the subject. It’s essential, you see, that he finds plenty of ways to keep his mind and body fully occupied.’

‘Very impressive,’ said Terry, absently: his eyes were drawn, as usual, to the shelf of videos, and he was busy checking out the titles.

‘Superficially, yes,’ said Dr Dudden. ‘But this is really rather a primitive way of studying sleep deprivation. Do you see why? Supposing, after three days in here, the subject shows all the signs of physical exhaustion. Is that due to lack of sleep, or because he has spent so much time on the rowing-machine? His mental responses are slow and erratic. Is that due to lack of sleep, or because he has been watching eight hours of television? Do you see the problem? Is it the lack of sleep that has exhausted him, or
the activities required to induce that lack of sleep
?’ He led Terry out of the room, and locked the door carefully behind him. ‘That,’ he said, gesturing again at the twelve glass tanks, ‘is the problem which this experiment so ingeniously solves. Both animals are stimulated equally, but only one of them is subjected to constant sleep deprivation. In this way, we succeed in isolating those symptoms which are the result of sleep deprivation alone.’

‘Yes, I can see that now,’ said Terry. ‘So all you need to find is a version of the experiment which works for human subjects.’

‘Correct.’

Terry indicated the second door; the one which had so far remained locked.

‘Are you going to show me what’s in there?’

Dr Dudden smiled, and toyed with the second of the golden keys on his chain. ‘Have you thought about my proposal yet?’ he asked. ‘When you have – and if you decide that you’d be
willing to stay on here – then I would like us to sign a little contract, giving me certain… rights over your case. When we’ve done that, then I might show you the contents of this room. I think you’ll find them interesting. In the meantime, however,’ he concluded, looking at his watch, ‘I see that we’re in danger of missing supper.’

Terry was glad to leave the laboratory, but he made the mistake of looking back, just before Dr Dudden turned off the light, at the twelve glass tanks and their wretched occupants. Even he, who had happily dispensed with sleep for the last twelve years, could see the cruelty of these methods. Surely, he thought, no state-sponsored torturer, employed under however despotic or vindictive a regime, could devise a punishment quite as malevolent as this: to design a system whereby it was the very manifestation of their craving for rest – the appearance of the slow brainwaves associated with sleep – that should condemn these animals to perpetual motion and endless wakefulness. He shuddered at its diabolical ingenuity.

‘Forgive me for asking,’ he said, as they climbed the stairs to the ground floor, ‘but how do you persuade your subjects – your human subjects, I mean – to take part in these experiments? I wouldn’t have thought it would be much fun for them.’

‘Oh, it’s not that difficult,’ said Dr Dudden, ‘when you think about it.’