The House of Sleep (30 page)

‘I don’t believe that. You’re not a weak person.’

‘Yes I am. Weak and indecisive.’

The others had started to drift back towards the house. Veronica passed by, unable to stop herself from throwing a jealous, curious glance in their direction. Even when she was well out of earshot, Sarah spoke in a low whisper.

‘It’s good that we’re leaving here. We’ve all got to know each other too well. We’ve become too close.’

‘Oh? And how does sharing a flat in London with Terry fit in with that idea?’

‘That’s just a stopgap. A temporary thing. I don’t know how that’s going to work out.’ She rounded on him in despair. ‘Oh, Robert, you
can’t
be jealous of me and Terry.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Anyway, what’s to stop you coming too? There’s still a spare room in that flat. It would be lovely if you were there.’

Robert shook his head. ‘It’s not what I want.’

‘Well, what do you want? To go back and live with your parents?’

‘No. I thought I might stay on here for a while.’

‘But you’ll be all by yourself. It’ll be awful.’

‘Maybe.’

There was no fence, at this point, between the path and the edge of the cliff. There were a few boulders, and one or two clumps of wistful, persevering heather sprouting from the
grass. Robert tiptoed to the edge and looked down at the water, which slapped at the cliff face in languid, haphazard motions.

‘What did you do last night?’ he asked.

‘Pardon?’

‘After we’d said goodnight. I’d like to know.’

‘Come away from there,’ Sarah insisted. ‘You’re too close to the edge. It’s not safe.’ Robert stayed where he was, so she sighed and said, tetchily at first: ‘Well, I went into Michele’s room, and sat on the bed. I thought I could hear you outside. I thought you were going to knock on the door.’

‘I nearly did.’ He sat down, cross-legged, on the heathery grass. ‘What would you have done?’

‘Don’t, Robert. Don’t ask. There’s no point.’ She sat down beside him. ‘It
would
have been a mistake, you know. I don’t know what came over me. I was just trying to use you.’

‘Use me?’

‘Yes: to hurt Veronica. I mean, I probably couldn’t have gone through with it. I don’t even like sex with men –’ she looked at him with sudden fondness ‘–
any
men, so I’m sure it would have been a disaster. It would have spoiled everything.’

‘Our friendship, for instance,’ said Robert, flatly.

‘Exactly. Our friendship. And that’s so
important
to me, Robert: especially now. I really need a friend at the moment. A good friend. And you’ve always been the best: the best I’ve ever had, in a way.’

‘Well, that’s too bad,’ he said, averting his eyes, ‘because I don’t want to be friends with you. I can’t do it any more.’

It took Sarah a few seconds to absorb this. Then she said: ‘Well, you’ll just have to. Because that’s all there is. That’s all there’s going to be.’

‘Ever?’

‘Ever.’ She put a hand on his knee. He looked down at it, mildly incredulous, but feeling no emotion. ‘Ronnie and I aren’t on very good terms at the moment,’ she continued, ‘but
I shall always owe her something. Because – she did something amazing, really. She introduced me… to my nature.’

‘You’re sure of that, are you?’

A long time seemed to pass before Sarah said: ‘Yes, I am.’

Robert nodded, and plucked at the grass. ‘I thought she might have been… I don’t know: a one-off.’

‘No. She just wasn’t right for me, in the end.’ Sarah smiled. ‘I spent a lot of time, in the last few weeks, wishing that she was more like you.’

‘Like me?’

‘Of course. You’d be perfect for me – don’t you think? If it wasn’t for… a certain something, that is.’

‘Don’t play with me, Sarah. Please. I’m not up to it.’

‘I’m not. I’m serious. I think you’re wonderful: I always have. And you know that, as well.’ She squeezed his knee and again he looked down, like a sleepy cat responding to a stroke, curious but nonplussed. ‘You know, it should really be me who goes off looking for Cleo. Just imagine it – your twin sister: a female you. That would be my ideal partner, wouldn’t it?’

Robert stared at her now. He stared at her calmly, searchingly, for a long time, while she stared back, embarrassed, hoping to catch a hint of amusement in his eyes. But there was no trace of humour in Robert’s stare. He could scarcely have looked at her more solemnly, or with more intensity: though if he had known how long it would be before he would look at her properly again, he might have tried.

‘We should go inside,’ said Sarah at last. ‘It’s getting cold.’

‘You go in,’ said Robert. ‘I’m going to stay here for a while.’

She stood up stiffly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ He noticed the concern on her face. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to jump.’

Sarah bent over and kissed the top of his head. ‘Good.’

Before she had walked more than a few yards, Robert called after her: ‘Sarah!’

She turned.

He was on the point of telling her about the poem; telling her to go and look for it in the Café, in the book, on
page 173
. But he realized now that it was no use. He had left it too late.

‘Goodbye, then,’ was all he said.

She smiled again, and carried on walking back towards the house.

14

Terry was very late getting back from London that evening. The search for the photograph had lasted for more than five hours, at the end of which he was in a condition of breathless near-despair. At last, however, he had found it: by some evil quirk of fate, it had worked its way down to the very bottom of the very remotest cardboard box in the second of his two overcrowded lumber rooms. When he finally saw the picture, he clutched at it as if it were the hand of his dearest, long-lost friend, and had to fight back tears of triumph and relief. Then he looked at his watch, made a swift calculation and realized that he just had time to catch the last train to the coast, even though it meant leaving his flat in a state of rubbish-strewn chaos, as if it had just been ransacked by the security services or a posse of incompetent burglars. The strength of his desire to return to Ashdown that night took him by surprise. Forty minutes later he was sitting on the train as it rattled out of London, and he had the photograph on his lap in front of him, safely enclosed within the latest issue of
Sight and Sound
: every so often he would open the magazine and sneak a glance at it, this rediscovered symbol of everything in his life that was most valuable, most worth pursuing. He was resolved that it should never be mislaid or forgotten again.

He had to wait several minutes at the station for a taxi, and it was after eleven o’clock by the time he was deposited on the front steps of Ashdown. At this hour of the night, he would have expected the house to be darkened and quiescent, the patients all at rest in their bedrooms, the only real activity being the frantic scratching of the polysomnograph pens as
they traced their electrically determined patterns (and, of course, the ceaseless pattering – just as frantic, even though hidden – of the unwilling participants in Dr Dudden’s experiment). Instead, a rather different scene awaited him: there were three women sitting outside on the brightly lit terrace, and the warm night air rang with the sounds of their laughing voices and the clinking of bottles and glasses. The women were Dr Madison, Maria Granger, and Barbara Daintry, the sleepwalker.

Seeing him climbing the steps, Maria called out: ‘Hey! Harry – what are you up to?’

‘The name’s Terry,’ he said, strolling over.

‘Terry – Harry – whatever: what are you doing sneaking in at this time of night?’

Maria was a cheery, outgoing, middle-aged Londoner who had already made several friendly overtures towards Terry during the last few days. She was a big woman, with many chins and a mouth that seemed poised permanently on the edge of a subversive smile. Her stomach was vast, and her breasts enormous. Partly, he had been told, her size was the result of the drugs she was obliged to take to counteract the symptoms of her chronic narcolepsy; but Maria was also the first to admit that her marked
penchant
for chocolate doughnuts and strawberry cheesecake was a contributing factor. Terry liked her; as did everybody at the clinic, with the exception of Dr Dudden.

‘I’ve been to London for the day,’ he said.

‘I see: playing truant.’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

‘Are you going to have a drink with us, then? We could do with some male company.’

‘Aren’t we all supposed to be in bed by now?’

‘He’s not here, though – Doctor Death. He went off to a conference this afternoon. And besides, it’s my last night tonight, so I’m celebrating. You know – while the cat’s away…’

‘… the mice can relax a little bit,’ Terry concluded. For Dr Madison’s benefit he added: ‘As can the rats, I hope.’ She didn’t reply, and her face betrayed no complicity. ‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll just take these things upstairs, then I’ll come and join you.’

By the time he returned, Dr Madison had disappeared.

‘She’s gone to bed,’ said Maria.

‘She works too hard, that woman,’ said Barbara. ‘He drives her into the ground.’

Maria passed Terry a paper cup, filled almost to overflowing with white wine.

‘So,’ he said, after his first sip, ‘are you looking forward to re-entering the real world?’

‘I’m looking forward to seeing my kids again. And my husband. I’ve missed them. But I’ve enjoyed it here, actually. Two weeks by the seaside. It’s been a laugh.’

‘She loves a laugh,’ Barbara said, and they both giggled. ‘You should see what happens to her when she laughs. She goes all peculiar.’

‘Oh, don’t get me started,’ said Maria, the giggles giving way to something throatier, more deeply rooted. ‘Don’t start telling me jokes. You know I can’t stand that.’

‘Why?’ said Terry. ‘What happens when you laugh?’

‘She goes all limp,’ said Barbara. ‘She goes limp and strange all over. You know when you say someone’s helpless with laughter? Well that’s what happens to her.’

‘Now don’t start winding me up,’ said Maria, already fighting for control of her facial muscles. ‘Don’t you dare get me going with one of your jokes.’

‘What about that one you told me?’ said Barbara. ‘About the man with the banana.’ She turned to Terry. ‘There was this man, and he had three bananas, you see. He gets on to this crowded bus in the rush hour, and he doesn’t want them to get squashed, so he puts one in his breast pocket, one in his side pocket, and one in his back pocket…’

With what seemed to be a serious effort of will, Maria
stifled her own laughter and interrupted Barbara forcefully, saying: ‘Come on, knock it off, will you? Give me a break here. I don’t want to do it in front of Harry –’

‘Terry.’

‘Terry. I mean, I’m not proud of it, you know. I don’t like people seeing me that way.’

‘I’m sorry, love,’ said Barbara, chastened, full of contrition. ‘I just thought he’d be interested.’

‘Yes, well, I’m not a bloody exhibit.’ For Terry’s benefit, she explained: ‘When you’re narcoleptic, you see, you have this thing called cataplexy. So when you laugh – it’s usually laughter that brings it on – you go into a sort of faint. You lose control. You can feel it happening. It’s been happening to me for thirty years or more, but they only worked out what was causing it a couple of years ago. So I’ve got to cut down on my laughter, now, because it tires me out, going funny like that all the time. All my friends and family and that, they all think it’s hilarious, seeing me fall over and pass out, they’re always winding me up, always trying to set me off, get me giggling. Well, it’s a way of life with me, isn’t it? Always has been. I’ve always loved a laugh. I mean, how do you get through life otherwise? You’ve got to laugh to survive…’

And Terry was reminded, at this point, of the farewell party at Ashdown all those years ago, and suddenly he realized what had happened to Sarah that evening, when she had reacted so strangely to his jokes and they had all assumed that she had collapsed from drinking too much. And all at once this memory of the past reached into the present, colouring it, transforming it, so that something happened to Terry which had not happened for many years: a change took place within him, and he was able to look at Maria and to sympathize with her – to feel real sympathy, after all this time, with another human being – watching her face and reading its mixture of sadness and glee, thinking what it must be like to crave laughter, to crave it more than anything else and yet
always to deny yourself, knowing that it was the instrument of your destruction, just as the rats on Dr Dudden’s turntables were forced to deny themselves sleep every time they showed a yearning for it…

‘And has it helped?’ he asked. ‘Has it helped, coming to this place?’

‘Well, they’ve given me some new drugs,’ said Maria. ‘I don’t know how much good they’ll do. The main thing’s being able to talk about it. Cleo’s been great, actually. I could talk to her for hours. I think I could tell her anything.’

‘Sorry,’ said Terry, ‘who’s been great? Who did you say?’

‘Cleo. Dr Madison.’

Terry stared at her for a long time.

‘Look, I really must get to bed,’ he said, eventually. ‘I’ve been travelling nearly all day, and it’s after eleven-thirty. I really must go.’

He pushed back his chair and stumbled towards the house, and it wasn’t until the next morning – after a night in which he drifted into Stage Four sleep for more than an hour, and even experienced, momentously, the first, tenuous stirrings of a dream – that he allowed himself to ponder that name again, and to analyse the dizzying sense of wonder it had aroused in him. Then he remembered its significance, and remembered, at the same moment, why Dr Madison’s face had for the last week been teasing him with a distant familiarity.

He went to find her at once.

∗

As Terry was searching the corridors of Ashdown for Dr Madison that Thursday morning, Sarah was eating a slice of toast and looking warily at the copy of
The House of Sleep
which lay on her kitchen table like an unexploded bomb. She had not yet opened it.