The House of Sleep (31 page)

It was absurd, she told herself, to be so superstitious about this book. Where was the harm in flicking through it again, in reading a few pages? Did she really think that this pennydreadful
yarn, which she and Veronica had always regarded as the most delicious joke, would have acquired some mysterious power to wound her?

She looked at the clock: there were only five minutes left before she had to leave for work.

She wiped the butter off her fingers with some kitchen towel, picked up the book, and opened it slowly. It seemed to open very naturally at a particular page, a little more than half-way through, and when it was open, a sheet of paper fell out. A folded sheet of lined notepaper, covered on one side with handwriting.

It had never occurred to her that it would have been the same copy. It had never occurred to her that neither Veronica nor Rebecca had once opened the book in twelve years.

With trembling hands, she unfolded the sheet of paper, and recognized Robert’s handwriting immediately. His words, forgotten for so long – completely forgotten – drifted back into her mind.

If ever I want to leave anything for you, I’ll put it here. In this book.

Then you’ll always know where to find it.

She laid down the paper without reading any of it, and took deep breaths. She could feel all the strength, all the responsiveness, draining from her muscles. She could barely move her arms. She was slumping forward in the chair.

No. She could stop this. She could control it.

She sat upright. She forced her hand towards the sheet of paper again. She forced her fingers to grasp it, to turn it over. She would read it. She would read it quickly, in one go, and then it would be over.

One more deep breath. Then:

Gravity and grace
… yes, of course, that was the book they had been reading, on the beach, they had talked about affection, and about loss, about what you do if you lose somebody…
your narcoleptic eyes
… but how could he
have written that? How could he have known? Nobody knew, back then…
a disregard
…
a disregard that made me feel
… he meant the Café, that time in the Café, when she and Ronnie had taunted him… ‘
as still, as carved, as death
’… the beach again, she had read that line aloud, it was from Rosamond Lehmann…
an oblivion so deep it ends
…
drown the ghosts
…
another lifetime
…
another lifetime is the least you’ll need
…

She finished reading, and the paper fell from her hand. She looked ahead of her, unseeing. She forgot that she was supposed to be leaving for school. She had no awareness of the passing of time. Time seemed to have been suspended.

It was in fact nearly thirty minutes later when she walked across the room and picked up the receiver of the wall-mounted telephone. She dialled a number which was scribbled on a notepad next to the phone.

An unfamiliar voice answered the call after ten or eleven rings.

‘I’d like to speak to Ruby, please. Ruby Sharp.’

‘Hold on a minute. I’ll see if she’s in.’

The acoustics at the other end of the line called to mind a hallway or corridor. Sarah could hear footsteps and far-off voices. She imagined some dowdy institutional building, cheap parquet flooring, notices pinned to a cork-lined noticeboard. Then she heard the approach of one set of footsteps, and the crack of the receiver being picked up again.

‘Yes, hello?’

‘Ruby, this is Sarah. Sarah Tudor.’

‘Oh.’ A pause, filled with pleasure and surprise. ‘Hello, Sarah. How lovely to hear from you.’ Then a longer pause: puzzled, expectant. ‘Sarah? Are you all right?’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Ruby waited. ‘What about?’

‘I need to come and see you.’

‘Has – look, has something happened? Is something the matter?’

Sarah broke her own long silence, by saying: ‘You were right.’

‘I was right? What was I right about?’

‘You said that he really cared for me. You were right.’

‘Who really cared for you?’

‘Robert did. You said it the other day and I didn’t believe you; didn’t want to believe you. But now I’ve remembered.’

‘Sarah…’ Ruby sighed, exasperated. ‘You sound very strange. I think you should –’

‘I found something of his.’

‘What did you find?’

‘Something he wrote to me.
For
me.’

‘You mean – recently? He wrote this recently?’

‘No. Years ago. Listen, can I come and see you? Can we meet somewhere today?’

‘Don’t you have to be at school?’

‘Oh, yes. Of course.’ Crestfallen, Sarah looked at the wall-clock. She passed a hand over her eyes. ‘This evening, then: can I see you this evening?’

‘I’m going home today. I’ll be staying with my mother for the weekend.’ She could sense Sarah’s disappointment. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s OK. I’d better go to school now.’ But Sarah did not move; neither did Ruby. When Sarah managed to speak again, her voice was quieter, as if she was talking to herself now; thinking aloud. ‘Why did he just leave like that? Without saying anything. Running off into the night.’ Then she seemed to remember that Ruby was still listening. ‘That was the last time I saw him. And before that – a few years before that – there was a letter. One letter.’

‘What did the letter say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘Not really. It mentioned a dream he’d had. But apart from that – well, it didn’t even tell me where he was writing from. Or what he was doing. I wondered at the time whether…’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you know that Robert had a twin?’

‘No. No, I didn’t. I barely knew him at all.’

‘He had a twin sister called Cleo. She was given up for adoption when they were just a few weeks old. He’d never seen her again. Perhaps he was going to look for her. He always said that he would.’

Ruby was lost. ‘Look, Sarah, I have to go. I really have to go.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘I’ll be back after the weekend. I’ll come round and see you then, shall I? Monday evening.’

‘You don’t have to. I don’t know why I should be bothering you with this. It’s just that… you brought it all back, talking about him the other day.’ She sniffed, rubbed her eyes, began pulling herself together. ‘I’m sorry, really I am. This isn’t your problem.’

Then, softly, Ruby said, ‘No, it is my problem, actually,’ and hung up.

∗

Even though it pained Dr Dudden to leave his clinic in the care of Dr Madison for two days, he would not have missed this conference for anything. Hingleton Pendlebury was one of the country’s most prestigious firms of management consultants, and this short, intensive, residential course, ‘Motivating for Change’, promised to do something which he felt was long overdue: namely, to introduce leading members of the psychiatric profession to some basic business concepts, in keeping with the Health Service’s painful but inevitable transition to a management culture.

Along with the other delegates, he had arrived at the designated London hotel early on Wednesday evening. It was a five-star hotel, and its rooms seemed to have been designed – annoyingly – with extremes of comfort, rest and relaxation in mind. His bed had a soft goose-down mattress, and the armchairs were plump and well upholstered. Not to be
deterred, Dr Dudden had settled down on the floor at midnight, with his latest lab results spread out before him, and had resolved to occupy himself with work until four-thirty at the earliest. How long he managed to stay awake, he would never know. He woke up at nine-fifteen, flat out on the carpet with a sore back and a terrible crick in his neck. Just as Ruby, therefore, was replacing her telephone receiver on the other side of London and walking thoughtfully back towards her room, Dr Dudden was rushing through the hotel corridors, unshaved, unwashed and wearing last night’s clothes, desperately trying to locate the main conference chamber.

Despite his fatigue and his dishevelled state, however, he was anticipating the day’s opening session with a good deal more enthusiasm than the other participants; all of whom, it transpired, were there under duress of one sort or another. Mostly they were London-based psychiatrists, whose attendance seemed to be a contractual obligation rigorously insisted upon by the managers and non-executive directors of their new hospital trusts.

‘It’s bloody ridiculous,’ one of them was already saying when Dr Dudden entered the room. ‘I’ve had to cancel five lectures and six consultations, all at the behest of some pimply-faced accountant who thinks he knows what’s good for me.’

Now the two course trainers appeared. Their faces were fresh and unformed, and they wore identical, closely-fitting Jaeger suits. Each appeared to be in his early twenties and had the vacantly shining eyes of the evangelical zealot.

‘Hi: I’m Tim Simpson,’ the first one said.

‘And I’m Mark McGuire.’

Tim Simpson explained that he had recently returned from a year in Minnesota, where he had majored in Organizational Change at Duluth University. Mark McGuire, on the other hand, boasted a diploma in Group Relations, Meeting Planning and Human Resource Development from the University of Milton Keynes.

‘And we’re here to talk about change,’ said Tim Simpson.
He turned over the first page of a flip-chart, and pointed at the word ‘CHANGE’, which was written in foot-high capitals.

‘That’s right,’ said Mark McGuire. ‘Change is a scary word. And for many of you, these are scary times.’ He turned over the next page of the flip-chart, and pointed at the words ‘
SCARY TIMES
’.

‘Many of you will be afraid of change,’ said Tim Simpson. ‘Some of you will even be angry about it. But our message to you over the next two days is going to be –
use
that fear;
work
that anger; and above all –’

He glanced at Mark McGuire, who turned over the flip-chart again as they both chanted, in unison: ‘
EMBRACE THE CHANGE
.’

‘As qualified facilitators,’ said Mark McGuire, ‘our task during these sessions will be to engage you in a series of role-playing modules and creativity enhancement procedures.’

‘These methods have been tested and approved by some of America’s most successful corporations,’ said Tim Simpson.

‘The exercises you will be performing should not be regarded as a training programme
per se
,’ said Mark McGuire.

‘Our aim is simply to open up your minds…’

‘Stimulate creative thinking…’

‘Engage your attention…’

‘Embed key points and concepts for long-term retention…’

‘And above all…’

One more turn of the flip-chart, and then, in unison: ‘
MOTIVATE YOU FOR CHANGE
.’

‘Now,’ said Tim Simpson, ‘does anyone have any questions?’

Most of the audience seemed too dazed and bewildered to ask questions at this stage, so the facilitators divided them up into groups of five and explained that the first exercise would provide a relaxed forum in which introductions could be made.

‘All you have to do,’ said Mark McGuire, ‘is to address the
group, tell them your name – and your age, if you feel like it –and any job description that you consider relevant.’

‘Is that all, Mark?’ said Tim Simpson. ‘That sounds kind of dull and conventional to me.’

‘You’re right, Tim. I’ve forgotten something,’ said Mark McGuire. ‘And do you know what I’ve forgotten?’

‘I think I do, Mark. I think you’ve forgotten–’ and here Tim Simpson produced a cardboard box from behind the flip-chart, whereupon they both exclaimed:

‘– the
SILLY HATS
.’

A number of party and fancy-dress hats were now extracted from the box and distributed at random among the astonished delegates, while Mark McGuire explained that they might find it easier and more liberating to assume a role appropriate to each hat when making their introductory speeches.

The five members of Dr Dudden’s group sat in a circle, donned their respective hats and regarded each other mournfully before proceeding.

‘Well, I suppose I might as well start,’ said one bespectacled, grey-haired delegate, upon whose head was perched a papier mâché policeman’s helmet. ‘My name is Dr Christopher Myers, I’m forty-eight years old, and I’m a Senior Lecturer in Liaison Psychiatry.’

‘My name,’ said the woman sitting next to him, wearing a Valkyrie helmet, complete with horns, ‘is Dr Susan Herriot, MRC Psych. I’m forty-two years old, and I lecture in Perinatal Psychiatry.’

‘I’m Russell Watts,’ said the next man, who sported a deerstalker. ‘Self-employed counsellor and psychotherapist. Thirty-nine years old.’

‘Avast there, me hearties!’ Dr Dudden now shouted, pounding the table with a violence that made the others jump. He was wearing a pirate’s hat. ‘Hoist the Jolly Roger, splice the mainsail and man the poop. Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest, Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!’ His colleagues were staring at him in amazement, so he finished by announcing,
in more subdued tones: ‘Dr G. K. Dudden, MRC Psych. Founder, manager and team leader of the Dudden Clinic. Aged thirty-six last birthday. At your service.’

The others did not seem to be curious enough about his first name to insist upon hearing it. Besides, this reference to the clinic itself was enough to spark a glimmer of recognition in the last member of the group, who remarked, ‘Ah! The sleep man,’ before proceeding to address them all. He was the oldest of the five, with a mane of white hair and a fine, aquiline face, partially obscured at this point by the veil hanging down from his broad-brimmed wedding hat, which was topped with a multi-layered arrangement of pink and blue plastic roses. ‘My name,’ he said slowly, ‘is Marcus Cole, FRC Psych. I’m fifty-eight years old, I’m a Professor of Forensic Psychiatry, and I had to cancel a meeting at the Home Office to be here today. Now, shall we take these ridiculous things off?’

As the morning’s activities continued, tensions between these five group members seemed to intensify rather than dissolve. Professor Cole and Christopher Myers already appeared to be quite well acquainted: they were on first-name terms, and treated each other with evident mutual respect. They were both openly suspicious of Russell Watts, however, and noticeably cool towards Dr Dudden. The next game, in which they had to find ways of arranging six matchsticks so as to make different combinations of equilateral triangles, passed relatively without incident. After that, in order to unblock their latent creativity channels (Mark McGuire’s phrase) they were asked to make personalized sculptures out of pipe-cleaners. This aroused some controversy, since Russell Watts’s sculpture was judged to be obscene and suggestive; as indeed were the gestures he started making with it towards Dr Herriot, which she did her best to ignore. Finally, just before lunch, they played a game called ‘Modify That Paradigm!’ which required them each to cut up a colour advertisement from a newspaper or magazine, and arrange the pieces
into an original collage. The new pictures, they were told, should be representational rather than abstract.