by Jonathan Coe
‘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.’
The dining-room at Ashdown had been used as a games room during Terry’s student days. Now it provided just enough space for a long oak table capable of seating twenty. It was supposedly the custom here, at six-thirty sharp every day, for staff and patients to sit down together for the evening meal, but by the time Terry and Dr Dudden arrived, most of the diners had left: only Dr Madison remained, accompanied on one side by Maria Granger (who suffered from narcolepsy) and on the other by a somnambulist called Barbara. Dr Dudden pointedly avoided this group, and went to sit at the other end of the table, where he and Terry were presented with two bowls of tomato soup. After taking a cou
ple of sips and adding copious amounts of salt and pepper, Dr Dudden resumed his explanation.
‘Luckily, the university presents us with a large pool of willing participants. Many students have found the sleep deprivation room to be a rather pleasant environment, compared to most of the accommodation on campus. And then, of course, we pay them to take part in the experiments. Pay them a good rate, I might say.’
‘All the same…’
‘You and I, Mr Worth – or can I call you Terry, by now? – you and I, Terry, were educated during those halcyon days when students received full government grants to cover their fees and living expenses. We were pampered; spoon-fed. Measures have had to be taken since then: necessary measures, in my view. Nowadays students never tire of bleating about how poverty-stricken they are; how difficult it is to sustain their wasteful, hedonistic lifestyles. Surely you read your own newspapers, now and again? They’re awash with heartbreaking tales of hapless scholars reduced to dish-washing, windscreen-wiping, or worse. Life-modelling, for instance. Lovely young female undergraduates at London University, forced to earn a crust in the topless bars of Soho. Lap-dancing; working as Strippograms; prostitution, in some cases. The massage parlours of this town are full of our students, you know – and you should see the prices they charge.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, so I’m told,’ said Dr Dudden hurriedly. ‘Anyway, I seem to have strayed from my point… And my point is, you see, that we provide an acceptable alternative to that kind of drudgery. Would you care for some wine, by the way?’
He poured a generous glass of Burgundy for himself, and one for Terry – seemingly unmindful, this evening, of the fact that his patients’ alcohol consumption was supposed to be strictly regulated. They clinked glasses, and Terry said:
‘So you’re providing a social service, in other words.’
‘Quite. I’m a public benefactor. A hero of the bloody community, not to put too fine a point on it. Ah, splendid, splendid.’ He rubbed his hands in pleased anticipation as Janet, one of the cooks, served him a plate of beef, roast potatoes and runner beans. ‘Red meat. There’s nothing like it, is there? Scottish beef. God, it makes my mouth water just looking at it. What about you, Terry? Are you a meat-eater? A good old-fashioned, red-blooded carnivore? I bet you are.’
‘Absolutely. Haven’t been eating so much of this stuff, though. You know, a lot of places aren’t serving it any more.’
‘Because of BSE, you mean? A lot of hysterical rubbish whipped up by members of the most worthless and unscrupulous profession of all: journalists.’ He drained his glass of wine in a single draught, refilled it and, to Terry’s alarm, touched him jokingly on the arm. ‘Present company excepted, of course. No, you won’t find any credence given to that kind of unscientific panic-mongering here.’ He gestured with his fork at Dr Madison, who was deep in conversation with her companions at the other end of the table. ‘Of course, Miss Sourpuss down there will be tucking into her nut cutlets, or whatever nutrition-free alternative she has insisted upon tonight, to satisfy her own opaque ideological requirements.’
‘I suppose,’ said Terry, ‘everyone has the right to their –’
‘Tell me about your political views,’ Dr Dudden interrupted. ‘I imagine you’re predictably left-wing, like everybody else in the media these days.’
‘Politics are of no interest to me, I’m afraid. Left and right have become meaningless concepts. Capitalism has proved itself unassailable, and sooner or later, all human life will be governed only by the random fluctuations of the market.’
‘And this is how it should be?’
Terry shrugged. ‘This is how it is.’
‘But surely, if you have a political leader of sufficient will, sufficient strength of character… Did you not think, for a while, that with Mrs Thatcher in charge, Britain stood poised on the edge of greatness again?’
‘She was a remarkable woman, obviously. I couldn’t tell you what any of her policies were: I took no notice of them.’
‘And yet you and she have something in common, of course.’
‘We do?’
‘Absolutely. Didn’t she attribute her success to the fact that she only needed two or three hours’ sleep a night?’ Dr Dudden took another slug of wine, and sat for a moment in abstracted thought, a skewered slice of blood-red beef poised in front of his half-open mouth. ‘I wrote to her, you know. Numerous times, in fact. Asking her if she would agree to some simple tests. Her office always took the trouble to reply. Courteous refusals. Polite but firm. I’ll keep giving it a shot, though. She must have more time on her hands these days. She would understand what I’m trying to do here,’ he added, turning to Terry now, his voice swelling. ‘She’d have the vision.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Terry, spearing a potato.
‘Napoleon was a light sleeper, too. And Edison. You’ll find it’s true of many great men. Edison despised sleep, we’re told, and in my view he was right to do so. I despise it, too. I despise myself for needing it.’ He leaned closer to Terry and confided: ‘I’m down to four hours, you know.’
‘Four hours?’
‘Four hours a night. I’ve kept it up for the last week.’
‘But that can’t be good for you, surely. No wonder you look so tired.’
‘I don’t care. My target’s three, and I’m going to get there. It’s a struggle for some of us, you know. We don’t all have your gifts. That’s why I envy you so much. That’s why I’m determined to discover your secret.’
Terry took a modest sip from his glass. ‘Why despise it, anyway? I don’t understand.’
‘I’ll tell you why: because the sleeper is helpless; powerless. Sleep puts even the strongest people at the mercy of the weakest and most feeble. Can you imagine what it must be like for a woman of Mrs Thatcher’s fibre, her moral character, to be obliged to prostrate herself every day in that posture of abject submission? The brain disabled, the muscles inert and flaccid? It must be insupportable.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that before,’ said Terry. ‘Sleep as the great leveller.’
‘Exactly. That’s exactly what it is: the great leveller. Like fucking socialism.’ The wine, Terry noticed, was starting to make Dr Dudden turn sour, and a burst of guttural laughter from Dr Madison’s end of the table was enough to attract a poisonous look in her direction. ‘Listen to that loud-mouthed witch,’ he muttered. ‘Huddled with her female cronies at the other end of the room. Have you not noticed, Terry, how this table tends to divide up on the basis of gender? That’s her doing.’
‘I’m sure it’s only –’
‘Dr Madison, you see, tends to prefer the company of women to that of men.’
Terry said, reasonably: ‘But that’s true of many women, isn’t it?’
Dr Dudden lowered his voice. ‘I don’t think you’ve quite understood my implication,’ he said (wrongly, as it happened). ‘Dr Madison,’ he explained, whispering now, ‘is a daughter of Sappho.’
‘Sappho who?’
‘She is,’ said Dr Dudden, the whisper growing more sibilant and, as a consequence, louder, ‘a sister of Lesbos.’
Terry had no idea whether this euphemism was in common usage, or whether Dr Dudden had just made it up. ‘You mean she’s a friend of Dorothy?’
‘Precisely. She’s a fucking muff-diver. Or, more accurately, a non-fucking muff-diver.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Terry.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, man, just look at her. It’s in her whole demeanour. It’s written all over her. I mean, has she spoken to you since you arrived here?’
‘Not since that first evening, no.’
‘Of course not. And she never says more than two words to me if she can help it. She’s one of those women who chooses to ignore men because they’re of no interest to her as sexual beings.’
‘I have noticed a slight animosity between you…’ said Terry.
‘She’s a competent psychologist,’ said Dr Dudden. �
��I have a certain respect for her on that level. But personally, we have nothing in common. Nothing at all.’
‘Are you close to any of your colleagues? Personally, I mean.’
‘Not really, no. Friendships form, among my staff, but I tend to be excluded from them.’ He leaned forward confidingly. ‘This might astound you, Terry. It certainly baffles me. But the truth is, I’m not very popular at this clinic.’ He sat back with a martyr’s smile. ‘Explain that if you can.’
Ever since Terry had seen that second, locked door at the back of Dr Dudden’s basement laboratory, he had conceived a specific plan for this evening, and listening to several more hours’ worth of this stuff was unfortunately an integral part of it. After dinner they withdrew to the doctor’s sitting-room, where brandy was poured, consumed, poured again, and followed by a second and then a third bottle of red wine. Terry managed to keep his intake down to a minimum, but was still feeling rather muddle-headed when the clock on the mantelpiece struck ten o’clock. He realized that most of Dr Dudden’s latest diatribe had passed him by.
‘… do these things differently in the United States,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘The state of sleep research there is infinitely more advanced. My Clinic is the only one of its kind in Great Britain, and yet there are dozens like it in America. Fully resourced, well staffed, and equipped with all the latest technology. In America, computer programs designed purely for polysomnography are written and marketed in the commercial sector. They can even monitor patients who are sleeping in their own homes, with the brainwaves being transmitted to the research centre down the telephone lines, via a modem. Imagine that! Just think of it! That’s the sort of enterprise and innovation I’m trying to foster here, but the amount of encouragement I get is precisely nil. It’s the bloody something-for-nothing culture in this country, I’m telling you. The Americans can afford to do what they do because they have an efficient system of private medical insurance supporting the whole structure.’