Sing me to Sleep

by Helen Moorhouse

  One of the things that she did dislike, however, was living in London.

  Another was noise.

  Another was New Year’s Eve.

  Therefore, finding herself spending the evening of December 31st, 1999, in a nightclub somewhere near Leicester Square – she couldn’t be sure of the exact location – was Rowan’s idea of hell.

  She wasn’t sure exactly why she had accepted the invitation of her downstairs neighbour and friend, Claudia, to come along on “the biggest blowout of all time” but at approximately 10.30 p.m. on Millennium Eve, Rowan found herself nursing a beer, guarding it with her life – not in case someone should take it from her, but in case someone should think that she required another one – and peering across a sea of bouncing heads that moved as one to ‘Rendez-Vu’ by Basement Jaxx. Everywhere she looked there were party hats, streamers, poppers, blowers, people wearing tinsel on their heads. Claudia wasn’t too far away, engrossed in dancing with her friend Jon, and she had somehow managed to obtain a pair of giant spectacles in the shape of ‘2000’ which flashed on and off as she moved. Rowan wondered how it had come to this and sighed, taking another tiny sip of the beer as Claudia caught her eye and pointed a warning finger at her, a warning that she’d better be having a good time or else.

  This wasn’t what Rowan had planned. It was to be solitary, the transition from 1999 to the new millennium. Locked in her flat with a triple bill of Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources and Cinema Paradiso.

  She glanced at her watch. Round about now, Gerard Depardieu should have been relentlessly carting the water back to the farm on the donkey, sweating against the sun and the hardship. Every hint of ‘Happy New Year’ and threat of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ should have been eliminated, the curtains drawn against fireworks, plenty of Judith’s leftovers to get through and maybe a glass of sloe gin. The intention had been that not even a threat of a Hootenanny would get past her front door. And then she would go to sleep with earplugs in, blissfully unaware of the time, of ships tooting on the Thames, of Big Ben chiming, of revellers converging on Clapham High Street nearby.

  The tune changed to one that Rowan despised but couldn’t get out of her head. She found herself clenching her fists as the familiar notes and the nonsensical lyrics – I’m Blue, Da Ba Dee, Da Ba Dah – rang out across the club and the tempo of the dancers changed and a cheer went up. She rolled her eyes. For this she had left the Quantocks behind her, thinking that it would spare her the festivities planned in the village at home. If she had stayed in Somerset – much as she longed for a brisk New Year’s walk along the country lanes near Judith’s Acre – then it would have been unavoidable, so she had decided to come back to Clapham to lock herself away. Judith hadn’t approved, of course, but there were times when Rowan knew she had to stand firm and this was one of them, even though the old lady looked so uncharacteristically forlorn on the platform as Rowan’s train had pulled out. Rowan had steeled herself, however, reminding herself that as much as she respected the crazy old hippy, her grandmother’s bidding wasn’t actually law.

  Yet somehow, she had accepted an invitation to share a single celebratory drink with her downstairs neighbour on passing her open front door on her way back from the video shop. And somehow, that had led to a quick change of clothes before heading down to the Coach and Horses nearby. And then on to a wine bar somewhere that Jon recommended and after that she got a bit lost but there was a pizza involved – thankfully – and then somehow they had ended up here. In something that to Rowan, with her love for meditation and solitude, was like a circle of hell.

  She was disappointed with herself. Her sole resolution as Christmas turned into the dreaded New Year celebrations was that she would see in the Millennium alone. And already she had broken that one. Things didn’t bode well for the year 2000.

  Rowan noticed suddenly that Claudia and Jon had vanished into the crowd and she searched for them desperately for a moment, suddenly completely alone in a sea of strangers. To compound matters, two men were sidling up to the high table where she stood fiercely guarding their coats and drinks and Claudia’s Gucci bag. Rowan felt her heart begin to pound and her palms grow sweaty. It was the familiar sensation that struck her when a stranger approached. She made a point of looking into the sea of partygoers around her again, this time to pointedly ignore the approaching men rather than to specifically try to find her companions – not without, however, keeping the pair within her peripheral vision. She couldn’t risk herself completely.

  The first thing she noticed about the one who leaned in to speak to her was his smell. It was delicious. She was taken aback by the cleanliness of it, the masculinity. Normally she hated the smell of men. She had to know them very well, to trust them before she could tolerate a masculine smell. She much preferred the sweet warm odour of Judith’s goats, or the scent of Schubert, her old pony. Safe smells. Comforting smells.

  The fact that she had to ask him to repeat himself three times over the music made her even more aware of how pleasant the scent was, however. As it happened, he was merely asking if he and his friend might share the chest-height table – if they could place their drinks on top and their coats underneath, much as she had done. Rowan nodded politely and stared back out into the crowd again, as if completely fascinated by the dancing, which had shifted a little in tempo to fit the beat of Prince’s ‘1999’. It made her feel a little calmer.

  Much as she hadn’t intended coming here in the first place, the last thing she intended was chatting to a complete stranger, but when her new table-companion had stood there for a good ten minutes, moving awkwardly to the music and ignoring his friend who was avidly checking texts on his phone, she couldn’t help but be polite and respond when he leaned over with his lovely scent and asked if she were actually enjoying herself. In fact, she couldn’t help but laugh because it was the last thing that she was doing. And by his tone, this sweet-smelling stranger felt the same way. She turned, smiling, and studied his face briefly, noting that he had a very nice smile too. And once she had seen him smile, seen him wrinkle up his nose in distaste at the nightclub in general, seen him point comically at the ceiling where a net of balloons awaited release at the stroke of midnight and make an exaggerated face of dread, she couldn’t help but relax a little. He was safe, she decided. Inasmuch as anyone was ever really and truly ‘safe’.

  His friend whose name was Mike, apparently, didn’t say much – he also looked entirely out of touch in his surroundings. He was even wearing cord trousers, she noted, and he kept his eyes firmly glued to the screen of his Nokia 3210 as he mutely shuffled off in the direction of the bar, noting that his glass was empty. It wasn’t their first drink of the evening by a long shot, she concluded. The man with the nice smile was decidedly squiffy, too.

  “I’ve come here by mistake,” he confessed, leaning against the table.

  The line reminded her of another of her favourite movies, Withnail and I. She wondered if he were aware of the reference he had just made.

  “Me and Mike – he’s my brother-in-law – we were only going down to his local and somehow we’ve ended up at an orgy.” He looked around him again, an exaggerated look of confusion across his features. “And we’ve no idea how to get out so he just keeps buying drinks, and texting his missus, and I’m just wondering how I’m ever going to get home!”

  Rowan smiled again: “Me too,” she responded – leaning closer to his ear to repeat herself when he indicated that he hadn’t heard her. “I’m meant to be at home with a DVD triple bill, but somehow I’m here and I have no idea where my friends have got to.”

  She glanced out again at the dance floor, slightly worried now at the fact that she hadn’t seen Claudia and Jon in so long. Her companion leaned in again to speak and she turned back to him, angling her head so that her ear was near his mouth in order to hear him better.

  “In that case, do you mind if I chat to you till Mike gets back?” he asked. “That way we don’t look so out of place either. My n
ame’s Ed by the way.”

  Rowan eyed him with mock suspicion. “All right then,” she replied. “I’m Rowan.”

  She smiled faintly and was rewarded with a beam from Ed in return. “Fantastic!” he enthused, energetically shaking her free left hand with his. As he did so, she noted the flash of gold from the third finger in and felt somehow safer at the sight of it. Yet also, oddly, disappointed.

  The conversation began with their origins – he was a London boy – Fulham born and bred, he announced. When Rowan shared the name of the coastal village nearest to where she lived he laughed uproariously.

  “Watch-et?” he barked in disbelief, laughing again. “Watch-iiiiit!” he warned, jokingly.

  Rowan couldn’t be cross at him – not at his animated face, his broad smile with all those teeth that could have verged on horsey but somehow didn’t. His eyes were brown and crinkled at the edges when he grinned. His face lit up so much when she told him the name of her village that she tried another couple – Nether Stowey, West Quantoxhead, Sampford Peverell, Kilve. He particularly liked the idea of Wimbleball Lake, but before she could think of any more they were interrupted as Mike returned with a bottle of Cava and three glasses which he deposited on the table before pointing at the phone, holding it to his ear and indicating that he was going outside to actually speak on it this time. Rowan watched him bumble meekly in the direction of the exit and felt momentarily sorry for him. He looked as out of place as she felt.

  When Mike had disappeared, Rowan turned back to glance at the dance floor, yet paused as she caught sight of Ed. He was staring at the bottle on the table before him and despite the multicoloured lights she couldn’t help but notice that he seemed paler than before. He was silent too. Tangibly silent. The lovely jollity, the giddiness of the moments before Mike’s return seemed to have deserted him and then he blinked suddenly and looked back at Rowan, that lovely smile spreading across his features again.

  “What harm can it do, eh?” he said and invited her with a sweep of his hand to join him in a glass, setting about pouring before she could argue.

  Rowan glanced at her watch, and was shocked to see that it was five minutes to midnight. That familiar panic set in with her, the desperate sensation that something would go hideously wrong once the clock struck twelve – unfounded, she knew. Around her, other revellers were whooping and cheering as they lined up their own drinks in preparation for the inevitable midnight toast. A flicker of panic ran through her. What was she doing here? She shouldn’t be here – shouldn’t celebrate. Should be somewhere safe . . .

  A feeling of dread filled her as the crowd around them chanted what she always thought of as a doom-filled countdown.

  “Five, four, three, two, one . . . Happy New Year!”

  Upwent the cry and panic gripped Rowan. She wasn’t ready for it. She wasn’t prepared for that split-second threshold that took her without her consent from an old year into a new one. She tried to calm herself as she gripped the glass that Ed had handed her, and rigidly raised her hand to her mouth to take a slug.

  It’s all just a matter of minutes, she reassured herself. Nothing has changed except the calendar. Stop giving it so much significance. This was why she hated New Year so much. The forced jollity all leading up to a moment that inexplicably made her panic, that made her feel like a puppy around fireworks. She turned suddenly to look at Ed. He must think her odd, she reckoned, panicking even more. Completely ignoring him like that, ignoring New Year like that.

  She was relieved, however, to find that he, too, was in a world of his own.

  That he was, in fact, crying.

  That two long streaks of tears rolled down his expressionless face as he stared out at the crowd, now jumping on each other to hug and embrace and kiss before wordlessly organising themselves with crossed arms to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Silently, the balloons were released from above and the sound of the partying crowd all around them was punctuated with gunshot-like bangs as they burst for one reason or another.

  But none of the silver and white balloons that floated gently down between Ed and Rowan made a sound. Watching them fall around him, in fact, Rowan was reminded of swirling snow. And it felt as if everything around her had gone silent for a moment.

  It was Claudia who broke it by suddenly reappearing, who reintroduced the noise and the hubbub to Rowan’s consciousness as Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’ blared out.

  The following morning, as Rowan lay in her own bed in her own flat, peacefully alone and in the silence of her room, she didn’t remember the exact order of things after that, other than the fact that the night had been quite good, actually. That she had talked more with Ed who ceased crying so suddenly that she wondered if she had actually imagined he had been doing so in the first place. There had been more champagne – and even a little tipsy dancing, she was sure.

  And there had been the kiss.

  The odd, dry-lipped, innocent kiss that she had shared with Ed as they bade each other farewell. As New Year’s Eve kisses went, it made the word ‘chaste’ seem reserved. But as she thought about it – about closing her eyes at the inevitability of it and then at not feeling some passionate, damp, fake embrace close in on her – Rowan felt a small thrill. It had been pure, she remembered. There was no ulterior motive to it. That man – that nice, kind, sad man, had simply kissed her for no other reason than to share a kiss.

  She hadn’t got his number, however. And he didn’t have hers. So that was it. She would never see him again. Which made Rowan feel sad as she lay in her tartan pyjamas on the morning of January 1st 2000, unable to sleep, retracing the night over and over again in her mind, replaying it in case she remembered something that she had forgotten.

  What she couldn’t forget all day was what Ed had said to her as they had finally said goodbye. He hadn’t had so much fun with another human being in a long time, he’d said. Not since his wife died. And it was when Rowan thought about this that she understood the tears at midnight.

  And it made her all the more regretful that she would never see him again.

  Chapter 29

  May 2000

  Jenny

  He’s started to change things around a bit. First him, now the house. Odd things. New cushions – new paint on the walls. I heard him mention new curtains to Betty and ‘doing something with Bee’s room’. I’m not sure where the money’s coming from for all of this. I might be dead, but I’m still conscious of making ends meet, even if there’s nothing I can do about it. And it’s not like he’s in a position of vast wealth these days.

  He’s changed though. Less like the putty man that he was. A better father to Bee and that’s the most I can ask for – not that he was bad, just distracted.

  And I worry does that mean he’s over me? I have no right to be bothered by that, I know, not after what I did. And I know he’s not even thirty yet, and he has a life to live and if I’d been diagnosed with a terminal illness I’d have had that conversation with him where I’d have encouraged him to move on and find someone new and be happy for himself. Mind you, I’d have been lying.

  I don’t think that’s what’s going on though. Apart from the odd night out with Mike, he’s always here, here for Bee, here where I can keep an eye on him. I don’t know what else to do, after all.

  If I hadn’t been so stupid and so selfish then I’d be the one doing all this house makeover business. I’d be taking care of Bee, getting her organised for school – I can’t believe that my baby’s starting school already. But if I were still there, I’d be in charge of the ship and he’d be doing god-knows-what – having an amazing career, bringing Grimlet to Hollywood, earning stacks of cash for himself.

  Not that that ever mattered to me.

  With this amazing hindsight I have now, I know that all that really mattered was how happy he was. How fulfilled. How he used his God-given talents to their absolute best.

  I seem to think about God a lot these days. All that’s still as much a mystery to
me as ever – it’s not like I’ve met Him or Her or anything but I do wonder a lot. Mainly if this is it? If this is forever? Me and my family – me watching over them? Trying, somehow, to see if I can make it up to them for that terribly stupid thing I did, that awful mistake that blew them apart.

  Maybe this is God. Maybe God is where I want to be the most – with them. And that’s not so bad after all.

  Well, apart from missing them. Apart from sitting on the stairs watching as Ed playfully chases Bee up and down the hall and she passes within an inch of me and I reach out what I think is my hand to touch her, but she feels nothing. I forget sometimes. Forget that I’m not actually there, that I’m watching, watching, as if through a pane of glass.

  She doesn’t see me any more, of course. She doesn’t remember me. Then again, if I had simply left her, if I had gone to Cape Town that Christmas, she wouldn’t have remembered me either. So I have to content myself with trying to be as close to her as I can, as often as I can and sometimes to brush her cheek with . . . something . . . with my energy . . . when she’s asleep – and watch her nose curl up in response. Sometimes, I can even see traces of her baby face, the face that looked up at me from her cot each time she woke and I went to her. That look that said she was amazed and delighted to see me – the look that made me feel like I was the greatest thing on earth. Mostly it’s gone too, but sometimes I see it and I’m plunged right back to then. To before.

  How could I have contemplated it? Even for a second, how could I have thought of leaving her? How could I have fallen so hard for Guillaume? Or did I just fall hard for the situation? The excitement? Something to lift me out of that rut that I had got myself into – that wasn’t caused by Ed, or leaving my job, or having a baby – that was caused by me, me, me and my stupid boredom and lack of guts. God, but I make myself angry when I think about that. It’s not even as if Guillaume actually loved me – he couldn’t have.