‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’re not in prison, Miss Mackenzie.’
Sleep was a demanding god who required silk pillowcases and expensive room sprays, hypnotherapy and the soundtrack of a gentle river flowing through a forest. She’d tried everything.
Except this.
‘Ready?’ Rory asked.
Six hours later, the high-pitched wail of an alarm didn’t wake her up because she hadn’t yet fallen asleep.
Her mind didn’t race at night, because that would suggest that it could eventually tire itself out – no, her mind fizzed like nuclear fusion, something with an infinite capacity to continue fizzing no matter how late, or early, it got.
The overhead light blazed into life, nearly blinding her. Squinting and disorientated by the sound, Thea scrambled out of bed, not sure what was going on, but pretty certain she didn’t want to be in bed to greet it. Rory appeared as she was fumbling with her slippers. She felt herself blush under the bright light, awkward in her sensible pyjamas. He yelled something she couldn’t hear above the pounding, painful sound of the alarm.
Rolling his eyes, he came into the room and took her arm, leaning in close. For some reason, she was acutely aware that her pyjamas had penguins on them. In scarves.
‘SO SORRY! FIRE ALARM! WE HAVE TO GO!’
A few minutes later, Thea was standing in the clinic car park in her fluffy slippers, damp spreading into them from the wet ground. The building itself was a drab blot of grey behind them and the street lights turned the puddles to gold.
Rory had unplugged her but there had been no time to unstick all the patches and wires, making her look like the unfinished science experiment that she was. Other members of the sleep trial and their attendants milled around, making polite small talk and exchanging sympathetic glances.
‘So. Do you come here often?’ A man in shorts and a T-shirt nudged her, his feet bare and turning a mottled purple from the cold. Varicose veins bulged up on his skinny legs like inquisitive worms. He was obviously pleased with his wit.
Thea didn’t like being nudged.
She tried to avoid eye contact with him, but he moved in front of her, an expectant grin on his face. Thea turned to stare at the chain-link fence.
She heard the man sigh. ‘It don’t cost anything to be pleasant. Cheer up, love.’
Thea took a deep breath.
Heat whooshed, not over but through her. She felt as if it could shoot out of her eyes like she’d seen in superhero films. If she looked at him, she could turn him to ash.
Cheer up, love. Be pleasant, even if your brain feels as if it could ooze through your nose. Smile, even if this might be your last chance to get help and you are wasting it out here in the car park wearing soggy slippers. The nice man wants a pleasant conversation. Be nice to the man.
It was a well-known side effect of poor sleep, wasn’t it? Recklessness. She’d read that somewhere.
What happened next, therefore, wasn’t strictly her fault.
She took a step closer and brought her knee up hard, aiming for his crotch. But he, seeing the intention in her stare, angled away just in time and she ended up kneeing him in the thigh instead.
‘So sorry!’ Rory hurriedly appeared between them, leading Thea away and calling back over his shoulder, ‘She’s deeply disturbed. Shouldn’t be unsupervised.’
‘She tried to knee me in the balls!’ the man shouted after them.
‘No, no, that was just … an uncontrollable leg twitch …’ Rory interjected before Thea could say anything.
He plonked her on a low wall. ‘What are you doing?’
‘He was a creep!’ she said, crossing her arms.
‘The world is full of them.’ Rory sighed. ‘Can’t knee them all in the balls.’
Thea watched the man shiver as he walked away, his shoulders beginning to hunch. He looked older and thinner than she’d thought, now that he was further away. It was easy to call him a creep, she found herself thinking, when in fact, he’d maybe just been another exhausted human being like her, trying, in his own ham-fisted way, to make a connection with someone, anyone, because it was cold and dark and wide-awake nights lasted a very long time.
‘Look, I’m sorry but we’ve just been told that this session will be called off for tonight.’ Rory looked down at his clipboard, a plastic ink stamp dangling from it on a piece of string: surprisingly low-tech for such a cutting-edge company. ‘Can’t really get any useful data after this. It’s a shame because this was the last round of tests before the trial begins. You were so close.’
And, to her complete surprise and shame, Thea felt hot tears forming. ‘You mean – that’s it?’
In that moment, she felt the weight of all the years she still had left – all those sleepless years – and that weight crushed her.
Rory considered her. There were little lines fanning out from his eyes and, Thea thought, he was probably one of those people who had a proper, hearty, throw-your-head-back laugh.
‘It’s – what? Around four in the morning,’ he said. ‘You’ve been awake the whole time. And you’ve lived like this for …’
… too long …
‘… pretty much all your adult life. Whoa …’ He exhaled.
Rory gazed at her thoughtfully. Thea imagined him in some sort of flat-share where they all got takeaways and lounged around on cushions on the floor. It was the kind of place where there were always dirty dishes in the sink and a permanent message on a chalkboard in the kitchen: ‘BUY MILK!!!!’
Thea never ran out of milk; she had her groceries delivered every week.
‘Look. I wouldn’t normally do this.’
What? For a crazy moment, Thea thought he was going to ask her out on a date. Would she want to go on a date with him? He was nice-enough looking, under the beard, and he’d been kind to her. But it was dark and she couldn’t see him properly, and beards gave you a rash, didn’t they?
He angled away from her for a few seconds, fumbling with his clipboard, then he glanced to see if anyone was near. It was done so quickly. One moment he’d bent towards her and Thea hadn’t known what to think; the next he was gone.
There was a piece of paper in her hand.
Thea took a closer look. It was all about her: weight, height, sleep history, some graphs and numerical data that she couldn’t decipher. But, more importantly, the form had been stamped:
CLIENT APPROVED.
Chapter 7
It was the kind of place where hitchhikers got chopped up by axe-wielding maniacs. Brown, bare hills, a lonely road, a few run-down houses, clearly abandoned – just sky and grass and a low-level sense of fear at an animal level.
‘One room, one night. You’re the last of ’em,’ the man muttered from behind the reception desk whilst writing in a book as yellowed as his fingers. He looked as weathered and grey as ancient stone, his face pitted as if it had endured centuries of unrelenting rain.
The pub was called “Sanity’s End” with thick walls, mullioned windows and empty hooks where pretty hanging baskets had once swung. Now they were just hooks, as if the pub had armoured itself, porcupine-style. How was it still in business? There was no one else around and the whole area was too grim and stark to be a tourist spot.
‘Busy lately?’ Thea ventured.
The man looked up and put the pen he’d been using behind his ear. A few flakes of dandruff dislodged and fell gently to be reunited with their friends on his shoulder.
‘What do you think?’ he said harshly.
Thea took a look around at the ghost-bar, the stools still stacked on the tabletops, the unravelling carpet and the heavy curtains that had once been red but were now so covered in dust they’d paled to a rusty pink. There was a sticky wood veneer on the reception desk, which held a dusty stand of local brochures and a cardboard charity box in the shape of a lifeboat. Thea put in all the change she had left – after all, she was unlikely to need it in the next six weeks.
‘See there?’ A grimy fingernail
pointed to a group of framed photographs on a nearby wall. ‘Used to be a lifeboat man. She were mine.’
Thea dutifully peered at the picture, what she could see of it under a thick layer of dust on the glass that made the boat look as if it was nosing out of a fog.
‘Your lot keeps us going since the tourists stopped.’ He sniffed and turned to consider the three large brass keys hanging behind him. When he moved one, it left a brighter key-shaped spot on the wall. ‘When the monastery closed down over on the island in the Eighties, there was still the lighthouse for people to go and see. But that dried up too, eventually, taking the village ’ere on the mainland with it. No one needed the boat trip over, see? That’s how it goes.’ His bushy brows drew together for a moment. ‘But then you lot came and bought the whole place. Like I said, you’re the last of ’em. They’s been arriving all week cos I’ve only got a few rooms, see? Some of you what comes late in the day, you can’t go out in the boat at night and ’ave to stay over.’
The sleep trial itself was to take place on a small island in a purpose-built Sleep Centre, just a fifteen-minute boat ride away. Privacy was vital, she had been told.
‘Don’t look like that!’ Harriet had remonstrated via Skype. ‘There is a regular boat service, specially constructed, state-of-the-art buildings, living quarters and all the facilities you could want. Think of it as a luxury hotel stay. It’s certainly not Alcatraz!’
Harriet hadn’t mentioned that she’d have to stay in the pub at the end of the world the night before, however. Not quite as hi-tech. The man put the heavy room key, rough with rust, into her hand.
‘Kitchen’s closed because it’s late,’ he continued.
It was 5 p.m.
‘But I could make you a sandwich.’ He shuffled off through another tattered curtain behind him. Thea heard some clunking noises and he emerged with a can.
‘Tuna,’ he said, reading from the label. ‘I can make you a tuna sandwich.’
Thea wasn’t quite so keen on the idea of a tuna and dandruff sandwich.
‘That’s kind but I’m not hungry, thank you,’ she said hastily. ‘Probably have an early night.’
‘Suit yourself. No loud music, no animals, no extra guests permitted in your room. There’s a TV but we don’t get much of a reception up here. Breakfast is paid for so I have to serve it. At eight o’clock, it’ll be. They order it in – fancy stuff, half of it looks like kitty litter.’
He thumped a card down onto the desk in front of her, wrinkling his nose at it as if it smelled.
‘They say I also got to get feedback from you. The guests. You gotta fill in that form. About your stay. Apparently the last ones said I could offer a’ – he stopped and shuffled through the other cards he had in his hand – ‘more sophisticated range of amenities. I mean, what else do they want? They gotta kettle and them little fancy soaps … Anyway. They made me watch a video about it. So, there you go.’ He passed her a snapped-off chunk of chocolate.
Then he stuffed some dry leaves into her hand, ‘Couldn’t get rose petals. Sorry.’
Thea studied the melting, leaf-studded chocolate in her palm.
‘Umm … I think you’re meant to put those on the bed? The chocolate and the … petals?’ she managed.
He stared at her with his arms crossed, a face of stone.
‘I know.’
The next afternoon Thea stood on the deserted dock, feeling queasy.
A seagull screeched above her and she felt the sound in her teeth. There was a rhythmic slapping of waves against concrete and the sky was the colour of stewed tea.
Harriet had said she could opt out after Phase One, no matter what. And Phase One was just orientation, a “getting to know you”, probably some sleep tracking and questionnaires. This was the social media age! Everyone was now accountable for everything! What could they do? The worst was that any information gained on her sleep would then be passed on to some big data company and for years afterwards businesses would try to sell her mattresses and herbal tablets any time she searched the web.
So, all she had to do was buckle up, get through a few weeks and then go home, dignity, data and brain intact.
The queasiness remained.
That morning she had filled in her accommodation feedback form with the comment “Couldn’t have asked for more”. She had found herself kind of admiring the pub owner for his resistance to hospitality even though that was his actual business.
A plate with a bacon roll on it had appeared by her elbow at breakfast. She had glanced up at him as he had left the room, but his face remained a mask of pitted granite. Maybe the feedback card had softened him up. There had even been a sprinkling of flour on top of the roll – at least she had hoped it was flour and not just more dandruff. She had eaten it anyway. It had smelled delicious and he had been right, the breakfast provided had been kitty litter.
Her thoughts about bacon and anti-social pub owners were interrupted by the confident tap-tapping of someone walking determinedly in heels towards her.
It could only be Harriet. She was the only woman who would wear stilettos to get on a boat.
‘Thea! Early. Nice to see. Raring to go?’
Harriet flicked the end of her scarf back over her shoulder. Thea tugged at her bobble hat and nudged the hem of her jeans over her old trainers, feeling dowdy in comparison, a bedraggled stray next to a sleek house cat.
‘Is it just me?’
‘Oh … yes. You’re the last, you see. We had to wait for the weather to clear to make the crossing again for you. Not that I’ll overwhelm you with introductions tonight. Plenty of time for that.’
Thea felt she should fill the pause.
‘What did you do before—?’
But Harriet interrupted her, standing on tiptoe to wave.
‘Boat’s here!’
Thea gingerly stepped on, steadied by the skipper, trying to avoid the slippery bits while Harriet strode through as if she was on a New York catwalk and immediately joined the skipper at the front, which was sectioned off by glass; whether this was to intentionally discourage any more questions, Thea couldn’t be sure.
She kept her eyes on the mainland receding behind her. The queasiness settled as sour bile in her throat. She watched as the coastline became a blocky shape, and then finally impressionist splodges of muted colour. Thea was leaving behind all of that; instead she was out here, in the grey waves, free, released from job, routine, her whole life, such as it was.
‘You okay, Thea?’ Harriet called back towards her.
‘Fine!’
‘Because if you’re seasick—’
‘No! I’m fine!’
She was fine, even though she’d never learned to swim, had never even put her head under the water in the bath and the boat rocked around alarmingly like a fairground ride – except those rides went through safety checks, didn’t they? The sea didn’t.
Not for the first time, she cursed her mother for spending hours and hours trying to save the oceans but no time at all teaching her own daughter how to swim.
What had Harriet said? Think of it like a luxury hotel stay.
Okay, so this was a luxury hotel stay. She could go for bracing coastal walks along the clifftops, read books by an open fire, meet new people … meet some new people … okay only a few new people. She wasn’t great at people. A holiday.
As a lab rat.
‘Look!’ Harriet pointed ahead of them.
Out of the gloom rose sheer cliff walls, black and slick, the waves whirling and churning against them. Dragons. The cliffs looked as if they should have dragons perched on top of them, waiting for one to shrug its wings open and send a scorching arc of fire across the rocks. As the boat got closer, these cliffs blocked out the sky and the world turned to shadow.
Suddenly Thea felt very small.
Chapter 8
‘Good morning, Thea Mackenzie.’
Thea stuck her head out from under the duvet and rubbed her eyes, looking for whoever had j
ust come in. ‘Huh? Good morn—’
‘Your schedule for today is being displayed.’
Thea was talking to the room. She blinked sleepily and her schedule appeared on one wall.
8 a.m.: breakfast, cafeteria, main hall
9 a.m.: welcome address
9.10 a.m.: yoga and meditation, lawn
10 a.m.: health assessment, lab 7
Noon: lunch, cafeteria, main hall
1 p.m.: Sleep School, lecture theatre
3 p.m.: break, free time
3.30 p.m.: cardio, gym studio 2
4.30 p.m.: shower, own room
5 p.m.: health assessment, lab 4
6 p.m.: dinner, cafeteria, main hall
7 p.m.: fitting of sleep monitoring equipment, own room
10 p.m.: recommended wind-down time
Sleep School sounded horrendous. For some reason, Thea could only imagine this being a room full of prone bodies and the sound of chanting as someone yelled ‘SLEEP!’ in the face of anyone who dared to open their eyes.
She’d probably got about one hour of sleep. She couldn’t blame the room: there was a bed so plush it threatened to swallow her whole as soon as she got into it. She ran a hand over the surface of her bedside table, almost expecting her fingers to sink in, so glossy was the material – too glossy – it was starting to remind her of a sick, sweaty fever sheen. The only thing in the space that wasn’t cream or white was Thea. She had her penguin pyjamas to thank for that.
As she cleaned her teeth after showering, a towel wrapped around her, she wandered over to the door. Last night, Harriet had closed the door after her as she’d left. Thea hadn’t thought about it since. But, looking at it now, the edges of it merely a pencil sketch, she couldn’t even work out how it opened – let alone try to lock the damn thing. As she was peering closely at it, it slid open smoothly and Thea found herself nearly nose-to-nose with Harriet.
Harriet stepped back sharply, her startled expression quickly replaced once again by a smile.
‘Ah, good morning, Thea. I see you are already up and awake. Perhaps … put on some clothes?’ She held out a stack of neatly folded material.
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