Sleepless

by Louise Mumford

  ‘Vivian.’ He savoured the word and smiled, putting down his newspaper and signalling to a waiter. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be seen drinking with someone who renounced their ideals and plunged themselves into the clutches of rampant capitalism—’ Vivian couldn’t stop her lips twitching into a smile.

  ‘Another glass of the sauvignon blanc, please,’ he said to the waiter who disappeared as swiftly as he had materialized. ‘I’ll drink it if you won’t.’

  ‘I never refuse wine, Tristan. You know that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, I do. Many an interesting evening has been the result.’

  ‘Before you sold out.’

  ‘Took over the family firm, I think you mean? Business isn’t the devil. We can’t all of us be activists forever, you know, Viv. Some of us can help in a different way.’

  Vivian had to admit that capitalists did drink a better class of wine. And, like the wine, they aged well. Tristan still had his floppy hair, now white, and that boyish hint of mischief that she had so loved. She had not dressed up especially for this evening, having other more important things to concentrate on than the pain of the underwire in her bra as it tried its best to pierce her heart.

  ‘So how may I be of service?’ Tristan put down his glass.

  ‘Ing Enterprises.’

  ‘The technology firm?’

  ‘Yes. You invest in stuff like that. Know anything about it?’

  Music played softly, a tune Vivian was sure she knew but couldn’t place. The cutlery glimmered in the candlelight and tapestries hung from the walls, the scenes they depicted lost in the shadows.

  ‘Not really. It hasn’t been on anyone’s radar for years; it used to mostly specialize in hardware. It’s not one I have shares in, unfortunately.’

  ‘Unfortunately?’

  ‘Well, there’s been a bit of a buzz about it of late. The share price has gone up. It’s the name as well: Moses Ing, bit of a legend. Why the interest, old girl?’

  ‘Don’t call me old girl. Makes me sound like a cow.’

  ‘Apologies.’

  Vivian leant in, her elbow accidentally tipping up a plate that clattered too loudly.

  ‘I want to know more about them,’ she said. ‘Thought you might have someone I could chat with.’

  Tristan ran his finger around the top of his wine glass. ‘Might do. Might do. Is this work?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Because you’ve got that expression on your face. What’s Ing Enterprises done to you?’

  ‘Nothing yet. I want to keep it that way.’

  He smiled to himself and straightened the newspaper at the side of his plate. Vivian remembered how he’d always been like that, even in the midst of a marijuana-infused protest camp site: he’d liked his space and bit of order.

  ‘How’s Thea?’ he asked.

  ‘She’s amazing. Got her head screwed on. Don’t know where she got that from.’

  An image popped up in Vivian’s mind. Thea at about six, arranging a doll business meeting, not a tea party. The meeting had been about how to give out the necessary chores in the shared house in which they had been staying that month. She had even made a list in wobbly handwriting for everyone to look at. Everyone had ignored it.

  Tristan cleared his throat. ‘You know …’

  Vivian glanced up to find him looking at her rather more searchingly than she would have liked. It didn’t suit him, she decided; it made him look old.

  ‘I always wondered. I mean, you never said but—’

  ‘Whose is she?’ Vivian smiled at him. ‘Mine. She’s all mine. No one else’s.’

  He returned the smile with less conviction and thoughtfully swirled his wine. ‘You never said. All those years.’

  What was his expression now? The lighting was so ridiculously dim in restaurants these days and Vivian couldn’t quite work it out. It couldn’t be … disappointment, surely?

  He shrugged. ‘Those days, the marches, the protests, the shitty little bedsits. They seem so very far away now. Like a dream. I think I was high for most of it.’

  They both gazed at each other. Their table was a white-clothed raft set adrift in a badly lit sea.

  ‘So?’ Vivian snapped open a menu, enjoying the sharp sound. ‘Are we going to order? Or am I to get my own table?’

  ‘Oh no. We can make an evening of it.’

  Vivian smiled and took another sip of wine. ‘Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Tristan …’

  Vivian got back from her meal with Tristan later than planned, lit a joss stick, and unclasped her bra with a sigh of relief.

  She reached for a nettle teabag, changed her mind and poured herself one last glass of wine. The living room floor was a trip hazard of paint pots and cardboard, leftovers from that day’s protest preparation. They needed Thea. She always had such neat lettering and a way with colour.

  The house was too quiet. During the day it was HQ: there was bustle and phones ringing, people coming and going with tea and paper and new problems to be solved. The website was new: MenopausalArmy.com, but, disappointingly, they were still trying to raise awareness on many of the same issues they’d been working on since the Seventies. And the menopause was long gone. It would be more apt to call themselves OldCronesCompany.com now.

  At night, though, HQ returned to the pumpkin it was: an empty house. She could hear the pipes ticking.

  Perhaps, in her next phone call, she wouldn’t tell Thea that she had been trying to dig up information on a perfectly innocent technology company. But old habits were hard to break. Not that there was anything to worry about – she had spoken to Thea only the day before and had been delighted to hear that she was already sleeping better.

  The wine disappeared rather too quickly and Vivian sighed – it was time to take her old bones to bed. But thinking of Thea reminded her to glance at the answerphone on her way upstairs. Thea would have nagged her to use her mobile, or at least switch it on, or maybe just find it. It had to be in her desk somewhere. Vivian was suspicious of carrying around something that was to all intents and purposes a glorified tracking device.

  Old habits were hard to break.

  A red light blinked in the hallway.

  Vivian played the waiting message: ‘Oh, hi Mum – no panic. Just wanted to run something past you. Catch you tomorrow. Love you, bye!’

  Vivian knew her daughter’s voice and there was a hectic edge to it that she’d rarely heard before. She played the message again, glad that the red light had switched itself off because it felt too much like “Stop!”, “Don’t!”, “Beware!”

  It felt like a warning.

  Chapter 19

  The monitor beeped. It was a strangely soothing sound.

  Beep. Rosie’s still alive.

  Beep. Still alive.

  Beep. Still alive.

  Beep. Alive, alive, alive.

  Thea sat in a chair next to the bed in the medical wing located in the Staff Bubble. It was evening. Had it all only happened a few hours ago? She felt dazed. She stared at Rosie, at the mess of her face, the swelling, the blood, one eye swaddled in bandages, the other mercifully closed. Her chest rose and fell gently, rhythmically, hypnotically. If Thea focused on that, she didn’t have to think of anything else; her brain could just fill itself with the rhythm of it. And the beeping.

  Beep.

  Alive.

  Beep.

  Alive.

  The door opened.

  ‘Thea?’ Rory’s voice. She didn’t turn around.

  ‘I brought you some food. You need to eat something.’

  She could hear him put a tray down and then he dragged a chair over to sit next to her. Out of the side of her gaze she saw him rub at his beard.

  ‘She’s given us all a bit of a scare,’ he said.

  There was quiet.

  Beep. Thea’s fault.

  Beep. Thea’s fault.

  ‘I …’ Her voice caught. ‘I thought s
he was—’

  Head lolling to one side, blood-matted hair, pulpy flesh.

  Rory nodded.

  Rosie’s chest rose and fell. The woman who had been constantly fidgeting, moving, smiling and gesticulating was gone and in her place was a quiet mechanical automaton. Near her undamaged eye, Thea could still see the heart she’d drawn around one of the discs on her temple.

  ‘The doctor tells me she is stable, but they will have to wait and see if there has been any internal bleeding on the brain.’

  Thea imagined blood like sticky cherry jam, spreading itself slowly across the crevices of Rosie’s brain and oozing into the cracks.

  ‘Her eye?’

  ‘There’s a lot of swelling. Hard to tell. They’re optimistic she won’t lose the sight.’

  ‘If she wakes up.’

  One of Rosie’s hands lay above the covers, the nails neatly filed and rainbow-coloured. Thea willed a finger to twitch.

  ‘She’s young, healthy – she’s got an excellent chance of recovery.’

  Thea swivelled to fix him with a hard stare. She remembered the way Rosie’s face had looked when she first got to her: squashed fruit with shards of bone poking through.

  ‘Did the doctor actually tell you that?’

  ‘Uh … no.’

  Weirdly, it looked like Rory was the one out of the two of them who had had the least sleep. There was hardly any white left in his eyes, just angry red webs.

  ‘I’ve brought some of Rosie’s things. Just in case she needs them.’ He put a plastic bag at her feet. It immediately sagged and toppled over.

  She felt like the bag, the things she wanted to say just spilling out of her, even as she tried to hold her plastic handles together.

  ‘There’s someone in the monastery.’ Thea instinctively lowered her voice, watching the bag slide once more.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘There’s someone in the monastery. They cracked Rosie’s head into the wall. I saw it.’

  Rory scratched at his beard again, his brow furrowing.

  ‘But … Rosie slipped and fell.’

  Thea gripped the arm of his chair.

  ‘What? No, that’s not true. I saw it. There’s someone in the monastery and they hurt Rosie.’

  Behind them, a throat was very deliberately cleared.

  ‘That will be all for now, Mr Thirwood,’ said Delores.

  Thea turned around. Delores was standing in the doorway, her red hair a shock of colour against the white of the wall next to her. She clasped her hands in front of her, an oddly demure pose, like a saint about to pray.

  Rory got up so quickly that he pushed his chair back with his knees and the legs screeched against the floor. He didn’t make eye contact with Thea as he quickly skirted around Delores. Thea stood in Ethan’s classic pose: arms crossed and feet planted firmly.

  She’d be damned if she spoke first.

  Delores took a few steps into the room and, behind her, the door closed noiselessly.

  Beep.

  Rosie’s alive.

  Beep.

  Alive.

  ‘Miss Denestrio is a very lucky girl, wouldn’t you say?’

  Thea wasn’t in the mood for dancing around the subject. ‘You told people she fell. That’s a lie. Someone is in the monastery.’

  ‘So you’ve said. Many times. To the doctors, to Ms Stowe, to anyone who will listen to you.’

  ‘Have you even called the police?’

  ‘Miss Mackenzie, I fully understand your concern. This has been a blow to us all. Of course, accidents like this remind us why we discourage clients from leaving the safety of the Centre in the first place.’

  ‘But it wasn’t an accident, was it?’ Thea deliberately raised her voice. ‘Someone shoved her head into a wall so hard she’s actually swallowed some of her teeth.’

  ‘Yes, as you keep saying. To everyone. You’ve had an exhausting day—’

  ‘No, no, no. Don’t brush this off. I wasn’t imagining it. It happened.’

  Delores walked around Thea to the bedside where she hovered a hand over Rosie, not quite touching her, an odd gesture as if in blessing.

  ‘And, at first light tomorrow, we will have a search party scour the monastery. If there is anyone to be found, we will find them. I don’t mean to make you sound delusional. It’s just, well, this is an island, Miss Mackenzie; it’s hard for someone to just sneak in.’

  ‘I don’t care. I saw it.’

  Delores pressed her lips together briefly.

  ‘And what about Rosie’s family?’ Thea continued. ‘Have they been told? When is she going to be moved to a proper hospital?’

  ‘Miss Denestrio has no family. Her mother recently overdosed – cocaine, I believe. Of course, you probably knew that already. You two have become quite friendly lately.’

  No, she hadn’t known that. There was so much she didn’t know and now may never get the chance to ask. Small talk. They had wasted their words on chocolate and strange cuckoo dreams when really their talk should have been much bigger, because one day they would be sat in a hospital wing realizing they didn’t really know anything about each other.

  ‘As for the hospital,’ Delores continued, ‘it is winter and it is to be expected that the boat service may be temporarily suspended due to weather. I believe snow is forecast. Our facilities here are world-class. Rest assured, Miss Denestrio will get better care here than in a grubby mainland hospital.’

  Delores gave Rosie one last look and then she moved to the door. All the tins and jars of Thea’s mind had now rolled loose from their shopping bag and she was just left with the floppy plastic, so thin you could poke a finger through it. Through her. Her shoulders sagged.

  At the doorway, Delores turned to Thea. ‘Naturally, due to the unusual circumstances today, we will not expect your answer until tomorrow. Take the time to, shall we say, sleep on it.’

  For a few seconds, Thea was confused. Answer? Then she remembered: the sleep study. The Sleepless Elite. Of course, that was why Delores had come! To check on her. To check she still had her little guinea pig.

  Not for Rosie.

  Thea stood straighter, each beep of the machine behind her matched by the pulse throbbing in her temples. When she spoke, it was light and pleasant – but there was steel glinting under her words.

  ‘Oh, I’ve already made up my mind, Delores,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the offer, but, once the boat starts operating again, I’ll be leaving.’

  Delores’s face set, a stone expression with flinty eyes.

  ‘With Rosie.’

  Chapter 20

  Nearly one week had passed since Thea had told Delores that she had decided to leave.

  She had decidedly not left.

  Snow had fallen. Waves had risen. Boats and search parties had been rescheduled. The machine kept beeping at Rosie’s side, October turned to November and Phase Two had started without her.

  It had been a week of sitting next to Rosie, the hours melting away in a sludge of time that lost meaning, so much so that she had to be dragged away for meals and only left willingly to try and phone her mother. Frustratingly, the telephone rooms were nearly always fully booked whenever she tried to use them and then there was a problem with the line so that, once the number was dialled, all Thea got was static. Due to the bad weather, so she was told.

  ‘I have something of a treat for you.’ Delores spoke to the crowd below her on the walkway at breakfast. ‘A rather rare and special treat. There is someone here that I thought you would all like to meet.’

  A murmuring rippled through the people gathered together in the morning light of the cafeteria. Harriet had marched Thea to breakfast, promising, yet again, that the telephone line was due to be fixed.

  Delores continued, ‘This is someone you may want to give a huge round of applause to, for creating the tech that has gone into helping you feel the way you do this morning—’

  At this, Harriet gasped. ‘No! It can’t be! No one’s seen him for d
ecades—’

  ‘May I introduce …’ – here Delores stretched out her arm, beckoning someone – ‘Moses Ing!’

  There was a stunned silence as a man stepped forward. Next to Thea, Harriet gulped in a big breath and then started clapping, her bracelets jangling, as others quickly copied her. A swell of applause spread around the room and the man, dark-skinned with a dandelion-clock puff of grey hair, acknowledged it with a smile, holding his hands out in a classic pose of modesty.

  Harriet put a palm to her chest, her eyes shining and wide. ‘He’s actually here!’

  Moses continued to smile and nod and wave and Delores looked on like a proud mother at a school concert. It seemed Delores wasn’t the real god, after all, just a disciple like the rest of them. The real god was wearing chinos and a button-down shirt.

  Then, just as everyone’s hands began to sting and a few calls of ‘Speech!’ could be heard … he was gone.

  A final wave, and he turned and stepped back out of sight. Delores came forward again and the clapping petered out, disappointedly.

  ‘I’d like to thank Moses for being here today. We know how much he values his privacy, and for him to come and see you here, well, that has been a huge privilege for us all; I’m sure you’d agree. Now, I won’t disturb your breakfast any longer. Please enjoy the rest of your day.’

  The cafeteria hummed with whispered excitement. Thea felt oddly deflated. She hadn’t really imagined what Moses Ing would look like, but it had never occurred to her that he would look so … normal. She’d expected charisma and some sort of rock-star quality, or the opposite, twitchy and awkward. Not like an uncle on a log cabin holiday. But if he had managed to get to the island …

  … then she could now leave. With Rosie.

  Harriet grabbed her elbow and practically forced her into a seat at one of the tables. Today the older woman was wearing a cunningly draped dress that managed to look both informal and also absolutely killer, her blonde hair neatly scraped back into a golden shiny swirl of a ponytail.

  She placed a mushroom coffee in front of Thea. ‘Good news. Tomorrow it looks like the weather’s going to briefly improve enough for a search party to the monastery, to find your ghost.’