Sleepwalkers

by Tom Grieves

  Toby was peering at a stack of cans, reading the labels when she came up next to him and said his name softly, urgently.

  ‘Toby.’

  ‘Oh, hello Miss.’ He was clearly surprised by her presence. He glanced around him, a little nervous, then pulled a can of beans from the shelf. ‘How are you?’ he enquired with bewildering politeness.

  ‘Me? I’m fine. Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Mum’s making a big chilli con carne.’ He held up the can.

  ‘That’s … nice.’ He seemed so normal. She noticed that one of her shoelaces was undone, and her hand went to her hair to straighten it, to calm herself down.

  ‘Do you need beans too?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I’m here to see you.’

  ‘Mum says I shouldn’t worry about all that other stuff so much. She thinks I make it worse that way.’

  ‘Listen, before she sees me—’

  ‘She said—’

  ‘Toby. Just, just listen. Please. This is going to sound a bit odd. A lot odd. But, look, what’s your earliest memory?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to find out about you, work out what’s wrong. And everything about you, every fact I can find about you just stops before you’re three. There’s nothing I can find about you before you were three years old.’

  ‘That’s weird.’

  ‘It is.’ She looked nervously about her. ‘I want you to think. Think back to when you were little. What’s the earliest thing you can remember?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘No. Think, Toby. It’s important.’

  ‘I dunno, I …’ he blushed, self-conscious, like he was back in the classroom. Anna waited, her eyes glued to his mouth. She noticed a tiny scar that ran from his bottom lip to his chin. ‘I mean, there’s that teddy bear I guess, but, no, that’s not right. Duh!’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Well, there was this big guy and this teddy and he’s holding it up above his head … but I’ve, like, I’ve never had a teddy. A teddy, how weak is that?’ He laughed and looked away, embarrassed. ‘Anyhow, you don’t really need me—’

  But Anna had turned and slipped into the next aisle. She heard Toby’s voice drift off as he realised she’d gone, then heard his mother’s voice call out to him.

  ‘Have you got them, love?’

  The voice sounded maternal, kind and warm.

  ‘You bet,’ came his reply. Sometimes he sounded so much younger than his fifteen years, she thought. Like he’d been stopped from growing up. But then she thought about the way he would look at her and he felt a million years older.

  ‘We’ll need two tins,’ his mother continued. She heard the cans drop into the metal trolley. They were walking away now. ‘Tell you what, after we’ve got this into the car, why don’t we stop off at that cafe – get a croissant and a hot chocolate? Doesn’t that sound fun?’

  Anna watched them pay for their items and load them into the car. Toby seemed so happy. Terry had made everything seem crazy and dangerous – a world of cameras and despotic control. She couldn’t marry the image of this goofy kid with the paranoia he had fed her. But even after they had driven away and left her behind, even when she found herself flicking through a magazine near the check-out, still she found that her heart fluttered with fear of something unknown; something she was creeping towards without enough knowledge to do so safely.

  NINE

  ‘Don’t moan about the heat, for fuck’s sake. Moaning about the heat’s like moaning about the food, you dickhead.’

  We scrabble over the loose rocks and reach the top of the hill. It’s so bright, the sky feels white, not blue. I’m dripping with sweat. I look down – everyone else is wearing boots, but I’m wearing sandals. My toes are cut to ribbons. The guy next to me is laughing. There are four of us, my good mates. One of them takes off his helmet and I wonder why I don’t have one. Jacko pats me hard on the head and everyone laughs again.

  Jesus, I don’t have anything. I don’t have water or food or proper boots or anything sensible, and it’s only half nine and it’s so fucking hot I’m going to die out here.

  This is a dream. Come on. Wake up.

  I do. I pull the sheets off and rush to the small dressing cabinet where an open diary waits for the latest entry. It’s already half-full and each time the writing is scrawled, hasty, messed up by sleep. I write down as much as I can remember and then sit back. I stretch and yawn, then flick back through the diary. Jacko.

  I find his name again in another dream. My scrawl describes him standing over me in a dark cave somewhere. In that dream I was a little scared of him. This morning I remember him as a mate. I flick through other pages – some bad drawings, lots of question marks and underlinings. It looks … insane. As I close it, there’s a knock on the door.

  It’s Edward, still in his pyjamas, unshaven (a thin, patchy mass of white dander), with a tray of breakfast: two boiled eggs, some toast cut into triangles and two glasses of port. He grins.

  ‘Morning, Ben. Sleep?’

  ‘Yes, well, thank you.’

  ‘I’m starving. Out the way, squire.’

  He pushes past and dumps the tray on the desk while I move the diary to safety. He sits on the edge of the bed and tucks into his egg. This is the way each morning begins.

  ‘Dreams?’

  I nod. I’ve told him a little about my position and as a result he’s become a confidant of sorts. I guess I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Everything has been boiling away inside and he seemed as good a person as any. Better. He and I are loners and he’s so bloody odd that no one would listen to a word he says. During my time here, we’ve had no visitors. The phone has never rung. I had to check it one day, assuming we must be disconnected, and was surprised to hear a dial tone.

  Edward makes a routine trip to the supermarket where he buys discounted goods. He eats fruit that I would have chucked out weeks ago. His drinking is unpredictable. I once found him sleeping in the kitchen at five-thirty in the evening, a saucepan of baked beans charred on the stove. He’s what posh people would call ‘a character’.

  ‘So. Go on, tell,’ he barks, as he scoops up his egg and slurps the yolk down. I describe the dream and he laughs as he listens. ‘You been abroad much?’ he asks.

  ‘Seems like it.’

  ‘Mm,’ he nods, taking a swig of his port. ‘At least you weren’t naked. Dreams like that, you always end up naked. Anxiety something, isn’t it?’ He finishes the port and reaches for the second glass. I smile – it’s never for me, we both know I wouldn’t drink at this hour, but he likes the delicacy of a big hit in two smaller glasses. ‘Did I tell you the time when Martine ended up naked outside the house? Went to get the milk, trapped her towel in the door, it slammed shut and ripped right off her.’ He starts to laugh, remembering it. I grin as his laugh gets louder and faster. He’s always like this. ‘And then, oh Jesus, apparently the door wouldn’t open cos it had got wedged shut – was the wind or something, so she couldn’t get herself decent and people were walking past with their eyes on stalks!’ The laugh is a barking wheeze. He raises one hand to the sky, as though he can balance himself back into control. ‘She had a fine body, my darling, before the years got to her … oh dear, I remember her telling me all about it over dinner that night and the kids were hooting and she went red just recounting it, my sweet little …’

  The laugh is fading and his eyes are red. Every story ends like this. Sadder than its start. This is because he is talking about a family that has abandoned him. The laugh and the wheeze end and he finishes the port before sighing. He pats the sagging bed as though it were a faithful dog. I look down, a little embarrassed, still not sure how to deal with these moments. He’ll talk about the family that left him so honestly and with so much self-hatred that I don’t know what to say or where to put myself.

  As far as I can work out – Ed’s stories seem to contradict themselves at times so I have to pay attention – Ed was a happily married m
an: father of two and proud husband of Martine. But then he did something too shameful to speak of. Whatever it was (I think he must have got drunk and hit her, but maybe there was another woman), the family then upped sticks and left. And now he lives on his own, having sold everything but the house to keep afloat. The house itself is bare but for his family’s rooms which are still tidy, awaiting their return, desperate for a sign that he has finally been forgiven. He writes to them once a week, posting the letters to the same address but never receiving a reply. I wonder if they live there any more.

  I’ve started doing odd jobs for Edward around the house. I stopped paying hotel ‘bills’ – he stopped asking – and so try to make myself helpful to make up for it. I cook (occasionally and badly) and mend things which have worn themselves out. The wallpaper in his daughter’s bedroom is today’s task. I open a window before I start and pause to glance around the room. There is little personality here. No children’s drawings on the wall or faded photographs. Just a girl’s name (Tabitha) stencilled to the door (the letters have been touched up over the years), a bed, a pink beanbag and a desk with some old books lined neatly across it.

  I reattach the wallpaper without too much difficulty. Smoothing it back with my hand, I find my mind pulling towards Emma. The desk we bought her came flat-packed in large cardboard boxes and took an afternoon of swearing to assemble. Tabitha’s desk is older and far sturdier. I imagine Edward’s little girl sitting here studiously finishing her homework. I remember Emma holding crayons like daggers, her tongue touching her top lip as she scratched formless shapes on scraps of paper. I wonder if she is still there.

  Suddenly I find I’m about to cry. I miss my children. I miss my wife. I miss my old, dull, average life and I don’t understand why I have suddenly been shunted into this weird, never-world. If I just went back, just said I’d gone on a bender, apologised, squeezed my eyes shut and went on as I was then I’d be able to rub my face in my little girl’s neck. I’d be able to squeeze little Joe so tight he’d squeal with laughter. And Carrie would put her arms around me and hold me tight. If I went back.

  I’m a crumpled mess when Edward walks in and finds me. He’s carrying a small milk jug with fresh flowers in it – thin, delicate stems that have been snatched from the overgrown back garden. He places them on the desk and stands back to admire the effect. The pretty flowers are out of place, but he seems happy. His fingers twitch with pleasure.

  ‘She won’t see ’em, I bet, but you never know,’ he grins. Of course she won’t see them, they’ll have wilted by the end of the day. I wonder how old she is now. Although Edward is cagey with the details, the family feel like they’ve been gone twenty years, at least. Does he not realise that his daughter will now be a woman? His little girl will never come running to the front door with a gummy grin and open arms. She’ll stand by the car, a cold glare and a handbag full of recriminations.

  ‘Yeah, you never know,’ he says. ‘You look like dog’s mess. What’s up, feller?’

  He makes me laugh. I tell him I miss my kids and he puts an arm around me and nods, then pats my shoulder as he gets up to leave.

  ‘I thought I’d do sausages tonight.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘You don’t need any of those fiddly vegetables, do you?’

  ‘They’re for fancy dans, I thought.’

  ‘Quite right. Get your vitamin C from the ketchup.’

  ‘Dinner of champions,’ I say, and as I say it someone starts banging hard at the back of my brain. Edward doesn’t notice. He just waves a goodbye – a hand flung vaguely in my direction.

  But I’ve just remembered something. Dinner of champions. The words come from cragged teeth, a northern brogue. A tall, muscled man standing on rough rocks in the blinding sun. Jacko. ‘Dinner of champions, man,’ he spits out with a laugh as he gazes down at the barren wasteland below us. He wears a soldier’s uniform. He is Sergeant James McFarlane. He is my colleague and friend. I am a soldier.

  Before Edward leaves the room, I call out to him – a blurt of shock:

  ‘I was in Iraq.’

  He looks at me and sees my surprise. I notice his fingers start to twitch, like he’s excited.

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘I was a soldier. I remember … something.’

  ‘A dream?’

  ‘No. Real. I have a friend.’

  A friend. Jacko.

  Edward looks at me and frowns and walks away. I’m not sure what his problem is, but I’m too wrapped up in this to worry. A hand has reached out to me from the darkness.

  *

  I walk to a bus stop at the far end of town rather than the one nearest the B&B. I wait half an hour then take a small, bumpy trip, away from the coast and inland, where I make two more changes. My map says I should be fifty miles from Edward’s place now and I think that’s safe enough. I stop in the nearest town and find an internet cafe. It’s near the train station, on a run-down road with a youth hostel and an offlicence. I’m nervous of going in and find myself wandering around the town for ages before I’m ready.

  A young man with an aggressive haircut and loads of piercings sits at a desk. He’s reading a book. It’s one of those big, thick classics by some dead writer that I don’t know. I ask if I can use a computer and he’s well polite in response; shows me a monitor, tells me the rate and that I should come back and pay when I’m finished. I sit down and am pleased that the guy can’t see what I’m looking at. My hands pause over the computer. I glance back and catch the lad’s eye before he slumps back into his novel.

  I type the words into the computer, faltering. Sergeant James McFarlane. There are thousands of results and my initial excitement dies quickly – too many people with the same name. I limit the search to the UK, and after a couple of false starts I find him. His face pops up at me with a cheery grin that takes my breath away. It’s him. Smiling at me. Jacko. Mate. Fuck!

  I get the details in bits and bobs: his retirement from the army, his injuries and commendations. There’s a photograph of him with two young children, in full dress. One of the kids bashfully holds up a medal. I never got to spend much time on the computer at home. Family life was always too distracting and I’m amazed by how much you can find with a few finger taps. I look at my friend and old memories bubble up. I suddenly remember sitting facing him in the back of an open truck, with other guys around. He’s telling a story about sex with some tough nut’s daughter – everyone’s laughing, we’re waiting to go. We’re going to fight. He’s telling the story so everyone can hear, but it’s really just for me. We are best friends. He’s joking that he’s going to a combat zone because it’s safer than facing this bird’s dad. At least he can carry a gun out there …

  I stare at the screen: Jacko smiles right back. I am giddy with the rush of old feelings. I have no real sense of the man, but I’m trembling at his grin and the faint memory of his matey laugh. I have to find him.

  I find a website which tells me it can do what I want, but I need to pay. It’s only five pounds, but I don’t have a credit card. I go to the lad at the desk who laughs at me. You can get a free trial for a week. Apparently that’s what everyone does. He shows me how to set up a free email address and then after a few clicks I’m in.

  ‘Where have you been?’ the lad asks. I think I get away with it by telling him I’m in my forties. But the question ruffles me. Where have I been?

  The website does exactly what I ask and I get an address ridiculously quickly. I scribble it down on a piece of paper then delete all of the websites I’ve visited. I stand and go over to pay.

  ‘Thirty quid, then,’ he says, stretching.

  ‘What?’ I’m appalled. The price he’d quoted was five pounds per hour.

  ‘Six hours. Thirty quid,’ he says, as though I’m being difficult. I glance at my watch. Jesus Christ, he’s right, it’s late. I glance outside – it looks dark out there. I hand him the money without speaking and turn for the door, panicking. ‘See you then,’ he ca
lls out sarcastically as I push through the door.

  I’ve lost hours in that room and I don’t understand it. Have I really been so wrapped up in that computer that I’ve not noticed the time passing? It doesn’t seem possible. My neck is sore and I’m scared again. It’s dark, it’ll take me hours to get back to Edward’s place on unfamiliar roads and I don’t trust my mind. All I have is some cash – not enough cash – and an address for someone I may have once known but who may no longer live there. I thought I was over this, but now that the fear scrapes away at me I feel all of my old horrors all too well.

  I duck into a back alley and hurry along, away from that place. I’m bursting with fear and need to get rid of it. I need to punch my way out of it. I want to mug someone. Jesus. I want to hit someone, steal something, hurt someone. Somehow that is going to make me feel better. I try to think about this rationally, but there’s a woman on her own, right there, dropping her keys onto the pavement as she’s about to enter her house. And I find myself walking towards her.

  She turns to look at me as I get to her. She’s pretty, a face that’s open and trusting. The door is ajar and the house is dark inside. She’s alone and if I do this now, no one will catch me. I feel like I’ve done this before. I look at her and I can see that she’s scared.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I stammer. I’m about to hit her. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say again. She’s not moving, it’s like she’s waiting for me to do it, get it over with. The rage is still there, pumping inside me, urging me on. Her handbag will have money in it. There will be other stuff worth stealing in the house. She’s well dressed. Easy meat. My ears are pounding, I feel saliva in my mouth, I can taste the urge to kick and punch and break.

  I turn my back on her. I don’t walk away, but I turn my back on her and I’m breathing fast. She hasn’t moved. Get inside, please, get inside you silly cow.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asks. Oh God.