The Insomnia Museum

by Laurie Canciani

On what?

  What she would like.

  She always liked me whatever way I was happy to be.

  Are you happy then?

  I won’t shave.

  She was on her own bed where she had stayed in deep thought and deep sleep and a sucking misery for the past three days. He came in and gave her food and drink and sometimes he sat on the end of the bed and rolled two smokes and they smoked together in silence underneath the paper dolls. Sometimes he took her hands and painted her nails black just like his own. She asked for a mirror so she could draw red on her lips.

  How old are you, Dad?

  He looked at her. Why do you want to know?

  Just, I don’t know, for the sake of talking.

  Thirty-eight, I think.

  When’s your birthday?

  May time.

  When’s my birthday?

  June time. Seventeen years ago. It was raining.

  How old is? I think. How old was Mum?

  Thirty-six.

  Is that old?

  No. Not really.

  So.

  So.

  She stood on the bed and combed the loose hairs down to the back of his neck and she tidied his front and straightened his buttons and he drank down to the end of a bottle and looked into the neck for more. There was none. He held her hand and looked at her. She was taller than him when she was standing on her bed and she was as tall as his ears when she was on the floor. He kissed her fingers one by one and told her that he would be back soon.

  Funerals are. They’re not nice. Coffins are unkind to those who don’t understand. The body in the wood goes into the ground before the ghost can crawl back in. People cry. They drink. They talk about before with hearts as heavy as bags of sand. There’s religion. It means nothing. Funerals are for the guilty and the hungry and that’s not a place for you. That’s no place for you. I don’t want you to see her pale and stiff and dressed in something she wouldn’t like.

  Oh Dad.

  He walked away and went into the kitchen to find another bottle and she followed him and he turned back but he didn’t see her. He looked beyond her to the frame of the door above her head or the dark hallway filled with those broken plugs and sweeping piles of junk or to the TV that would not work or to the wallpaper that was ripped and shredded and stuck out like the scales of a long dead fish. The black roses bloomed on the ceiling. He walked from one side of the room to the other and took up his keys and his jangling purse and kissed her on the forehead and went out of the door and he didn’t come back for three long days.

  *

  She watched the light change in the fish tank. It came through the slatted boards on the left in lines that pierced the glass and angled green in the middle of the room. She could feel it on her face. It got into her eyes and into her head. On the TV was nothing. Plastic Jesus nodded when she picked him up and he told her that Dad would not come back again. She chucked him against the wall. A chunk of the paper fell with him.

  There was something that lived behind the paper that she hadn’t seen before. Something blue like Dorothy’s flying birds. She went to it and tugged the lip of the hole. She tore a line of blue which ran behind the Hi-Fi and the boxes that were stacked against the wall. She pulled the edges of the boxes and dragged the junk into a pile in the middle of the room. She ran her finger over the blue line and pinched the wallpaper between her fingers and pulled arcs of it away from the wall. All the dust and the dirt and the falling plaster came away and clouds of white and black circled in the air above her head. She stood on her toes and pressed her breasts against the wall and her fingers tore at the flesh and scales until all the paper was shredded into ribbons that dropped around her feet.

  She stood back and looked. The blue line was more than a thin stream of forgotten paint. It was a picture of the sea. Large. Empty. The sea had lived for years behind the paper without her knowing it. There were black and white waves that crashed into the corners of cliffs and small silver fish that circled in the dark blue and a line between the sea and the sky that swirled with colour and let out its breath on a yellow boat that sat in the middle of the picture. She stared at the wall without blinking and from long ago she remembered the smell of the salt and the rabbit holes cut deep in the hot sand and the smell of vinegar and hot sugar and the feel of the air on.

  Much later Dad came through the door and locked the museum up behind him. He moved slowly over the junk piles in the hallway and then he came into the room. She couldn’t see him where she stood with her eyes fixed on that yellow boat but she could feel the change in the room. His presence had an altering effect. The air moved to accommodate his breath and the light changed to match his height and the floor braced itself under his weight and his thoughts drew the shadows from the edges of the room.

  Do you remember it?

  No, Dad.

  I did it when you were six because you were having trouble sleeping. I thought it was because of your claustrophobia and I painted the wall to try and make the world a bit bigger for you. You hated Mum so much then. I wanted you to remember that day on the beach. You had these little fat hands that spent the whole day in her pocket. We built castles. Ate too much. Complained. Laughed. We were happy but we didn’t know it then. You never do. Not while you’re worried about the stupid bullshit things. Not until you’re far away, almost at the end. Then you know. There’s not enough life left ahead of you to look forward so you start to look back. It’s like looking back down a long black road with pictures of your life drawn on the pavement. That’s when you realize how lucky you were. That’s when you realize how meaningful the meaningless days were.

  Dad.

  Anyway.

  Was the funeral nice?

  Not with those faces. Not with the well it had to happen one day, and the nodding and the now we can all move on. And the pale old woman who was so skinny, as small and delicate as fag ash. She chewed on the book of hymns. I could see her heart beating in her cheeks.

  He sat on the edge of the settee and he looked at the wall and traced the waves with his fingers. She was hungry but she didn’t tell him. He had forgotten the food and forgotten that the cupboards were empty and he would just have started crying again. He told her about the flowers and about the box in the ground and about the stone marker that stays until the letters are worn away by the weather and the hands of people who come to cry before it starts to rain and he told her that the TV would come back on again soon and everything would be back the way it was before.

  Now I just need to sleep.

  Okay, Dad.

  He pulled the carrier bag that he’d dragged in with him to the edge of the settee and he killed the itches on his ankle and head and on the inside of his arm. He heated a little pearl of gutter black forget-me-not on the end of the spoon. He looked at her and she looked at him and they didn’t talk. She watched him fall deep into the chase and she could hear the sound of the waves crashing against the wall and she could feel the black roses growing on the ceiling and everything that would one day come falling down.

  Are you still here, Dad?

  Even she wanted to sleep, he said.

  Who, Dad?

  Judy Garland. All she wanted was a little sleep.

  I’m tired too, Dad. I’m so tired and I’ve forgotten how to fall asleep.

  Well then. My angel. Why don’t you fall awake?

  11

  Who Is Judy Garland?

  OUTSIDE THERE WAS banging. She went into the kitchen and poured the last of the cereal into a bowl and filled it with water that she’d boiled in the kettle and left to cool down overnight. She ate it thinking about hot food. Dad shifted on the settee behind her and opened his mouth and closed it again like a fish. There was that banging again. She washed the cereal bowl out and dried it with a towel and drank three-day-old coffee from a cup with no handle. She went to Dad and stepped on the settee quiet and careful so she didn’t wake him up and she pressed her face against the boards and listened. There was t
raffic. A woman shouted for her children. A man shouted for war. A dog barked. The wind scattered seeds or confetti. The banging came again and she stepped backwards off the settee and turned around and looked past the crooked doorframe and into the dark hallway. The banging was close. It came again. She brought her hands to her face and chewed her twisted finger and she turned to Dad who was still asleep on the settee.

  Dad.

  Yes.

  Can you hear me?

  No.

  There’s someone knocking on the front door.

  Is there?

  What should I do?

  Answer it, Girlie. That’s what you do.

  He turned around on the settee and threw his arms over his face and sank half his head into the tongues of foam that spilled out of the holes in the cushions. She waited but he didn’t turn back. His breathing grew deep. He had become old and frail. The sky shifted behind the boards. Dad moaned. She loosened the tie from around his neck and pulled it through the little knot and hung it on the broken arm of the light above his head. The doll-headed bird bashed its face against the inside of its house and knocked itself to the floor. She picked up Plastic Jesus and shook him.

  There’s a noise, she said.

  Yes.

  What is it?

  Something.

  She carried him in her arms like a doll and stepped into Dad’s boots and tied the laces around her ankles and went into the hallway and looked at the front door. On the other side of the wood was a stranger. A man. Woman. Dog. Thing. Creature. Wizard. Witch. Mum. There was a stranger banging on the other side of the door. The noise came again and it was so loud and so hard that it shook the wood and the frame and all the chains and locks chimed like the bells in the bottom of the music box. A beetle and a woodlouse came out from the letterbox and fell to the carpet and disappeared underneath a cold dinner plate. Her mind played to all the fears of her girlhood. Behind the door there were monsters, demons, bad men who carried knives and forks in their pockets, politicians, grandmothers, pale ghosts, maniacs, rapists, bin men with wide arms and the fat silver moon. Laughing. The door banged and rocked again and the banging got inside her head and that’s when the voice came. The stranger on the other side of the door spoke with the voice of a man.

  Open up. Open up if you’re there. It’s me.

  She listened to his voice and the raw half cough at the edge of his words. She closed her eyes and tried to think on who the stranger was and how tall and the colour of his eyes and the shape of his teeth but all she could see was a blank space shaped just like Dad leaning against the other side of the wood. He coughed again and cleared his throat and she heard the sound of his boots on the ground and his hard voice that called again and asked if there was anyone inside.

  She went into the living room and turned over boxes and piles of clothes that belonged to nobody and the old grandmother looked down from her place inside the frame. She followed her as she searched the room for the keys. She went into the kitchen and stood on the worktop and kicked over jars of vinegar and dismantled the clockwork train he’d been working on and she looked back into the living room as the banging grew faint and far apart and she saw the keys that were small and brass and sticking out of the trouser pocket of Dad’s funeral suit. He moved. She waited.

  She stood above him and watched his face and worked the silver ring around and around the loop in his belt and then she slid them out of his pocket so fast and so quiet and made sure that it didn’t worry him. He kept his eyes closed and his breath light and he said the word sober. Sober. And it was faint.

  She took the keys to the front door and unlocked the big bolt next to the handle and then she unlocked the one closest to the floor where there was a metal latch for pulling and then she unlocked the two that were loose already and she reached up for the one that bolted the wood to the frame and left a groove in the wallpaper where there should’ve been horses. The banging grew quiet. The coughing went dry and silent. She pressed her hand against the door and she could feel the weight of the stranger there as he leaned against the other side of the wood. The smell of cigarettes drifted in from below the door and spread in the air around her feet and came up to her face. The stranger spoke slow and quiet as though he was talking to someone in his own pocket.

  Are you in there?

  Yes.

  Who is that?

  Me.

  I’m looking for someone.

  Are you looking for me?

  No. I’m looking for.

  I don’t know anyone by that name.

  Not even.

  No.

  Can I come in?

  No.

  Why not?

  I don’t know you.

  Please.

  She laid her hand on the handle and slowed her heart and breath that had grown quicker since she spoke to him. Behind her Plastic Jesus nodded his head like a lunatic and Dorothy ran up and down the crooked staircase and sang about scarecrows. The sea swept along the wall in the living room. She felt the light in the hallway change. She looked behind her and saw Dad who had crept from his sleep to stand at the end of the hall. She watched him and he watched her and the silence crushed her into powder.

  I’m opening the door. I want to see who else is out there.

  Do what you need to.

  I will. I’ll open it.

  Then do it. Don’t stay for me. I’m rotten inside.

  You’re not, Dad.

  Look at my hands.

  I’m looking.

  She looked at his hands and the veins that ran through like the inside of a grape held up to the light. His fingernails were long and dirty and the hairs that used to be thick and black were now white and soft and shaped by the wind that he blew out from his chest.

  Are you really sick, Dad?

  Yes, Doll. I’m so sick.

  He was slouching. He stood crooked in the shadows to give his eyes a rest from the light and the wind. He wouldn’t look at her face while she stood there with the handle burning against her hand and he wouldn’t say another thing while she cried. She said the word Mum, too softly. He picked a piece of plaster from the wall and looked at it between his fingers and told nobody that it needed fixing. This needs work too. Can’t just fix the outside. Gotta fix the inside before the hangman knows we’re in here all scared and dirty. He rubbed the plaster between his fingers until it was dust and then he went into the living room and back into the green glow.

  She let go of the handle and stood away from the door and twisted the ugly little finger until her finger bones ached. The door didn’t bang and rattle but the voice kept on talking until it knew it talked only to itself. Time passed and the weight against the wood was lifted and the smell of cigarette smoke was all ate up by the hot dusty air of the museum again. The stranger pushed a thing through the letterbox and she stepped back and watched it flutter onto the carpet. She picked it up. It was a little piece of card with long ripped edges and she held it to the shaft of light and saw the numbers scrawled in black ink on one side.

  If you ever need anything, the man said.

  Okay.

  I honestly can’t keep doing it.

  Fine.

  I’ll see you.

  Hope you do, Mister.

  Her voice was small and weak and she wondered if he’d heard anything from her at all. Hope you do, Mister. She wiped her eyes and locked the locks and she watched the shadow move away beneath the frame of the door and she held the card to the light and she looked at it for a long time. White card. Long numbers. On the back of the card was a torn picture and she looked at it and thought on what it could’ve been when it was whole. It was blue and there were rocks and sand and the edge of a wave and the end of a. Two big eyes like. She slipped the card into her back pocket and thought on what it could’ve been when it was put back together again.

  She went into the living room and he smiled at her from the settee and opened his arms fat and wide and she trod over the holes in the carpet and went past
the green glow and the old woman who looked down at them both. She stood on the settee and turned the picture around so it faced the wall and she tucked herself into Dad and let him hold her there and cover her head with kisses.

  12

  See Sick

  SHE SLEPT FOR a long.

  The twisted veins that were tucked in the wells and hollows of the museum burst sometime in the night and she remembered it as a shock of pink that fell across her eyelids and drove her deeper into his coat. The lights were working again and so was the TV. It glowed and snapped with changing scenes and played a song so loud she heard it in her sleep. She heard it all the way past the toss and turn of shallow rest and down into her dreaming where usually nothing could get but the moths and Mum and some memory of happiness folded back on itself across the sharp knife-edge of time.

  She woke up on the settee with the coat around her and the TV fuzzing in the corner and the lights off and the picture of the old woman still turned around on the middle wall above her. Dad was gone. There were carrier bags of food tins on the worktop in the kitchen and three bottles of pop in front of her and the piles of junk had been re-stacked against the walls and against the sea that still raged between the rocks and sky and crooked sun in the living room. The bird bashed its head against the walls of its house. She didn’t know. She pushed the coat off and put in a video and played something black and white and blurred on one side. She ran the water in the kitchen and drank from a washed glass that had been left for her next to a packet of red sweets. She ate. Drank. She coloured in a leaflet that had been pushed through the letterbox and then she lay down on the worktop and watched the black roses blooming on the ceiling. She didn’t think on Mum. Not then. Because.

  Wasn’t she a good daughter? Mad, like him. Wasn’t she such a good?

  In the night he came home coughing and talking to nobody while she was in bed. He moved with heavy feet and slipped past boxes and he called himself bastard and she rolled in her blankets and turned to face the door but he didn’t come in. She slipped her hand underneath her pillow and touched the card that the strange man had slid through the letterbox. The rain was beating down on the other side of the ceiling and on the walls and on the glass. She turned to face the sound and closed her eyes and when she opened them again it was light.