While You Sleep

by Stephanie Merritt

  A strong wind had risen during the evening; it buffeted the car as she followed the road out on to the open moor, towards the line of hills against the inky sky. Shreds of cloud breezed across a fat gibbous moon, haloed with a ring of haze against the dark. Though she felt confident of her way this time, she could not help but be conscious of the vast emptiness of the landscape all around her and the night pressing in. The car gave her cause for concern, too: one of the headlamps appeared permanently dimmed and turned inward, even on full beam, and the heater produced nothing but a smell of burnt dust, while a curious knocking occurred intermittently from somewhere under the chassis. Even so, it was better than being out here on the bike, in the rain. She set her jaw and concentrated hard on the road ahead, alert to movements in the corner of her vision. Something streaked out of the heather into her path, pausing for the space of a heartbeat, its bright eyes two hard gems in the reflected light. Zoe stamped on the brake but it had melted away into shadow on the other side of the road. She breathed hard, cursing aloud, waiting for the pounding under her ribs to settle; a fox, probably, she told herself, stupid to be so jittery. But she cut her speed, leaning forward over the wheel to peer into the thick darkness. It would be easy to go off the track here, if you allowed your attention to wander even briefly.

  She almost missed the fork in the road; it appeared sooner than she expected. Zoe glanced in the mirror and signalled, though there were no other cars, and in that instant she saw, unmistakably, a figure blocking the view through the rear window, the silhouette of a person in the back seat. She stifled a cry, tried to look over her shoulder but turned instinctively the wrong way; wildly she wrenched her head back to the left, certain that someone was there, motionless, in the corner of her eye. But in trying to steer into the turning and see behind her at the same time she took her eyes off the road, swerving enough that the nearside wheels missed the tarmac and the car pitched slightly into a shallow ditch that ran along the verge. She braked hard, heart hammering, as she turned fully to look at the back seat. It was empty; of course it was.

  She swore loudly, slamming the heel of her hand against the wheel, as she tried to bring her breathing under control. The Golf was half on the road, one of its back wheels in the ditch, but listing only a little. She put it in first and tried to accelerate away, but heard the frantic spinning of the tyres on mud, unable to find purchase. Sweat prickled on her palms; she wiped them on her jeans and breathed deeply, in for two and out for four, the way Dr Schlesinger had shown her. It’s fine, she told herself; everything is going to be fine. Again, she was distracted by that sensation of movement at the edge of her line of sight. She snapped around and saw through the rear window, some way back along the road, the figure in the long coat she had seen two nights earlier, when she had been stranded on the bike. Most likely a shepherd, Mick had said. The person was walking unhurriedly towards the car, the skirts of his or her coat whipped by the wind, whose gusts seemed even louder out here. Zoe unfastened her seatbelt and reached for the door, thinking she would ask the stranger to help her push the car back on to the road, but even as her fingers closed on the handle she was gripped by an overwhelming sense of dread.

  The figure continued to approach at a curiously slow pace, but in the mirror Zoe could see that what she had taken for a long waterproof riding coat was more like an old-fashioned cloak, with a hood that obscured the person’s face; they also held their hands wrapped inside the flapping material, so that no part of them could be seen. She knew, inexplicably but with no trace of doubt, that she must not address the figure, above all not allow it to lift up its hood. She put the car in gear and stamped on the pedal, but was met only with the futile spinning of wheels until the engine cut out. She glanced behind; the person in the cloak was about twenty yards away and narrowing the distance with their steady, lurching gait. She wrenched the key again in the ignition; the starter strained and strained before hiccupping into silence. You’re flooding the engine, said Dan’s voice in her head, in a familiar, weary tone. She tried once more, with greater desperation and the same result. In the rear-view mirror, the person had almost reached the car; as the wind snagged at their cloak, Zoe had the impression of long skirts billowing beneath it, caught around bone-thin legs. Fear spread coldly along her limbs until her hands and feet prickled with loss of feeling; it’s a shepherd, she told herself, just a shepherd, though she had the presence of mind to jam her elbow down on the button beside her to lock her door. The car was so old it didn’t have central locking; she lunged across to hit the lock on the passenger door as a shadow fell across the rear window. She tried to swallow but her throat had clenched shut; she bowed her head in a gesture of submission and waited for the rap on the window, the rattle of the handle.

  Instead, the car was flooded with sudden light. Zoe looked up, surprised, to see a pair of headlights approaching at speed from the opposite direction. A dark-blue pickup truck slammed to a halt alongside; her initial relief ebbed away when she saw that Dougie Reid was driving it. Beside him, in the passenger seat, sat Annag, the barmaid from the Stag, who shot Zoe a brief look of sullen contempt before turning away.

  Dougie jumped down, grinning. He lifted the cigarette stub from his lip and shouted through her window.

  ‘Got yourself in a wee mess then, eh?’ He was delighted to find her in need of rescue, she could tell. He tugged at the handle of the driver’s door; reluctantly, Zoe lifted the lock. Then, remembering, whipped her head around to look behind, to left and right. There was no sign of the figure in the cloak. That was absurd. But she had no time to ponder an explanation before Dougie opened the door.

  ‘I think I took the turning too fast,’ she said. ‘The back wheel’s stuck.’

  ‘Aye, that’s a nasty bend if you’re no used to it.’ He sounded unexpectedly placatory. ‘You’ll need a wee push. Start her up for me.’

  ‘I can’t get it to start.’ She had slipped into her default apologetic tone, the one she had so often found herself using to Dan, and was angry at her own weakness. It was Dougie who had sold her a car that wouldn’t start; he should be apologising to her. Dan would make her feel it was her fault. The car was fine before, he would say. She twitched her head, as if the voice could be shaken off like a fly.

  Dougie sized her up. ‘Aye, there’s a knack. Hop out.’

  She climbed out of the car and exchanged places with him. The wind snapped her hair into her eyes; she pushed it away and turned slowly, searching the dark expanse of the moors and the hills beyond. There was no sign of anyone out walking. She wondered if she could have imagined it – but twice, the same figure? She glanced at the truck. Annag had pulled down the sun visor and was stretching up to apply lipstick in its mirror. Shadow obscured half her face; Zoe could not see, but suspected it was her own Chanel lipstick and that the girl was deliberately trying to provoke her. She looked away.

  The car made a throaty sound and coughed into life. Dougie jumped out and gestured for her to take his place.

  ‘I’ll give you a good hard shove from behind, eh?’ He winked. Zoe responded with a feeble smile. She would have liked to tell him to fuck off, but was aware that she was at present in his debt. He tapped his knuckles on the window of the truck as he passed. ‘Oi, you! Make yourself useful and help me push.’

  Annag looked at them through the smeared glass with a hauteur that suggested she could not believe this was being asked of her. Eventually she climbed down with an exaggerated show of resistance, tugging down her very short tube skirt.

  ‘I’m no getting shite all over maself because she cannae drive properly,’ she said, aggressively champing gum. Zoe noticed a long run in the girl’s tights and dirt crusted over her studded ankle boots.

  ‘Chrissakes.’ Dougie rolled his eyes. ‘All right – you get in there and steer and Mrs Adams can help me push. That OK with your ladyship?’

  Annag darted him a sour look and wedged herself primly into the driver’s seat.

  ‘You OK?’ Dougie
asked, through his roll-up, as Zoe braced herself against the rear bumper beside him. It seemed a perfunctory enquiry; she nodded. ‘No going to do your back or anything?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  He banged on the rear window with a fist. In response, Annag revved the engine; Dougie nodded to Zoe and she shouldered the whole of her bodyweight against the car, willing it to move. Mud sprayed up from the trapped wheel, spattering their faces; Dougie heaved until veins stood out at his temples, and as the whine of the engine reached an unbearable pitch, the car jerked forward on to the road, flinging Zoe and Dougie into the rut it left behind.

  ‘Thanks.’ She picked herself up, rubbing at the mud on her jeans. ‘Sorry to put you to all this trouble.’

  ‘No trouble at all, hen.’ Dougie patted her on the shoulder, as the car door opened and Annag’s thick legs swung out. ‘Lucky for you we were passing by.’

  Zoe made a non-committal noise. That Dougie, who must be in his mid-forties at least, should be out so late with a sixteen-year-old girl in the middle of nowhere, made her uncomfortable if she paused to think about the implications, but she told herself it was not her problem. The girl didn’t seem at all troubled; if anything, she carried herself with a kind of insouciance, bothered only by Zoe’s imposition on her time. They might be related, Zoe thought, for all she knew; half the islanders seemed to be. She must not become like the village gossips, permanently alert to scandal. He was probably giving her a lift, that’s all. Though she could not help wondering where they could have been coming from when they found her; as far as she knew, there was nothing along that stretch of road until you came to the McBride house. The thought unnerved her; she hoped Dougie had not taken it upon himself to drop by and check on the car again. But if he had sought to find her there alone, he would not have brought the girl, surely? She decided to ask Mick to have a quiet word with him about turning up unannounced. Now was not the time to risk giving offence.

  ‘Did you see someone walking along the road just now?’ she asked, effortfully casual, as Dougie brushed his jacket down. He looked up, interested.

  ‘Out here? No. Why, did you?’

  ‘I thought I might have. A shepherd, maybe.’ She watched as Annag climbed back into the cab of the truck and ostentatiously lit a cigarette from a pack on the dashboard.

  ‘I doubt that, hen,’ Dougie said. His usual mocking expression had turned serious. ‘No shepherds on the moor, this time of night. They don’t use the bothies up here any more.’

  ‘I guess I was mistaken.’ She smiled politely and moved towards the car.

  ‘Maybe you’ve started seeing things.’ He was watching her with a sly grin. ‘They say the McBride house’ll do that to some folk.’

  ‘It was probably a fox. I don’t have my glasses on. Thanks for your help. I should get going.’ She eased herself back into the driver’s seat. A ghost of cheap perfume and minty gum hung in the air. Dougie interposed himself before she could close the door and leaned in, one arm resting on the roof.

  ‘Aye – fox, shepherd, easy mistake.’ His tone was half-amused, half-mocking. ‘I’d best come out and take a look at that ignition sometime, though. Don’t want you to have any trouble getting her going.’

  ‘Oh – I’m sure it’ll be fine.’

  ‘Like I said, no bother at all. I’ll be seeing you, then.’ He bent his head down to give her a parting smile that looked like a leer in the half-light; she caught a whiff of tobacco and something sharper, more animal. Before she could protest further, he slapped the roof twice, as if giving her a signal to depart, and walked away to his truck. Zoe slammed the driver’s door, her hands shaking, and pulled away so quickly that the tyres squealed on the road.

  13

  She rounded the final bend in the drive, expecting the white shock of the security light as the car approached, but the house remained stubbornly dark even as she pulled up outside. At once she felt a torsion in her gut, a knife-twist of apprehension. Before she set out for Charles’s that evening she had remembered to leave the light on in the entrance hall, so that she wouldn’t have to enter a dark house when she returned, but now she could see no welcoming glow through the windows either side of the front door. Perhaps she had only thought about leaving on the light, but not actually done so; she rummaged in her memory but found nothing certain. The disrupted nights were fraying her concentration; more than once in the past day or two she had let the kettle boil dry or left the bath to overflow, with no recollection of having put either on. She was not unduly worried; she had been through this before, and besides, she was probably still a little jet-lagged. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t solve.

  She sat with the engine running, not wanting to switch off the headlamps which were currently her only source of light. Wind shook the little car vigorously, like a dog with a rabbit between its teeth.

  The wind must have caused a power failure, she reasoned. That would make sense. She spread her hands on her thighs and looked at them, weighing up what to do. If she hadn’t been so jittery from the events of her journey across the moor, she might have felt better able to think clearly. She should call Mick, ask him to come out and take a look, see if he could fix the problem; if not, he could at least start the generator for her. Although he would not be pleased; he had already given up a morning to show her how to work the generator herself, precisely so that she would be able to manage if bad weather affected the power. She recalled, with a flush of shame, how she had been so distracted by the dream of her first night in the house that she had barely paid attention to his careful instructions. Even if she had been able to remember, she felt an instinctive reluctance to venture down into that cellar on her own, in the dark. She glanced at her watch; it was ten to midnight on a Sunday. Mick and Kaye would no doubt be in bed; they had children who needed to be up for school in the morning. It was hardly fair to disturb them now, when she should be able to do this for herself. She would not have them thinking she was so helpless. In any case, she had intended to go straight to bed. She could do that well enough by the light of the storm lantern; if the power was still down in the morning she could call Mick then, when the gale had blown over.

  She looked out at the house. As always, night lent its eccentric aspect an air of menace, the sense that it was somehow off-kilter. The blank windows betrayed nothing. A lone gull stood sentinel on the gable above the front porch, keening like a widow in mourning. The thought of spending a night alone there without light sent a thick chill rippling up to her nape and that same tingling numbness through her limbs. A brief image of the figure on the moor, the particular flapping of its cloak, flashed behind her eyes and she realised her hands were shaking. This was ridiculous. She needed to get inside, light the lantern, make herself a hot drink. The wood burner would not be affected by the power cut; at least there would be warmth and hot water. She could make it cosy. She toyed with the idea of calling Edward; she was sure he would jump straight in his car and come out to spend the night if she asked him. Almost as quickly, she decided against it. If she must be careful not to use Edward as a distraction while she was here, she must guard equally against using him as a crutch, to take the edge off the hardship of being alone. She took a deep breath, rummaged in her bag for the keys, and stepped out to unlock the front door, leaving the headlights on while she did so.

  She pushed the heavy door open into an expectant hush that made her think of churches, an effect heightened by the thick scent of lilies, now past their bloom. A red dot flashed on the telephone table. She flicked the light switch a few times; nothing happened. Fumbling for her cell phone, she held out its small blue glare while she crunched back over gravel to turn off the headlamps. The darkness pressed in closer, though she was surprised to see, after a few moments’ adjustment, how much the moon illuminated when there was no artificial light to compete. She locked the front door behind her and shot the iron bolts, pushing from her mind the foolish notion that there might be someone in the house. Now that she wa
s inside, she became aware of another smell, stronger than the lilies; a smell of decay, of something dead and rotting. Must be a problem with the drains, she told herself; another thing for Mick to fix in the morning.

  To delay the inevitable progress through the dark corridor beyond to the kitchen in search of the storm lantern and matches, she pressed a button on the answerphone and Dan’s voice filled the hallway, echoing strangely.

  Hey, Zo, it’s me. So – I just picked up your message, I was at Leah’s for the weekend. You could have tried my cell. A pause, a rustling while he shifted the receiver, a faint sigh, as if he were considering how to proceed. I hope you’re doing OK. I’ve been worried about you, obviously. Another pause; then, more decisive, as if he had prepared a speech: Look, I found your pills. And I know you didn’t leave them behind by mistake, because they were stuffed down the side of the mattress on your bed. The bed in the spare room, I mean. So – I called Dr Schlesinger. Zoe felt her scalp constrict. And – of course, you know this – she said she hasn’t seen you for a couple months. She was surprised because she was under the impression that I knew. He left a pause, to allow for impact. So you can see why I’m worried. You’re not supposed to stop taking them like that – she said the side effects can be pretty bad. I didn’t know what to do so – I know you’ll be mad about this, but I called your mom. She’s upset because she’s been emailing and you haven’t replied and she doesn’t know how to get a hold of you. So – I thought maybe I could give her this number and if you won’t talk to me, maybe she—