by Jonathan Coe
‘Yes, but… it frightened me. It felt so real.’ Meekly accusing, she said: ‘You were pressing quite hard.’
He smiled again. ‘Yes, but you do trust me, don’t you? Not to hurt you.’
She felt her hand squeezed, her wrist stroked. ‘I suppose so.’
‘I suppose so?’
The weight of his wounded silence was too much to bear. ‘Yes, of course I do. But that’s not really the point, is it?’
‘I think it’s very much the point. What did you think I was going to do to you?’
As he said this, he brought his hand close to her face again. Her eyelids closed of their own accord, and he pressed against them with his fingertips.
‘I spy,’ he whispered, ‘with my little eye. You’re not scared now, are you?’
‘No,’ said Sarah, doubtfully.
Then he pressed harder.
‘And now?’
And that was how it had begun, the thing they came to refer to as ‘the game’, and which became more and more closely associated with their lovemaking; until they began to play it (or rather Gregory began to play it, for Sarah was never anything more than his passive accomplice) not just post-coitally, but even during the act itself; so that it was not uncommon for him actually to reach his climax while lying on top of her, poised above her face, his first and second fingers pressed ever more firmly, ever more testingly, against her closed eyelids.
All of which Sarah remembered now, in the few instants she lay beneath Gregory tonight, as he adopted this position for one more time. For the last time, as it turned out: because all at once, possessed by a spirit of rebellion and a physical strength which surprised them both, she then let out a thin, final shriek of ‘No!’ and heaved Gregory away from her, so that he rolled off the bed and crashed naked to the floor.
‘Jesus Christ, woman!’
Sarah got out of bed and pulled her nightdress back on.
‘What the fuck was that for?’
Now she took her dressing-gown from its hook on the back of the door and struggled into it, wriggling to find the sleeves. Gregory knelt beside the bed, winded, cradling his forehead and struggling for breath.
‘Are you going to answer me or what?’
Sarah opened the door wordlessly and ran down the corridor towards the bathroom. She locked the door and sat on the toilet and wept. She rocked back and forth for several minutes. Slowly the crying and the rocking came to an end, and then she washed her face in cold water and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her mouth was set in an unfamiliar, resolute line. She began to rehearse the appropriate phrases.
Gregory, I’m sorry but I’ve had enough.
I think it would be better if we didn’t see each other any more.
This just isn’t working, is it?
I think we should just try to be friends from now on.
Strangely, once she had composed the speech in her mind, she found herself looking forward to delivering it: or rather anticipating, with a faint, timorous glow, her sense of satisfaction at having upset at least one of Gregory’s most firmly rooted assumptions. In five minutes’ time, she told herself, it would all be over: and it seemed suddenly incredible that a relationship which had dragged on, now, for more than a year, bringing in its wake most of what she had learned about happiness but also – and more and more, in recent months –a good deal of frustration, could be brought to an end in a few moments, with a handful of well-chosen sentences: consigning her to – what? – freedom, presumably, the freedom to pursue other, more successful friendships (the names and faces of Robert and – to her passing, unexamined surprise –Veronica presented themselves for a moment). But that was all speculation: in the short term she could foresee nothing beyond simple emotional obliteration: a vacuum of feeling: blackness. And yet even this prospect had started to look inviting.
Blackness enfolded her as she eased open the bedroom door and stepped inside. Blackness and silence: not even the sound of him breathing. She felt for the light switch but thought better of it. Instead she cleared her throat and said, faintly:
‘Gregory?’
The bedside light came on immediately and he was sitting up and staring at her, his arms folded, his pyjama jacket buttoned up – as usual – to the neck. Before she could say a word, he had already embarked upon a short, articulate, expressionless monologue.
‘I have only one thing to say to you, Sarah, and I am going to say it now, as quickly and as kindly as possible, in order to spare you pain. Your behaviour tonight has confirmed a suspicion which has been growing in my mind for some time: a suspicion that you are – not to put too fine a point on it – far from suitable as a partner with whom I would feel comfortable sharing the rest of my life. Consequently I feel obliged to inform you that our relationship is at an end, as of this precise moment. Since it is now too late for me reasonably to expect you to make alternative arrangements, I will permit you to share a bed with me for this night and this night only. My position on this issue is not open to negotiation and now that I have made it clear, I would only like to remind you that I have a long car journey ahead of me tomorrow, and I expect that you will allow me, on that account if no other, an uninterrupted night’s –’
– and here he turned off the light –
‘–sleep.’
2
Here, just for a few hundred yards, the town suddenly attempted to make something of its seaside location, and to take on, at last, some of the character of a holiday resort. Twenty bathing huts, shabbily painted in pale shades of yellow, green and blue, stood between the esplanade and the beach. A kiosk sold ice-cream and candy floss. Deck-chairs were available for hire. But there was, about all of this, an air of the perfunctory, the half-hearted. It fizzled away before it had really begun. Few holidaymakers came to this place; few of the rooms available in the various seafront boarding houses were occupied, even at what passed for the height of summer. And today, on this warm, windswept Sunday afternoon in late June, as discarded crisp packets flapped disconsolately against the pebbledashed walls of the public toilet, and seagulls bobbed with the queasy rise and fall of the incoming ocean, there were only two figures visible on the beach. One of them, a young woman of about twenty, her bare arms folded, her hair long, thin and jet-black, stood only a few feet from the water, looking out to sea. The other, who was perhaps fifteen or twenty years older, sat on a bench near the bathing huts, her overcoat folded neatly beside her, a small suitcase at her feet, her eyes closed, her face tilted towards the occasional sun.
The younger woman turned and started walking back across the pebbly beach. She stopped, bent down, picked up a curiously shaped stone, but then discarded it. She kicked a Pepsi can, accidentally, and the sound made her realize what a quiet afternoon it was.
The older woman, hearing the sound, opened her eyes and looked around her.
There were three benches: but one of them had been vandalized, almost dismantled, and was no longer usable; and another was entirely occupied by the supine, dormant form of a middle-aged man, his face purple and shaggily bearded, his clothes giving off a stale odour, his right hand clutching a can of strong cider.
The younger woman, however, still wanted to sit down.
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ she was forced to ask, in the end.
The older woman smiled, shook her head and moved her overcoat.
The two women sat in silence.
The older woman was tired. She had walked all the way to the beach from the railway station, carrying her suitcase. She was sweating copiously, and was beginning to suspect that her shoes, which she had bought only two weeks ago, were half a size too small. She had taken them off when she sat down on the bench, and found her bare feet marked with angry red lines which were only now beginning to fade. She continued to curl and uncurl her toes, relishing the freedom, until she realized that the younger woman was staring at her feet; staring at them with a kind of awed fascination. Immediately she crossed he
r legs and tucked them away under the bench, out of the younger woman’s sight. She hated her clumsy, mannish feet and thick ankles, and the way that people stared at them – women especially, and especially (as, already, in this case) women to whom she was herself attracted.
Embarrassed, the younger woman caught her eye and smiled, shyly, apologetically. Now it was clear: they were going to have to talk to one another.
‘If you’re looking for somewhere to stay,’ the younger woman ventured, ‘I might be able to help you. I can recommend somewhere.’
‘Oh?’
She gave the name of a nearby boarding house.
‘And what does it have, to make it different from all the others?’
The younger woman laughed. ‘Nothing, really. Only my mother runs it.’
The other woman smiled. ‘Well, thank you, but I’m not looking for anywhere to stay.’
‘Oh. Only I thought, with your suitcase…’
‘I’ve been away,’ said the older woman. ‘I’ve just come off the train.’
There was something about the way she said this – something about the phrase ‘I’ve been away’ – which made the younger woman think that she was referring to more than just a holiday. It sounded more like a period of exile.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘A long trip?’
‘Two weeks in Italy. San Remo. Very nice.’
So she was wrong.
‘You live here, then?’
The older woman was beginning to find this line of questioning rather direct. A wild thought crossed her mind: was it possible – was it just possible – that she was being chatted up?
She decided to test this hypothesis by being completely open, parting with whatever information was required and seeing where this would lead them.
‘About three miles along the coast,’ she said. ‘At the Dudden Clinic. I work there.’
‘Really? You’re a doctor?’
‘A psychologist.’ She rummaged in her bag for a Kleenex, mopped her brow. ‘Do you know the place I mean?’
‘I think so. It’s not been there long, has it?’
‘Two years. A little more.’
‘What sort of… hospital is it?’
‘We treat people with sleep disorders. Or try to.’
‘You mean – people who talk in their sleep, and so on?’
‘People who talk in their sleep, people who walk in their sleep, people who sleep too much, people who don’t sleep enough, people who forget to breathe in their sleep, people who have terrible dreams… all of these things.’
‘I used to talk in my sleep.’
‘A lot of children do.’ The older woman looked at her watch: there was a bus due at the seafront stop in four minutes. She leaned forward and squeezed the shoes on to her complaining feet. Then, reaching into her handbag: ‘Here –have one of my cards. You never know, you might want to visit us one day. You’ll be very welcome, if you mention my name.’
The younger woman didn’t know what to say to this. She had never been offered anybody’s card before.
‘Thank you very much,’ she managed, taking it.
She thought, as the older woman said goodbye to her, that she could read disappointment in her eyes: not just the passing disappointment of a small expectation raised and not fulfilled, but, behind that, something deeper and more habitual. Her back, as she walked away with her suitcase, was stooped. The younger woman looked at the card in her hand and read the words, ‘Dr C. J. Madison, Psychologist, the Dudden Clinic’. Beneath it were some fax and telephone numbers.
The older woman had forgotten to ask for her name. But she wouldn’t have revealed it, in any case.
She half-walked, half-ran back to her mother’s boarding house, her mind buzzing.
∗
Huge, grey and imposing, Ashdown stood on a headland, some twenty yards from the sheer face of the cliff, where it had stood for more than a hundred years. All day, the gulls wheeled around its spires and tourelles, keening themselves hoarse. All day and all night, the waves threw themselves dementedly against their rocky barricade, sending an endless roar like heavy traffic through the glacial rooms and mazy, echoing corridors of the old house. Even the emptiest parts of Ashdown – and most of it was now empty – were never silent. The most habitable rooms huddled together on the first and second floors, overlooking the sea, and during the day were flooded with chill sunlight. The kitchen, on the ground floor, was long and L-shaped, with a low ceiling; it had only three tiny windows, and was swathed in permanent shadow. Ashdown’s bleak, element-defying beauty masked the fact that it was, essentially, unfit for human occupation. Its oldest and nearest neighbours could remember, but scarcely believe, that it had once been a private residence, home to a family of only eight or nine. But three decades ago it had been acquired by the new university, and used for a while as student accommodation; then the students were moved out, and it was given over to Dr Dudden, to house his private clinic and sleep laboratory. There was room at the clinic for thirteen patients: a shifting population, as changeful as the ocean which lay at its feet, stretched towards the horizon, sickly green and heaving with endless disquiet.
∗
The next morning, Dr Dudden stood outside the room where his colleague was conducting a seminar with three of her patients, and listened to their voices through the closed door. His body tensed with disapproval: the atmosphere sounded nothing short of raucous. A medley of voices babbled almost continuously, to be interrupted every so often by blustery gales of laughter in the midst of which he could clearly make out Dr Madison’s distinctive low chuckle. Then he heard her launch into a monologue which lasted for perhaps half a minute: followed, this time, by wave upon wave of screaming laughter, accompanied by the thumping of tables and all the other sounds of helpless mirth. Dr Dudden stepped back from the door and shuddered with fury. A rumour had been circulating for some time that Dr Madison’s patients had been enjoying their seminars, and here was the concrete proof. It was outrageous; and, what’s more, it was unscientific. It was not to be tolerated.
He called Dr Madison into his office at midday. It was a gloomy room towards the back of the house, looking out over an unkept patch of garden. An elaborate calendar and timetable took up half of the largest wall, and alongside it was a floor-plan of the house, showing the day rooms and bedrooms, and the names of the patients to whom they were currently assigned. There were four shelves filled with textbooks and bound journals, while the other walls were covered – brightened is hardly the word – by posters obtained from drug companies and American software manufacturers. Baroque keyboard music played quietly on a cassette player in the background.
His first question was: ‘Have you brought the SAQs with you?’
The Sleep Awareness Questionnaire was a document of his own devising, on which patients were required, every morning, to rate various aspects of their previous night’s sleep on a scale of one to five. They were asked if they had experienced racing thoughts at bedtime, had needed to urinate during the night, had suffered palpitations or leg movements, nightmares or long periods of wakefulness, and more than eighty other questions. The questionnaire was supposed to be completed at the beginning of every morning seminar, and to form the basis of any subsequent discussion.
‘No,’ said Dr Madison.
‘I find that rather extraordinary.’
‘We didn’t have time to fill them all in.’
‘I find that even more extraordinary,’ said Dr Dudden, ‘because from what I could hear, you seemed to have plenty of time for telling jokes, and giggling, and gossiping away like a bunch of washerwomen.’
Washerwomen? thought Dr Madison, but let it pass.
‘Since you weren’t in the room with us,’ she said, ‘I assume that you were eavesdropping on the other side of the door. And since you were eavesdropping on the other side of the door, I assume that you couldn’t hear what we were talking about. If you had been able to hear, you would have found it perfectly germane to
the business of the clinic.’
She placed a small, icy emphasis on the word ‘business’, which Dr Dudden either failed or affected not to notice.
‘That,’ he said, ‘is not in dispute. I’m prepared to believe that you confine yourself, during these… chats, to the subject in hand. But might I remind you that you are employed here – by me – to approach this subject from the point of view of the clinical psychologist rather than the stand-up comedian.’
‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Dr Madison, smoothing down her skirt in an abstracted way.
‘A few minutes ago I was speaking to Miss Granger, one of the patients at your seminar this morning. I asked her what had been causing such amusement, and with some reluctance she told me. She quoted a remark of yours, in fact.’ He leaned forward and read from the notepad on his desk. ‘“Every Tuesday, Dr Dudden invites the patients at this clinic to attend one of his lectures at the university. This week, it was so boring that even the narcoleptics stayed awake all the way through.”’ He looked up. ‘Do you deny making that remark?’
‘No.’
‘You probably think that I am personally offended by it. And indeed I am: but that is not my point.’
‘It was only a joke.’
‘Oh, I can see that. Believe me, Dr Madison, I can recognize a joke when I see one. Might I ask you, then, whether you regard narcolepsy itself as – to use your own word – a joke, or whether you regard it – as I confess I do – as a serious and debilitating psychophysiological condition which causes much trauma and distress to its sufferers?’
‘I specialize in narcolepsy, doctor, and have done for many years. You know that full well. So I don’t see how my commitment to treating it – the seriousness of my commitment – can be called into question.’ She sighed. ‘Besides which, I assume you’re aware that cataplexy brought on by laughter is one of the syndrome’s more disturbing and socially embarrassing symptoms. These workshops are designed to help the patients deal with that: to try to make them comfortable with their laughter again. I would have thought it obvious that humour was an absolutely essential therapeutic tool in this process.’
