by Sue Gee
‘Frances?’ Claire whispered.
Frances opened her eyes to see her standing in the doorway in her nightdress, holding two cups of hot milk on a tray.
‘How is he?’ Claire indicated the cups. ‘Would he like some?’
‘He’s almost asleep – look.’
Claire looked. ‘You’re not taking him in with you?’
‘Oh, no, we never do that. He’s much better off in his own bed.’
‘But if he does it again –’
‘He won’t, he never does. Usually we just take him back to bed still asleep, and he doesn’t know anything about it.’ She yawned, carefully releasing her hand from his. ‘Where’s Oliver?’
‘Down in the sitting-room with Robert. They’re finishing off the brandy.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Frances yawned again, ‘Claire? Thank you – I’m sorry about all this …’ She smiled wanly. ‘You must be wishing you’d never asked us.’
‘Nonsense. We’ll talk in the morning. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight.’ Frances turned away, smoothing the bedclothes over Tom, looking down into his pale, heavy face.
Claire crossed the landing, and pushed open the door. There was a light on the chest of drawers, a bulb stuck into a wine bottle, with a shade made of raffia: the room looked comforting and warm. Jessica, propped up on the pillows, looked crumpled and tear-stained, not much more than six.
‘Here we are.’ Claire sat down beside her, passing her milk. ‘You’ll feel better when you’ve had this.’
Jessica took it mutely, cupping it between her hands. ‘It’s got skin on it,’ she said after a while.
‘Because you’re not drinking it.’ Claire reached out and lifted the skin with her finger, draping it over the side of the mug. ‘Remember Dr Dolittle? Gub-Gub the pig had a clothes-line for the skin on hot chocolate.’
‘Dr Dolittle’s racist,’ said Jessica. ‘They said so at school.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. The parrot wants to change the black prince to white in one of the books. She keeps on about it.’
Claire shook her head. ‘I don’t remember. Anyway, drink it.’
They sipped in silence. Across the landing she could hear Frances, coming out of the boys’room, going quietly along the landing to her own. She had looked like a nurse, sitting there beside Tom, as if she were taking his pulse. No, she thought, reflecting, actually she looked like a patient: frail, in crumpled white pyjamas, dark beneath the eyes, sitting in silence.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’
‘Is it normal to sleepwalk?’
‘It’s unusual.’
‘Did Jack and me ever do it?’
‘No, never.’
‘So why –’
‘I don’t know why,’ said Claire. ‘These things happen, children grow out of them. I’m sorry you had such a fright. Are you feeling better now?’
Jess put the cup on the floor and lay down, yawning. ‘A bit. Where’s Dad?’
‘Having a drink with Oliver. I expect they’ll go to bed in a minute.’ Claire finished the milk, tepid now, and went to switch off the light.
‘Leave it,’ said Jess from the pillows. ‘Please.’
‘Okay.’ She came back to bed, and pulled down the duvet, climbing in beside her. ‘Isn’t this nice?’ She put out an arm and stroked Jess’s thick heavy hair. ‘We haven’t slept together for a long time.’
‘Don’t start getting soppy.’
Claire smiled. ‘You are feeling better.’
Jess yawned again. ‘Goodnight. Thanks for the milk.’
‘Goodnight, sleep tight. No rush in the morning.’ Claire lay in the warm, contented light of the lamp across the room, hearing, from downstairs, Robert and Oliver’s low voices and then, from somewhere far away in the mountains, a dog, yowling. Then everything was quiet again, and she closed her eyes, uncertain in those last, drifting moments before sleep whether it were Jess or Jack or Tom who lay so close beside her.
‘I’m sorry about all this,’ Oliver was saying.
Robert shook his head. ‘Please don’t be. We’re just glad he’s not hurt.’
‘Yes.’ Oliver looked into his brandy, thoughtful.
‘It’s happened before?’
‘From time to time. Perhaps every three months or so. Occasionally there’s a run of it, two or three nights together, but that’s rare. I shouldn’t think, after tonight, he’ll do it again while we’re here.’
‘And he doesn’t wake up? This is the first time?’
‘Yes. Unfamiliar house, I suppose. Normally he finds his way around, quite often we’ve heard him and found him making his own way back to bed. It’s more of a problem for us than for him – he’s quite all right the next morning. Straight off to school.’
Robert was moved to ask, he didn’t quite know why, about the holidays. In the holidays, said Oliver, Tom went to his child-minder. This was the first time, it seemed, that they’d spent more than a day or two all together since – well, it was probably Easter.
He shrugged. ‘I expect we’re all still needing to settle down a bit, that might have something to do with it. But we’ve discussed it with our GP – she says he’ll grow out of it. All the literature confirms that view.’
The literature, thought Robert. It was a word that sat ill with a child, somehow.
They were in the far corner of the sitting-room, Robert low in an unsprung armchair, Oliver opposite on the worn sofa, brandy on the coffee table between them. Placed thus for direct conversation, they did not meet each other’s eyes, looking down into their glasses, or round the room. A single low-watt lamp stood on the desk in the other corner, which was lined with bookshelves, the foot of the L in what Claire and Robert always spoke of as a lovely room, broad and spacious, beautifully proportioned. Now, shadowy beyond that dim pool of light, Robert felt it threatening and unfamiliar. Jessica’s screaming rang in his ears; across by the dining-room door the dark shape of the shepherd’s straw cloak was back on its stand, where it always stood: righted again, waiting to topple again.
Oliver was silent, drinking. He wore a long, deep blue Paisley dressing-gown, a good one, which looked as though it might have been inherited from a father who had bought things to last. Robert didn’t know anything about Oliver’s father, or, indeed, anything about Oliver, and sitting there waiting for him to continue, distant and unemotional, he felt that he did not very much want to know. However, he did want to learn more about Tom, and he said now, keeping it light, ‘Children …’, as if in the kind of complicity he imagined Claire shared with her women friends, other mothers: coping, raising their eyes to the heavens.
Oliver did not answer. Moths bumped against the parchment shade of the lamp; Robert cleared his throat in the silence. Oliver said suddenly: ‘We never wanted children, they never came into it.’ He drained his glass, made a gesture of resignation. ‘But these things happen.’
Robert reached for the brandy bottle. Refilling their glasses he thought: yes, but I don’t want to know how they happen – not in this case, not now. Long used to confidences from women friends at work, long used to an easy, unquestioning intimacy with his wife, he surprised himself by thinking; this is women’s talk, it’s private. It was the kind of information he expected to be fed to him by Claire – perhaps this was what Frances had disclosed to her the other evening, up by the pool, although he couldn’t imagine why Claire should have seemed so thrown by it. But it was, surely, a conversation much more appropriate to them: he didn’t want to be the recipient of Oliver’s slow and heavy unburdening, even though, concerned for his child, he had invited it. Indeed, when he tried to think of one man with whom he had ever had, or wished to have, such a conversation, he found he couldn’t. Not one. Nor had he ever missed it. Still –
‘So a son is born,’ he said, striving for the right note.
‘When we wanted a daughter,’ said Oliver. ‘If there had to be a baby, we wanted a girl. A girl would have been easier for
both of us, I’m sure of that.’
Robert, thinking of Jessica these days – offhand, dismissive, hurtful – wasn’t convinced, but said nothing. Anyway, such behaviour was recent, and, it was to be hoped, temporary. At this moment, recalling her tears, it was impossible, in any case, to think of her with anything but love and protectiveness. And perhaps Oliver was right, perhaps a daughter would have been better for them. Certainly a different kind of boy.
‘And instead,’ he said, almost without thinking, ‘instead you have a changeling.’
They looked at each other directly, for the first time.
‘Yes,’ said Oliver, acknowledging his accuracy. ‘Yes, exactly that. Our only child, and we don’t know what to do with him. Certainly I don’t. Frances has a little more patience, but –’ He broke off, with a deep, involuntary sigh. ‘As I said, we didn’t want children. We wanted each other – God, that seems a hell of a long time ago.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘What a mess. What an unholy mess. I’d better go and see if they’re all right.’ He put down his glass, but he did not go, he stood there frowning and thoughtful, very tall, naked beneath the Paisley dressing-gown, long feet thrust into flat black espadrilles. Despite his height, his physical presence, something of the power which Robert and Claire had both sensed in him seemed to have gone: he looked weary and defeated, years older. It might have been the shock, the wrenching out of sleep, the disclosures made in the middle of the night to someone who was almost a stranger. It was, Robert knew, more than all this, though what he could only guess at.
He said: ‘We’d better get that thing out of the way in the morning,’ and nodded towards the shepherd’s cloak.
Oliver looked at it. ‘Yes. Well–’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Let us hope that the rest of the night passes without incident.’
‘Indeed.’ Robert poured out the last of the brandy. ‘I’ll finish this off, I think. Sleep well.’
‘And you.’ Oliver crossed to the darkened corridor, making his way to the stairs; he climbed them slowly, and Robert heard his footsteps creak on the landing, a pause as he checked the boys’ room, and then the door of his bedroom with Frances open and close. The house was silent again.
He went on sitting there for a while, finishing the brandy, thinking, beginning to yawn. The memory of Jessica’s scream receded: she was safe, they were all safe. He heaved himself out of the armchair and in Jessica’s room lay down on the creaking bed, pulling up the blankets. But he found himself tossing and turning, rearranging thin pillows. In spite of his tiredness, in spite of the brandy, it was a long time before he fell asleep, seeing over and over again before him in the darkness the figure of Tom by the fallen cloak stand: white-faced, staring, clutching at himself in terror.
Next morning, everyone slept late, the sun already brilliant when Jack opened his eyes, reached for his book and smelt something. A pair of pyjamas lay on the floor; what were they doing there? He knew: Tom must have wet the bed, like a great big baby. He looked across at him, lying asleep with his mouth open: perhaps he should go and poke him in the eye, let him see what it felt like. No – he didn’t want to go near him. He picked up his book and found his place, read a few pages and realised he was hungry. The digital watch he’d been given for his birthday in March showed 9:01, no wonder he was hungry. But the house was very quiet, not a sound from downstairs. He pushed back the bedclothes and got out, going across to his parents’room, where he found a light still burning, and Jessica lying next to Claire, her hair spread out on the pillow, both of them fast asleep.
He shook Claire’s shoulder. ‘Hey! What’s going on?’ He climbed in beside her, shoving her with his feet. What was Jessica doing in here? ‘Move up.’
Claire frowned, moving her legs away. ‘Gently, Jack, stop it, please.’
‘But what’s going on? Where’s Dad?’
‘Sssh. He’s down in Jessie’s room, we had a bad night …’ She opened her eyes, and pulled him towards her. ‘Don’t be so grumpy, everything’s okay. There, that’s better. Settle down now.’
‘What do you mean, a bad night? Tom’s wet the bed, it smells in there.’
‘Sssh! I don’t want to wake Jess.’
But Jess was already stirring, disturbed and disgruntled. Even with the shutters closed you could tell from the light streaming through the gaps how bright it was outside. She pulled a pillow down over her head, and turned away. Claire sighed.
‘What sort of bad night?’ Jack persisted.
‘Tom sleepwalked,’ said Jess, from beneath the pillow.
‘What? What did you say?’
Footsteps along the corridor. They heard Robert putting mugs down outside the door at the end, calling discreetly: ‘Oliver? Frances? Tea.’ He came back again, into their room.
‘Thank God,’ said Claire. ‘Just what we need.’
‘How are we all this morning?’ Tousled and puffy in his old pyjamas, Robert pushed the door to with his elbow and put down the tray on the chest of drawers, moving along a muddle of suntan cream and hairbrushes. He switched off the light and began to pour. ‘Sleep well?’ He stepped over kicked-off sandals and yesterday’s clothes, holding out mugs.
‘You are an angel,’ said Claire, taking one.
‘I am a bearer of trays,’ said Robert, easing himself down by Jack’s feet. ‘This bed is too low. Move up a bit.’
Jack drew up his feet, Jess took the pillow off. They all regarded each other.
‘Phew,’ said Claire.
‘Quite. Any sounds this morning?’
She shook her head. ‘Tom wasn’t awake when you got up, was he?’ she asked Jack.
‘No. What happened?’
‘I told you,’ said Jessica, reaching for Claire’s tea. ‘Tom sleepwalked. He knocked over the shepherd’s cloak … you slept through everything.’
He was furious.
‘Listen,’ said Robert, a little less puffy with the tea. ‘I’ll explain. But no more teasing, Jack, got it? Give Tom a break for a bit.’
Jack looked mulish.
‘I mean it.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Claire, ‘we should all have a break for a bit. Perhaps we should go off for the day and leave them all to calm down – do you think?’
‘Yes!’ said Jack. ‘Just us. Oh, yes, let’s. Where shall we go?’
The landing floorboards creaked, the door swung open.
‘Hello, Tom,’ said Robert.
‘You’re supposed to knock,’ Jack muttered.
Tom looked rumpled, greyish, as if he might be sickening for something – no, thought Claire, stretching out a hand towards him, more as though he were getting over something, which of course he was. He stood in the doorway gazing at them all, and she patted the bedclothes.
‘Come and sit down. How are you feeling this morning?’
‘All right.’ He sounded puzzled by the question; he came towards the bed slowly, with a faraway, anaesthetised air. ‘Can we go swimming today?’
Jack glowered at him. ‘This is our room. You’re supposed to knock.’
‘Jack …’ said Claire, warningly.
‘Sorry,’ said Tom. He sat down heavily on the bed, and Jack moved irritably away.
‘You’re on my feet, get off.’ And then suddenly, in an outburst, as Tom clumsily shifted his large frame, ‘Get off! This is our room! Go away!’
‘Jack!’ said Claire and Robert sharply, in unison.
‘Tom,’ said Robert, ‘it’s all right, come back …’
But he had gone.
Dora and Frances are walking by a river. It has been raining, and the fields on the further side of the water are lush and shining. Willow trees overhang the bank; beyond them they can hear cows, munching summer grass. Behind them is the house where they are staying, empty, peaceful, awaiting their return; in its tranquil garden, established, well tended, is a table where they sit and have breakfast when it is fine. Here, to their left, old men are moving among tall bamboo canes in a sprawl of allotments; runner beans clamber towards the
clear rinsed sky, green and scarlet against smoke from a damp bonfire. The air smells fresh and earthy; ahead, a fisherman reels in his line, and flings it out again: ripples spread wider, wider. Frances puts her head on Dora’s shoulder; Dora’s arm goes round her. They walk on.
‘I love you,’ says Frances. ‘I have always loved you.’
‘I know,’ says Dora. ‘It’s okay – I’ve always known.’ And she gives Frances a smile of such acceptance and affection that Frances is overcome, light with happiness. I have come home, she thinks. I am where I belong.
And suddenly is alone again, the river and the afternoon’s tranquility vanished. She is walking through dark streets, somewhere in a city she has never visited, looking at names she does not recognise, knocking on doors. Behind her, a girl is calling.
‘Frances! Frances! Remember me?’
‘No,’ says Frances. ‘No, not now. I’m looking for someone, leave me alone.’ The streets grow narrower, darker; she breaks into a run, calling out: ‘Dora! Dora!’ A long way away from her, someone is crying, a door bangs open and shut, as if a wind is rising …
‘Frances, Frances …’
She opened her eyes on a room full of fierce sunshine: Oliver had flung open the shutters, and was standing over her, dressed, ready for the day.
‘You were dreaming,’ he said.
She covered her eyes.
‘It’s late, you were dreaming badly, I thought I should wake you.’
‘Close the shutters. Please. Please – it’s too much.’
He crossed the room again, pushing them to. ‘Robert’s brought us some tea – do you want it?’
‘In a minute.’ She went on lying there, her eyes still covered.
‘What were you dreaming about?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘You looked troubled.’
‘Did I?’ She uncovered her eyes, her limbs like lead. Then: ‘Tom!’ she said suddenly. ‘Is he all right?’
‘I’ve just been to look – he’s playing outside. Everyone else is getting up for breakfast. Here –’ He passed her a mug from the pile of books by the bed. She sat up and took it, sipping lukewarm tea.
