The Sleep Room

by F. R. Tallis

  When I returned my attention to the board, Chapman had placed his king behind a knight for protection. In doing so, he had made it possible for me to take an exposed rook, but I did not have the heart to do so. Instead, I reversed my queen diagonally with no particular purpose in mind.

  ‘Dr Richardson?’ Chapman was staring at me, his eyes wide open.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why do you move my bed around at night?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then the nurses. Why do they do it?’

  ‘They don’t, Mr Chapman.’

  ‘I tell them to stop but they never listen.’

  ‘Perhaps it is a dream, Mr Chapman. They would not move your bed while you are asleep.’

  ‘It is the movement of the bed that wakes me up.’

  I passed my hand over the chessboard. ‘Your turn, Mr Chapman.’

  He studied the pieces for a full two minutes and then nudged his rook out of harm’s way. The muscles around his mouth twitched repeatedly until a tremulous smile came into existence. It could not be sustained, and a moment later Chapman’s expression was, as usual, fearful and unhappy.

  4

  On Saturday morning I was relieved by Stewart Osborne, one of the doctors from Saxmundham. I had met Kenneth Price, the other Saxmundham doctor, the previous Saturday.

  Osborne was a few years older than me and affected a particular style of grooming that was reminiscent of Clark Gable playing the part of Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind. He possessed the same wavy black hair and thin moustache, but the general effect he hoped to achieve was spoiled by a weak, flabby mouth. We shook hands and exchanged civilities. Apparently, he had also worked at the Royal Free Hospital, although before my time. Osborne congratulated me on my appointment and we discussed some of the patients who had been showing signs of agitation, but as we were talking I found his manner rather irritating. He seemed to be permanently attempting to conceal (without great success) a sneer. Even his voice had a mocking edge. I soon identified him as one of those boorish individuals who have learned to escape censure by pretending that everything improper they say is meant as a harmless joke. On the women’s ward, he questioned my judgement in front of a nurse, and when I readied myself to respond he laughed and said, ‘Sorry, old boy, I was only being facetious. Please, don’t take offence.’ I was glad that I didn’t have to spend very long in his company.

  Although the weather could have been better, I decided that I would go out for a walk. Behind the hospital I discovered a path that descended to the beach. It was very steep and I almost lost my footing. As usual the sea was quite rough and the waves crashed loudly onto the shingle. I picked up a pebble and threw it out as far as I could. Once again I was struck by the sea’s unusual colour – a dull, enervating brown. In spite of all the froth and spray, the air was not salty. Indeed, it was disappointingly inert and lacked the medicinal tang so strongly associated with health and convalescence. I climbed the raised bank that separated the beach from the grazing marsh and ambled along in a southerly direction. The views were expansive. Great rafts of cloud drifted apart, allowing shafts of sunlight to break through. The spectacle was magnificent but – because of the restless, ever-changing sky – all too fleeting. As the gaps in the heavens closed the luminous columns became faint and ghostly.

  I was presented with a choice: to either continue along the bank and follow the coast towards Aldeburgh, or to turn right, onto an adjoining raised bank that crossed the marsh. I decided to take the latter course.

  It was a bleak place: entirely flat and without trees. I passed a sluice mechanism with rusted iron wheels and some long, straight drainage channels. An upturned rowing boat, untouched for years, had all but rotted away. Further on, I saw a couple of mangy ponies in a waterlogged field, and later, a small herd of cows. Somewhere, a bird was producing a lonely, plaintive call. I persevered, and further inland came across a wooden boardwalk. The planks were sodden and creaked loudly when I stepped on them. Undeterred, I moved along the fragile timbers, until I came to a flooded depression, the muddy fringes of which were patrolled by wading birds with long beaks. In the distance I could see the roof, chimneys and tower of Wyldehope. I had walked further than I had originally intended. It was getting cold and I decided to return.

  The rest of the weekend was spent mostly in my rooms. Mrs Hartley’s kitchen girl brought me my meals, and I was perfectly happy reading, writing and listening to the wireless. The previous two weeks had been very demanding, more so, perhaps, than I had truly appreciated. It wasn’t until I was properly relaxed that I realized how tense and wound-up I had been. I had been getting a lot of headaches.

  By Sunday evening, I was effectively back on duty. I met briefly with Osborne, who informed me that the weekend had been ‘uneventful’. During the twenty minutes or so we spent together, he did nothing to make me revise my first impressions. He was irritating throughout. At one point, Jane Turner walked by and he nudged me with his elbow: ‘It’s always a pleasure to work with Nurse Turner.’ He clearly expected me to reciprocate, to make some crass remark about her prettiness or figure, but I ignored him. As he was leaving, he called out, ‘Richardson, do you play golf?’

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘Pity.’ He swung an imaginary five iron. ‘I could have got you into my club. I’m on the membership committee. You don’t want to end up like Palmer. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ Before I could deliver a suitably barbed response he was chuckling loudly – ‘See you in a few weeks.’ I was very glad to see the back of him.

  Jane Turner was going about her business on the ward. I took the liberty of occupying her chair and pretended to find something of interest in Alan Foster’s notes.

  ‘Has Dr Osborne gone?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, nothing important.’

  I looked up. ‘He’s very . . .’ I paused to select a suitable euphemism. ‘Confident, don’t you think?’ I invested my chosen adjective with enough scorn to make its purpose quite transparent.

  She looked around, as if to make sure that we weren’t being overheard. ‘Lillian thinks he’s quite suave.’

  ‘Suave!’ I had repeated the word much louder than intended.

  Jane perched herself on the side of the desk and crossed her legs. ‘Well, I can see why Lilly might think that. Sometimes he wears a cravat.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘Of Dr Osborne? I think he’s rather full of himself.’

  ‘I’m inclined to agree.’

  ‘Still, he can be quite funny – at times – and he’s better company than the other doctor from Saxmundham.’

  ‘Kenneth Price? He seemed a decent enough fellow to me.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s a little . . .’ Her features contracted.

  ‘Dull?’

  ‘Either that or very shy.’ She peeked over the top of the folder to see whose notes I was reading. ‘Alan Foster?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t see anything about Sister Jenkins’s ring.’

  ‘That’s because it hasn’t arrived yet. Actually, Sister Jenkins gave him a laxative only yesterday.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘But still no luck.’

  ‘Well, some things can’t be hurried.’

  She laughed – a rather musical laugh – and pushed herself off the desk. I stood up and gestured for her to sit in the empty chair.

  ‘Did you have a nice weekend?’ she asked.

  ‘Nice enough. I managed to go for a walk – along the beach and across the marshes.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound terribly exciting.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  She curled a wayward lock of blonde hair behind her flawless ear. ‘It’s nicer here in the summer.’

  We carried on talking in a casual, easy manner, and occasionally our exchanges became mildly flirtatious. After nine o’clock, for the sake of maintaining some vestige of propriety, I dragged myself away.


  Before retiring, I thought that I should check that all was well in the sleep room. The trainee nurse (whose name I had since found out to be Mary Williams) was on duty. As I entered I noticed that Mary was looking fixedly in my direction, as if she had been waiting for me to enter. She looked worried – perhaps even fearful – and this expression was sustained until a spark of recognition appeared in her eyes. Relief was followed by a broad smile. I felt a pang of sympathy for her, supposing that she had been expecting the redoubtable Sister Jenkins. As I advanced, she stood respectfully and made some small adjustments to her bib.

  ‘Good evening, Mary.’

  ‘Good evening, Dr Richardson.’

  ‘Have you been here long?’

  ‘Since lunchtime.’

  ‘Any problems?’

  ‘Isobelle Stevens was a bit restless earlier, but she seems to have settled down now.’

  ‘Did you make a note on her chart?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ Her tone was indignant. A moment later her cheeks were burning with shame.

  I touched her arm and said, ‘It’s all right, Mary – really. You must be tired.’

  One of the patients spoke in her sleep: ‘Don’t! Don’t! Please . . . no.’

  Mary and I looked at each other – but made no comment.

  I did my usual circuit of the beds, examining the charts, registering medication levels, and I made a mental note of who was due to receive ECT the next day: Celia Jones, a middle-aged woman with short curly hair and a round face. Her eyes were rapidly oscillating from side to side beneath closed lids – a reliable indication that she was dreaming. As I was preparing to make my departure one of the nightingales arrived to relieve Mary Williams. Consequently, the trainee and I left the sleep room together.

  Even though I had indicated that Mary should go first, her deferential nature made her fall in behind me. We were about halfway up the stairs when I heard her gasp: a sudden, sharp intake of breath. I stopped and turned around. Mary was looking back down the stairs, her right hand raised and covering the nape of her neck.

  ‘Mary?’ I enquired.

  When our eyes met I saw that her pillbox hat was tilted at an angle.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dr Richardson.’ She glanced towards the sleep room again and stammered a few words that I did not hear properly. Even in the weak light that reached us from the vestibule, I could see that she was confused.

  ‘Mary,’ I pressed, ‘whatever is the matter?’

  Her mouth worked silently, opening and closing without producing words, until she finally managed to blurt out: ‘My ankle. I twisted my ankle.’ She doubled over and probed the joint.

  ‘Here,’ I said, offering her my arm, ‘let me give you some support?’

  She ignored my solicitation and made a great show of testing the foot with her weight. ‘It’s all right – I think. Yes. Yes. It’s fine.’

  ‘Perhaps I should take a look?’

  ‘No. Honestly – it’s nothing.’ She tried to smile. ‘I was being stupid . . .’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you’re quite sure?’

  ‘I am,’ she answered firmly. ‘Quite sure.’

  We completed our ascent and as soon as we were in the vestibule Mary said, ‘Goodnight.’ She let herself out by the front door and locked it behind her. Although she was a local girl, she had been allocated a room (like the other nurses) in the converted stable building. Given that she had not troubled to collect a coat before leaving, I assumed that this must be her destination. I listened to the sound of her step receding into the night. There was nothing about its determined regularity that suggested a ‘twisted ankle’. The rhythm faded away into silence, a silence that yawned and gaped and felt deep enough to produce a sensation not unlike vertigo. Yet, I kept on listening. I don’t know what I was listening for – but I kept on listening.

  5

  The following week I saw a great deal of Jane Turner, during which time my feelings for her began to grow stronger. Her absence became increasingly associated with a dull longing. There were, however, some hopeful indications that she might feel the same way. She was always cheerful in my presence and had a tendency to stand so close I could smell her perfume. In spite of all this, I had very real doubts about the wisdom of initiating a relationship with a colleague. If things didn’t work out, or, even worse, turned sour, life might become very complicated.

  I was sitting with Jane and Lillian in the dining room and it transpired that they planned to visit Southwold at the weekend. ‘The weather forecast is very good,’ said Jane. ‘It’ll probably be our last chance to enjoy some sunshine before the autumn sets in.’

  Lillian looked up from her mashed potato and said to me, ‘What are you doing? This weekend?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much,’ I said, pitifully.

  ‘Then why don’t you come with us?’

  My usual doubts and reservations surfaced, but swiftly dissipated when I looked at Jane. Her expression was eager, expectant, and to have declined the offer would have appeared faint-hearted, or even cowardly.

  ‘Well,’ I ventured, ‘if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Of course we wouldn’t mind,’ said Lillian. ‘We’ll cycle into Westleton and get the bus.’

  The thought of spending a whole day with Jane was somewhat distracting. I spent the remainder of the week in a rather restless state, and in the evenings, when I tried to write up my final Edinburgh experiment, I was unable to concentrate. Instead of working I smoked one cigarette after another and paced up and down the corridor until it was time to go to bed. On Saturday morning, Jane, Lillian and I collected three bicycles from Mr Hartley and we set off across the heath. Although there were more clouds in the sky than we had anticipated, the weather was mild for the season. It did not take us long to reach Westleton, where a publican – already known to Jane and Lillian – allowed us to leave our bicycles in his shed. Thankfully, the bus was on time and when we alighted the clouds had dispersed and the sun was blazing.

  Southwold was a pretty seaside town, possessed of a sleepy, provincial charm, and largely free of the tawdry entertainments commonly associated with popular coastal resorts. The backstreets were lined with quaint little cottages and the wide, irregular green was encircled by more distinguished residences, some with wrought-iron balconies and tall, elegant windows. There were two outstanding landmarks: the first was a very large medieval church, the exterior of which was patterned with flint, and the second, a fully operational lighthouse. On a flat, grassy elevation close to the beach, six eighteen-pounder cannons pointed out to sea. The place was called, somewhat unimaginatively, Gun Hill.

  We ate lunch at a hotel and drank far too much. When we had finished, Lillian rose from her chair and said that she was going off to do some shopping on the high street. ‘I’ll meet you by the pier in about an hour,’ she added with breezy good humour. After her departure, Jane and I walked back to Gun Hill, where we sat together on a bench. She had put on a pair of sunglasses that made her look glamorous and continental.

  I asked her a few questions, mostly about herself, and she warmed to the theme of her own history. Her mother was a schoolteacher and lived in North London. Her father, a pharmacist, had died when she was only thirteen. She disclosed this information without sentimentality. Although her father had died young, his early demise did not result in financial hardship. A wealthy uncle had made sure that the needs of mother and daughter were always met. Jane spoke about her training at St Thomas’s, meeting Lillian, and how much fun they had had going to the Festival of Britain; about a holiday that she had enjoyed in Wales with her cousins, Vanessa and Neville, and her plan to take driving lessons. Her confidences and revelations proceeded with effortless fluency.

  My surroundings began to feel strangely unreal. The contrast between the brown sea and the blue sky was striking and otherworldly. A union flag snapped in the breeze and a flock of long-necked birds flew past in a perfect V-formation. I was aware that something had changed, but it took me a fe
w seconds to identify what. Jane had stopped talking. I turned to look at her, and at that precise moment she also turned to look at me. I can remember seeing myself, miniaturized and suspended in her lenses, and watching with fascination as these pale copies of my face began to expand. And then, quite suddenly, we were kissing.

  When we finally separated, she took off her sunglasses. The vivid green of her irises had the translucent depth of stained glass.

  Ordinarily, some outmoded idea of gentlemanly conduct might have induced me to say, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take advantage,’ or some other expedient that allowed her to demur. But there was little point. The situation that we found ourselves in had been so obviously engineered that to pretend otherwise would have been insulting. We kissed again, and carried on kissing, until Jane glanced at her wristwatch and said with a sigh, ‘Lillian.’

  We walked along the promenade, past brightly coloured beach huts, hand in hand. It was only when we were close enough to the stunted pier to appreciate its decrepitude that the sense of a greater world beyond our mutual self-absorption impinged upon our senses. A little girl with blonde hair passed us by, holding a toffee apple which seemed to glow from within like a gemstone. On the horizon, I could see two large tanker ships.

  ‘There’s Lillian,’ said Jane.

  She was standing with her back to us.

  ‘Do you think perhaps . . .’ It was not necessary for me to say any more.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Jane replied, releasing my fingers.

  On Monday night, Maitland telephoned.

  ‘James? It’s Hugh.’ I can’t remember when, precisely, but we had started to use each other’s Christian names. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No problems.’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Good. Listen. I’m coming up early tomorrow morning. Walter Rosenberg is in London this week and he wants to see Wyldehope.’