The Sleep Room

by F. R. Tallis

  A number of emotions seemed to pass across her face in quick succession before she adopted an attitude of guarded neutrality.

  ‘I was in Maitland’s office that night. But that doesn’t mean . . .’ Her hands moved up and down as if she were juggling. ‘That doesn’t mean what Osborne thinks.’

  She could not maintain eye contact and her gaze slid away to the side.

  ‘What were you doing in Maitland’s office at that time?’

  ‘We were . . .’ She stopped abruptly and I detected the outward signs of calculation. ‘We were discussing the nursing arrangements.’

  ‘At two thirty?’

  ‘I was doing a night shift. He called me up and asked me to give him my opinion of a trainee. She’s gone now. She wasn’t very good.’

  ‘Why didn’t he ask Sister Jenkins?’

  ‘I’m sure he did. He was in a bit of a quandary. You see, the girl was the daughter of a colleague.’

  Jane snatched the cigarette packet and struck a match.

  ‘Osborne said that there was no light coming out from under the door.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said that you and Maitland were together in the dark.’

  She drew on the cigarette and expelled a large cloud of smoke. Her eyes began to brim with tears. I asked her a few more questions, but she simply looked down and shook her head.

  ‘It’s true then,’ I said, ‘you and Maitland?’

  There was a long pause. I could hear the sea, the interminable advance and retreat of the waves. Jane was not sobbing, but her face was now lined with tracks of mascara. Eventually she answered: ‘What if it is?’

  I had known all along that my interrogation would inevitably lead to an admission. Even so, when it came, I was still mentally unprepared. My breath caught and I produced a pathetic little gasp.

  Jane looked up. Her eyes had sunk into beds of swollen skin. ‘So what are you saying?’ she cried. ‘That it’s all over now? Because I slept with another man?’

  But it wasn’t just any man. It was Maitland. And that made all the difference.

  ‘You didn’t tell me,’ I said, my voice quivering slightly.

  ‘There was no need to, was there? I knew it would upset you. I didn’t want you to get hurt.’ She grimaced. ‘Is that a crime?’

  ‘And what about honesty? Doesn’t that come into it?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to get hurt,’ she repeated in a beseeching tone. She drew on the cigarette a few more times and then discarded the filter in the ashtray. ‘It was a stupid thing to do. I know that now. It didn’t mean anything and we both regretted it after.’

  ‘It happened just the once?’ I wanted to hear that there had been only a single transgression. Somehow, that seemed more excusable, easier to come to terms with.

  Jane blushed and said, ‘Well, no.’

  ‘How long were you . . .?’ I halted in order to moderate my language. ‘Together?’

  ‘It was a fling,’ Jane said. ‘That’s all. I don’t know why I did it and I don’t think he knows why he did it either. He’s been married for years and he’s devoted to his wife.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be like that, James. Everyone makes mistakes. We can get over this, I know we can. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’

  She clasped me in a clumsy embrace. I felt her breath on my neck, kisses, her hand on my thigh. Lovers often believe that they can resolve their differences in bed. But I have never subscribed to this view. A spasm in the loins is not redemptive. It does not confer absolution or erase memories.

  Jane realized that her efforts were having little effect and withdrew. We sat side by side, staring at the wall, listening to the sea and our own uneven respiration. Eventually, she stood up and said, ‘I think I’d better go.’ I didn’t stop her. Her heels sounded a slow, faltering step down the hallway and when the door to the landing closed behind her, it filled the hospital with a sonorous boom. Only then did I allow the grief and misery that had been accumulating in my tight chest to find expression. Something ruptured and I began to weep.

  When, after an hour or so, I went to bed, my sleep was fitful and disturbed by bad dreams.

  The worst of these woke me at about four o’clock. I was in a subterranean cave, which I recognized as one of the healing temples of ancient Greece. In front of me the sleep-room patients were laid out on beds, just as they were in reality, in two rows of three. Jane, naked but for her nurse’s cap, was walking between them. Her body looked particularly statuesque and the proud swell of her breasts parted a thick blue smoke like the prow of a ship. She was approaching an elevated, rocky platform, on top of which stood a high priest. He was wearing a long robe, embroidered with gold symbols, but his face was concealed behind an enormous ram’s head. Massive horns projected from the skull and spiralled backwards. I sensed that the high priest was, in fact, Maitland, or at least a version of him supplied by my unconscious. Jane fell to her knees and bowed. Her pale body was illuminated by flaming torches and the air was thick with a sickly sweet incense. I could see the divided perfection of her buttocks, the soles of her feet, and the unbroken smoothness of her back. There was no doubt in my mind that I was witnessing the prelude to some initiation ceremony. The priest stepped down, opened his robes, and as he did so I was abruptly returned to consciousness. I switched on the lamp. The dream had seemed so real that my bedroom appeared insubstantial by comparison. I expected the flimsy walls to topple backwards at any moment like a poorly constructed stage set.

  A period of time elapsed, during which I seemed paralysed, unable to feel emotion and unable to make decisions. Headaches rendered me insensible. I spent hours alone in my room. I should have been thinking things through, but my mental apparatus seemed to have seized up. The dusty atmosphere irritated my sinuses and I found it difficult to breathe. I decided that I needed to get out, to interpose distance between myself and Wyldehope’s oppressive interior. As luck would have it, I reached this decision just before Kenneth Price arrived from Saxmundham to relieve me for the weekend. I immediately set off for Hartley’s cottage and asked him if I could have one of the bicycles. All of them were available.

  When I reached the Dunwich road I did not follow it down to the village. Instead, I veered off in a northwesterly direction, through some woodland, over a stream, and then out across a bleak landscape of undulating muddy fields.

  On a nearby rise, I saw a shanty town of ramshackle enclosures constructed from sheets of timber and corrugated metal. Pigs busied themselves in the open spaces, wandering around with their snouts pressed to the ground. Some collected in groups, while others basked alone in pools of filth. There was something about their gatherings and dispersals that evoked human society, a resonance that quickly acquired more sinister overtones: watchtowers, barbed wire and smoking chimneys. The war had changed everything. Even pig farms had become emotionally complex.

  Although I had consulted a map before leaving Wyldehope, I had no fixed plan, no itinerary, just a vague notion of following a circular route that would eventually take me back to Dunwich. It was more or less by chance that I came to Wenhaston, a pretty enough village, but very small and quiet. As I walked up and down its main thoroughfare, I didn’t encounter a single inhabitant. I would have moved on, but I was deterred by the appearance of dark splotches on the pavement. Looking up at the sky, I saw that a mass of low black cloud was floating overhead and I thought it would be sensible to wait for it to pass before resuming my journey. I made for the church intending to shelter for a short while.

  Beyond the gates was a very typical example of an English country church, the most prominent feature of which was a high, square tower. The rain began to fall more heavily and I felt cold droplets landing on my skin. I quickened my pace and, after passing through a whitewashed porch, entered the nave. To my left was a velvet curtain that partially obscured a circle of hanging bell-ropes, and to my right an aisle leading to a raised altar. An excessive amount of devo
tional clutter made the interior look disordered.

  I found myself facing what I at first thought to be a mural of some considerable age, but as I drew closer I realized that the images had not been painted on a wall, but an arch-shaped screen made of horizontal planks. The artist seemed to have chosen a hierarchical arrangement of figures, the King of Heaven hovering near the apex and the denizens of Hell gathered lower down. Attached to the bottom of the screen was a board covered in Gothic script. A typed information sheet mounted in a frame informed me that I was standing in front of The Wenhaston Doom, a fifteenth-century depiction of the Last Judgement.

  My eye was drawn to a horde of demons, corralling naked sinners into the mouth of a giant fish with teeth the size of elephant tusks. A red devil, with an elongated nose and chin, had a naked woman slung over his back. He gripped her ankles, a foot held either side of his head, with sharp claws. The woman was hanging upside down, flailing helplessly, the seam of her hairless sex exposed between parted thighs.

  Adjacent to this hideous spectacle was an Archangel armed with a mighty broadsword. He was being challenged by the largest of the demons, so large he might have been Satan himself – a black giant with piercing eyes and scalloped wings. His most grotesque feature was a malevolent second face extruding from his abdomen.

  My gaze dropped to the Gothic script. I could decipher some words – ‘God’, ‘Rulers’, ‘Evyll’ – but it was mostly illegible.

  As I looked at this curious world of pain and suffering, I marvelled at the extraordinary capacity of the human mind to summon up scenes of horror. I had no belief in psychoanalysis, but in one respect I was prepared to concede that Freud might be right: there are horrible things lurking in the unconscious, things released in dreams, or given illusory substance by the imbalanced chemistry of a sick brain. I shivered and left the church.

  The remainder of the morning was spent cycling from village to village. Around midday, I stopped next to a reed bed where I ate a cheese and tomato sandwich and drank tea from a Thermos flask. It was there that I did my most profitable thinking. The flat expanse was peaceful and the prospect therapeutic. Afterwards, I followed signposts that directed me back towards the coast. The low cloud had settled into charcoal-grey layers, and when the hospital finally came into view it was already getting dark. I rolled the bicycle into Hartley’s shed and went straight to my rooms.

  I had more or less resolved to leave Wyldehope; however, my day out (the fresh air, the landscape, and the wholesome pleasure of doing something physical for a change) had altered my perspective. I was still angry at Jane, but I wasn’t about to let her sordid behaviour ruin my career. The textbook was too important. It had to be finished before I could consider moving on. Then that mansion flat in Hampstead could still be mine. As before, the interior was easily envisaged: tall windows, the city in the distance, chintz settee. A woman, standing by the fire – not Jane, of course, but someone else – attractive, sophisticated, uninterested in mundane chatter; the daughter of a professor, perhaps, well-read and witty, able to appreciate my accomplishments; her copies of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir would pave the floor. It was just a question of biding my time. In the interim, work would keep me occupied and I might even play some golf. According to Osborne, female companionship was always to be had in the clubhouse bar.

  Dr Ian Todd

  Highgate Hospital

  Southwood Lane

  London N6

  1st July 1955

  Dr Hugh Maitland

  Department of Psychological Medicine

  St Thomas’s Hospital

  London SE1

  Dear Dr Maitland,

  Re: Miss Sarah Blake (d.o.b. 3. 1. 1933)

  No present address.

  Thank you for your letter. I believe we have three patients currently in our care who meet your referral criteria; however, I would like to begin with Sarah Blake, who is perhaps the most problematic. She suffers from hebephrenia and her condition has been worsening steadily for eight months (logorrhoea with marked clang associations, inappropriate affect, impaired self-care, loss of appetite).

  Her history is rather curious: Sarah’s mother, Dolores Blake, suffered from post-natal depression and her father, Mr Graham Blake, abandoned his wife and child when Sarah was only eighteen months old. Subsequently, Sarah and her mother received considerable financial help from Mrs Blake’s sister, Mrs Louise Clarke (the wife of a successful vintage car dealer).

  Mrs Blake and Sarah moved from their tenement in Holloway to a comfortable mansion block on the Highgate–Dartmouth Park border, where Sarah attended a private school and was judged to be very able. During the war, Sarah and her mother moved to Hertfordshire for two years. At eleven, she developed a fascination with fire and got into trouble with the local police. She would empty out bins in public parks, douse the rubbish with paraffin, and set it alight with matches; however, the simple deterrent of the removal of all her privileges was enough to eradicate the problem.

  When Sarah was fifteen, Mrs Blake became romantically involved with a younger man to whom she loaned a significant sum of money. The relationship ended and the ungrateful absconder made no attempt to repay his debt. A year or so later, Mrs Blake became attached to another ne’er do well, causing her sister to voice objections in no uncertain terms. An ensuing family row resulted in Mrs Clarke deciding to withdraw her financial support, and Sarah and her mother were forced to move back to Holloway. Sarah attended a new school which was very inferior and she was deeply unhappy. Once residual funds had been exhausted, Mrs Blake’s relationship was predictably short-lived and a second episode of depression followed.

  Sarah left school and found employment in a shoe shop in the Nag’s Head area, and shortly after moved into a bedsit on the top floor. She became obsessed with occult subjects (astrology, Tarot cards, etc., etc) and sought the company of others who shared this interest. Apparently, there is a bookshop situated near the British Museum where enthusiasts congregate, and as soon as Sarah learned of this meeting place, she began to attend talks there.

  At twenty, Sarah started to hear voices, which she attributed to discarnate entities, a view endorsed by those with whom she was associating. Her behaviour and choice of clothes became eccentric (her mother described it as ‘fancy dress’) and she lost her job; however, she continued to pay her rent. She was helped, so she says, by a wealthy gentleman with whom she had become acquainted at the occult bookshop. I have been unable to establish the precise nature of their relationship, but I am inclined to believe that his generosity was not unconditional. Sarah mentioned having acute ‘stomach pains’ and heavy menses, which I suspect were miscarriages. She did not consult a doctor.

  Sarah continued to live in this fashion until last year, when, on the 15th of September, she almost succeeded in burning down the building in which she lived. She was seen sprinkling paraffin on the stairs by another tenant, who immediately ran to get help. The fire station is very close and the blaze was quickly brought under control. Nobody was injured. When asked why she did this, she replied, ‘I like to watch fires. The flames are exciting.’

  When I first saw Sarah, she was very ill, but still able to give an account of herself. Mrs Blake (now severely depressed and an in-patient at the Royal Northern) gave a corroborative interview shortly after Sarah came to Highgate. Sarah’s mental state deteriorated rapidly soon after her admission. She is now rarely lucid, speaks gibberish and spends much of her time drawing concentric circles which she calls ‘horoscopes’. Last month she cut her wrist and daubed arcane symbols on a wall with her own blood. It was most distressing for the nurses.

  I feel that we have now done all that we can for Sarah and she needs to be transferred to a facility offering a more radical approach. If you would like to arrange an assessment, then please contact me through my secretary, Mrs Hampden (telephone: HIG 3562).

  It is regrettable that a child who showed much early promise has been brought so low by her condition. If you were
to achieve only modest treatment gains, I would consider that an impressive accomplishment.

  Yours sincerely,

  Ian Todd

  Dr Ian Todd

  MB BS, DPM

  15

  Michael Chapman and I had not discussed the extraordinary occurrences of Christmas night. From the moment Osborne had divulged their secret, I had become entirely preoccupied with Jane and Maitland’s affair and had thought of little else; however, after confronting Jane and making my decision to stay at Wyldehope, I found myself thinking more and more about those strange events: the power cut, the slamming doors and the half-seen face behind the advancing flame. I wanted to sit down with Chapman and compare my own recollections with his, but he was becoming increasingly paranoid, and I did not want to aggravate his condition by interrogating him. When he was at his worst, I would find him hiding behind an armchair in the recreation room or trying to decipher scratch marks on the table. If his mood improved, he could still manage a game of chess, although he was listless and frequently complained of headaches. A problem not helped, I am sure, by the development of a curious obsession.

  I discovered Chapman sitting on his bed, writing furiously in a notebook and surrounded by discarded pages. He was so absorbed he failed to notice my arrival. I looked over his shoulder and saw what appeared to be a complex algebraic problem, but when I looked closer I realized that he was, in fact, repeating a single proposition:

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  Chapman covered the page with his hand. ‘Nothing,’ he replied. I saw no profit in pursuing the matter and left him alone.

  A few hours later he was more amenable. He didn’t appear tense and he was writing at a more leisurely rate. I sat beside him, ran my finger beneath a single instance of several iterations, and said, in a tone suggesting casual interest, ‘Some kind of logical problem, is it?’

  Chapman did not look up. ‘Russell’s paradox,’ he replied.