‘Had a good time?’
‘Lovely.’
‘You look a bit peeky.’
‘I didn’t sleep very well last night.’
‘Missing me, I hope?’
‘I expect so. How did you get on in Stockholm?’
‘Bloody. These Swedes just aren’t like us English.’
‘Poor Henry.’
‘In fact, I’ve got a problem on my hands. I’ll tell you all about it over lunch.’
Which Henry did. Margaret could not complain that he was one of those husbands who keep from their wives everything that they themselves take seriously. And, immediately lunch was over, Henry had to dash off to a different conference with Larsson, and Falkenberg, and the other local ogres. Margaret did not have to consider further, as she had been considering now for more than twenty-four hours, how much she should tell Henry. It was unlikely that at any time she would have to tell him anything crucial about what had happened to her. ‘You’re still looking under the weather, old girl,’ said Henry, as he tore off. ‘Even the reception people and the waiter seemed to notice it. I saw them glancing at you. I don’t know when I shall be back. I should go and get some sleep. Just trot upstairs and relax.’
He kissed her – really most affectionately.
*
Margaret did not feel at all like sleep; nor, for that matter, did she feel particularly out of sorts. None the less, she went to their room, took off her dress, and sprawled on the bed in her blue lambswool dressing-gown. It was quite reasonable, after last night’s traffic, that she should be short of rest, and perhaps even show it. All the same, no sleep came; and Margaret faced again the problem that there was nothing more to do in Sovastad. Henry’s solution to that would undoubtedly be a resumption of sociabilities with the Larssons and Falkenbergs and their kind; which, as he had already observed, would kill two birds with one stone, keep Margaret occupied while assisting business. One reason why Margaret felt unattracted was the time-limit on such associations: she could not, on the instant, become gay and intimate with strangers, and then, on the instant, cut it all off. And it was even worse when the time of cessation was so mobile and indefinite. Margaret could only give, or even take, when she had some consciousness of continuity. Probably, she thought gloomily, it was a serious limitation in the wife of a business man.
In the end, she put on her dress once more, went out to buy three more postcards, and sent them off to her children. She continued to prevent her mind from dwelling upon all that had happened since the previous triptych of postcards to Dinah, Hazel, and Jeremy.
*
But it was not until well past midnight that she began to feel alarmed: to be precise, when she heard the tinkling church clock strike three, as she had heard it strike one and two.
Even then, she thought, it might have been simply the fact that once more she was sleeping with Henry in the room. Heaven knew that Henry slept noisily enough to keep anyone awake, especially one who a second time had exerted herself so little during the day. Henry rolled and squirmed. He groaned and snored and panted. Sometimes he cried out. Margaret had to admit that Henry was not (to use his own idiom) good publicity for the institution of slumber. Not that many would sympathise with his wife’s predicament: it was too utterly ridiculous, and probably too familiar also. A good wife would take it in her stride; restricted though the stride of a good wife might be.
The tinkling clock struck four and five and six, and Margaret never slept at all. It also struck a single, delicate note at the intermediate half-hours. At some time after half past six, with heavy rain, which had begun to fall about an hour earlier, beating drearily against the bedroom window, Henry sat up, trained auxiliary to the day’s commands.
At breakfast, he said that she still looked odd, and she noticed that he was watching for the Swedes to be eyeing her. She still did not feel anything out of the ordinary. She had said nothing to Henry about not sleeping. She remarked to herself that to miss one night’s sleep was nothing at all by the standard of people who slept badly. Or, at least, by the proclaimed standard. She had been immensely exposed to the suggestion of insomnia; could hardly have been more exposed. Normality, her own possibly rather notable normality of somnolence, would probably be restored when she was returned to her own proper bed. On present evidence, that looked like being the day after tomorrow, but one never knew. The road ruled all.
‘Hedvig Falkenberg was asking after you,’ said Henry. ‘Rather pointedly, I thought. Make some kind of contact, will you? I can’t have a coolness with the Falkenbergs on my hands. On top of everything else. They can be damned sensitive, these foreigners.’
Margaret more or less promised, and meant to keep her word. She did not even have to tackle the terrifying Swedish telephone, as one would at home. She had merely to walk the half mile or so up to the Falkenbergs’ house on its low ridge above the town. Visitors seemed at all times to be not merely welcome but awaited. The walk would do her good. Even the steady rain might wake her up or make her sleep: it was striking how a single force could lead to antithetical results. But Margaret let the hours pass and did nothing. And when Henry returned that night, she did not even have to make an excuse.
‘Everything’s settled, Molly,’ he cried, almost exuberantly. ‘Thank God, we can go home tomorrow.’
Possibly it was owing to the lifting of the weight on his mind that, on this second night after his return from Stockholm, Henry slept much more quietly; much better, as people say. Margaret heard him purring gently and evenly as a child: hour after hour after hour, while the church clock chimed and the rain pattered. As this second sleepless night slowly passed, Margaret ceased finding explanations, making excuses, pretending to herself.
If only she could walk about! A few minutes after the stroke of five, she got out of bed, and, in almost total silence, drew on her shirt, trousers, and anorak. She stood for a long time looking out at the infinitely slow and laboured dawn. She would have liked to escape, but in this place the door would be locked, and a night porter, even if there was one, would shrink away from her and be beyond communication. She must still, for a spell, be reasonable.
She hid away her clothes and crept back into bed. Henry was still purring away, but as she drew near to him, he seemed to give a single, curious sigh, as of a man dreaming about the past which is always so much sweeter than the present.
*
‘Henry,’ said Margaret after breakfast. ‘You have said several times that I’m not looking very well. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been sleeping. And quite by chance, I’ve found a place where people from all over the world go when they don’t sleep. Would you mind very much if I stayed behind for a while? Just for a short time, of course?’
The argument took every bit as long as she had expected, but Margaret was developing new resources now, even though she had little idea of what they were.
‘I’ll let you know immediately I get out of the wood,’ she promised. ‘It’s one of those things you have to live through until you emerge the other side.’
About the Author
Robert Fordyce Aickman was born in 1914 in London. He was married to Edith Ray Gregorson from 1941 to 1957. In 1946 the couple, along with Tom and Angela Rolt, set up the Inland Waterways Association to preserve the canals of Britain. It was in 1951 that Aickman, along with Elizabeth Jane Howard, published his first ghost stories entitled We are the Dark. Aickman went on to publish eleven more volumes of horror stories as well as two fantasy novels and two volumes of autobiography. He also edited the first eight volumes of The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories. He died in February 1981.
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2012
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Robert Aickman, 1988
The right of Robert Aickman to be identified as author of this w
ork has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–29452–7
The Wine-Dark Sea Page 36
