While You Sleep

by Stephanie Merritt

  ‘I hope you find what you’re looking for.’ The last words Dan had said to her before she left, in a voice tight with anger, making clear that nothing she might gain from this decision would ever outweigh the price she was asking everyone else to pay. Leaning against the wall in the hallway, arms folded across his chest, as the cab driver rang the buzzer. Watching as she tried to wrestle her cases down the stairs, not offering to help, in case she should mistake that for approval or acquiescence; determined to the very end that she should not imagine, even for a second, that she had his blessing.

  ‘The fuck?’ he had said, the night she had announced her project over dinner. So she had repeated it, clearly, patiently, but he had continued to stare at her, knife and fork poised in mid-air.

  ‘So you went ahead and planned all this without even asking me?’ he said, when he had eventually processed it.

  ‘Like you went ahead and decided to quit your job without discussing it,’ she replied, evenly.

  ‘What – you can’t even compare—’ He put the cutlery down, ran both hands through his hair, clutching at clumps of it. ‘There was nothing to discuss – it was a good offer. Better than I expected. Architects are the first to suffer in a downturn, you know that. The whole construction industry’s feeling it. Guys are being laid off all over. I had to take that deal before I was left with no choice. I did it so I could be around for you more. It was the opposite of fucking running away.’

  Zoe said nothing; it was easier to let Dan go on believing himself to be right. How could she explain it to him? The last decade had not diminished him, as it had her. He had not had to give up his place in the world since becoming a parent; he still put on a good suit and set out to work every day, solved problems, engaged his intellect, kept his skills sharp. He spent several evenings a week dining with clients and associates, occasionally taking her along when they could find a sitter, but mostly not; he continued to travel frequently for contracts and conferences, sometimes to Europe, more often across the country to consult on projects with the Seattle office. She had not failed to notice that meetings were often arranged there for Monday mornings, obliging him to stay the weekend; she had noticed too that his first point of contact in Seattle was a colleague called Lauren Carrera, a woman who appeared to have no concept of time zones and would call him on his cell with supposedly urgent queries long past midnight, calls he would retreat downstairs to take in his office, his voice soft and light, full of easy laughter, the way she had not heard it in a long time. Lauren Carrera was in her early thirties and too exhibitionist to set her Facebook photos to private; in all of them she was skiing or surfing or running half-marathons for charity, or raising tequila shots with a vast and diverse group of friends. Zoe had never asked Dan outright if he had slept with Lauren Carrera, because he was no good at lying and she didn’t want to have to watch him try.

  Dan’s life was compartmentalised, in the way that was permitted to men; home, fatherhood, was only a part of it. It had always been assumed that she would stay home once Caleb was born, and she had felt in no position to argue; it was not as if she earned enough from her paintings to support a family – though one day she might have done, if she had been allowed to try. She would never know now, what her early promise might have flowered into. ‘You can always paint while the baby’s asleep,’ Dan had said cheerfully, knotting his tie in the mirror after five brief days of paternity leave, unwittingly revealing with those few words how he regarded her work. A small chip of ice had embedded itself in the heart of their marriage, though as usual she had said nothing. For the best part of a decade she had been disappearing, her life shrunk to a cycle of bake sales and swim team practice, as the ice spread slowly outwards from the centre. In recent years she had found herself growing panicky, all her thoughts swarming relentlessly back to the same, unanswered question: Is this it? In her darkest moments, she sometimes wondered if she was now being punished for her ingratitude, her inability to be content.

  ‘How will this help?’ Dan had persisted, the night she had told him about the island. ‘I’ve said over and over we should go back to counselling, but you just want to run away from everything, like some adolescent?’

  ‘We tried counselling. It didn’t work.’

  ‘It’s not fucking magic.’ He pulled at his hair. ‘You have to stick at it. Jesus, Zo …’ The anger subsided into weary despair: ‘We can’t go on like this. You know that.’

  ‘I need some time by myself.’

  ‘That’s not how marriage works. You don’t get to take a break for a bit when it gets difficult – you do it together. That’s what I always believed, anyway. What does Dr Schlesinger have to say about your big plan, huh?’

  She didn’t tell him that she had stopped seeing Dr Schlesinger weeks ago; the suggestion that she was expected to seek permission for her decisions needled her.

  ‘It’s only a month,’ she had replied instead, surprised by how calm she sounded. ‘I’ll be back before Thanksgiving.’ It was easier to let him believe that too.

  He changed tack. ‘How are you paying for this?’

  ‘I saved.’

  ‘Oh, you saved?’ He cocked an eyebrow. She didn’t respond. All the implications contained in that question that was not a question at all but an accusation. What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is yours, is that it? But her income, such as it was – from two days a week teaching art at a Catholic girls’ middle school – was always supposed to be for her alone, that was what they had agreed, for the little luxuries that she would not have dreamed of taking from the household budget. Clothes, perfume, occasional nights out with her girlfriends. But she had had no social life for the best part of a year, much less bought new clothes. Unsurprisingly, Dan had failed to notice that.

  ‘And what about us?’ he had asked quietly. ‘What about …?’ and pointed up at the ceiling, meaning Caleb’s room, saving the lowest blow for last.

  At that point she had raised her hand, enough, and stood up from the table, walked out of the house.

  Now, with this unfamiliar sea stretching before her, she smiled into the sunlight, forcing herself to shake off her guilt. It had been Dan’s choice to take voluntary redundancy, a choice he had not thought to discuss with her before presenting it as a fait accompli, but in it she found an opportunity; she could not have imagined herself leaving otherwise. It would be good for him to spend some time at home, to think of Caleb first for once. They could not have continued as they were; on that, at least, they agreed. Draining the last of her coffee, she set the mug on the veranda and padded down the wooden stairs – eight of them – on to the beach. The chill of the sand between her toes made her gasp; she had to step gingerly over the bands of shingle, until she reached the lacy patterns of foam where the waves petered out and receded. The water touched her feet, cold as a blade.

  She walked along the shore as far as the outcrop of rocks at the south end of the bay’s crescent and looked back at the house, squinting into the sun, shielding her eyes to take in its silhouette. In the morning light it looked benign, its crooked gables, ecclesiastical windows and roof turret charming and eccentric. Where she was standing now – this was where she had thought she glimpsed a figure on the beach, after she woke from her unexpected dream and her sleepwalking. The sand was smooth and undisturbed in this sheltered corner, where the sea did not reach. Not a trace of a footprint that wasn’t her own, except the pointed tracks of the gulls. Of course there wasn’t.

  It was only later, when she showered, hot water needling her newly sensitised skin, that she happened to glance down and notice a small reddish-purple bruise on the side of her left breast, by her armpit. Probably where the strap of her bag had rubbed in all the hefting of luggage yesterday, she thought. But when she examined the bruise more closely in the mirror, it looked almost as if it bore the faint impression of teethmarks.

  3

  Zoe had installed herself outside on the veranda, leaning back on the bench with her legs stret
ched out, bare feet braced against the wooden balustrade and a sketchbook in her lap, when Mick arrived at noon. She heard the growl of the Land Rover and the scattering of gravel in the drive. After a few moments, he made his way around the side of the house, calling brightly so as not to alarm her, and approached the veranda from the beach. His expression was hesitant at first, anxious even, but it softened into relief to see her so apparently at ease.

  ‘I see you’re straight to work.’ He shielded his eyes to look up at her as he climbed the steps.

  ‘Couldn’t miss this light.’ She waved her sketchbook and grinned, surprised by her own jauntiness. The sensuality of the previous night’s dream seemed to have left her lit up, more awake, more aware of her own body and her physical presence: the damp wood against the soles of her feet, the play of the wind on her face, the pencil’s precise weight and balance between her fingers. She felt unusually vivid.

  ‘And you slept all right?’ Mick seemed caught off guard by her good humour, as if it was not what he had expected to find and was not quite convinced by it.

  ‘Like a log, thanks.’ She felt the colour flare up in her cheeks.

  He looked at her, pulling on his earlobe as if he was on the point of asking another question, but after a hesitation he smiled and breathed out. ‘Well, that’s great. It’s nice and quiet, at least – apart from the wind.’

  ‘And the sea,’ she said, laughing. ‘And the gulls, and the seals.’ She stopped, abruptly. She had almost said, ‘and the singing.’

  ‘True. But you’ll get used to those in time, I hope. Can I interrupt you for a quick tour of the boring stuff?’

  He showed her how to change the timer for the heating and hot water, the outbuilding at the front of the house where he had stacked chopped wood for the kitchen range, the fuse box under the stairs and the cellar with the generator that would, in theory, run the electricity in the event of a power cut. She wasn’t wholly paying attention to the instructions; the cellar had a dank, forbidding atmosphere and a musty smell that made her want to get out as quickly as possible, and she was alarmed by the thought of being stuck out here with no power.

  ‘You’ll be fine, don’t worry,’ Mick said, catching her expression as he demonstrated how to light the hurricane lamps. ‘It’s just that it’s all very new out here – there was no mains electricity or running water when we started doing up the house, it all had to be put in from scratch. The pipes make a bit of a racket too, I’m afraid, you probably noticed – banging and what have you. Everything’s settling in and we don’t know how it will fare in the winter storms.’

  ‘So I could be stuck here with no lights?’ She heard the catch in her voice as she pictured herself alone in the house with only a candle. A sharp memory of that pale singing jolted through her and she shivered, despite the sun.

  ‘No, no – that’s why we’ve put in the generator. Don’t fret – you won’t be left sitting out here in the dark.’ He laughed, a touch too loudly. ‘Well, then. If you’re ready, I can drop you into town for the shops and bring you back before I have to get to the pub.’

  ‘Oh – what about that door that’s locked upstairs?’ Zoe asked, as they returned to the kitchen.

  Mick frowned. ‘What door?’

  ‘On the top landing. Right at the end.’

  ‘The turret room, you mean? Have you no had a look up there? Lovely views all across the headland. On a clear day, you can see right across to—’

  ‘But I don’t have the key.’

  ‘There is no key.’ The crease in his brow deepened. ‘None of the rooms are locked.’ He looked at her as if trying to work out whether she was having him on. ‘Maybe the handle’s stiff. Shall I take a wee look?’

  ‘Don’t worry if it’s—’ she began, but he was already in the hall, bounding towards the stairs, telling her it was no trouble. She followed him up two flights, conscious of a flutter of apprehension in her stomach as they approached the closed door at the end of the second-floor landing.

  ‘This one here?’ Mick grasped the doorknob; it turned easily and the door swung inwards on smooth hinges, with barely a creak. Behind it was what looked like a large cupboard containing a wooden spiral staircase. He glanced back and beamed at her.

  ‘I was probably turning it the wrong way,’ Zoe mumbled, feeling the colour rising.

  ‘Well, you’ll know for next time. Go on up, if you like.’ He held the door open and nodded towards the stairs.

  The staircase smelled of wood polish and new paint. Light washed down the white walls from above. The air was colder here; as she climbed the short flight, she noticed goosebumps standing up on her arm and realised that she was holding her breath. At the end of the final curve, the stairs opened up into a bright hexagonal room with windows on all sides, wide enough for two people to stand with their arms outstretched. From here, two floors up, you could see across the headland to the north and out over the shining sea to three crooked rock stacks standing sentinel in the water off the coast, lined up like the remaining pillars of a giant ruined pier. On the other side, the view stretched as far as the moorland and the low purple mountains that formed a ridge along the centre of the island. There was no furniture in the room except a high wooden stool and a ledge that ran all the way around under the windows, wide enough to use as a writing desk. It must have been intended as some kind of observatory. No one could approach by water unannounced.

  ‘It’s quite something, eh? I’d have liked to put a telescope in there.’ Mick’s voice floated up from the foot of the stairs, with that same note of pride and affection that betrayed how much the house had been a labour of love for him. She had heard the pang in his voice as he had shown her around, pointing out examples of local craftsmanship or areas where the restoration had been particularly tricky. He envied her the chance to live in it, that much was plain. Perhaps it had been Kaye’s choice, not to move the children. But what child would not want to live here, with a beach and seals on their doorstep?

  ‘This view is amazing.’ She glanced around the empty room. The singing had sounded so definite, in the depths of the night, the woman’s pain so stark from behind the door. Strange, she thought, the tricks a fraught mind can play. She looked back out at the sea and, for the space of a heartbeat, she felt someone looking over her shoulder, a cold breath on her neck, so that she snapped around, thinking Mick had come up the stairs silently behind her. The room was empty. Downstairs, Mick gave a little cough, a hint that he wanted to get going.

  He closed the door to the turret room behind her and immediately reopened it, turning the handle both ways to prove how easily it worked.

  ‘There. Definitely not locked.’

  ‘No. My mistake. Sorry.’ She had the sudden, absurd thought that someone must have been holding the handle from the other side, though she dismissed it straight away.

  Mick dropped her in the main street of the village by the parade of shops she had seen the night before.

  ‘Half an hour do you? You’ve the wee supermarket across the way there and a chemist further down, and there’s – well, you’ll see. Have a wander. I’ll meet you back here.’

  Zoe thanked him and was about to cross the street when he called her back, leaning out of the driver’s window.

  ‘Uh – Mrs Adams?’

  ‘Zoe,’ she said patiently.

  ‘I was wondering – had you any thoughts about what you would do for transport?’ He looked embarrassed, as if he should not have to be the one raising this subject.

  ‘Transport?’ She looked at him, not quite understanding the question.

  ‘It’s only – you’re a long way from civilisation out there. I mean, I’m happy to give you a lift now and then for the shopping, but there might be other times you run out of stuff or you just, you know, need to get out of there.’ He stopped, his face confused, as if he realised he had slipped up. ‘I mean, you might fancy a trip into town or, I don’t know. And, like I say, Kaye and I will do whatever we can to help, bu
t if we’re not free …’

  ‘Oh, God, no – I wasn’t expecting you to drive me around the whole time.’ Zoe heard her voice come out unexpectedly shrill. Now she was embarrassed too; it was true that in her impulsive enthusiasm for the beautiful light over the sea she had not given much thought to the fact that she would need food and basic supplies in her splendid isolation. She supposed there had been a vague notion of cabs in the back of her mind. Now that she was here, she realised how foolish that had been. ‘I was thinking maybe I could rent a bike?’

  ‘It’s a thought,’ Mick said carefully, in a voice that implied it was a stupid one. ‘There’s a bike shop right at the end of the High Street, before you get to the school.’

  A quicksilver flicker of interest in her belly at the mention of the school. She thought of the young teacher, his fringe falling in his eyes, his shy smile and his Andy Warhol glasses, and with the thought came that prickling awareness of her own body, alive and responsive, the way she had felt after the previous night’s dream. She had to look away from Mick in case he noticed the colour in her face.

  ‘But, listen – when the weather sets in, you won’t be wanting to cycle on those roads,’ he was saying, oblivious. He cleared his throat. ‘I only mention it because my pal Dougie Reid up at the golf course has a car he could rent you while you’re here. Very reasonable. Nothing fancy, but—’

  ‘That’s kind. Maybe …’ Her throat closed around the words. He was right; she had realised during the drive across grandly bleak sweeps of rust-coloured moorland that she would not manage here without her own car. It was six months since she had been behind a wheel. Each time she had tried, the panic rose up through her chest and engulfed her, so that she felt choked by it: the shakes and pounding heart, the numbness in her limbs, the sweat and the fast, shallow breathing. Perhaps here, in a different landscape, she might be able to face that down. There was a different anxiety in Mick’s expression, though, that she could not quite identify, one that had nothing to do with the worry that he would end up ferrying her around. He wants me to be able to escape, she thought, as if by sudden intuition. ‘You might need to get out of there,’ he had said, then tried to correct himself. Did even Mick – stoical, pragmatic Mick Drummond, scoffer at old wives’ tales – fear there was something she might need to flee at the house?