While You Sleep

by Stephanie Merritt

  ‘That doesn’t matter to me,’ he said. ‘I think you’re beautiful.’

  Zoe laughed, then quickly checked herself. Did he really think that was the source of her anxiety – that she might be self-conscious about her looks? ‘Thank you. Look – it’s not you. I really like your company. But you’re right that we both came here to get away from complications. Maybe best not to add to them, eh?’

  He looked down at his hands for a long time and nodded unhappily. ‘I should go, then.’

  ‘Should I call a cab for you?’

  He gave a brief laugh. ‘You haven’t really got the hang of living here yet, have you? I’ll be fine, it’s not far.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ She stared at him until he was forced to look up and meet her eye. ‘You can’t drive home – are you insane?’

  He raised his hands in protest and let them fall limply to his side. ‘OK, I’m sorry, you’re right. If you make some more coffee I’ll be all right in an hour or so.’

  ‘There’s no way you should drive in an hour, even if you drink a gallon of coffee.’ She sighed, pushed a hand through her hair. ‘Look, you’d better stay till the morning, sleep it off. There’s loads of spare rooms.’ As soon as she had spoken, she wanted to bite the words back; there was no guarantee she wouldn’t have another of her unpredictable nocturnal adventures. She could not risk sleepwalking naked around the house while he was there – even if he had seen it all already.

  ‘I’ll be fine down here on the sofa, honestly,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘In that room where we found the gull – then I can stay out of your way and leave first thing. You won’t have to offer breakfast.’ He attempted a smile. ‘Sorry I’ve been such an arse. I like your company too. I’m not usually this forward – it’s, I don’t know …’ He glanced around the entrance hall, as if its carved wooden ceiling might offer an explanation. ‘It’s been such a strange evening. You nearly drowning, and then the gull, and the book. Those drawings. It’s as if this place has had a weird effect on me. Maybe there is something in those old rumours. I feel I’m not acting like myself, but I know that sounds like a terrible excuse.’

  ‘I’d say it’s the Malbec that’s had an effect on you.’ Zoe allowed him a half-smile, but his words stirred an uneasy recognition in her. She thought of Charles and his theory of time overlapping. Could it be true that the house itself might be responsible for her disrupted nights, her out-of-character moods? She dismissed the thought as soon as it took shape; that was as good as saying the place really was haunted, and she would not give in to that when more common sense explanations lay all around her. ‘I’ll get you some blankets,’ she offered, glad of a reason to break away. ‘And listen –’ she hesitated at the foot of the stairs – ‘probably best not to mention this to anyone. That you’ve stayed here, I mean. It’s a small place and I can live without being the centre of village gossip. It wouldn’t do you any good either, I guess – to have people speculating about your business.’

  ‘Oh Christ, no, of course not,’ he said, stumbling over his words in his haste to reassure her. ‘I wouldn’t say a thing. I’ve always tried to keep my private life private here. Not that there’s been anything to tell before …’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell now, either,’ Zoe said, and felt a twinge of conscience at the way he hung his head. ‘I’ll get a pillow too,’ she added, in a softer tone.

  She stopped to use the bathroom while she was upstairs, noticing as she washed her hands how much soot she had streaked across her face. Had she sat there all through dinner like that and he hadn’t said a thing? She smiled to herself; another gallantry that touched her. By the time she had cleaned herself up and fetched a blanket and pillow from one of the unused bedrooms, she found him stretched out on the sofa in the downstairs drawing room, his head tipped back and his eyes closed, breathing in a quiet, steady rhythm through parted lips, one hand loosely holding Ailsa’s journal to his chest. She hesitated, watching him for a few moments, feeling more indulgent now that he was asleep. He looked so young, his dark lashes curled on his cheeks. What had she been thinking? Gently she removed the book from his grasp and laid the blanket over him, then crossed to the windows to draw the heavy curtains, taking care not to look at her own reflection: part of her was afraid she would see the face of Ailsa McBride, staring back with those hard, black eyes. Before switching off the lamp she returned to Edward, taking in the smoothness of his unguarded face with an odd sense of loss. He would leave in the morning without saying goodbye, he had said as much, and he should not come back here, she thought. It was for the best. However much she had enjoyed the evening, however much she felt warmed by the idea of his company, they ought not to do this again; he must not feel that she had encouraged him. She leaned across and lifted his glasses off his nose, as delicately as she could, folded them carefully and laid them on the table by his head. She thought briefly of kissing his forehead, the way she always did with Caleb when she checked on him before she went to sleep, but decided that was too weird.

  With Ailsa’s book under her arm, feeling oddly vulnerable now that she was the only one awake, she made the tour of all the downstairs doors and windows, checking the locks, trying to avoid glimpses of herself in the black glass as she pulled all the curtains against the possibility of faces at the windows. If this were a horror movie, she thought, trying to cheer herself with flippancy, the twist would be that Edward was a serial killer and now she had locked herself into the house with him. She heard herself laugh, too loudly, in the silence, and wished she had not allowed herself to think it. On balance, she didn’t think he was a danger – hadn’t he saved her life earlier? – but it was true that she hardly knew him, yet she had invited him to spend the night with her alone in a house miles from anywhere. She could picture all too well what Dan would say if he found out – another good reason to keep it quiet. Even if he were to believe that nothing had happened – unlikely – he would not forgive her for being so careless of her own safety, and she had to concede he would have a point.

  At the thought of Dan, she remembered the flashing red light on the answering machine by the front door. But when she played the message, it was only Charles Joseph giving her directions to his house for supper the following night. Zoe found she was both relieved and disappointed. She picked up the receiver almost automatically to dial home; an obscure sense of guilt over what she had allowed to happen with Edward, combined with that earlier image of tucking Caleb in as he slept, had triggered an ache that would only be soothed if she could hear her son’s voice and reassure him that all was well. It would be early evening at home; perfect timing, if she could steel herself for the inevitable chilly exchange with Dan first. But as her fingers moved to the buttons she remembered that it was Saturday; he would have taken Caleb to his sister’s for the weekend. It was what he always did on the rare occasions Zoe had gone away overnight; a way of handing Caleb immediately into the care of another woman, because Dan was unsure of himself, afraid of being left with full responsibility, in case he messed up somehow. Caleb never minded; he was happy enough to be thrown into the general melee with his cousins. There was no way she was calling them at Leah’s; she knew what Dan’s sister would have to say about her trip, and that was a confrontation she didn’t need right now. It would be clear to Leah that she’d been drinking, and on top of that, she couldn’t risk Edward waking up and overhearing the conversation. The less he knew of her life, the better. Tomorrow night, then. She would call home tomorrow, after she’d had a chance to sleep.

  She barely surfaced from tumbled dreams when she felt the dip in the mattress beside her, the sure touch of a hand on her shoulder. The hand moved softly down the length of her back to the S-bend of her waist and hip and across the curve of her buttock; she stirred, awareness struggling to the surface as if through green water towards the light. In the blur of half-sleep she knew if she fought her way to waking she must push him away, but there was the comfort of another body moulding itself to
hers, the particular chime and thrill of it. Perhaps, on some unacknowledged level, this was what she had hoped for when she asked him to stay. To be held, for a while; if that was all that happened, she could pretend she was still dreaming, abdicate responsibility. She wriggled back against him, inviting the pressure of his body. The hand slid a path upwards, across her stomach, under her T-shirt to grasp her breast, pinching her nipple until it stood hard. She murmured a half-hearted protest and his hand moved away, over the sweep of her hip again to ease between her legs, inside her underwear. Drowsy, she felt the familiar swell and opening; she rocked against the pressure as her body responded, even as her thoughts began to crystallise. She wanted this; she must stop this. In a moment it would be too late to stop.

  ‘Oh God, Edward, no,’ she murmured, trying to muster the strength to push him away, as his hand moved harder and she became aware, belatedly, that her skin was freezing; the room, too, had acquired a hollow chill. Even under the duvet, where there should have been shared warmth, she could feel only bone-deep cold. Abruptly, his hand stopped moving; she felt the mattress shift. Zoe flung out an arm into that icy air and fumbled for the switch on the bedside lamp. Flinching against its light, she saw that the bed was empty.

  She was still screaming when she heard the drumming of footsteps on the boards of the landing, the knock at the door – first tentative, then anxious.

  ‘Zoe? Are you all right?’

  She broke off with a hiccupping gasp, as if she were surprised to discover she had been the source of the noise. The handle turned; the door opened a crack. She pulled the duvet up to her throat, fixing her eyes on the darkness revealed in the gap. Edward’s pale face appeared, bleary with sleep, a faint pattern cross-hatched on his left cheek where the weave of the sofa had imprinted it. She stared at him and felt the slow turning of fear to anger.

  ‘The hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘What?’ Confusion creased his expression; he rubbed his eyes. ‘I woke and heard you screaming. I thought …’ He let the sentence hang, as if it was better not to voice what he had thought.

  ‘What kind of fucking horrible trick was that?’ She breathed out, hard, trying to master herself. ‘How dare you? It’s called assault, by the way. And then you run off – did you think that was funny?’

  Edward continued to look at her, his perplexity shading into alarm. ‘I don’t know what you mean. It was only a kiss – I thought you – I didn’t mean any—’

  ‘Not then. Now. Getting into my bed and disappearing again. Touching me. You can’t just do that, while I was sleeping.’

  ‘What? I didn’t.’ He pushed both hands through his hair, blinking to focus without his glasses, his face contorted with distress. ‘I wouldn’t. I was asleep downstairs, I swear. Your screaming woke me.’

  Zoe found herself struggling for breath. She wanted to argue, but she knew he was telling the truth.

  ‘Someone was in the room,’ she whispered. He left a pause, watching her with an expression of concern, one hand tangled in his hair.

  ‘Do you think you might have been dreaming?’

  She pinched the bridge of her nose and allowed her breath to escape. ‘I must have been. Jesus. Sorry.’

  ‘It’s this house, I swear,’ he said, with an air of authority that irritated her. ‘Were you reading Ailsa’s journal?’ He pointed to the pillow beside her where the book lay. ‘There’s plenty in there to give anyone freaky dreams.’

  Zoe glanced at the book and pulled the duvet closer around her. She thought about protesting further but it seemed redundant. After the strangeness of the previous nights, she could no longer say for certain what was a dream and what was really in the house. She wondered if it was the wine; she feared she was losing her grip. She only knew, at this point, that she did not want to lie down in that bed again with the light off.

  Edward hovered in the doorway. ‘Do you want me to make you a cup of tea?’ he offered.

  She shook her head. The open door was troubling her; every time she looked at him, her eye was drawn to the yawning darkness behind him.

  ‘Do you want me to go?’

  ‘No.’ She didn’t know how to articulate what she wanted. He hesitated, then closed the door behind him and perched tentatively on the end of the bed, as if he expected to be ejected any minute. Zoe watched him, mired in her own confusion. She needed him to stay – like a talisman, she thought; it would not come back unless she was alone – but she was troubled by an uneasy sense that she would be putting him in harm’s way if she kept him with her.

  ‘Should I stay, then?’

  She saw that he was shivering.

  ‘You’re cold. You’d better get under here.’ She lifted a corner of the duvet. ‘To sleep, I mean. You understand?’

  ‘Completely.’ He nodded and slid himself under the cover, seeming grateful for the concession. Zoe turned away, embarrassed, though she was grateful too: for his solidity, his very real human warmth. And why had she thought that, she wondered, as she reached across to turn out the light: human. Perhaps because of the lingering sense that whatever had entered her bed earlier had been something else, something less than – or worse than – human.

  He reached across and rested a hand gently on her shoulder, and the gesture was so reassuring after her earlier terror that she felt tears prickle in her throat. She laid her hand over his and closed her eyes. A cold draught blew along the landing and under the door, but the house remained silent.

  10

  ‘I don’t expect anything of you,’ Edward said the next morning as they walked along the cliff path, in that frank way of his, keeping his eyes fixed on the line of light where water blurred into sky. Zoe turned to look at him. A salt wind lifted his hair; he squinted into the sun, crinkling the line of freckles over his narrow nose.

  ‘I don’t have anything to offer,’ she said simply.

  The sky arched above them, a high canvas of blue flecked with cloud. Another unseasonably beautiful day, sunlight falling clear as water; up on the cliffs a sharp wind chivvied at their clothes and hair, and the gulls slid along the currents like paper aeroplanes, their wings held still.

  ‘I know you’re only passing through,’ he continued, kicking at tufts of grass. ‘I suppose I am, too. But while we’re here …’ He pulled his collar up against the wind. ‘I like talking to you, that’s all,’ he said, as if beginning a new train of thought. ‘I know the age thing bothers you, but I don’t think about it when we talk. I’ve spent a lot of time on my own since I’ve been here. Too much, I think. It was useful for a while, to get my head together, but I’m tired of it. I know you’ve only just arrived, though. You haven’t had the chance to get sick of it yet. Stop me if I’m talking too much.’

  ‘I left my marriage,’ Zoe said suddenly. It took her by surprise; she hadn’t quite meant to say that aloud. It was only as she spoke the words that she realised the truth of it; in coming here, that was precisely what she had done. All her talk of decisions, of needing space, of taking time to think, was rendered meaningless by the simple act of leaving, she could see that now. You could not put a life on hold like that; you could not ask someone who loves you to wait quietly while you decided whether or not you wanted them. Though she was no longer convinced that Dan still loved her in the way that he used to; even so, he had stayed. She could grant him that: he hadn’t walked away, when he could have done. She was the one who had shut him out. But in demanding time out to consider the future, she had, in effect, already left – and what did that mean for them all now, that she had chosen to walk away? The shock of comprehension was so great that she stopped in the middle of the cliff path and doubled over to catch her breath, clutching her stomach.

  ‘I thought it might be something like that,’ Edward was saying as he walked, before he realised she was no longer beside him and turned to see her folded, a hand over her mouth. ‘Are you OK?’

  She straightened and nodded. ‘Just felt a bit weird. I’m a little hungover,
I guess.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said, with a self-conscious laugh, though to Zoe he looked as fresh-faced and bright-eyed as if he’d never touched a drop the night before. You can get away with it when you’re twenty-three, she thought, with a twist of bitterness.

  She was glad now that he had not left first thing as he’d promised. She had woken a second time to the shock of an empty bed, the chill as she remembered her dream of the night before, though the light edging the curtains had given her a shot of courage; she had pulled on clothes and fumbled her way downstairs to find Edward seated at the kitchen table and the air warm with the smell of fresh coffee. He had lain so chastely and quietly beside her during the night, and his presence had reassured her enough to keep the wild dreams at bay; she had slept soundly after her nightmare. At the sight of him sitting there – his narrow shoulders in Dan’s cashmere sweater, the tufted hair at the back of his head – she had flushed with pleasure, until she had come closer and realised that he was reading Ailsa’s book. That same hot current of anger and jealousy had pulsed through her; she had had to grip the back of a chair to stop herself tearing it from his hands. He must have woken early and taken it from her bedside table to read here, in private, as if he were entitled to it: her book! She had breathed hard, biting down her reproaches as she reached for the coffee pot; he had barely glanced up.

  ‘This is extraordinary,’ he had said, oblivious. ‘She goes for months without writing anything, then there are these long explicit accounts of her nocturnal encounters with the lover. But it’s so strange – a lot of the time she makes it sound as if it’s all happening inside her head.’