Chapter 14
I’m not a fanciful man. Sadie oftens tell me I have ‘like, zero imagination’.
I guess that’s why I’m an English teacher and not a bestselling author. I believe that most things have a rational explanation, and if there’s stuff we don’t understand, then I’m certain one day scientists will work it out. I don’t need to fill in the gaps with gods or ghosts or magic.
Life is incredible, but that doesn’t mean it’s part of some grand design.
If you believe that God is clever enough to create the symmetry of a butterfly’s wings or the complex mechanics of the human eye, then you must also believe that he’s cruel enough to create parasites that eat their insect hosts from the inside out.
Can’t have it both ways. Nice guy or sadistic fuck. Take your pick.
But sleep. Sleep has always baffled me. Some writer – I forget who – called it ‘a small death’, and that stuck with me.
Our body shuts down but keeps breathing.
Our brain goes into standby mode yet somehow knows when to wake us up again.
We never fear this won’t happen. We surrender ourselves willingly to the void every single night.
Blackout. For hours. And it’s universal. Billions of small deaths, every night.
Except for me. I’ve always been an insomniac, ever since I was a child.
Either I can’t get to sleep, or I find myself wide awake at two in the morning.
Some nights I don’t sleep at all. It got so bad in my teens that my mum got me an appointment with a specialist doctor: Dr Smart.
I always remember that name because it sounded like the name of a doctor in a kid’s book.
Mr Bump and Dr Smart. Anyway, I spent a couple of nights in a sleep clinic, wires stuck to my head, reading or watching TV while the wires fed back information about my brain.
Afterwards, Mum and I sat in a small office with Dr Smart, a kind-faced man with oddly plump lips and Brillo-like black hair.
‘Studying Daniel’s brain activity, it shows many traits we see in other insomniacs.’
‘Such as?’ Mum asked.
‘In people with insomnia, the locus coeruleus is more sensitive to – or receives more input from – the salience network and related circuits when it should normally be sound asleep.’
Mum and I just stared at him.
Dr Smart smiled. ‘This may ignite a downward spiral of insufficient overnight adaptation to distress, resulting in accumulating hyperarousal, which, in turn, impedes restful sleep.’
‘How about in English?’ Mum said.
The smile dimmed. ‘The part of Daniel’s brain that controls responses to distress is over-sensitized to input from the section that perceives internal and external stimuli. This causes Daniel to experience something akin to “sleeping with one eye open”.’
I let his words sink in and then leaned forward: ‘So, you’re saying I can’t sleep because my brain is scared something bad might happen.’
He smiled. ‘In a nutshell.’
I’ve got used to it. I’ve managed to condition myself to speed-nap in the day.
To not worry about sleeping at night. To make use of the night-time instead.
We all say there aren’t enough hours in the day.
I’ll often mark essays, catch up on paperwork, pay bills, read assignments.
But still, sometimes I feel it. Every living thing needs sleep, whether they want it or not.
This morning, when I open my eyes, I’m disorientated.
For a moment, I can’t remember where I am.
Sunlight is seeping into the room – so not Manchester, obviously – but I’m not in my bedroom.
I’m in the living room, lying on the sofa.
I blink blearily. What time is it? I can’t see my phone, but there’s a clock on the wall: 7.
15 a.m. What the hell? I’ve slept through the entire night.
That never happens, not since … well, last night.
I rub at my head. I guess it’s been a stressful couple of days, but stress normally fuels my insomnia.
Although I did have, what, five beers last night?
Plus, jet lag. Yes. I seize on that. A combination of exhaustion, alcohol and jetlag.
I’ve unwittingly discovered the cure for insomnia.
All I need to do is take a transatlantic flight, drink a six-pack and find a dead body in a swimming pool every day.
I slowly ease myself into a sitting position.
My head aches and I feel a little fuzzy.
But nothing a strong coffee and some painkillers won’t sort out.
There’s a throw draped over me. Did I do that?
Unlikely. Sadie must have come down and found me.
I feel a flush of guilt. Did she think I was drunk?
Christ, I hope not. Why the hell didn’t I go up to bed?
My muddled brain tries to think back and reconstruct the hours before I passed out.
I was outside, sinking a few beers. Then I came in, drank some water and …
my phone. There was a notification on my phone.
The motion sensor. A figure outside. Arnie.
This time with a different but equally weird and creepy sign.
I remember opening the sliding doors, more cautiously this time, but just like the night before, the yard was empty.
I look around for my mobile and finally locate it on the floor.
It’s out of charge, predictably. I stand and shuffle across to the kitchen to find my charger and plug it in.
The sudden vertical motion makes my head swim, and my vague headache gains more of a grip.
I locate the charger discarded on the kitchen worktop, along with the hire-car keys and my wallet.
While the phone charges, I pour a glass of water, glug it down and then set up the coffee machine to make a double espresso.
I swig the espresso, make a longer americano and check my phone.
Enough charge to turn it on. I immediately bring up the app Serenity Home, log in and go to notifications.
I stare at my phone. There are no notifications.
I tap the icon just to be sure, but there’s nothing there, no images. Nothing. Just like the previous night.
Okay. There are only two explanations – someone is fucking with me, or the security camera in the back yard is screwed. The third – the one I am filing away in a dim, dusty corner of my mind designated Do not go there – is that I imagined it somehow. A hallucination or lucid dream.
The idea that someone is dressing up in the armadillo costume to freak us out isn’t exactly good news.
But it’s plausible. Maybe people here have had their noses put out of joint by Sadie and me moving in.
Perhaps this is some kind of juvenile attempt to scare us off?
Of course, that doesn’t explain how the images have disappeared.
Unless both things are true – someone is playing a nasty prank, and the security app is faulty.
I swig my coffee. The question is – what to do about it? First job – get someone to look at the camera. I scan through the contacts card stuck to the fridge. Halfway down is a number for Serenity Home Security Systems. Bingo. I’m just about to call them when the front doorbell rings.
Motion detected at front door, my phone tells me.
The camera shows two men in grey jumpsuits. Either escaped convicts or tradesmen. One of the men, a large guy with curly hair, peers into the doorbell camera and waves.
‘Hi, Mr Barker?’
I jump. I didn’t realize that the front doorbell had a speaker.
‘Serenity Relocation Services,’ he says.
His friend – skinny, bald – moves up to the bell. ‘Removals. We got your stuff.’
Removal vans are, in my experience, always late, and their contents delivered with the care of someone dumping horse shit on sewage. But not only are Serenity Relocation Services on time, they are fast, professional and careful.
Not that we have anything particularly valuable to transport.
No family heirlooms or precious Ming vases.
In fact, deposited here in this huge mansion, our belongings seem embarrassingly meagre.
We didn’t bother with our old furniture because the house here was already furnished and, to be blunt, our saggy, stained sofa and chipped table and chairs wouldn’t exactly have improved the decor.
So, mostly the boxes contain ornaments and collectables, clothes and bedding, books, paperwork and all those other bits and pieces that you exhume from dark, cobwebby spaces, and wonder why you kept them, like broken Christmas decorations, Sadie’s primary-school paintings, my old Lego.
Things you swear you will display properly or find a better home for and then just shove back into the loft/cellar/shed, not to be seen again until the next move.
Sadie emerges from her room just as the removal men are leaving. I rummage through my wallet for a tip, but all I can find is a crumpled five-dollar bill. I watch them depart with rather less good cheer.
‘Okay?’ I ask her.
‘Yeah.’ She yawns and looks around. ‘Our worldly possessions.’
‘Yep.’
‘Sad.’
‘Yep. You want some breakfast?’
She shakes her head and walks towards the kitchen. ‘Not really hungry.’
I follow her. ‘You okay?’
She slouches over to the fridge and pulls out a carton of juice.
‘Hmmm.’ I tap my chin. ‘What should I do with my powers of invisibility?’
She pours the juice and gives me a side-eye. ‘You know the house across the street?’
‘I’m aware of its existence.’
‘Well, you know it’s a ghost house?’
‘A what?’
‘One of the houses in Serenity that’s empty but the Conservators keep it maintained as if someone still lives there.’
The Conservators. There they are again.
‘That’s a bit odd.’
‘Yeah, well, I saw a light on in there last night – like a flashlight.’
‘A burglar?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. But right after I saw it, my phone rang. It was a voice, kind of distorted, and it just said – “You shouldn’t be awake.”’
I feel the coffee in my stomach churn unpleasantly. ‘Did you get the number?’
‘Unknown caller.’
I rub at my head, trying not to let my disquiet turn into fear. ‘So, maybe it was a wrong number.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Have they called again?’
‘No.’
‘Well, if they do, don’t answer, or wake me up and I’ll deal with it.’
‘Okay.’
‘Promise me?’
‘I said, okay.’
I’m not sure I believe her. But I don’t want to push it. Not with everything else that’s going on. I was half considering telling her about Arnie. Maybe she could have looked at the camera app. She’s right that she’s more tech-savvy than me. But now I don’t want to scare her.
‘Things will settle down here,’ I say. ‘I’m sure.’
She offers a thin smile. ‘At least it’s not boring.’
‘So now you want to stay?’
‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly. But it looks like we’re stuck here for now—’
‘It does.’
‘So, I might as well unpack some of my things.’ She looks around at the boxes again. ‘Is this really all our stuff?’
‘Yeah. But life is not all about stuff, right?’
‘Least it won’t take long to unpack.’
She bends and picks up a box labelled Sadie, then traipses upstairs. I watch her go, smiling. As soon as she’s out of sight, I let the smile fall and I pick up my phone again. First, I call Serenity Home Security Services and book an appointment for tomorrow morning. Then I make another call.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, it’s Dan Barker here – could I come by and talk to you about something?’