Sleepless

Vivian sighed, frowned and fiddled with the huge turquoise bangle on her wrist. Today she was dressed in a bright red tunic top and a necklace in the shape of bats joined together at the wing, even though Hallowe’en was weeks away. Thea wished she’d worn better-fitting jeans, and that maybe she hadn’t decided to cut her own fringe this month. But both jeans and hair were clean, and on some bleak mornings, after only an hour’s sleep, that was all she could manage.

‘I don’t like it,’ Vivian finally proclaimed. ‘But I raised you to know your own mind. So do it if you want to. But you call me the minute anything feels off and I will come and get you wherever you are. And, darling … remember the keys.’

Ah yes, the old key trick: Vivian’s idea of teaching Thea self-defence when she turned thirteen. ‘When out late at night, teapot, hold your keys in your hand like this … yes, that’s it, with the points sticking out between your fingers, like a knuckleduster. Okay, then if any man makes a grab at you, just swipe … yes, like that … mind the cat, teapot … swipe up and nearly blind the bugger.’ She hadn’t yet had a chance to try it out.

‘Okay, Mum.’

Vivian unwound her scarf, shaking it out so anyone left in the café who hadn’t yet seen its print got an eyeful. ‘I suppose you could make some new friends at least, and anyway – you might not even get accepted for this interview, hmm?’

That was the thing, Thea thought as she avoided her mother’s eye. She already had been.

Chapter 4

The male voice was deep, rich and warm:

‘It suddenly seems like everyone is talking about sleep.

‘You already know how vital it is, otherwise you wouldn’t be listening to this. Experts are still not sure exactly what the sleeping brain does. They know it orders and organizes itself ready for the next day, much like a parent picking up after their children. The brain dreams and tries to make sense of the world.

‘You know the scare stories. People who consistently don’t get enough sleep have a higher risk of health issues from cancer to heart disease; they are more likely to suffer from dementia when they get older. They get angry more quickly, feel more stupid, react more slowly.

‘Modern society is caffeine-fuelled and overstimulated. You’ve probably tried all the sleep aids. Your bedroom is a lavender-scented, cool, dark, silk-sheeted, mood-music oasis, right?

‘And yet you still don’t sleep.

‘This is why you have reached out to us.

‘We are different. Brainchild of revered internet guru Moses Ing, this technology has been decades in research and development, combining the best of recent sleep theory to help you fall into a peaceful, restorative, long slumber.

‘But this technology promises even more. With continued use, you can use the app and the hardware to actually reprogramme your brain. Want to lose weight? Manage stress? Stop smoking? Have more confidence? The only limit is you.

‘Intrigued? We hope you are. Be the first to experience the new sleep technology that will change the world – one sleep at a time.

‘Morpheus.

‘Dream your way to a better you.’

The envelope from Ing Enterprises held only two slim cards. On one was the link to the audio file she had just listened to with the words ‘One-time use only’ printed underneath.

The other card simply said:

Preliminary Meeting

Your Sleep Guru is: Harriet Stowe

Venue: Home address

Time: Saturday 16th Sept, 11 a.m.

Chapter 5

Thea felt much the same about people visiting her house as she did about splinters – she wanted them out.

Her house was tiny for a start: the stairs were in the living room and the living room was nearly in the kitchen, with the dining room as merely a cramped corner. She liked it like that. It was her small safe space where she could crawl and hide after an exhausting day spent trying to seem human.

Two people in it seemed too much.

‘So,’ Harriet Stowe said, sat at Thea’s dining table and glancing at an open folder in front of her. ‘I hope you understand the slightly clandestine route we have had to take. Our competitors are ruthless, and we cannot let any significant information out into the public domain, certainly not until we have launched.’

Harriet had put her voluminous, purple-lined coat on the newel post of the stairs. Thea’s fingers itched to move it to the coat hook, where coats were expected to be.

She had no other choice but to be strict about the house. It had to have the right lighting and temperature, it had to have candles and a scent diffuser constantly puffing out clouds of lavender mist. It had to be quiet and clean and peaceful, because that’s what every article about sleep had impressed upon her: you had to create the right environment for it to come, blinking into sight, like a shy, rare animal.

‘I always find, in circumstances such as these, it’s best to be led by the client,’ Harriet continued, pushing her cat’s-eye reading glasses down her nose so she could peer at her paperwork. ‘Please feel free to ask me any questions about the trial that may be on your mind.’

Moving into her kitchen, which was the size of a postage stamp, Thea attempted to remember how much instant coffee a normal person put in their mug. Two tablespoons of it was definitely too much.

‘Thea?’ Harriet steepled her fingers together and rested her little pointed chin on them.

Thea came out of the kitchen, carrying the coffees, which were definitely not the right colour. Her mind, rather unhelpfully, went as blank as a badly loaded webpage.

‘Umm … My mother thinks you’re a cult.’

Harriet raised a carefully shaded eyebrow.

Thea put the coffees down. ‘That wasn’t my question! Umm … what risks are there?’

Harriet considered her coffee with a distinct air of trepidation. ‘Ah, good question.’

Thea suspected that was what she always said, regardless of the actual first question offered. Harriet’s stiletto heels sank into the carpet, jabbing deep holes into the pile. She had already left a trail of little woodworm pocks from the front door to the chair.

‘Shall I tell you a bit more about the process first? So you understand, yes?’

Thea nodded and Harriet’s hand hovered near the cup. She was in her forties – older than Thea who was twenty-seven – and dressed in the kind of well-made pencil skirt and blouse that could not be picked up in the supermarket as part of a weekly shop.

‘The six-week trial is made up of three phases and each phase lasts two weeks. Phase One is orientation, where we get to know you. Phase Two is where we start with the tech, fine-tuning it as appropriate, with sleep as our goal. Phase Three is where we then use the tech to help you become the best that you can be.’

Best? Thea would gladly have settled for merely better. Even a bit.

Harriet’s delivery was smooth and expressive, and Thea got the distinct impression that this was a script she had gone through many times before. She still hadn’t picked up the mug.

‘The tech itself comprises two parts, the part you download onto your phone as an app, and the incredibly small discs that fix, completely harmlessly and without pain, to your temples. They work in tandem using a variety of technologies, some well-known, some new, to help you drift into the best sleep of your life.’

A diffuser puffed wheezily.

‘I am assuming you have exhausted all other possible options – therapy? Medication?’ Harriet picked up a pen as sleek and shiny as a bullet.

‘Yes,’ Thea said.

It wasn’t a complete lie – she had at least attended the therapy sessions a few times. And she’d tried medication, which, despite her misgivings, had worked. During the day. The office hadn’t been keen on her napping her working hours away.

‘And how do you think a lack of sleep is affecting you? Relationships and so on? Would you say you’ve got to a critical point?’ Harriet’s eyes ranged around the room, taking in the distinct lack of any happy couple or girl squad photos amongst the candles.

Thea rubbed at her eyes. It would have been a relief every so often if she could have just taken out her eyeballs and dunked them in cold water. The gunk and grit of sleeplessness would float off down the plughole and she could then pop the eyeballs back in, totally refreshed.

‘Critical point?’ Thea went over and hung up Harriet’s coat. ‘Yeah, I think it’s been reached.’

People as twisted and shattered as that lump of metal and glass.

Harriet paused in her writing, ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said as she considered her over the top of her glasses. It sounded genuine. All of a sudden, Thea’s eyes began to sting. Harriet pushed her glasses up a little and considered the papers in front of her. Instinctively, she reached out once more for the coffee mug, looked in it, paused, and set it back down again.

Harriet picked up a framed photo. ‘But your mother, Vivian Mackenzie. You spend a lot of time with her?’

Did Harriet mean “too much time”? Thea couldn’t tell.

‘Some. Not much. I have friends.’

She was getting good at lying.

‘And your mother’s … activism? She founded … let me see, The Menopausal Army, no?’ Harriet couldn’t stop the flicker of a smile at the name. ‘At Ing Enterprises we are not so sure this would be such a good fit for us.’

Thea’s coffee sloshed over the side of the mug as she put it down too heavily. Not a good fit. What did that mean? Would she be blacklisted from the trial because her mother had morals and an insane need to march every single weekend, no matter what the weather was like?

‘Oh – that? She’s retired now. Completely.’

The lie came out so easily. But it wasn’t completely untrue – her mother had stopped doing the on-camera stuff and organizing campaigns. She’d definitely taken a step back … just not quite as far back as Thea would have Harriet believe.

Harriet jotted down notes. Thea fiddled with a loose thread on her jumper, wanting the woman gone, and the skin of her safe little house to close back over after the splinter had been tweezered out.

Safe little house.

Thea realized with a cold, sick feeling in her stomach that, in about four months’ time, if she gave up her job and her savings ran out, she would no longer be able to afford this safe little house. That flapping, unhinged part of her mind creaked.

‘Anyhow. We are getting a little ahead of ourselves.’ Harriet smiled. ‘It’s not yet guaranteed that you are the type of candidate we are looking for. May we now move on to the second part of this little chat?’

It was much like delicate dentistry. Harriet magnified and examined, jabbing and poking, blowing air on corners of Thea’s mind that Thea hadn’t really known existed, manoeuvring around any white-hot patches where a nerve throbbed. Questions and topics ranged from her childhood to what perfume she wore, the future of robotics to what type of tea she drank. Thea didn’t know what the “correct” answers were, so had no clue as to whether she was doing well – or not.

She liked to do well.

After about half an hour, Harriet sighed happily and stretched her shoulders.

‘Well, it’s been lovely meeting you. We’ll be in touch to let you know if you have been selected for preliminary testing.’

Once again, she grasped the handle of her mug, a natural move to finish the drink before she left. Before she could stop herself, she had taken a large gulp and that was when Thea knew that Harriet’s foundation was worth the money: it hid the shade of puce she must have turned when she finally tasted the coffee.

Only later, when she was vacuuming the stiletto pocks from the carpet, did Thea realize that she’d never told anyone from Ing Enterprises about The Menopausal Army, or even her mother’s name.

Chapter 6

A beard spoke to her.

‘My name is Rory. I’ll be looking after you tonight,’ it explained. There was a face amongst the hair but, mired in grogginess, Thea couldn’t focus on it.

A door slid open with a sigh.

‘This is your preliminary sleep assessment. You passed the interview stage – well done. We have a few questions to get through first, just some routine paperwork, and then we can begin. You will spend the night here, and we’ll monitor your sleep. As you know, this is the final stage. If we approve you here, that’s it – you’re in. You have your overnight bag?’

The building she’d arrived at was nothing special and, frankly, special was what Thea had been expecting. The clinic room had made up for that a little with its white surfaces like shiny icing on a cake. It was small but more expensively fitted out than the whole of her own house. The bed had a reassuringly plump mattress. At least she’d be comfortable whilst lying awake in the dark for the whole night.

‘I can watch TV?’ Thea asked.

Rory smiled, but it was hard to see under the beard. His eyes were kind though. He was the only slightly scruffy thing about the room with his saggy trousers and a faded T-shirt that had once probably had a superhero reference on it.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’re not in prison, Miss Mackenzie.’

Sleep was a demanding god who required silk pillowcases and expensive room sprays, hypnotherapy and the soundtrack of a gentle river flowing through a forest. She’d tried everything.

Except this.

‘Ready?’ Rory asked.

Six hours later, the high-pitched wail of an alarm didn’t wake her up because she hadn’t yet fallen asleep.

Her mind didn’t race at night, because that would suggest that it could eventually tire itself out – no, her mind fizzed like nuclear fusion, something with an infinite capacity to continue fizzing no matter how late, or early, it got.

The overhead light blazed into life, nearly blinding her. Squinting and disorientated by the sound, Thea scrambled out of bed, not sure what was going on, but pretty certain she didn’t want to be in bed to greet it. Rory appeared as she was fumbling with her slippers. She felt herself blush under the bright light, awkward in her sensible pyjamas. He yelled something she couldn’t hear above the pounding, painful sound of the alarm.

Rolling his eyes, he came into the room and took her arm, leaning in close. For some reason, she was acutely aware that her pyjamas had penguins on them. In scarves.

‘SO SORRY! FIRE ALARM! WE HAVE TO GO!’

A few minutes later, Thea was standing in the clinic car park in her fluffy slippers, damp spreading into them from the wet ground. The building itself was a drab blot of grey behind them and the street lights turned the puddles to gold.

Rory had unplugged her but there had been no time to unstick all the patches and wires, making her look like the unfinished science experiment that she was. Other members of the sleep trial and their attendants milled around, making polite small talk and exchanging sympathetic glances.

‘So. Do you come here often?’ A man in shorts and a T-shirt nudged her, his feet bare and turning a mottled purple from the cold. Varicose veins bulged up on his skinny legs like inquisitive worms. He was obviously pleased with his wit.

Thea didn’t like being nudged.

She tried to avoid eye contact with him, but he moved in front of her, an expectant grin on his face. Thea turned to stare at the chain-link fence.

She heard the man sigh. ‘It don’t cost anything to be pleasant. Cheer up, love.’

Thea took a deep breath.

Heat whooshed, not over but through her. She felt as if it could shoot out of her eyes like she’d seen in superhero films. If she looked at him, she could turn him to ash.

Cheer up, love. Be pleasant, even if your brain feels as if it could ooze through your nose. Smile, even if this might be your last chance to get help and you are wasting it out here in the car park wearing soggy slippers. The nice man wants a pleasant conversation. Be nice to the man.

It was a well-known side effect of poor sleep, wasn’t it? Recklessness. She’d read that somewhere.

What happened next, therefore, wasn’t strictly her fault.

She took a step closer and brought her knee up hard, aiming for his crotch. But he, seeing the intention in her stare, angled away just in time and she ended up kneeing him in the thigh instead.

‘So sorry!’ Rory hurriedly appeared between them, leading Thea away and calling back over his shoulder, ‘She’s deeply disturbed. Shouldn’t be unsupervised.’

‘She tried to knee me in the balls!’ the man shouted after them.

‘No, no, that was just … an uncontrollable leg twitch …’ Rory interjected before Thea could say anything.

He plonked her on a low wall. ‘What are you doing?’

‘He was a creep!’ she said, crossing her arms.

‘The world is full of them.’ Rory sighed. ‘Can’t knee them all in the balls.’

Thea watched the man shiver as he walked away, his shoulders beginning to hunch. He looked older and thinner than she’d thought, now that he was further away. It was easy to call him a creep, she found herself thinking, when in fact, he’d maybe just been another exhausted human being like her, trying, in his own ham-fisted way, to make a connection with someone, anyone, because it was cold and dark and wide-awake nights lasted a very long time.

‘Look, I’m sorry but we’ve just been told that this session will be called off for tonight.’ Rory looked down at his clipboard, a plastic ink stamp dangling from it on a piece of string: surprisingly low-tech for such a cutting-edge company. ‘Can’t really get any useful data after this. It’s a shame because this was the last round of tests before the trial begins. You were so close.’

And, to her complete surprise and shame, Thea felt hot tears forming. ‘You mean – that’s it?’

In that moment, she felt the weight of all the years she still had left – all those sleepless years – and that weight crushed her.

Rory considered her. There were little lines fanning out from his eyes and, Thea thought, he was probably one of those people who had a proper, hearty, throw-your-head-back laugh.

‘It’s – what? Around four in the morning,’ he said. ‘You’ve been awake the whole time. And you’ve lived like this for …’

… too long …

‘… pretty much all your adult life. Whoa …’ He exhaled.

Rory gazed at her thoughtfully. Thea imagined him in some sort of flat-share where they all got takeaways and lounged around on cushions on the floor. It was the kind of place where there were always dirty dishes in the sink and a permanent message on a chalkboard in the kitchen: ‘BUY MILK!!!!’

Thea never ran out of milk; she had her groceries delivered every week.

‘Look. I wouldn’t normally do this.’

What? For a crazy moment, Thea thought he was going to ask her out on a date. Would she want to go on a date with him? He was nice-enough looking, under the beard, and he’d been kind to her. But it was dark and she couldn’t see him properly, and beards gave you a rash, didn’t they?

He angled away from her for a few seconds, fumbling with his clipboard, then he glanced to see if anyone was near. It was done so quickly. One moment he’d bent towards her and Thea hadn’t known what to think; the next he was gone.

There was a piece of paper in her hand.

Thea took a closer look. It was all about her: weight, height, sleep history, some graphs and numerical data that she couldn’t decipher. But, more importantly, the form had been stamped:

CLIENT APPROVED.

Chapter 7

It was the kind of place where hitchhikers got chopped up by axe-wielding maniacs. Brown, bare hills, a lonely road, a few run-down houses, clearly abandoned – just sky and grass and a low-level sense of fear at an animal level.

‘One room, one night. You’re the last of ’em,’ the man muttered from behind the reception desk whilst writing in a book as yellowed as his fingers. He looked as weathered and grey as ancient stone, his face pitted as if it had endured centuries of unrelenting rain.

The pub was called “Sanity’s End” with thick walls, mullioned windows and empty hooks where pretty hanging baskets had once swung. Now they were just hooks, as if the pub had armoured itself, porcupine-style. How was it still in business? There was no one else around and the whole area was too grim and stark to be a tourist spot.

‘Busy lately?’ Thea ventured.

The man looked up and put the pen he’d been using behind his ear. A few flakes of dandruff dislodged and fell gently to be reunited with their friends on his shoulder.

‘What do you think?’ he said harshly.

Thea took a look around at the ghost-bar, the stools still stacked on the tabletops, the unravelling carpet and the heavy curtains that had once been red but were now so covered in dust they’d paled to a rusty pink. There was a sticky wood veneer on the reception desk, which held a dusty stand of local brochures and a cardboard charity box in the shape of a lifeboat. Thea put in all the change she had left – after all, she was unlikely to need it in the next six weeks.

‘See there?’ A grimy fingernail pointed to a group of framed photographs on a nearby wall. ‘Used to be a lifeboat man. She were mine.’

Thea dutifully peered at the picture, what she could see of it under a thick layer of dust on the glass that made the boat look as if it was nosing out of a fog.

‘Your lot keeps us going since the tourists stopped.’ He sniffed and turned to consider the three large brass keys hanging behind him. When he moved one, it left a brighter key-shaped spot on the wall. ‘When the monastery closed down over on the island in the Eighties, there was still the lighthouse for people to go and see. But that dried up too, eventually, taking the village ’ere on the mainland with it. No one needed the boat trip over, see? That’s how it goes.’ His bushy brows drew together for a moment. ‘But then you lot came and bought the whole place. Like I said, you’re the last of ’em. They’s been arriving all week cos I’ve only got a few rooms, see? Some of you what comes late in the day, you can’t go out in the boat at night and ’ave to stay over.’

The sleep trial itself was to take place on a small island in a purpose-built Sleep Centre, just a fifteen-minute boat ride away. Privacy was vital, she had been told.

‘Don’t look like that!’ Harriet had remonstrated via Skype. ‘There is a regular boat service, specially constructed, state-of-the-art buildings, living quarters and all the facilities you could want. Think of it as a luxury hotel stay. It’s certainly not Alcatraz!’

Harriet hadn’t mentioned that she’d have to stay in the pub at the end of the world the night before, however. Not quite as hi-tech. The man put the heavy room key, rough with rust, into her hand.

‘Kitchen’s closed because it’s late,’ he continued.

It was 5 p.m.

‘But I could make you a sandwich.’ He shuffled off through another tattered curtain behind him. Thea heard some clunking noises and he emerged with a can.

‘Tuna,’ he said, reading from the label. ‘I can make you a tuna sandwich.’

Thea wasn’t quite so keen on the idea of a tuna and dandruff sandwich.

‘That’s kind but I’m not hungry, thank you,’ she said hastily. ‘Probably have an early night.’

‘Suit yourself. No loud music, no animals, no extra guests permitted in your room. There’s a TV but we don’t get much of a reception up here. Breakfast is paid for so I have to serve it. At eight o’clock, it’ll be. They order it in – fancy stuff, half of it looks like kitty litter.’