Page 7 of Sleep

This was our usual petty argument. We disagreed on most things. But still.

He put the tablet down. “What’s eating at ya, kiddo?”

Like he didn’t know.

“Nowhere to live. Insurance not paying out. I hate my life. And I need a new job.”

“Same, same,” he agreed. “How’s Mark?”

“He’s good, Dad. Still being a dick.”

“Your mother would wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you talk like that.”

“Mum would smack your hand if she saw you smearing grease all over that tablet.”

“She would, wouldn’t she?” He smiled. We still had memories, some very good memories, of a life that was now almost grotesquely different. “Now, Mabel. Serious talk. I know I say it every time you come and visit, but I’m getting tired of it now. What’s going on? Properly going on?”

He knew me far too well.

“Same old.” I was tired. Still no coffee. “Honestly, the flat was just the tip of the iceberg.”

“You make an honest living.” Dad was proud of me. I knew that.

“I think I need to move on.”

“Amen,” Dad muttered, his attention back on the tablet. “Your talents are wasted pouring wine and dancing around, serving people that overpriced stuff you call food.”

“I think you may be right there.” I pulled my fingers through my hair, still thick on my head, thank God. A thinning hairline would just about finish me off. “Dad…it’s time for me to find another job.”

“You need a place to live first. And anyway, what are you on about? You have a job. Just need to make it full time.”

“I need a job that will pay me enough to afford the rent. My sewing doesn’t.”

“Mabel,” Dad said sternly. “That’s because you don’t even try. What’s the plan here?”

“Want me to let the carers in?” I motioned out the window at the care team who’d just pulled up.

“Don’t deflect. They have their own key. Make their own tea. I just sit here like part of the furniture in my own home.”

“Well,” I said softly. “We’ve talked about it. A care home. A smaller flat. A different life for you.”

“Mum would hate that. She’s in her room, where she belongs.”

“And you sleep on the sofa because there’s no space for you in your own bedroom anymore.”

See? We argued. About everything. In quiet, civilised voices. But I knew most of the care managers by name, as they called me almost daily to complain about everything from my Dad moving things and being grumpy, to him arguing with their guidelines and refusing to cooperate with any changes. My mother really needed to be in a care home, to have access to better equipment, daily physiotherapy and a higher level of medical care to manage her complex needs.

Dad knew this. I knew this. And yet…

I sighed loudly and got up and made tea. As with everything in my life, I couldn’t change a thing. Everywhere I turned, there were barriers and locked doors. When I tried to climb them, I inevitably got knocked down. And now in my forties, I felt so incredibly trapped by my own limits and walls, all of it self-inflicted.

I had no savings, no future, no partner. Everything I owned that hadn’t been deposited in the skip outside my former overpriced flat was, as my father again pointed out, deposited in the hallway where my mother’s care team were now loudly swearing trying to get past my belongings.

“Mr Donovan, can the hallway please be cleared so we can access our patient?”

I sighed. So did my father. It made us both smile, a brief gust of air in the gloom we usually possessed.

“I’ll move it,” I said quietly.

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