Page 11 of Insomnia

When did she go mad? Why?

The last item returned, I’m about to get up when I realize I’m level with the under stairs cupboard. The air feels colder and the door seems huge from this position. A child’s-eye view. I can see every brushstroke of paint on the grain of the wood underneath. My heart thumps as memory grips me again.

I want to open the door. I don’t want to open the door.

How long before that night did she stop sleeping?

I stare at the door and almost through it to the void beyond. Why would she say I’d go mad? Because she was mad. It’s a mad thing to say. I almost laugh at that. I sound like a Dr. Seuss cartoon. But still, I stare at the door some more. It’s all I can see, as if it’s the whole world, the whole universe, and nothing else exists. God, I’m tired.

My foot suddenly cramps and I stand up, gasping slightly with the pain. Once the initial stabbing feeling has stopped, I hang Chloe’s coat up and sip my herbal tea. I instantly recoil, confused. The drink is cold and filmy. That can’t be right. The kettle boiled. I remember it. Pins and needles creep up my numbing legs as the cramp fades. I look back down at the cupboard door as the only other alternative hits me. The drink cooled while I was staring at the door. I thought it’d only been minutes.

But how long was Ireallycrouched there?

9.

NINE DAYS UNTIL MY BIRTHDAY

I’m on my third cup of coffee and a mixture of jittery energy and abject exhaustion, so I’m not sure if I’m seeing my family through a filter of my own mood or whether they’re all as grumpy as me this morning.

Chloe came downstairs for the whole of five minutes before a text pinged, causing her to storm back upstairs again, trouble in the paradise of her youth, and Will is at the kitchen table drawing in his book, intense and quiet, after a very lackluster morning cuddle. He’s curled over his picture and won’t let me see it.

“You okay, monkey?” He doesn’t look up. Something’s definitely off. “Did Ben scare you yesterday?” Have there been more incidents like that with Ben at school maybe? Pushing a little kid off a trampoline is pretty extreme behavior. What if it’s only one link in a long chain of bullying?

“Don’t put thoughts into his head.” Robert comes in from the garden and puts his toast plate and dirty mug on the side. “He’s probably forgotten about it.” He’s still in his dressing gown and mussy from a good night’s sleep. Right now I could divorce him out of sheer envy. After my cold chamomile tea, I’d gone back to bed but I still couldn’t drop off, not until the birds started singing whenI dozed for an hour or so. All the while he was blissfully kitten-snoring next to me. Oblivious.

I’m not going to go on like this. I need some kind of sleeping tablets. There’s a pharmacy at Asda. They must sell NightNight.

“Do we need anything from the supermarket? I’ve got to get a cake for work. Jade’s birthday.” Jade is one of my trainees, a sweet girl who’s worked hard against the odds of her background to get to where she is, and if I was going to believably buy a cake myself rather than ask Rosemary to pop out and do it, it would be for her.

“Oh, brilliant.” Robert rummages around on the counter behind the kettle, a space jammed full of receipts and notes and other bits of paper. He hands me the list. “I was going to go later, but if you’re happy to do it then...”

“You’re kidding me.” I stare at the paper, instantly annoyed. This is not a couple of things. This is half of a weekly shop and pretty much everything that’s needed for Will’s lunches next week.

“Don’t start, Emma. It’s Sunday, just chill.”

“How am I starting?” I ask, clearly now starting, but what does he really expect? I let him off so many times and as much as I’m grateful that he was up for taking on the stay-at-home role, I find I still end up doing so much of it. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re saying something now.” He refills his coffee. Has a couple ever murdered each other from caffeine overload? “I’m not a bloody housewife,” he says. “Stuff came up on Friday. And I would have gone later but you volunteered.” He opens the fridge door and I try not to think about eggs.

“You could have gone after dropping Will at school. Asda’s on the way home.”

“Don’t talk to me as if I’m a child. I’m a grown man. I lost track of time and I forgot. It’s not the end of the bloody world. And if you think my life is going to be cooking and cleaning and homeworkthen you should know that’s not what I want. Will’s at school now. I’ve been thinking about working full-time. Getting a career of my own.”

“Is this about what I said yesterday at the barbecue? I was trying to support your friend, not having a go.”

“Ourfriend, Emma. Michelle’s our friend.”

Will looks up from his drawing, dark eyes studying us both. Our conversation is innocuous but we sound like we’re itching to row. “Let’s talk about it later,” I say grabbing the car keys.

“It can’t be about you forever,” Robert says quietly, and there’s almost a growl of menace there. “I need a life too.”

I’m in a haze as I go round the supermarket, which is surprisingly busy given that it’s only been open ten minutes, but I get some One-A-Night NightNight from the pharmacist—yes, they are for me; no, I’m not pregnant; just hand them over—and then work my way through the rest of Robert’s list. It’s only my irritation and upset that’s keeping me going. I don’t think Robert realizes how hard I work to keep our life on track. Yes, I love my job, but the pressures of being a motherandthe breadwinner can get on top of me, and now he’s resenting me for that too. I feel like I can’t win. I’m on automatic pilot as I fill the bags and pay and then I’m wheeling it all back to the car.

The sun is bright and directly in my sightline, blinding me, and I hear, “Out of the way you stupid bitch!” and then an empty cart is bashing into mine, hard, as if intentional. No one’s holding it and, startled, I look up to see three young men,youths,the news would call them, in baseball caps and hoodies, laughing unpleasantly as they come toward me. Two still have carts and they launch them my way, laughing as they do so.

“Grow up.” I push the shopping carts out of the way. The boysare only about fifteen and although my heart has sped up a little, I refuse to be intimidated by kids in broad daylight. My car is a few feet away, and I don’t stop moving as they circle me.

“Keep your granny pants on, just having a laugh.”

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