Page 28 of Insomnia

“Well,youare.”

“How long were you going to keep this a secret from me?” I get a bottle of wine from the fridge and pour myself a glass and he reaches for a beer.

“It’s not a secret, I hadn’t even seen the place until today. I didn’t tell you before because I was still thinking about it.” He swigs his beer. “And we’ve had other problems. Maybe we should talk about the more pressing matter of Will’s drawings. I tried to talk to him about them but he clammed up. Not like him at all.”

Outside, night is slowly falling, and as the light fades, tension seeps back into me. “I know exactly what happened. Phoebespooked him with a story. Our mother used to—” I look for words that aren’t exactly a lie but aren’t the truth either. “Come into our room and scare us when we were in bed. Especially Phoebe.”

“Why would Phoebe say something like that to him?”

“I don’t know, Robert.” My irritation is rising now. “But why are you finding it easy to think that it might be me, but not that it could be her? And since I—your wife—am telling you I haven’t been scaring my child in the night, can we get back to this bar business?”

“But you aren’t sleeping, are you?” he says.

“If you must know, I saw a doctor about that today—she says I’m fine. She’s not concerned at all. So now I’m going to go and check on my son.”

“Emma—”

“What’s going on?” Chloe says, closing the front door and being welcomed by her father’s annoyed tone and my angry stomp up the stairs.

“Your father wants to spend your uni money, that’s what.”

“For God’s sake, Emma.” Robert glares at me from the kitchen doorway. Chloe drops her bag and shrugs. “If he needs it, he can have it. I’m still thinking of a year out. Maybe longer.”

I stare down at them, two peas in a pod, the blond half of our family, and I bite back the words that I know will make this simmering pan of tension boil over.Well, it’s not his bloody money.

I was hoping Will would be awake and we could snuggle and maybe he’d open up about the drawings, but he’s curled up on his side and he doesn’t even twitch as the soft hallway light comes in like a tide across the carpet. My dark-haired angel. I love them both but it’s a case of Mummy’s boy and Daddy’s girl in our family. I leave him to sleep in peace, but just as the door is almost closed behind me, I take a quick final glance back, and for a moment Ithink that his eyes are open, watching me. If so, he closes them quickly again. Are his eyelids fluttering? No, I decide. That can’t be the case. Why would he pretend to be asleep? The thought disturbs me, echoes of my own childhood.

He can’t be afraid of me. Surely?

Robert and I are still barely talking at ten—I’ve hidden in work and he’s watched someFast and Furiousfilm in his den—when we go to bed. I took one of the sleeping pills at nine thirty and with the wine added into the mix, at least I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.

But not for long.

I wake, with a gasp, a song playing loud in my head, music that fades the instant my eyes open to an almost tune I can’t quite grasp. I sit up, heart racing, and look at the alarm clock. It clicks to 1:13a.m.That number again. Of course it is.I curse myself for closing the blinds so tightly because the room is on the cusp of pitch-black as I listen out for any sign of something bad in the house.

Did I check the back door before I came to bed? I should have checked the back door. I lie back down, and under the sheets my forefingers pick at the skin around my thumbnails. I have to stay in bed. I have to go back to sleep. This is all ridiculous. If I give it a chance the sleeping pill will kick in again, I just need to try to relax. I manage fifteen minutes, but despite my best efforts at yoga breathing, the tension keeps rising until it’s almost constricting my chest. I push back the covers. I need to at least check on the children.

“Where are you going?”

I pause, caught out. Robert’s awake. “I need a glass of water,” I say.

“There’s water by your bed.”

He’s just a shadow in the darkness, a disconnected voice. “It’sstale,” I say, getting up and taking the glass. “I’ll get a fresh one. Do you want anything?”

“No.” His voice is cool, discontented maybe, disgruntled definitely, as I head out of the room. My skin prickles even though it’s a hot night, and somewhere in the back of my head the song is still playing loud, but the words are irritatingly out of reach as I come down the stairs.

I almost race to check the back door, my new tics all out of sync—it’s the wrong time I should do this at 1:13—but still I feel better asI rattle the handle. Locked. I pour a glass of water and drink, staring out at the black night, half expecting to see someone on the other side of the glass staring in.

I look at the under-stairs cupboard as I come past, but resist the urge to open it. I can’t afford to have one of those weird lost-time moments. Not with Robert awake. I go straight past and head back to bed. When I reach the landing I glance over to my left, and for a moment the shadows by the window look like a figure just out of sight round toward the children’s rooms. I turn, I have to check, but there’s no one there. The corridor is quiet.

I go to our beautiful arched window and peer out to the dark landscape beyond. My free hand touches the glass, palm flat against the cold, and I shiver, my toes curling into the thick pile carpet.

I open my mouth wide in an O, and breathe out a silent scream that fogs up the pane. If anyone is watching me, what will they think? Will I look like a woman in trouble? Or a crazy lady, wandering her house in the night like a ghost?

Look, look, a candle, a book and a bell... I put them behind me...

A lyric bubbles up in my head, the tune haunting. The song I heard on the radio. I should go back to bed, but I’m so close to the kids’ rooms I’ll check on them anyway. There’s no harm in that.

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