That night he walked again, down the stairs, through the hallway, up the high street and into someone’s garden near the newspaper shop. He was woken, naked again, by a milk float growling and clinking along the road. Fortunately, covering himself with his hands, he managed to return home unseen. He was acutely cold and had nettle stings all along his left hip. Disturbing.
Day 3: Very worrying, he muttered to the mirror as he cut a swathe to his chin with a new razor. Some of the foam strayed into his mouth as he talked to himself, so he pulled a face and spat it out. What was going on? Should he go to the doc’s? No, he’d leave it for a day or two, it was bound to stop. Mind turbulent and agitated by thoughts of love perhaps. Something below the surface, like the silver below the glass in the mirror (which reflected a red-eyed wreck). He got thinking about mirrors. Why did they need glass? Who cared, he thought moodily. He scraped away at his top lip, vertically then laterally, contorting his face into all sorts of shapes to help the process. He’d done that hundreds of times now, didn’t have to think about it. But today he nicked his upper lip (always problematic) and he was forced to start the day with a twist of toilet paper stuck there to staunch the flow of blood. Sitting on the toilet, brooding about his impending love affair, he added a few more items to his shopping list. He and this virtual woman would have to share some interests. He liked pubs, so he’d put Pubbing. And Holidays Abroad because he’d had a good time picking potatoes – and girls – during a spring in Jersey when he was much, much younger. And Cinema because he often took out a DVD on the way home, to help him go to sleep. How about Walks on the Beach? They all seemed to like that, and it wasn’t too strenuous.
Warm, inquisitive Pocket Venus/Irish Sheelagh, secular, lively & GSOH, into Pubbing, Holidays Abroad, Cinema, romantic walks on the beach, wanted for…
That night he sleepwalked all the way up the high street, along the same route presumably, and woke up in a bus shelter at the bottom of Mount Road. He smelt of piss when he got home and had to take a shower. Someone saw him, he thought. A face at a window, a curtain falling from someone’s hand. Time to seek help? No, walking home naked might revive his reputation. People had talked of retirement. But you never retired from Love. Not him, anyway. This time he wanted the real thing, not make-believe. A final grand passion, a French kind of thing. It was possible, surely. You often read about two old codgers in a home, over ninety both of them and shaking so bad you’d think they were having it off on a washing machine, getting married and saying it was lovely, just like they were young again.
Day 4: This was getting out of hand. He would sleep with his clothes on, under his light summer duvet. He’d die of cold or shame if it went on much longer. Aching all over from his latest nocturnal jaunt, he cleared the stubble from his left cheek and thought of something he’d read in the paper, something about your beard growing a lot faster if you’d had sex the night before. He hadn’t noticed anything, not even after his record twelve bonks in one night with the two German hitchhikers he’d picked up in the pub. Three in a bed. Wonderful times. He felt himself stiffen slightly, just thinking about it. He finished the shave without incident and dabbed some Loverboy on his neck. Not much left. He’d have to pop into his ex’s salon, creep past all those Dalek hairdryers, ask her where she’d bought the stuff. Perhaps he’d try it on with her. She’d given in a couple of times. Better than when they were married. Strange, that. Could he be bothered going to work? He was bloody knackered. Didn’t fancy a day in bed, not on his own, so he ate some cereal and walked downstairs, whistling through his teeth, thinking of his shopping list again. Dreams. Pie in the bloody sky. What did he want out of this? Sex? Yes, but he could always get that with Sharon Shagpot (so called because there was a Sharon who wasn’t a shagpot, or wasn’t yet, anyway, despite his best efforts. Perhaps she was a lezzy.)
No, he wanted Tenderness and Understanding, a Meeting of True Minds and all that.
How would he put it? Soulmate, that was the word. And she would have to be a non-smoker because he’d finally given up on New Year’s Day and it looked like the only resolution he was ever going to keep, because he had to – his chest was beginning to rattle in the final stages of coitus, and that was no bloody good at all, because Sharon Shagpot had started to giggle one night when he was about to finish. You couldn’t have true love and an asthmatic wheeze when you were on the job, it was ludicrous. He snapped the front door behind him and added another category: Healthy. He didn’t want some old crone with her teeth in a glass and a face like cold putty after she’d scraped a grand’s worth of slap off her face. So far he had: Warm, inquisitive Pocket Venus/Irish Sheelagh soulmate, secular, healthy, n/s, lively & GSOH, into Pubbing, Holidays Abroad, Cinema, romantic walks on the beach, wanted for…
He went to bed in his clothes, remembering beforehand to remove building debris from his turn-ups. Thank God for that, he said to himself the next morning, after his head had cleared, because he found himself lying on his back in someone’s garden shed halfway up Mount Road. He’d stared at the timber ceiling in the way he stared at bedroom ceilings when he woke up next to a strange woman in a strange house, wondering how the hell he’d got there. Now, as he crept stealthily out of the shed, and wended his way home, he thought he saw a pattern. His sleepwalks were taking him somewhere. But why? And where would he end up? Was his mind trying to lead him to his true love, surreptitiously? Maybe yes, maybe no…
Day 5: He swept upwards with the (same) razor, up his neck from beyond his right earlobe to the ridge of his jaw, and swore loudly, because the razor was blunt and it scraped his skin. The water in the sink reddened, and he slowed down. Pausing, he peered into the mirror, trying to see through the glass, to the silver beyond, or whatever they put there nowadays. An old mirror, so silver foil? He’d ask someone in the pub, there was always someone who knew that sort of thing. He washed his face with cold water to stem the flow of blood. Part of him was disappearing down the plughole. Bits of him disappearing into holes everywhere, all the time. Perhaps black holes in space worked like that too, sucking in… what? He sat on the bog and strained. He’d no Loverboy left for tomorrow, unless he added some water and swilled it round. Could you do that? Try it. Bugger. No bog paper. Bugger. He waddled into the kitchen, clenching his buttocks, looking for old newspaper. None. He looked in the breadbin. Lucky – some soft wrapping paper left over, mouldy crust still inside it. Back to the bathroom, thinking… how would he describe himself? Builder? No, wrong message (though some of them liked a bit of rough). Divorcee? No, wrong again. How about BHM – Big Handsome Male? That’d do. And what was that phrase he’d seen somewhere… DDF. Drugs and Disease Free. Well he was, wasn’t he? Hopefully. Sharon Shagpot had given Will Wasted a dose last Christmas. Perhaps he ought to put No Strings Attached, but that wasn’t true, he wanted to be tied down, didn’t he, if only for a bit? He’d put LTR – Long Term Relationship. Perfect. Now he had: BHM, DDF, seeks warm, inquisitive Pocket Venus/Irish Sheelagh soulmate, secular, healthy, n/s, lively & GSOH, into Pubbing, Holidays Abroad, Cinema, romantic walks on the beach, for LTR…
That night he walked further than ever before in his sleep, to the top of Mount Road. He woke on a hard wooden bench, and he panicked when he came to, because his hands had turned orange. He realised, slowly, that he was under a streetlight which was still shining down on him. He walked back home and took the day off.
Day 6: He slept all morning and woke himself with a huge snorty snore. His mind took ages to clear. He had a stiff neck and a headache, so he lay there for ages, drifting in and out of consciousness. Eventually, around noon, he rolled over in bed and studied the empty space by his side. He wasn’t used to the daytime sounds in his bedroom. A soft wind moaned in the guttering outside, and his alarm clock seemed extra loud as it ticked away the seconds. He contemplated the future. Did he really want someone – the same someone – in that big empty space by his side every morning when he woke up? The same face? Same smell? Not always womanly. Personal sme
lls. After a while she’d mumble gerroff and wiggle away whenever he pushed against her bottom in the early morning.
He got up and stumbled to the bathroom. Could he be bothered shaving? He looked deep into the mirror, to a point inside the wall somewhere, as if he were staring into one of those 3D pictures which appeared suddenly if you got it right. Nothing happened. He rubbed the sandpaper of his jaw and imagined a row of men, all dressed in red lumberjack jackets and big brown boots with metal toecaps, rubbing a plank with their chins to sand it down. He must be tired or something. So he sat on the bog with his head between his hands, doing nothing in particular except listening to an occasional dribble of wee whispering into the pan.
After a hasty wash he put his coat on and walked down the stairs, heading for the pub. Checking his pockets as he went, he realised he’d virtually no money on him, just loose change. He re-ascended the stairs gloomily and conducted a desultory search in drawers, pockets, in his usual hidey-hole under the wardrobe. Nothing. So he took all the cushions off the couch and wiggled his hand in the crevices. A couple of quid only. Still, it was enough to start off with – he could always bum a fiver here or there. He couldn’t ask for any tic at the local because he already owed a tidy sum to the landlord.
That day he got absurdly drunk, too pissed to do any courting. Unknown to himself, because he was on a different planet by now, he staggered home at closing time and ate a Pot Noodle and a crust with mould on it (he was too pissed to notice). A whole day had gone by and he was no nearer love. He hadn’t even thought about it.
That night he rose from the couch (he never made it to bed) and walked out of his flat, down five flights of stairs, up the high street, up Mount Road, along Jubilee Walk, and into a small muddy paddock. When he woke, deep into the next day, his nose encountered farty smells, rich and fruity. Turning over, his eyes searched the gloom. Who had he ended up with? And why was there so much straw in the bed? It took him a while, but eventually he identified a small fat mountain pony sharing her shed with him, wearing nothing more than a halter, her thick winter coat covered in dry mud.
He went home.
Day 7: He stayed in bed for most of the day. At six he went down to Flat No 1 and sold Mrs Williams a hard luck story; managed to scrounge twenty quid off her. Back in his flat he had a wash but gave the shave a miss. Looking for paper to write a shopping list, the only thing he could find was a cardboard wrap-around from a microwave meal, but it already had something written on it: BHM, DDF, seeks warm, inquisitive Pocket Venus/Irish Sheelagh soulmate, secular, healthy, n/s, lively & GSOH, into Pubbing, Holidays Abroad, Cinema, romantic walks on the beach, lots of laughter and true love. No time wasters please.
He tore it off and used the rest of the paper to make his list, then headed for the pub. Time I had a break from work, he told Psycho in the reassuring glow of the bar lights. The rest was a blank. He never got to the shops, probably never made it home either. That night, asleep or awake, he walked through the high street, up Mount Road, along Jubilee Walk, past a paddock and up a cul-de-sac. When he woke it was two in the morning and he was in Sharon Shagpot’s front garden, slumped against her front door.
Day 8: Don’t ever do that to me again, said Sharon. She’d got the kids up and sent them off to school, then made two big mugs of coffee. She’d run out of fags but found some in his pocket, which was strange, because he’d made a big fuss about giving up. Now she was standing by the big double bed in her bedroom, looking down on a grossly hungover man, unkempt and unshaven, discovered on her doorstep in the night after some feeble knocks and a shower of chippings on her window. As usual, his motives had been transparent.
I don’t want you coming here in that state again you silly sod, she said, standing over him, her blotched knees swelling from underneath her nightgown.
He studied the swirls of steam coming from the mug by his bed. He’d use one of her Ladyshaves, as usual, and go to work whistling through his teeth. Later.
Come back to bed, he said in his best husky voice. I love you.
They listened to the sounds of the morning – rain pattering on the window, cars swishing through roadside puddles, lorries’ peep-peep-peep reversing on the industrial estate.
You’re still pissed you dirty old sod, said Sharon Shagpot.
Then she got back into bed.
sepia
STRANGE things happen at night. When I slip out of sleep in the small hours my room’s lost its shape – doing a Goth thing, moody and broody. All the noises which came in during the day through the windows – thrown in like rubbish, littering the place – have disappeared, muffled under layers of soft black crepe in my wardrobe. Without looking I know it’s about three. Dead of night, and time sits around like a bored psychiatrist. So I try to drift off again, spread a little fog around my mind, throw a blanket over those nocturnal thoughts, pesky as parrots.
That’s when it happens. Not always, just now and then. Suddenly I go away, into the darkness, as if – in the click of a shutter – I move from inside a camera to the outside world, and I’m flying through the chill of the night. It’s happening in my mind, but it feels real. The first time it happened I went to a place I know well, but during a time of day – I mean night – when I’m not normally out and about. I’ll describe it to you – the first time was best.
I’m standing outside the old pilots’ cottages by Llanddwyn Island, on the isthmus of land reaching out to the defunct lighthouse. The windowpanes are spangled with cold silver and there’s a moon-sheen on the land. In the distance, in Newborough Forest, the owls swoop and call. The sea whispers sleepily in the beyondness. My naked feet and the hem of my nightie are damp with dew.
My knees brush the vegetation under the window and a moth flits upwards through my hands; I see it pass across the moon. There’s an odd shape huddled not so far away and it irks me. As I fret over it, waiting for it to move, I remember there’s an old cannon in that spot. These sea cottages have been turned into some sort of museum, but they’ve never been open when I’ve visited the place. So I peek through a window, as I do in daylight when I’m here with mum and dad and my baby brother. It’s much darker in there now, a sort of washed-out colour, as if I’m looking at an old photograph. There’s a picture on the wall but I can’t see any details. The rest is smudged out in shadows, except for a bench set against the far wall, to my left. I crane to see what’s there and I see two human shapes squeezed together shoulder-to-shoulder with their legs splayed out wide, like me and my friends when we’re having a lark at school. I catch them having a giggle, and one of them puts a finger to her lips when she sees me. The silence is deafening now, I hear the blood rustling dead leaves in my ears. Every time it’s the same – slowly I realise that one of them is me, when I was smaller and thinner, the time my hair was quite long and curly. My face is white, but that could be the moonshine. My eyes are dark rings, tired and ghoulish, sparkling as they do when I’ve gone a bit hyper. And the person I’m sitting with is an angel, every time the same one, a bit bigger than me but not much, and I’m nestling in one of his beautiful wings. He’s a very light blue all over and he shimmers, it’s magical and nice. My feet are getting cold in the grass but inside I’m warm all over thinking about the angel.
Then it all ends, and I’m back in my bed.
Perhaps a few weeks pass, or a few months, I’m not sure how long, then there’s a next time.
This time I go to a different place, high in the hills, where there’s hardly any greenery, just rolling brown country with bogs and hillocks covered in dead brown grass, starved of food. I’ve never been to this place before, but I think I know where it is. My dad described it to me once, after my bedtime story – it’s somewhere from his childhood. I think his eyes misted over. Thinking about that place made him feel all nostalgic and sentimental.
So I’m lying in bed, it’s three in the morning again, and I’m bobbing on my dream raft when – zip! – I’m taken through the night again, fast as electric, and I
land outside a shack or cabin up there on the moors. There’s a wind blowing in noisy gusts through three or four old trees, tall and stooped over me; their leaves surge and hiss and roar. No moon this time, it’s almost totally dark, and very cold. I press my body against the wall of the cabin which is made of big rough boulders. It makes me think of the homesteads in the Wild West, in picture books, with animal skins drying on a rack outside and smoke coming from the chimney; there are eyes staring from the undergrowth maybe and a face streaked with warpaint – the sort of thing you see in books about Hiawatha or Pocahontas. I’m shivering because I’m in my pink Naughty Girl pyjamas and nothing else. This shack I’m standing by has a rusty tin roof held down with hawsers pinned into the walls, and there are rows of white in the corrugations – hailstones. The walls are rough and uneven, with moss here or there on the stones and a rickety door wedged shut, but it’s not a tight fit. Shafts of yellow light escape between the gaps. Not all the fire smoke is going up the chimney – some of it’s puffing out of the walls in wisps. A beam of warm orange light shines from the cabin’s only window, which is small and divided into four square panes. I move slowly along the cabin wall, feeling carefully with my feet in case I step on something sharp, balancing myself by pressing my hands against the wall-boulders. I edge up to the window and stand on tiptoe, which allows me to see in through the corner of a low windowpane. It’s dusty and criss-crossed with old cobwebs stuck to the pane, so I have to peer through a penny-sized clearing in the glass. I see a big fire in an open grate, licking the chimney stones, and some of the smoke is spilling into the room in blue-grey swirls, small backward waves. On my right I see a large head – a movement catches my eye and I strain to see what’s happening. The head shakes and there’s a jingling noise; then I see a steaming flank and a saddle – it’s a horse! Creamy with a light mane and mud caked in its fur – I think they’re called palominos. This creature is in the cabin and horse-napping, rattling its bridle when it wakes briefly. I can hear its shoes clunk on the floor as it moves its weight from one side to the other. After resting for a bit I stretch myself again and look some more through the peephole. It’s all a bit dim, because of the wood smoke and lack of lighting, but to my left I think I see a narrow bed covered in a jumble of blankets. Directly opposite me there’s a framed photo on the wall, I can make out something like a ship with an angel hovering above it. Below it, in the room, I see two shapes, one of them curled up on the bed. It’s a child and it has its back to me. I think that shape is me, or it could be my dad, because this cabin was in his past, not mine. It’s the same angel, sitting there with his wings furled and his arms stretched out on either side, his hands planted squarely on the edge of the bed, as if he were a bit drunk and concentrating on keeping upright. I look at this scene for some time, until the angel looks up at the window. I duck quickly, trying to stay unseen. Then I start peeking again, but the angel’s still looking in my direction; this time he’s got a smile on his face, and he winks. In that moment it’s as if his feathers shimmer all over, like a blue butterfly caught in sunshine, and I think I hear him speak, but I’m not sure. It’s a lovely sound, a cross between soft music and running water. Then the experience ends, suddenly, and I’m back in my bed at home, my feet still cold from the snow on the ground. After that I go into a very deep sleep and I wake up in the morning feeling good, completely refreshed. So meeting my angel in the night can be a good experience.