Sleepwalkers by Tom Grieves Read Free Book Online Page B

fine.’
    ‘Balls.’
    ‘Look, just … it’s nothing, I’m … I had three pints at lunchtime, so maybe it’s just the comedown, I don’t know, it’s nothing, honest.’
    She studies me. Frowns, then nods. I push past her and go see the kids.
    Joe tells me about a science experiment at school where the teacher made something go blue and Emma tells me that she needs another teddy, a brown dog, or the new one will get lonely cos none of the other toys like him. I play attentive dad. They seem happy enough.
    Then I go back to my den.
    I shut the door and stare at my desk. It’s cluttered with junk. I see three envelopes with red bills in them. In the drawer are some old photos – me and Carrie before the kids. We’re mugging it for the camera in a hammock.
    I dig out more photos. Joe without his front teeth, Emma in the bath covered in chickenpox, all of us standing outside a collapsed tent in the rain. More photos, more memories. I stare at each one and I remember each moment. Then I stare at them all again.
    Carrie comes back. She’s in her baggy pyjamas and her hair’s wet. I check my watch and realise that it’s late and I’ve dropped photos all over the floor. I see her looking at me and realise I look like a mentalist.
    ‘What’s going on, Ben?’
    I hear the stress in her voice. The anger seeps out of me like a long, slow breath.
    ‘I don’t know.’
    She comes over to me, slips onto my lap, nuzzles her head in my neck. ‘Do you ever get that thing,’ I say, ‘that thing inthe morning when you wake up, you wake up and your mind’s all blank? Like you’re still in the other dream? I wake up sometimes and I’m lying there and I’ve no idea who you are or who I am, really. I lie there, and it’s not scary, but I just feel as though I’m part of the other place, the dream. I lie there and slowly it comes back – you, me, the kids, work … it comes back, but it takes so long.’
    ‘Everyone gets that.’
    ‘Yeah, I know, you’re right.’
    She is right. But I’m not telling her the truth. Her hair is dripping cold water onto my shirt. I feel the trickle down my chest.
    ‘Hun?’ She looks at me with her beautiful big eyes.
    ‘You’re right. I just … I … sometimes even in the day I find it hard to see where the dream ends and where we start. Does that make any sense?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No. Sorry.’
    ‘Baby, you look so sad.’
    She kisses me. I find myself wondering how many times we’ve kissed in our time together.
    ‘Does this feel real?’ she says. I see the smirk, the sexy smile.
    ‘It might.’
    Her hand reaches down between my legs.
    ‘How about this?’
    ‘Yes, I think I can be pretty sure that this is …’
    We kiss again. And then the phone rings. It feels like an electric jolt through Carrie.
    ‘Leave it,’ I urge. I want to stay in this cocoon.
    ‘No, no—’
    ‘It’ll be your mum. Whoever it is, let them wait.’
    ‘No, get off, I must, I’ll just—’
    She’s flustered, and all my worries flood back through me. It feels like she’s fixing an expression for me.
    ‘Get your clothes off, get under the covers,’ she says with a wink. I sit back as she hurries down the stairs, hear her answer the phone. And I slip to the edge of the landing to listen.
    ‘No … it’s fine … I don’t think we need to … no, nothing like that.’
    A long silence as she listens to the person on the other end of the phone.
    ‘We’re okay. You don’t need to … I’m on it … he’s
fine
.’
    The ‘he’ is me. And that’s not her mother.
    She hangs up, but doesn’t move for a moment. I can see her, see her head sag. I can feel the burden. If I weren’t so ripped up I’d want to share it with her. She’s still holding the phone in her hand, caught in a terrible quandary that I don’t understand.
    I come down the stairs quietly, making sure she doesn’t hear me.
    ‘What’s wrong?’
    She jumps, turns, looks at me, confused.
    ‘The call?’ I say