The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe Read Free Book Online

cloaking herself in even thicker darkness. He could not make out her face at all. ‘It’s not about curing people, you know,’ she said. ‘All he’s interested in is knowledge. He won’t cure you.’
    ‘Maybe not,’ said Terry. ‘But this place might.’
    For a moment they were both conscious, again, of the waves’ murmurous onslaught; clouds scudding through the moonlight; the immensity of the ocean. Stubbing out his cigarette, Terry licked his lips and savoured the taste of salt.
    ‘Yes, there is a certain… atmosphere about this house,’said Dr Madison. ‘You’ll find it very restful. How long are you staying?’
    ‘I’m booked in for two weeks,’ said Terry. ‘But that’s not what I meant. There’s another reason why I thought it might – well, not cure me, exactly…’
    He tailed off. Dr Madison waited.
    ‘I used to live here, you see.’
    ‘Live here?’
    ‘Not for long. When I was a student. Twelve years ago. I haven’t been here since. That’s partly – mainly, I suppose –why I decided to come. Curiosity.’
    Dr Madison said, laconically: ‘Well, that’s something you have in common with Dr Dudden, then.’
    ‘How do you mean?’
    ‘He was a student here as well.’
    ‘Really? When?’
    ‘I don’t think you would have overlapped.’
    ‘You never know, though. What’s his first name?’
    ‘Gregory.’
    ‘Gregory Dudden… Doesn’t ring any bells…’ His mind, in any case, had latched on to a different memory. ‘I had a friend at the time – it’s funny, I’ve hardly given her a thought since then, but seeing Ashdown again, it… brings things back… Anyway… She should be the one coming back here, because she had the weirdest… syndrome, I suppose you’d call it.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘She had dreams – incredibly vivid dreams – dreams so vivid that she couldn’t tell the difference between the things she dreamed and the things that really happened to her.’
    ‘Hypnagogic hallucinations,’ said Dr Madison. ‘Also known as pre-sleep dreaming.’
    ‘There’s a name for it? You mean it’s quite common?’
    ‘No, it’s not common at all. It can be one of the symptoms of narcolepsy. Was she narcoleptic?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’
    ‘Did you know her well?’
    ‘I suppose I did, yes. We lived together for a bit – just a few weeks – the year we graduated.’
    ‘When you say lived together…’
    ‘No, I mean, we just shared this flat. We never…’ The words faded into ambiguous silence – half-careless, half-regretful. Only when he added, ‘She was called Sarah,’ was there something newly soft and reflective in his voice. Then it turned brisk again. ‘I’m sorry, I’m probably keeping you up. You must be tired.’
    ‘Not really. Are you?’
    Terry barked with laughter. ‘I’m always tired,’ he said, ‘and never tired. That’s my curse, I’m afraid. I certainly don’t feel like sleeping now. We’ve got all night, as far as I’m concerned.’
    ‘All right, then,’ coaxed Dr Madison. ‘Tell me about Sarah, and her dreams.’

3
    ‘Tell me about your dreams,’ Gregory had once said to Sarah, sitting on that same terrace, one bright November morning many years earlier. ‘Tell me how long this has been going on.’
    Sarah had warmed her hands on the mug, shivered slightly in the ocean breeze, and looked at him fondly. This was during the early months of their relationship, long before they grew apart. She still found, in those days, that he could be very kind. She still regarded him as a wise and understanding man. Sitting on that terrace, leaning instinctively towards him so that their knees touched, she felt her anxieties begin to dissolve. She forgot that they had been arguing more often, recently, and over pettier things. As for the sex, she told herself that it would improve over time. She tried to ignore the fact that as she spoke to Gregory, he was writing her words down in a notebook, marked ‘ SARAH ’s PSYCHOLOGICAL