Sleepless Nights Page 4

  When we finally left the highway and struck out into the winding roads of interior Connecticut, we seemed to be in a different country altogether. The roads were narrow, and the houses modest; a few clapboard farms, slightly dilapidated, sat in the midst of open, undulating fields, where cows half-slept and nosed the grass and flicked flies along the banks of thickly rush-edged ponds. And then, quite suddenly, we entered a dark tunnel of pines and maples whose branches met above us. Down headed the road, further and further, sweeping around sharp corners set with low red Capes; until, at the very bottom, as the road traversed a neat triangle of carefully mown green grass, the sea appeared before us, orange and crimson and palest blue in the lights of the setting sun.

  Sussex, the town where Paul’s summer house lay, hugged a cove notched into the Connecticut coast. The house itself was—we knew from Paul’s detailed instructions—located just outside the small center, off a rough, dusty path running perpendicular to the coastal road. Surrounded—almost encased—by trees, the simple white house gleamed in the semidarkness like something out of a fairy tale as we bumped along the drive. “Good size,” said Tom thoughtfully, looking up at it. Jeanie, peering through the windshield, seemed rather more uncertain.

  But if the home was Quakerish on the outside, the inside had, as we quickly discovered, recently received the loving attention of an expensive interior designer. The wooden floorboards had been evened out and stripped to a gleaming sand color, and ocean-hued silk curtains tickled the floor in the breeze. Nautical-themed carpets and pillows were thrown next to pure white armchairs and sofas. A large modern canvas splattered with lines in declining shades of ochre stared down from the gloss-painted mantelpiece. The table and dining chairs were polished teak slabs, as were the kitchen cupboards. The oven alone was the size of a New York City apartment.

  Upstairs were two enormous bedrooms with en suite dressing rooms and vast, echoing bathrooms, equipped with claw-footed iron tubs and rain showers. Fawn-colored glass tiles turned rich gold with a flick of the light switch; amber-colored towels as thick as a woman’s arm lay neatly folded on silver rails (Paul employs a housekeeper to come in and clean once a week, and to set up the house for him and his guests). It was—we realized, as we ran from room to room, exclaiming at the size, the space, the coolness—like something out of a tourist magazine, Martha Stewart Living at the very least; a fantasy come to life, a dream of secluded quiet, a cloistered retreat equipped with swansdown and a dizzyingly expensive entertainment system.

  Jeanie was, in spite of herself, deeply impressed. “Blimey,” she said, staring wide-eyed at the expanse of opulent minimalism. “How much d’you think all this stuff cost? How can he afford it?” After dinner (pasta thrown together from packets), she curled up on the sofa, tapping out e-mails to her friends in which she described the place in precise, intimate detail. Dave, she said, would be particularly intrigued. “He just wouldn’t believe it,” she said, looking up for a moment with a grin between gulps of iced Chardonnay. “All these rooms! The space! The huge bathrooms! The weirdo art! Although—” her excited smile slipped down her face a bit—he might not approve…” She took another sip of wine, looking thoughtful. “He’s very into the environment these days, he might sniff about the ‘carbon footprint’ of the house.” She shook her head a little, then started tapping again. “But I’ve got to tell him about the kitchen and the bathrooms, he’ll be simply amazed…”

  Tom and I left her to it, and took ourselves upstairs to our room. A vast downy quilt and floaty white pillows were piled on top of an iron four-poster in the middle of the room. At the bottom of the bed, on a painted ship’s chest, stood an enormous display of lilies and ferns with a card from Paul that said, simply, “Enjoy.”

  We’d put Samuel to bed in his bassinet before dinner; I picked him up now with cautious, gentle hands, nursed him while he slept, and levered myself into the cool sheets without making a sound. Tom, who had been anxiously watching the whole careful dance, produced a big thumbs-up gesture in the darkness and we settled down with matching sighs of relief. For ten minutes, Samuel slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of the innocent. I drifted off listening to his thin, even moth-breaths. Then, a few moments after I’d lost consciousness, just as I was walking into a dreamland of warm black velvet and soft white down, I was woken by an ear-splitting shriek, a sound to tear body from soul.

  “What the—”

  Maybe it was because of the trip, maybe the change of surroundings, but the night that unfolded was nightmarish. Samuel was up at midnight, then again at two a.m., three thirty a.m., four a.m., five fifteen a.m., and finally for good, chirruping hopefully, at six a.m. “Can’t you do anything?” Tom said raggedly, somewhere about four a.m., but by this point our son was acting as if nursing, cuddling, and singing were all activities approximately akin to torture. “Oh, right, I’ll just switch the ‘off’ button, silly me, why didn’t I think of that before,” I told my husband, and I think I even hit him at one point.

  We fell down the stairs together just as the first rays of sunshine were filtering through the window blinds in the kitchen, cheeks flushed, eyes hollowed. I had the oddest sensation of having lost the fluid in my brain. “Obviously, it was just a one-off,” Tom remarked in a ghastly voice, turning pancakes on the stove with shaking white fingers, as the room brightened quickly to day. I nodded. (I think I actually heard my brain rattle.) “Once he gets used to the place, it’ll be different,” he went on, slapping a syrupy mess of half-cooked pancakes in front of me. “We can work on getting him into a routine while we’re here, Q,” he added, sitting down on the stool opposite me with the stiff, jerky gait of a very aged man. “Then when we go back to work, at the end of our holiday, he’ll be sleeping reliably throughout the night. We’ll be totally in control by then.”

  Outside, the pines stirred in the morning breeze, and the waves dragged shells in and out of the empty shore. Tom and I picked up our forks, and set about our breakfast in silence; Samuel had gone back to sleep. The house was utterly quiet.

  6

  Jeanie

  On our third day in Connecticut, we took a long walk around the town of Sussex. (Personally I’d call it a village, but that bit of Frenchery seemed not to have made it across the Atlantic.) The center was basically one long street that fell into water at the end; the main road turned into a footpath which became a boardwalk, and then finally the river. A few miles south the river opened out into the sea, and in my mind’s eye the route continued—across the Atlantic, around Ireland’s choppy bottom, to England. You could see signs of English heritage everywhere, from the name of the town to the small village green, halfway along the street, to the shape of the houses (simple and square). But those New Englanders had brought their own twist, since everything—houses, barns, garages, shops—was made of wood. Walls, roofs, doors, you name it; wood, wood, wood, not a brick in sight. I couldn’t help eyeing the wooden boxes and their wooden lids with an Englishwoman’s inevitable bewilderment. “They don’t look safe to me,” I said suspiciously to Q, standing staring at one from the middle of the long narrow street. “How come they don’t rot or burn down? What happens when your neighbor lights up the barbecue?”

  The place was nice enough, but perhaps not quite as beautiful as it had been in its heyday; the paint on the houses was peeling, I noticed, the gardens were chock-full of weeds, and the chimneys were tipping slightly to the side, like women who’d taken to drink. The ships in the docks that fanned out around the coastline seemed to bring wrinkly-brown pleasure cruisers instead of roaring trade, and most of them stopped for an hour or two at most, sampling microwaved French onion soup in small restaurants with names like Kat’s Kozy Korner. Chain chemists and banks lurked down side streets in concrete bunkers marooned in asphalt. Q told me that Sussex was chiefly popular for its proximity to a very large “outlet mall” (a place where you could wrestle comrades to the ground for a cheapie pair of Calvin Klein knickers, apparently). Tourists generally preferred the
charms of places farther along the coast (with more English names—Essex, Norwich, Old Lyme), towns that had a similar shape but more original buildings and more zealous old people committed to preserving them.

  Paul, the man who owned our house, was apparently left it by an aged uncle, and I gathered he more or less ignored the town, focusing instead on his expansive dock. He also owned a place in somewhere called “the Hamptons.” I didn’t know what this was, or why it was plural, but Q and Tom discussed it with a slight air of consciousness, as if even mentioning the Hamptons in conversation gave you an “in” to polite society. (I imagined an Edith Wharton novel, a place of tall white mansions reaching down to the sea, of conservatories filled with yellow roses lapped in eternal sunlight.)

  We strolled down Sussex’s long main street, pushing Samuel, whose screams echoed up and down the narrow sidewalk. When he’d finally yelled himself into purple silence, we bumped the buggy up to a small coffee shop with cheery cotton curtains at the window, round wooden tables on a plain wood floor, and shelves piled high with model sailboats in full rig, and drank our cups of coffee in welcome peace. Q kept touching Samuel to check he was breathing until Tom impatiently slapped her fingers away.

  “Jeanie, how are things with Dave?” Q began, glowering beneath her frizz across the table at Tom. “We were—uh—sorry he couldn’t come out with you, but it’s great he let you come for such a nice long stay.” She dropped a brown knobbly cube of sugar into her mug and vigorously stirred it with a plastic swizzle stick, then surreptitiously touched Samuel’s cheek when Tom wasn’t looking.

  “Yeah—good thanks,” I replied cheerfully, “thanks for asking. Dave’s still having problems holding down a job, but it’s hardly surprising, given how much time he spends with his mum. She barely knows where she is most days.”

  “And he’s very into the environment now, you said.”

  “Mmm. It’s his latest thing. It was his flatmate Badger who got him onto it—”

  “Badger?”

  “Yup. He has a shock of white hair down the center of his head.”

  “I see. Makes perfect sense.”

  Tom seemed to be watching a game of rounders played with helmets on the green outside the window.

  “And Badger is an eco-warrior, is he?” Q went on a few moments later (she was now holding Samuel’s tiny hand under the table).

  “Something like that. He’s had a big effect on Dave. When we first got together, Dave was a tabloid reader, Sunday Sport, News of the World, that sort of thing. Cigarette propped permanently over his ear. Favorite way to spend the weekend was down the pub. But over the past year he’s been taking a lot more responsibility for his mum, and Badger’s got him demonstrating against global warming and globalization. It’s quite sweet really. I’m not sure he always knows quite what he’s demonstrating against, but he does love a nice walk through Hyde Park with Badger.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t,” Q murmured neutrally. She’d never been particularly fond of my boyfriends. “And you’re still getting on well, the pair of you? Is he—er—reliable, and trustworthy, and—”

  “Faithful,” Tom supplied, still looking out of the window. I scowled at the back of his head.

  “Of course,” I said crossly. “All of those things. And more.”

  “More—?”

  I expatiated further on Dave’s many, many virtues. “These last few months he’s been giving his dad every penny he has to help get the best care for his mum,” I explained earnestly, “even if it means he doesn’t have enough to pay his own bills. His sister’s always telling me he’s the best big brother in the world, and his dad depends on him. He would have been an amazing social worker, if he could’ve afforded to complete our course. He’s really strong!” I banged my hand on the table for emphasis; the cold dregs of our coffee jumped and shuddered in their corrugated plastic pots.

  “Impressive,” Q admitted; I was proud.

  “And he was happy for you to come out here for four months, was he?” Tom suddenly turned and looked me full in the face, green eyes sharp as glass. “I mean, it seems like a long separation,” he went on. “I’m surprised he was okay with that. Dave, I mean. You too.”

  I picked up my tepid coffee and dashed a gulp down my throat. I can’t believe you’re doing this, were Dave’s actual words, as I recall, when I first outlined the plan. We were in our local at the time. He thumped his fist on the table until the beans-and-sausages shook and the barmaid appeared with a wary look in her eye. “A crook of the finger and you’re off! One day it’s Alison, the next Q in America…And I don’t understand why, Jeanie, because they don’t really need you, but I need you. Your mother claims they need help with this baby, but as far as I can tell they’ve got plenty of money to get a nanny—a whole fleet of them if necessary. What happened to togetherness? What happened to us? How do you imagine we’re going to have a relationship on two different continents?”

  “Dave,” I began miserably, reaching across the rough, knotty pine table for his hand, “see it from my perspective. This is my one opportunity to live abroad. My course will be finished, I won’t have a job, it’s the one time in my life I’ll be free to travel. And it’s my one chance to get to know Q’s little baby…”

  “It’s your one chance to spend these four months with me,” he growled. “We won’t get this time back again, Jeanie. What’s passed is passed. And you just expect me to sit around waiting for you, do you?” he continued suddenly, with an awkward rasp in his voice. I felt my bottom lip wobble. “You think I’ll just be hanging around for you, good old Dave, waiting like a patient dog for when you’ve finished your travels?”

  “Well, I can’t insist, but I was definitely hoping you would…” I replied miserably. “I mean, I’ll understand if you don’t want to, Dave, but I—I will be waiting for you—”

  “And so will I, but the bloody difference is, I don’t have a choice,” he said angrily, and stood up to order another couple of pints. He sniffed loudly as he went, rubbing his arm across his nose in a single, characteristic gesture. I watched him lope across the bar floor, navigating the yelling, laughing crowds, the heaped coats and duffel bags, the strewn bar-stools, with practiced ease. I really like Dave, I thought to myself suddenly, and he is my boyfriend, but I can’t help wanting to see a bit more of the world than the inside of a London pub.

  Q, I suddenly realized, was talking. “I don’t want you to worry about the cost of speaking with Dave; use our phone while you’re here,” she offered. “If Dave can’t afford to ring you, just call him. We’ll pay. It’s the least we can do. Here’s the thing, Jeanie,” she continued, leaning across the table, “I know I was a bit negative about Dave when you first got together, but if he makes you happy—if he recognizes what he’s got—then that’s all that counts. I don’t care that he doesn’t have money—”

  “Or a job,” contributed Tom, sotto voce; Q rolled her eyes. “There are lots of ways of working, I understand that,” she said firmly, as if she’d made up her mind about something. “Seriously, I do. Dave’s work isn’t the conventional sort, but it’s extremely valuable. Saving the environment—I don’t know what’s more important than that these days.” She smiled in what I’m sure she hoped was an understanding way. “Tom and I were talking about this. If Dave would like to come out and visit you once we get back to New York, we’ll cover the cost of his flight too. It’ll be tight in the apartment, the five of us, but we can manage.”

  “Thanks,” I said, imagining Dave’s face. A trip to New York—! “That’s really kind of you, I don’t know what he’ll say—it’ll depend on his mother’s health, obviously. Plus there’s a beluga whale press release to complete, a new project of Badger’s,” I added importantly. And then, in response to a raised, delicately skeptical eyebrow from Tom, “Well, not just belugas, but all toothed whales; you have to think of the bigger picture, the full marine spectrum, obviously…”

  “Obviously,” Tom echoed, and then he sharply twit
ched Samuel’s blanket out of Q’s hand with a muffled exclamation. He went back to watching the funny rounders game out of the window, while Q moved her hand millimeter by millimeter closer to Samuel’s slumbering form.

  7

  Q

  Paul is coming to stay this weekend!” Tom announced delightedly, flicking his cell phone closed, and I struggled to produce an expression of appropriate joy. “Paul! Wow. That’s so great,” I said enthusiastically. “I’m pleased. In fact I’m thrilled! I can’t wait. Paul. Way-hey!”

  My husband stared. “D’you have a crush on him or something?”

  The truth was, I wasn’t making much sense anymore; I seemed to have the brain power of a flickering candle. After three nights of no sleep I was not actually a human being, but rather some sort of nonsentient lower organism. Something from the bottom of a pond, perhaps. Something without arms and legs that lies still and senses currents.

  Samuel had given up sleeping and taken to crying instead. He’d had three screaming fits so far that day, each worse than the last. They came from what seemed like nowhere: one moment he was staring into blank nothingness, the next his face folded in upon itself, his mouth puckered up, his skin turned a mottled, blotchy red, and he began to yell.

  The day didn’t start out too badly; for the first half hour or so after he woke up, Samuel was quiet-peaceful, even happy, snuggling into my shoulder, his round plump bottom tucked into my hand. In spite of my tiredness I tickled his toes, and laughed with him as he kicked and bounced, bounced and kicked, then reached hopefully toward my face with stubby, interested, exploring hands. But then, just as I settled down for breakfast, everything changed; gurgles became whimpers, which became, in a fraction of a second, in the lapse of a heartbeat, a scream. The pitch of his shriek seemed to settle just under my ears and then, drill-like, bored its way up into the deep inner lobes of my brain. Everything turned cavernous, orange; the world dwindled to one child, one head, one mouth, one scream.