Go to Sleep (18 page)

Rain starts to fall. I throw my head back, enjoying the smart of it on my skin. I should go back. Dad will be getting anxious. Joe needs me.

Soon. Five more minutes.

The rain intensifies. I pull my hood up, but instead of heading off back home I find myself trudging towards the docks.

There’s a throng of umbrellas bobbing around outside the Tate, and a line stretching all the way round the corner. There’s a buzz of chatter as the queue inches its way towards the entrance. No one seems to mind the slow revolving door painfully drip-feeding them through, one by one. People look on in silent horror as a young guy leans right back against the chain railings to snap a photo of the gallery. I follow the queue around to see what all the fuss is about. Of course! Picasso is in town. It’s up there with a Papal visit in Liverpool, or a home-coming
for the victorious football team. A major art event is something of a Must See in this city; people will make a day of it, stay out for dinner afterwards, the works. Me, I never really
got
Picasso. Not that I think it’s the Emperor’s New Clothes, just . . . his work doesn’t move me. I stare and stare, and I feel nothing. Dad’s right. Philistines, Mum and I. If a piece of art or music or a book fails to speak to me immediately on impact then it’s dead to me. The number of books that have found their way to the elephant’s graveyard under my bed, discarded after two or three chapters, says more about my impulsive, instant-fix approach to culture than it does about the magnificence of those dust-clad novels. Picasso could hang in my hallway and I’d walk on by.

A couple of Japanese girls sidle up to me, start pointing at the sky and holding up the flats of their hands. I smile back, shrug that I don’t understand but I’m willing to try. They mutter to each other, seem to agree on something, then reach out and drag me under their massive umbrella, still chattering at me excitedly. I’m too weary now to explain that I’m not here for the exhibition, so I just say thank you and stand there beneath their shelter and enjoy the strange anticipation of a crowd inching towards a common goal.

I fade out for what could have been a minute or an hour. One of the girls lets out an excited squeal, and she’s hauling her umbrella in. The revolving door sucks us
through, spits us out into a blinding white atrium. A bored Goth looks me up and down.

‘Second, third and fourth floors. Lift or stairs. You’ve got ninety minutes from now,’ she intones, already looking past me and through me to the next punter. Her black-painted mouth barely moves as she speaks. ‘That’s ten pounds, then.’

I cast my gaze back to the big glass gallery window, rain slamming into it now. Every time a new customer comes through the door, the wind howls in off the dock. There’s a stabbing pain in my breast. I really should be getting back to Joe.

I nod and hand over the money.

*

‘Hello . . . Miss? Excuse me?’

I prise one eye open. A young man is hovering above me; a boy, let’s face it. From his uniform – sleek, smart, informal – I see he works here. The Tate. I remember now, and sit up. My neck hurts and my face feels wet.

It takes me a moment.

I must have fallen asleep on the viewing bench. I wipe away a patch of saliva from my cheek, recoiling as I catch a whiff of my cancer breath, feel a patch of milk damp beneath my coat. The boy smiles diffidently.

‘I’m sorry. The gallery is closing now.’

He speaks with a slight accent, Salford maybe.

‘Closing?’

He nods.

‘Crikey. What time is it?’

Behind him, people are staring over, all wearing the same embarrassed smile. A young couple is tittering to one another, speculating that my sleeping stunt is performance art.

Shit. Joe. Dad. I stand up too quickly, and the room tilts out of focus, my legs jelly beneath me. The Tate boy catches me, hooking an arm under my armpit and discreetly guiding me back to the viewing bench. He sits down next to me.

‘Are you okay? Shall I get you some water?’

I shake my head.

‘How long have I been here?’

I want to know; but I dread to hear. Whatever, I should get going. Now.

‘A little while. It’s fine, you know. It’s not as unusual as you might think. People are for ever dozing off in the gallery. I would have left you as long as possible, but . . .’ He tails off.

‘What?’

A sympathetic smile. ‘You were starting to shout things out.’

I try to grope back to my last memory, just before I dipped out and surrendered to the vacuous suck of sleep. I remember walking around the gallery, and the more I saw, the more I wanted to text Dad; not to enquire after
Joe or to apologise for going walkabout, but simply to let him know where I was – and that I got it. All these years down the line and I finally got the point of Picasso. For the first time since Joe was born, I was overcome by the need to share something stupendous with Dad. I wanted to tell him about sleep, and women, and liberation – this riot of dislocated ideas that all made huge and sudden sense to me, I wanted to tell it all to Dad; make him see. But I didn’t. I pulled out my phone and saw the five missed calls and the smile emptied out of my heart. I was back once again at the edge of that yawning black sump, and I knew I could never turn away, never switch off, never let go. As long as Joe needed me, I would always be there; would have to be there. There was no other way. I stepped back from the pictures, switched off my phone, sat down on the bench and drifted out and under.

‘What time did you say it is?’

The boy looks at his watch.

‘Gone half five, now.’

‘Shit.’

I let out a slow sigh, gather myself together and get up to go.

Outside, it’s almost dark. In another two weeks it will be pitch black. I lean hard against a railing, let it take up my full weight as I look out beyond the still black depths of the dock. There’s home, there’s Joe beckoning from
the other side of the city, the tower blocks by the park flickering into life. Each time I think about heading back my stomach flips over and my head starts to reel. I tell myself that if I just stay here looking at the water, holding time off, then I won’t have to go back at all.

‘Pretty magical, isn’t it?’ The boy from the gallery parks himself next to me, his back to the Chinese lantern rippling the water’s surface. I smile to myself. ‘I love this time of day. Of night . . .’

He thrusts himself off the railing. I can see him eyeing me closely, trying to make his mind up about something. I don’t care, either way. I stare straight ahead at the dock, but I can see him, perfectly. He’s wearing a bomber jacket and a little beanie hat. It frames his face, accentuating the jut of his cheekbones, the fullness of his mouth. He takes a packet of Camels from his trouser pocket, folds back the foil very carefully and offers me one.

‘I gave up . . .’

I stop, then reach out and take one. I stoop to the flame, feel his eyes all over me. He wants me. This man, this
kid
who must be, what, ten years younger than me? he wants to fuck me. I don’t look up, just suck deep and hard and fill my lungs till they hurt. He lights his own cigarette. Exhales. Turns back towards the bitumen black dock.

‘You want to grab a drink?’

I blast out a bar of smoke, nodding. Yes. I do. I want to spend a bit more time with you before I go back to the living death of ministering to the every wail and whimper of my baby.

There’s a little deli on the other side of the dock. It’s just about empty, except for a table of tourists laying out their spoils from the exhibition – notebooks, posters, mugs, a Picasso tea towel. We take one of the small red leather sofas, a window perch looking over to the glow of the Liver Birds shining out weird and yellow, high above the sudden darkness. How many times had I shuffled down here – three months pregnant, six months, seven, eight, nine – and told Joe the story of the cormorant-like sentinels standing guard over the Port of Liverpool? The day they fly away, the city will sink into the river. He loved that one. He always kicked as though saying ‘again’.

The boy comes back from the bar, sets two glasses of translucent white wine on the table.

‘I’m Elwyn,’ he says. ‘I know. Twat of a name. But I’m all right, really.’

He takes an immodest sip, knowing he’s funny. Knowing I fancy him like mad.

‘Rachel,’ I say. ‘Rache.’

We clink glasses and sip in silence for a moment. He nestles right back into the spine of the sofa, hooks one foot across the knee.

‘So. My money’s on . . .
doctor
. I was going to say nurse but that would be stereotyping.’

‘Stereotyping?’

‘Come on. I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘Oh. I’m wrong then.’

‘About what?’

‘Sorry. My mam was a nurse. She used to fall asleep wherever after she’d done a night shift, and woe betide us if we’d wake her.’ He grins at the recollection. He has a nice, generous smile. ‘She used to do things like that on her day off . . . go to galleries and that. Go see whatever film everyone was raving on about in case she missed out. Bless.’ He drifts out, smiles affectionately, brings his gaze back to me. ‘Sorry I just thought you might—’

‘No. Nothing so heroic. I’m just tired that’s all. I have trouble sleeping right now.’

Feeling more and more relaxed with Elwyn, I cross my legs and slide down deep into the sofa. The wine is going straight to my head, but I don’t care. I can make out the silhouette of a boat on the water, blindly wrapped by the dark. I’m feeling woozy, and I like it. I like having a man next to me. I like it that he’s attracted to me; that he wants me. I look at him properly for the first time.

‘What about you?’ I say. ‘Elwyn.’ He holds my stare for a second, then has to look away. I smile – half for him, half at him; at this. ‘Student, I’m guessing.’

‘If only. No. I’m a slave, sadly. I have two paying jobs,
and one that I pursue out of love, compulsion and madness. I have pretensions to being an artist, see. So I have to keep grafting to fund my illusory – many would say delusory – career.’

‘That’s brilliant.’

‘Is it, though? You haven’t seen my work.’

‘Can I?’

‘Sure. The pub I’m about to start work in –’ He consults his watch – ‘in thirty-seven minutes – shit! – happens to be the most avant-garde platform for new art in the city.’

‘You sound like a PR.’

‘I do the PR for it, too.’

I laugh. I like you, I think. I could get to like you.

He starts to make leaving noises. We drink up.

‘So. Rachel.’ He looks at me very directly. ‘Are you going to come and see my etching?’

I laugh spontaneously, but to my mild surprise I find myself shaking my head.

‘I like you . . . a lot,’ I say.

He smiles, nods. A flicker of hurt around his eyes. ‘I think I worked it out. Joe, isn’t it?’

‘Joe?’

‘You were calling out his name before. When I woke you up.’

Out of nowhere, I crumble. I cry and cry and cry. I can’t stop. In the end I’m laughing, tear slime all over my face. Elwyn puts his arms around me.

‘Hey,’ he says, rubbing the small of my back like a parent might. ‘It’s all right. You’ve done nothing wrong. We just had a drink together. You’ve not got nothing at all to feel bad about. Everything’s going to be fine with you and your fella.’

I nod to myself, so badly wanting to believe it’s all right, that it’s all going to be fine. I press my face tight to his chest and close my eyes, let him take the full, throbbing weight of me, and just for one moment, I allow myself to believe I’m safe. I’m protected. I’m somebody’s woman.

And finally that constant droning in my head whispers away to nothing. I close my eyes, relieved, grateful to hear other things again, things outside my head. The low distant roar of the river. Life before the big bang. I hold on to the moment, let it play until I’m finally able to pick myself up, step back away from him.

‘I should go now. Joe needs me.’

He gives me a gentle kiss on the nose.

‘Ta-ra.’

I pull up my hood and turn and run as fast as my aching, useless legs will carry me.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

My father is standing in my kitchen, the front of his shirt damp with baby sick, a shadow of stubble muddying his face. I don’t think I have ever seen him look so wounded, so . . .
angry
.

‘I . . . I . . .’

‘Of all the selfish things you’ve ever done, Rachel!’

Slowly, I soak up the scene playing out behind him. Jan is feeding Joe, who is guzzling contently from a bottle, gulp-gulp-gulp-gulp-gulp. Faye is bagging up a nappy. There is formula all over the table, a brand-new steriliser steaming away in the corner. I just stand there, scolded and foolish. A horrible silence fills the room, broken only by Joe’s passionate slurping. I eye the tin of formula on the table with its reassuring pastels and its soft, florid font and I want to cry. I want to throw my face to the
sky and howl. Half an hour ago I felt something like my previous, normal self. I was alive. Back here, they all want me dead again. Fuck them. Let them judge, if they want. I push past my father, hold out my hands to Jan.

‘Jan?’

‘Just let him finish, Rachel, please.’

I catch Faye’s eye. She looks away quickly, concentrates on tying up the nappy sac.

‘Jan. Please give him back.’

‘Rachel . . .’

‘Jan!’

She dips her head slightly, won’t meet my accusing stare.

‘Baby’s doing fine, now. He was very distressed.’

‘Oh, was he now? So you decided to shut him up with that poison.’

‘Poison? What choice did you leave us? He was starving.’

‘Really?’

I come up close to her, try to calculate how best to remove my baby from her clutches without hurting him. Now she looks up. She looks deeply and angrily into my eyes.

‘Yes, Rachel, he was. Wasn’t he, Richard?’ Dad hangs his head, sighs out loud. ‘Rich?’

I ward Dad off with a look, then gently but firmly remove Joe from Jan’s arms.

‘Thaaaaaank you.’ I hold him to my face, nuzzle his cheeks with my nose. ‘Hello, little tiny. How’s Mummy’s boy?’