Page 29 of You Belong With Me

‘OK. What the fuck?’ Edie said, heart blocking her throat, hands out and palms up, as if she needed to balance.

A few seconds ticked by where Edie tried to form her own interpretation and completely failed.

‘I was down here making myself a midnight snack, and he walked in behind me with his penis PROUDLY ON SHOW …’ Meg said, pointing the tip of the knife down at the offending genitals, as if Edie might not know where they were otherwise.That’s the schlong, officer!‘Scaring the shit out of me … And now he’s not speaking, trying to freak me out even more!’ Meg said.

‘Declan,’ Edie said, trying to keep her breathing steady and her gaze locked on his face. Who or what had she allowedinto her home? Declan was a huge man – it turned out, in more than one sense – and she felt the horror of putting Meg at risk. And herself. ‘It’s a bit of a house rule that we don’t walk around with our penises out.’

‘I’ll fucking amputate it, flasher fucker! See how you enjoy your sick kicks then,’ Meg said, raising her arm higher, and Edie shushed her desperately. Meg committing a GBH wasn’t likely to improve things.

A small element of pathos: Declan had a bandage in the same place that Edie had wound her makeshift effort round him. She remembered blushing at being so close to a strange male torso. Well. If only she’d known she was very much on the beginner slopes yesterday.

Edie looked back up at Declan’s impassive expression, trying to work out what was going on and why the friendly man of earlier had turned into this statue. Why wasn’t he looking at either of them? Was this an effect of the concussion?

Hang on …

‘Megan,’ Edie said, in an effortfully calm, low voice and using her sister’s full name to get her full attention. ‘… I think he’s sleepwalking?’

Meg lowered the knife. ‘Is he?’

‘I think so. That’s why he seems to be in a trance?’ She turned towards him. ‘Declan. Hi? Hello?’ Edie said, waving her hand, and Declan merely swayed gently, still staring beyond them at the shelving.

Edie had never encountered a sleepwalker before, and her introduction was a six-foot-two nude man hung like a donkey.

It was spookily like someone doing a youth theatre exerciseimpression of a sleepwalker. A rather basic impersonation. It seemed like, if she made a loud noise, he’d be tricked into snapping out of it and laugh.

But if he wasn’t sleepwalking, he was deliberately staging an impromptu full frontal with his new line manager and her sister to no discernible purpose. And not flinching when the latter was wielding means of violently cleaving member from body.

‘What do we do? You’re not meant to wake a sleepwalker?’ Edie said uncertainly.

‘You’re not meant to make me look at your willy and balls when I want an almond butter crumpet either,’ Meg said.

‘I think you’re meant to guide them gently back to bed?’ Edie said.

‘You first – I’m not touching him.’

Edie had to admit, it was a worrying notion. ‘Where’s the Skegness tea towel?’ she said, with serious urgency, and at this point she and Meg simultaneously broke and started sniggering.

Suddenly, with the vacant yet deliberate lurch of Frankenstein’s monster, Declan approached the swing top bin.

He positioned his penis over it in such a way that strongly suggested Dream Architect had told him it was the toilet.

Whatever the correct protocols for managing somnambulism, before a stream of urine could appear, Edie involuntary cried: ‘Declan, no!’

He stopped what he was doing and woke with a start, his head jerking backwards and then his face changing from the absent stare to one of greater comprehension.

‘Where am I?’ he asked, not unreasonably. New city,concussion, new colleague, hospital, strange house, and now he’d teleported sans clothes into a kitchen in the small hours. Like the man who fell to Earth.

‘My house, remember? I’m Edie? This is my sister, Meg. You hit your head when you came off your bike. I think you’ve been sleepwalking.’

Declan looked as if understanding was dawning, and then right behind the geography of where he was and the history of how he arrived here was biology: an awareness of nakedness.

‘Uhm … Am I … Why …?’ He glanced down and almost started at confirmation of the sight of himself, an anxiety fantasy finally made real.

Edie gritted her teeth.

‘Oh my Lord …’ Declan said and put his hands over his crotch. Edie had never seen someone sweat like that before: his face became damp in a split second. Declan backed away, bumping into a worktop. ‘I hope I’m still dreaming.’

‘If you are, you’re in my nightmare,’ Meg said. ‘Maybe don’t go bare-arsed in bed if you’re a guest.’

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