Page 19 of Behind Her Eyes

‘That doctor was wrong,’ Adele says. ‘Some people do remember their night terrors. People like you and me. Do you know how rare we are?’

I’ve never seen her this animated. She’s focused on me. Intent. Her back straight. I shake my head. I’ve never really given it much thought. It’s just part of who I am.

‘Less than one per cent of adults have night terrors, and only a tiny per cent of those remember them. People like you and me.’ She smiles, pure happiness. ‘How remarkable that two people in that tiny amount have found each other!’

She looks so joyful that I have another wave of guilt. I should get home. Back to my own life and out of hers. I don’t want her help. But I am curious. She said she had problems with anxiety, not sleep. If she’s like me, then I’d have thought sleep would be top of her list. I look at the thin notebook on the table between us.

‘So how will this help?’

‘You need to learn to control your dreams.’

I laugh then, I can’t help myself. It sounds like new age meditation shit, and I’m a born cynic. ‘Control them?’

‘It’s what I did. I know it sounds silly, but it changed my life. Take the notebook. Read it. Trust me, if you put the effort in then no more night terrors and just amazingly vivid dreamsof your choosing. Lucid dreaming.’

I pick up the book and glance at the first page. The words are neatly printed and underlined.

Pinch myself and say I AM AWAKE once an hour.

Look at my hands. Count my fingers.

Look at clock (or watch), look away, look back.

Stay calm and focused.

Think of a door.

‘Is this yours?’ I flick through. There are some pages of scrawled writing, the neatness obviously lost after that first page, and then towards the back lots of sheets of paper have been torn out. It’s not exactly well-loved.

‘No,’ she says. ‘It belonged to someone I used to know. But it’s part me. I was there when he learned how to do it.’

16

THEN

‘Pinch myself and say I’m awake? Every hour? You want me to go around this place doingthat? Like we don’t have enough people thinking we’re crazy.’

‘Then it won’t matter.’

‘If you say so.’

‘And what’s with the fingers?’

The spot by the river under the tree has become theirs, and while the spell of weather holds they spend their free time there, happily lazing under the branches in the warmth.

‘Your hands look different when you’re dreaming. I learned all about it in a book David gave me when I was little. My parents took it away from me – they said it was rubbish, I think David did too a little bit – but it wasn’t. It taught me everything I’m going to teach you.’ She’s almost content, and although the moments like this are fleeting and she’s still filled with grief and guilt that she hasn’t dealt with yet, they are definitely more frequent. Becoming friends with Rob has saved her from herself. He’s bringing her back to life.

‘They’re right about you,’ Rob says. ‘You are crazy.’

She swats at him and laughs. ‘It’s true. You’ll see. Same with the time. Time is never consistent in a dream. Clocks change faster.’

‘I am awake.’ He smiles at her. ‘See? I’m doing it.’ He wiggles his fingers and stares at them.

‘You don’t have to do it all at the same time.’

‘If I’m going to look like a mental,’ Rob says, ‘then I intend to look like a proper mental.’

Adele looks at her own hands, dry blue paint under her nails, David’s watch face glinting in the sunlight. Rob was right, and the nurses are pleased with her new water art – if it can be called that – but it’s not helping her lay her family to rest. Instead, she’s found she imagines the old disused well in the woods at the back of her parents’ house. She sees herself standing beside it and pouring her past into it. Maybe one day she’ll find it metaphorically full, and then she can cover it over and move on. Maybe then she’ll sleep. Like she used to. She’s missing that time behind her own eyes. It’s a part of her, and guilt isn’t enough to shut it off completely.

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