The Sleepwalker's Introduction to Flight Read online

  ‘What about Harry Norris on dispatch?’ offers Wenner.

  ‘He’s a bit Magoo. Not completely blind though, is he?’

  ‘Might as well be . . . huge milk bottle specs on him. Like telescopes.’

  ‘Short-sighted is not the same as being a mole-man, Wenner.’ Davis rolls his own pale-blue, pink-rimmed orbs and returns his gaze to me. ‘I know it’s disappointing.’

  ‘It is a bit,’ I say, addressing the far wall. ‘How about the dog-handlers?’

  A brief but transparent look passes between the two policemen, a long-suffering look that says: the sooner this is over the better. Davis grimaces, ‘Uh . . . the thing is, in the dog-handling division you’re supposed to be handling the dogs, not the other way round. Your highly trained attack-dog would end up spending his whole time trying to stop you falling arse-over-tit down manholes or running into hedges and things. No, I think you’d better forget about the force. But we do appreciate your interest and that.’

  I hang my head in defeat but out of the corner of my glasses I can see Aggie crouching behind the furthest bed, convulsed with silent laughter.

  I pretend to crash into a locker as Davis riffles his notebook, red biro hovering over the lined pages expectantly. ‘Right then, Mr Williams, is there anything else you can tell us about the night in question?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely, one of the—’

  ‘We understand that the break-in occurred some time between midnight and five a.m. – is that correct?’

  ‘Not “some time” – they broke in at four twelve a.m. precisely. I checked my watch, which they subsequently took from me. Omega Dateline with a black leather strap.’

  ‘Very good,’ says Davis, ‘I admire precision. Which is why I myself favour the Tag Heuer.’ He treats us to a quick flash of his watch. ‘So, at four twelve precisely they stole your watch.’

  ‘Actually, four seventeen and twenty-three seconds was the last time I saw it.’

  Davis laboriously scores out the previous rubric.

  ‘And then they beat me up. After which they took a bit of cash; about three hundred pounds; then they found my DFC in the tea caddy, which, really, is the only thing I value.’

  ‘One Omega Dateline – black leather strap, three hundred quid and one DFC Davis laboriously scrawls all this in his notebook. Wenner nods reassuringly. Finally Davis looks up. ‘Excellent. You know, Mr Williams, you’d be surprised what this actually tells us. To you, it means nothing. A collection of random occurrences, as utterly unconnected as Her Majesty the Queen is to . . . to the King of the Krauts. But to us – to the trained mind – it’s a collection of facts that piece by tiny piece is already beginning to pay dividends. You’d be surprised how much this little collection of clues has already told us about the perpetrators; how they look, how they sound, how they even dress.’

  ‘But I already know all that.’

  There’s one of those fabulous cartoon-pauses, like when Wiley Coyote realizes that he’s just stepped off the cliff and is now hanging in mid-air.

  ‘What?’ says Davis.

  ‘Nobody’s actually asked me for a description of the burglars. Or anything else for that matter,’ explains Roger diffidently.

  All right,’ says Davis slowly, as though speaking to a child, ‘so you got a good look at your assailants?’

  ‘They were masked, well, one of them was. The other one was wearing tights.’

  ‘Tights?’

  ‘Over his head.’

  ‘Ah, I see.’ Davis’s red biro flutters across the page like a dragonfly in heat. ‘Any distinguishing marks?’

  ‘The one with the tights on his head was tallish, dark and had a great many tattoos.’

  My heart lurches. I know that description well enough.

  ‘The masked one was wearing a kind of black silk pyjama-suit with a hood. He was carrying an old fashioned toilet-chain thing. That’s what he hit me with as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Sounds a bit like nunchucks,’ observes Wenner.

  ‘Unquestionably,’ Davis nods sagely. ‘Definitely, those, ah, nanny wassnames, just spell that for me . . .’

  ‘Oh Mikey, there you are. For crying out loud, we’ve been looking all over the hospital for you.’ A furious young nurse stands at the doorway, hands on crisp green hips. I don’t know her but she sure as hell knows me. Doubtless she’s been giving me bed-baths every day for the past two years and so is entitled to any kind of liberty really – that’s just one of the many drawbacks of the comatose state: you don’t know who’s seen what, done what and when to you. ‘Mikey, you better get back to your room now. Your father’s arrived. He’s come to take you home.’

  I rush in headlong panic from the room at the rate of six inches a minute on the Zimmer. Aggie bustles over and kisses me. This is brave of her; I can tell she’s not comfortable around the policemen. I hand her the wonderful glasses. ‘No, you keep ’em, boy,’ she says, ‘to remind you of old Aggie.’

  Actually, she’s the one who really needs them now; I can see tears in the corner of her eyes, but I put them in my pyjama pocket anyway and trundle away, waving at Roger and Truffles.

  ‘Oy,’ shouts Davis, ‘you lying toe-rag, you’re never blind.’ He’s smiling, but those red-rimmed eyes of his refuse to participate. ‘Congratulations on your miraculous recovery . . . sir.’

  I’ve barely been out of bed for seven hours and I’m already on this copper’s shit-list.

  Eight

  Bernard Hough pulls on tight black leather driving-gloves before placing his hands on the Volvo’s wheel at the prescribed position of ten-to-two. They’re surprisingly racy, these gloves, with Velcro straps and perforations. He flexes his fingers and I notice that one or two tiny but coarse black hairs have escaped and are poking through the holes. For some reason I find this shocking, like something you’re not supposed to see, something deviant. It gives me the shivers.

  My father puts on a flat cap before easing out of the hospital car park at a sensible eight miles an hour. I wonder why it is that motorists with the least élan or hair feel the need to accessorize like this.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ he asks.

  A strange question given the circumstances. ‘Yes, thanks. For about two years, I think.’

  My father takes his eyes off the road for a split second to glance at me. ‘I meant the last couple of nights.’

  I decide not to tell him that I’ve been up all night playing no limit Texas Hold ’em for grapes and assorted soft fruits with a bunch of hustler sharpies. ‘Little bit. Obviously I was very excited about coming home.’

  ‘You got some sleep though?’

  I nod, wondering where this odd line of questioning is leading. Perhaps he’s planning to keep me up nights for the next week, working on a two-year backlog of household chores.

  ‘Only Dr Darrow told me you weren’t in your room when he checked on you last night.’

  Sod it. Not only did I miss the chance of scoring more of those happy pills but Doc Darrow’s gone and dropped me in it too. Surprisingly my father doesn’t press the point. He seems uneasy, chewing his lip. There’s something not quite right here.

  ‘Michael,’ he drums the wheel with those perforated black puddings of his, ‘how long did you actually sleep for last night?’

  ‘Not very long really.’

  Behind us an ancient Mini honks twice – some poor soul, late for work and no doubt irritated beyond reason at our preposterous speed. My father glares briefly in the rear-view mirror and curls his upper lip. He’s not going to give them the satisfaction of a response other than to lift his foot a centimetre or two off the accelerator. Our speed dips from a stately twenty-three miles per hour to a sedate eighteen. The Mini honks again, but it’s a futile gesture. The streets of Caversham are narrow and busy at this time of the morning so there’s absolutely no chance of overtaking and my father’s not about to pull over.

  ‘These racing demons must learn that some of us will not be rushed. Slow and steady wins the race, Michael.’

  I’m grateful for the distraction. I was beginning to find the interrogation distinctly unnerving. There’s a break in the oncoming traffic and my father increases his speed a touch. As we turn up St Peter’s Hill, the Mini pulls out and attempts to pass. But the old banger lacks acceleration. In my wing mirror I can see black smoke belching from its overtaxed exhaust.

  My father taps his accelerator. ‘If these speed-obsessed lunatics end up a smoking mess of tangled metal then I can scarcely be held accountable.’

  I get the impression that he’s mentally preparing his defence for when he’s quite rightly charged with manslaughter and dickless driving.

  We’re almost neck-and-neck now: a twenty-six-mile-an-hour Grand Prix – Bernard Hough being one of the Grandest Prix on the road. In his favour, my father not only has the gloves, but horse-power to spare under the hood of this late-model Volvo.

  The speedo hovers just under the thirty mark but at the critical moment Bernard’s nerve fails him and rather than risk a ticket he concedes defeat and falls back.

  The ancient Mini wheezes past. It’s the Pond twins. From my perspective, it seems I met them only yesterday, so I give them a friendly wave. Even though there’s no sign of recognition, they toot back anyway.

  ‘Don’t encourage them, bloody reprobates in their souped-up muscle-cars,’ grouches my father. ‘Hooligans everywhere these days. Short, sharp shock is what they need.’

  Getting the wrong kind of teacake from Waitrose would probably constitute a short, sharp shock for the Pond twins but I keep my own council.

  At least there are no further questions for the remainder of the journey.

  Bernard strides into the house with a manila folder tucked under one arm. I limp slowly behind
, hospital-issue crutches supporting my withered limbs. There’s no ‘Welcome Home’ banner draped across the driveway; no ticker-tape or balloons; not even a yellow ribbon tied around the oak in the back garden – just a platter of pilchard sandwiches.

  ‘You’ve grown.’ My mother emerges from the kitchen. She gives me a peck on the cheek and offers the plate. ‘Did you have a . . .?’ She trails off. We both know she was about to say ‘a good time’.

  We stand in the hallway unable to disguise the uncomfortable fact that we’re struggling to find anything to say to one another.

  I decide to put her out of her misery. ‘Ah, well . . . it’s nice to be home.’

  She extends an uncertain hand and gently squeezes my arm. ‘You got thin.’

  Bernard nods in grave approval at this observation.

  I can see a tiny blue vein pulsing under the translucent skin of her temple and I want to speak to her, apologize, or at least reassure her in some way. But we’re like backpackers without a common language, clumsily wishing one another well with smiles, nods and encouraging sounds.

  ‘Well, I should just . . .’ my mother points uncertainly back towards the kitchen, looking to my father for help.

  Bernard clears his throat. ‘Right then, no point standing around here all day.’

  I take the opportunity to sneak a quick look at the manila folder under his arm, and by reading upside down, I see that it contains my hospital notes. Typical of my father not to want to discuss them with me.

  ‘If it’s okay, I think I’d like to go upstairs now. To my room.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mikey, we’ve kept it for you just as you left it.’

  There’s a bit of a kerfuffle as I try to take the plate while managing my crutches.

  My mother picks the sandwiches off the floor, blows the fluff off them and puts them in my hand. We’re all relieved. She retreats to the kitchen with the empty plate while my father escapes to his study. I’m left alone in the hallway, sandwiches squashed in one hand, crutches in the other and a flight of stairs ahead of me, which seem about as climbable as the north face of the Eiger without ropes.

  I reach the summit about ten minutes later and, like one of those heroic but disastrous expeditions, it’s possible to track my ascent route from all the equipment I’ve been forced to abandon in my wake. Crutches, cucumber slices and pilchards, mostly.

  My mother wasn’t kidding about my bedroom; it hasn’t been touched. Everything is shrouded in a thick layer of dust, like Miss Haversham’s wedding breakfast. There’s even an old pair of pants still lurking under the bed. The fish tank is empty and dry, with a greenish tint to the glass. At one time I had a couple of tropical fish in there: Loh Hung, a sort of Chinese carp reputed to bring good fortune – not to themselves though, obviously. There’s no trace of my Loh Hung so I drop in a few of the fragile pilchard skeletons and am quite pleased with the effect; a sort of aquarium of horror.

  It’s good to see my collection of meticulously crafted model airplanes still hanging from the ceiling: Stukas, ME109s, Spitfires and Hurricanes, frozen in a perpetual dogfight. When he’s discharged, I’ll see if Roger would like to come over and take a look.

  I run my hand across the ammonites and trilobites on the windowsill before reaching for my amber. I’ve always loved this object: a smooth yellow lump of prehistoric sap containing a minute mayfly. My touchstone. Mayflies are the most ephemeral of creatures and yet this one is already over a million years old and will probably outlast us all. I hold it up to my eye and inspect the delicate filaments of its tiny wings. In the soft golden aura it resembles a tiny angel, small enough to jitterbug on the head of a pin.

  I can’t say it’s wonderful to be back in this room; it’s not exactly crammed with happy memories, but it’s comfortable and it’s familiar, like slipping into an old shoe. There is an odd feeling of displacement, though. I’ve been away for two years, but to me it feels like I’ve only been gone a day.

  On the dresser are some unfamiliar items: half-a-dozen wrapped presents representing two years’ worth of missed Christmases and birthdays. I’m far too mature now to get excited by a few presents – for at least thirty seconds anyway, which is all the time it takes me to totter over there and begin shredding festive paper with trembling claws.

  First to emerge is a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, depicting the Cotswold stone bridge at Bourton-on-the-Water. Next, a white shirt a size too small with a clip-on tie. There’s a sweater, gloves and, unbelievably, a balaclava. There’s also a set of chest expanders and a solitaire board with pink glass playing pieces.

  The cards aren’t much better. The most heinous of the four features a tinted photo of a grinning twerp in a fifties race-car with a large metal badge affixed, proclaiming: ‘It’s my birthday.’ If it had said ‘I am a moron’ instead, I could have worn it, along with my tight white shirt, clip-on tie, sweater and balaclava, while playing solitaire or puzzling over the bridge at Bourton-on-the-Water.

  In a funny kind of way, I’m impressed. Some of this merchandise must have been out of stock since the war years.

  I’ve left the heavy book-shaped one till last. I’m not optimistic. I slowly peel back the paper and there it is; the unmistakable shape of a bat wing. It’s a pile of comics from Gerry: every single issue of the Dark Knight from the past two years.

  It’s night when the knock comes; I hadn’t even noticed it getting dark. My mother is silhouetted in the doorway with another plate of sandwiches and a mug of something. She wrinkles her nose. ‘Are you in here, Mikey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t come in, you know what the dust is like on my allergies.’

  I slip the Dark Knight, issue number 53, under my pillow just as she flips the light switch.

  ‘Did you like your presents then?’ she says from the doorway. ‘I see you’re wearing your badge. Although . . . it’s not actually your birthday today. You do know that, don’t you, Mikey?’ She seems confused.

  ‘I’m okay, Mum. It’s just ironic’

  ‘I see,’ she says, sniffing again. ‘Well, I’ll just leave this here then. Tongue and sliced egg, is that all right?’ She lays the plate and glass at the threshold like a prison warder. ‘There’s some hot milk . . . to help Mr Sandman on his way.’

  My father’s head appears at her shoulder like a glove puppet. ‘Did you sleep, Michael?’ he asks abruptly.

  ‘Just a little lie-down. A nap.’

  ‘He had the lights off when I came in, Bernard,’ advises my mother helpfully, ‘but I think he was awake and reading a magazine.’ At this, my father’s face creases into a suspicious frown.

  ‘Looking at a magazine, with the lights off . . . oh really?’ Thankfully he decides not to pursue this line of enquiry and gazes around the room with distaste. ‘It’s like a bloody badger’s sett in here already.’

  I fake a yawn and stretch so that I can shove an incriminating corner of the Dark Knight further under the pillow. The yawn seems to do the trick on my parents too.

  ‘Well, we’ll say goodnight then,’ says my father.

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Sleep tight, Mikey.’

  I don’t sleep tight, though. I don’t sleep at all.

  It’s three o’clock in the morning; I’m standing in my father’s study holding the manila folder. And it’s a bloody nightmare.

  Nine

  There’s a lot of stuff in the notes about pre-frontal cortexes and parietal lobes but none of that’s a problem. There’s a tiny structure, no larger than a pimple, the suprachiasmatic nucleus mentioned by Dr Darrow, and this is the nub of the issue, so to speak. I have, as they say in the medical profession, gone and totally smashed the granny out of it, crushed it like a bug on a windscreen. On the lined page, Doc Darrow’s penmanship lurches from a mildly untidy sprawl to seismic frenzy in the space of two short sentences: ‘In conclusion,’ he writes, ‘we suspect that the patient may have permanently impaired his ability to sleep.’

  Drugs, of course, are being prescribed, specifically powerful sedative-hypnotics. For the past two weeks they’ve managed to keep me in a semi-comatose state with elephantine quantities of these things. The problem is, I’ve developed a tolerance. Any higher dosage now and they risk suppressing my respiratory functions.