I am in Simon’s bedroom. His covers are pulled back, his sheets crumpled, the indent where his head has been, a small, dark hollow on the pillow. Where is he? I turn to look for him but the room is empty, everything washed out and tinged with shades of grey. The wardrobe seems enormous, towering over me like a skyscraper. Kneeling on the bed, I pull open the curtains and peer into the garden. It’s dark out. I think I can see something, perhaps a flicker of a movement, but I can’t be sure. It’s night-time out there – the trees and flowers no more than shadowy masses, undefinable shapes in the silvery light. My eyes are heavy. I’m tired. I don’t know how I got here and I don’t know where Simon is. Everything feels different, as if something awful is about to happen.
A sound comes from behind me. I spin around, looking. It’s not Simon and it’s not Kim. Noises from the room next door. I hear the familiar creak of my parents’ bed as somebody gets up, then the shuffle of feet as they head towards where I am kneeling. My back stiffens, my skin is cold with something that I can’t put into words and don’t quite understand. Fear? Why am I frightened?
I lean away from the window, my limbs hanging as I wait. What exactly am I waiting for?
The door opens a crack, a thin shaft of light sweeping across the carpet. Then a face peering around the jamb, eyes staring at me, a furrowed brow and a gruff voice that calls my name…
I am bent over, my body almost double, my arms hanging by my sides. I blink, straighten up and look around. I’m in the room I sometimes use as a study – Simon’s old bedroom. The room Mum used to tidy regularly in anticipation of Simon’s return. When it became clear he wasn’t coming back, she removed the old wardrobe and replaced it with her sewing machine and a small stool.
My eyes are glued together, a viscous film blurring my vision. I rub at them with my fists, blinking repeatedly. I am standing next to the window, the blinds pulled roughly aside. Some of the plastic connectors that hold the pieces of fabric together have been snapped. Did I do this? Even as I’m thinking it, I know it to be true.
The memory flows back into my mind. The memory of being in here, unable to find Simon. Then my father coming in and sending me back to bed, his manner gruff, his eyes narrow with suspicion as he scanned the room after seeing Simon’s bed empty.
I try to recall the events of that evening and the following morning. Simon was there, sitting at the breakfast table. He didn’t go missing that night. I am sure of it. So where was he? Why wasn’t he in his bed? Maybe I’m getting it wrong, the chronology of that period in our lives skewed and out of sync. I was very young. It was a long time ago. I wish it was clearer in my mind, not a mish-mash of dates and faces and strange occurrences.
My skin is cold, chilled by the lack of heating in this room. I rub at my arms, shivering and staring at the wall clock. 2 a.m. I’m not outside. This is good. Did I try both doors and give up when I couldn’t move the bolts or locate the keys? Part of me wants to go down there and take a look but the greater, fatigued part of me wants nothing more than to go back to bed and curl up in the warmth, to stay there until morning.
I pad along to my bedroom, the memory of Simon’s empty bed refusing to leave my mind. I’m missing something here, something important. I just don’t know what it is. I wish I had been older when he disappeared, older and with a clearer picture of what took place leading up to that evening but as it is, my memories are disjointed, the timeline not quite fitting together in my head. The images I have are fragmented and disconnected – a day is a week, a week a month. It’s all too distant, too jumbled to decipher with any real accuracy.
The warmth of my bed is a welcome break from the cool air of the room. I pull the quilt tightly around my body and close my eyes, willing everything to go away, willing my relentless thoughts to just stop. Just a few nights of uninterrupted sleep. That’s all I want. A couple of dream-free nights. Perhaps even a week. At this moment, I would give almost anything to put a stop to this sleepwalking and spend all night every night safe in my own bed.
I close my eyes, my hands gripping the covers, and drift off.
13
The vase slips out of my grasp, falls to the floor and bounces along the tiles, coming to rest against the far wall of the kitchen. I bend to retrieve it, amazed at its durability, thankful that it stayed put for the night and wasn’t disturbed by my nightly rambles around the house as I searched for door keys.
I place it back in its usual position and remove the hidden keys, thinking how sad and desperate it is that I have to do such a thing. The two halves of me continually battling against one another, the sane, wakeful side doing what I can to keep the sleeping, unbalanced other half of me from carrying out something terrible, something dangerous while I am locked in another nocturnal world, unaware of my own movements and thoughts.
Perhaps I should see a doctor? I have no idea what they could they do other than dole out advice which would be to do what I am already doing – lock all doors and hide the keys from myself. Either that or they could refer me to a sleep clinic. I brush away that thought. I would rather work my way through this on my own without any interventions from specialists or therapists. After Warren’s death, I saw a grief counsellor for a few sessions. It helped, but I don’t want to revert to that time, to be reminded of it. I will simply push on through, solve it on my own without the assistance of any professionals.
I clear away the breakfast pots and sit at my computer, my mind telling me I should continue with my novel, my heart screaming that I should find out what I can about Simon’s disappearance: print out every article I can find, start a new file and cram it full of evidence.
In preparation, I write Simon’s name at the top of a folder, pick up the memory card and head next door to see Mr Waters. Once I have handed it back, I can focus all my energies on gleaning as much information as I can about Simon from the internet.
He looks old. Even older than he did last week. He is old, I know that, but I still have a picture in my head of Mr Waters as a middle-aged man with a young family. Up close, I can see that the years have taken their toll on him, as they do on all of us.
I hold out my hand, the memory card laid in my palm. ‘Thank you for letting me see this. I’m glad I didn’t do anything – well – anything to harm that animal. I was sleepwalking.’ It rushes out of me, my disclosure, a slight wheeze screeching through my chest, bursting out into the open.
‘I figured as much,’ he says utterly unfazed by what I have just said, and at that moment, I want to hug him.
There is no awkwardness, no sense of being judged. And no look of shock at my revelation. Just two neighbours, two friends of old standing, chatting on the doorstep.
‘Thought you’d want to see it, y’know, to put yer mind at rest.’ He takes the card and slots it in his shirt pocket, the moment already forgotten.
‘Thank you. And yes, it has.’
Behind him, I hear Carrie and Ted, the rustle of clothing and the unmistakable sounds of a toddler who is resisting any attempts to dress him. I smile and step away, keen to leave them alone. Family time is precious. That much I do know.
‘Took me back it did, seeing you outside like that at night. I weren’t sure it was you at first but then after seeing you on the camera, well, I knew then what had happened. Like I said, took me right back to when you were a bairn.’
I freeze, ice-cold water running through me, gravity trying to pull me downwards.
The Midnight Child. You were The Midnight Child, Grace.
And then within a matter of seconds, the easy moment is gone, turned brittle, just like that, our moment of understanding ready to snap in two with one rogue sentence. I have no idea what to say next, how to extricate myself from this conversation.
He remembers. Mr Waters remembers my bouts of sleepwalking from when I was little. What else does he remember from my past? Does he recall anything about Simon going missing, and if so, what? Everything suddenly feels so fragile, my life under a microscope, my movements monitored and measured. And if Mr Waters can remember, why can’t I? It should be me who has ownership of my past, my childhood memories, not the elderly man who lives in the house next door to me.
I want to ask him, every fibre of me screaming to say those words out loud. And if I do, will he answer me? And what if the answer he gives me isn’t something that I want to hear?
‘Did I do it often, the sleepwalking?’ I want to blink away the grit that has gathered behind my eyes, to rest awhile on his step and lean my head against the door jamb. Weariness gnaws at me. A dull ache has set in at the base of my skull.
‘Can’t say I recall. It was just what you did. Your parents hid the keys but you always managed to somehow find ’em, and then they put a bolt on both doors and that seemed to stop it.’ He stares off over my shoulder, a nostalgic look in his eyes that reminds me of childhoods past and soft, summer days. And Simon. Oh God, I want so much to ask him about Simon, about what he can remember, whether or not he joined in the search for him, what he thinks actually happened that night. Does he believe Simon was taken or does he think that my brother wandered off on his own one evening, never to return, inadvertently stumbling into a catastrophic accident? I think of the river, the disused quarry a few miles away, the dizzying drop from a viewing point just off the main road through the village. And then something else pushes into my brain.
‘The bolt,’ I say suddenly, aware my question may sound slightly irrational, deranged even. ‘Was it fitted before or after Simon went missing?’ Warmth rises up my neck. I am uncomfortable and clammy, a wave of heat travelling up my body, coming to rest on my scalp. Tiny jolts of electricity needle their way through my hair follicles.
I’m not sure what sort of response I expect. It happened such a long time ago. Mr Waters is in his late eighties. We have both led full lives, other things that have happened since that night, life and its many associated memories taking up space in our heads. What I don’t expect is for him to reply so quickly and with such alacrity.
‘Oh, it was fitted before he went missing.’ His eyes are firmly fixed on me now, a look of kindness shining through the rheumy film and the cataracts that impair his sight. I know that Kim is wrong about this man, about the rumours that he was cruel to his family. He cannot be the person she claims he is. It just isn’t possible. ‘I remember it ’cos of the police interviews, you see,’ he says, cutting into my thoughts. ‘They came round here, knocking on doors and the like, and I told ’em straight that your mum had told me about your sleepwalking and how they had had to get a bolt fitted to stop you straying outside.’
A weakness takes hold of me, a relief valve inside my body letting everything go, turning my limbs into putty, my bones suddenly liquid soft. I didn’t take Simon. I couldn’t have. There was a bolt locking us both inside. I was a small child. Dear God, the release I feel from a worry that has nagged at me since hearing Carrie’s words is immense. Simon may have been frightened by my sleepwalking, but he wasn’t actually frightened of me. I was his younger sister. I wasn’t, am still not, a monster. My eyes fill up, a veil of tears obscuring my view of him, this wonderful man who has helped me so much. I have to stop myself from lunging forward and wrapping my arms around him.
Then more thoughts jostle for space in my mind – how did Simon get out if we had a bolt fitted on the door? None of it makes any sense. In fact, with this new piece of information, it makes even less sense than it did before. He can’t have just wandered off, can he?
