The House of Sleep Read Online Free PDF

just come off the train.’
    There was something about the way she said this – something about the phrase ‘I’ve been away’ – which made the younger woman think that she was referring to more than just a holiday. It sounded more like a period of exile.
    ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘A long trip?’
    ‘Two weeks in Italy. San Remo. Very nice.’
    So she was wrong.
    ‘You live here, then?’
    The older woman was beginning to find this line of questioning rather direct. A wild thought crossed her mind: was it possible – was it just possible – that she was being chatted up?
    She decided to test this hypothesis by being completely open, parting with whatever information was required and seeing where this would lead them.
    ‘About three miles along the coast,’ she said. ‘At the Dudden Clinic. I work there.’
    ‘Really? You’re a doctor?’
    ‘A psychologist.’ She rummaged in her bag for a Kleenex, mopped her brow. ‘Do you know the place I mean?’
    ‘I think so. It’s not been there long, has it?’
    ‘Two years. A little more.’
    ‘What sort of… hospital is it?’
    ‘We treat people with sleep disorders. Or try to.’
    ‘You mean – people who talk in their sleep, and so on?’
    ‘People who talk in their sleep, people who walk in theirsleep, people who sleep too much, people who don’t sleep enough, people who forget to breathe in their sleep, people who have terrible dreams… all of these things.’
    ‘I used to talk in my sleep.’
    ‘A lot of children do.’ The older woman looked at her watch: there was a bus due at the seafront stop in four minutes. She leaned forward and squeezed the shoes on to her complaining feet. Then, reaching into her handbag: ‘Here –have one of my cards. You never know, you might want to visit us one day. You’ll be very welcome, if you mention my name.’
    The younger woman didn’t know what to say to this. She had never been offered anybody’s card before.
    ‘Thank you very much,’ she managed, taking it.
    She thought, as the older woman said goodbye to her, that she could read disappointment in her eyes: not just the passing disappointment of a small expectation raised and not fulfilled, but, behind that, something deeper and more habitual. Her back, as she walked away with her suitcase, was stooped. The younger woman looked at the card in her hand and read the words, ‘Dr C. J. Madison, Psychologist, the Dudden Clinic’. Beneath it were some fax and telephone numbers.
    The older woman had forgotten to ask for her name. But she wouldn’t have revealed it, in any case.
    She half-walked, half-ran back to her mother’s boarding house, her mind buzzing.
    ∗
    Huge, grey and imposing, Ashdown stood on a headland, some twenty yards from the sheer face of the cliff, where it had stood for more than a hundred years. All day, the gulls wheeled around its spires and tourelles, keening themselves hoarse. All day and all night, the waves threw themselves dementedly against their rocky barricade, sending an endless roar like heavy traffic through the glacial rooms and mazy, echoing corridors of the old house. Even the emptiest partsof Ashdown – and most of it was now empty – were never silent. The most habitable rooms huddled together on the first and second floors, overlooking the sea, and during the day were flooded with chill sunlight. The kitchen, on the ground floor, was long and L-shaped, with a low ceiling; it had only three tiny windows, and was swathed in permanent shadow. Ashdown’s bleak, element-defying beauty masked the fact that it was, essentially, unfit for human occupation. Its oldest and nearest neighbours could remember, but scarcely believe, that it had once been a private residence, home to a family of only eight or nine. But three decades ago it had been acquired by the new university, and used for a while as student accommodation; then the students were moved out, and it was given over to Dr Dudden, to house his private clinic and