I have been put on a waiting list for a therapist, and these are just to help me sleep through in the meantime. I won’t be getting up in the night with these pumping through me, the doctor tells me. No more sleepwalking. What I’ve got is something called “autonomicdysregulation,” apparently; I’ve been on high alert for too long, and now my body can’t physically turn itself off at all. I feel like a broken household appliance, still in warranty.
“Have a great day,” the pharmacist encourages me. I thank her, returning the sentiment and wishing more than anything for exactly that: a good day, a decent day.
When I arrive back to my street, I feel a new hope dawning. Sleep will fix everything.
I consider going straight in, taking a pill, and drifting away immediately. God knows I could do with a nap.
I open the front door and call for Blue but then I recall I let him out earlier.
I place the paper bag of medication on the kitchen island and leave the back door open, letting the cool summer breeze in. Then I sit at the kitchen table and open my laptop to check my morning emails. Outside, a bird in the back garden suddenly bursts from its hiding place into the air, taking flight. My heart leaps, then shame, at the false alarm, quickly takes its place. What I have is plain old anxiety. I tell myself what the doctor said: It’s perfectly understandable; I am under a lot of stress. I’m not losing my mind. Even so, I feel tears prickle my eyes.
When I look back at my screen, I notice that Blue’s collar camera footage from yesterday is still unwatched. It’s the video from before I recorded my own sleepwalking.
I’d forgotten all about it. I tap on the thumbnail; it enlarges to fill my screen, and I go to press play when the front doorbell rings.
For a moment I consider not answering, pretending I’m not home.
But then, a sudden flicker of fear: that it might be someone cradling Blue, his camera collar removed and gripped tightly in a fist. I quickly shut my laptop.
I head to the hallway. A figure is visible through the glass, a figure I immediately recognize.
Chapter 15
Every Day’s a School Day
It is the older womanfrom Number 17, the house opposite mine.
She runs a hand through her glossy silver hair and beams at me. I can tell from the sympathetic look around her eyes that this is not about Blue. It is about my song-and-dance last night with the police.
A sharp slosh of anxiety splashes up inside me.
Although clearly in her late sixties or early seventies, she is spry and athletic, dressed in joggers, a swimsuit visible beneath a half-mast, zip-up top. On her shoulder rests a large, battered gym bag, goggles and a towel peeking out.
“Hello there, finally,” she says. “Only three days late. Pam, from across the street,” she tells me, pointing behind her, the creases around her eyes deepening in welcome. There’s a brusque twinkle in her eye that for some intangible reason makes me think she must have lived most of her life in the countryside.
“I’m so sorry about last night,” I bluster. I can’t imagine anything else having motivated this face-to-face. “I put an apology on the group; I don’t know if you saw it earlier?”
“Yes, of course. No, listen, don’t be silly. We’ve all been there. It’s just reassuring to know the police show up when an alarm goes off, isn’t it? No, no complaints here. I’m purely motivated by my own guilt at not dropping by sooner. As long as you’re all right?” she asks. It takes me too long to realize this is not a rhetorical question. “Are you all right?” she repeats.
Strangers aren’t allowed to ask that, in any serious sense, are they?
“Oh, ha, yes!” I say finally. “I am, thank you, that’s very kind of you to ask.” My cheeks are on fire. “I’m fine. It was just me being stupid. The alarm is a new thing for me and…I panicked.”
“Ah, betrayed by the very technology we employ to protect us, eh? Yes, I’m there, all too frequently,” she sighs. “So many passwords and codes, and remembering to charge all the various gadgets, it’s ludicrous. And don’t get me started on the hideous cables. You can never find the right one.”
She laughs and something inside me relaxes, a brief release from the underlying tension I realize that I’ve been holding so close.
“I’m so glad you’re not furious,” I confess. “I thought I might have alienated half the street last night. People did not look happy.”
Pam wafts a hand.
“Oh, sod ’em. I’ve lived here ten years now and there’s a precious few I’d pull from a fire.”
Her forehead creases deeply and she adds, “A theoretical fire, obviously; I’m not a monster.” She barks out another youthful laugh, and I feel myself relax for the first time in days.
“Well, it’s good to know that no one was too put out. I thought I might have made myself a local nuisance already. You’re only the third person I’ve spoken to since I moved in.”
Pam leans in, her voice lowered.
