11.54pm.

With high wooden beams and white washed walls, she has imagined herself up a quaint country cottage. A vintage French dressing table dotted with storage baskets in floral patterns. It is so floral and sweet smelling, there is no telling where the curtains begin and the lampshades end, and a bed so soft it’s as if you are sleeping on a cloud. There is a faux sheepskin rug and perfume bottles on the mirrored vanity chest. She takes off her shoes, puts them neatly by the door and jumps on the cotton wool cloud. Her grin is so wide her cheekbones ache. Dinah lets out a sigh as she wriggles under the covers and snuggles her nose into a pillow that smells of roses. This room is like no other because it is not a real room.

It is a room she created in her head.

She comes here when the noises in the house melt away, leaving the trickling of the water feature next door, and the clack, clack of the central heating pipes. She leaves the darkness of Number 9, Orchard Street and enters a world of pale yellows, pinks and creams. She has no need for counting sheep, for the room has the effect of morphine.

CLANG! The sound is like a bucket of ice water on her sleeping figure. Disorientated she struggles from her cloud; outraged. “How dare they wake me on a school night!” But all remains the same. The net curtains do not flutter. In fact, there is no movement at all. She thinks of the pipes in the old house, her real house. Her chest is an elastic ball; for the noise is coming from her room and in the darkness, wide awake and all nerves in her body held tense; she sees it. The shadow of her bookcase is moving. In its inky heart, her 1940’s copy of ‘David Copperfield’ is held in ghostly hands, attached to an impeccable black suit and turquoise cuff links mounted on silver. As if their owner has climbed from the pages and into Dinah’s room.

Her clammy forehead accompanies her throat’s mechanical grating- she has lost her voice. When she dares to look again, the shadow is still.

The second and third time she’s sees it that night is in and out of dreaming. The shadow is enjoying ‘David Copperfield’ and laughs a solid and repetitious clang, like a church bell on Sunday. Dinah does not ask how it can read in the dark. She cannot force her lips open, even if she tried.

For she has seen him before, this voice in the shadows. The night her father died.

*

She had always known her father was sick. It was a story she had heard many times. He had been driving. It was like a sleeping curse had been laid on the lonely country road, lights flashing like the iridescence sheen of beetle’s shells. The car veered into another lane and cruised to a stop among the brittle shrubs, nose kissing early September leaves. His eyelids found themselves drooping, as if a forgetful puppeteer had laid down his muse to retreat to the warmth and safety of his hearth. He remembered heat, the embrace of comforting and all eternal; sleep.  

*

It has been five years and as he sits in the doctor’s office recounting the details if his episodes, for lack of a better term; he thinks of his daughter, asleep at home under her Peter Rabbit bedsheets. The MG specialist has a grimace carved in stone, knuckles that remind the father of gnarled tree limbs, bloodless instruments of bad news. The paperwork rustles like dry kindling as the doctor places it in his hands. He is unresisting, stunned. But only for a moment. He clears his throat.

“Is there nothing that can be done?”

In another office, is the shrill whirl of a photocopier. Life continues, as it always does. As it always will.

“I’m afraid we just can’t sanction this operation. You’ll be undertaking all manners of risks. But I have heard of specialists abroad…”

Years of therapy, of medication and countless operations. Would he survive them? More importantly, did he have a choice? How would he tell his wife, his young, innocent daughter who would never understand? He unwillingly gathers the leaflets. The words ‘Myasthenia Gravis’ are like names of deadly plants he longs to push away. They burn into his retina even in dreams.

A bell tinkles as he steps out into the chill, crisp winter’s morning.

*

The nurse spoons gruel into his mouth, it emanates heat from the microwave as he lies, a prisoner of his own, frustrated body. Gruel is all he can eat now from plastic bowls. His toes tingle and twitch, yet he’s unable to push away the covers on his own.

“I have a fish tank at home too.” The woman is large, a mother bear with tiny whiskers that snuggle above an amicable mouth. “Tropical fish, oh wonderful colours, electric blue. Particularly exotic species, though they don’t survive long. My husband and I drove past a pet shop by the coast, Sanorians I think it was called, perfectly quaint little place…”

He blinks, swallowing reluctantly the porridge fast settling like lava. He would very much like variety in his diet. With difficulty, he offers- “We’re moving.”

The grandfather clock ticks in an aesthetic silence in the distance. It sounds hollow, tired. “Oh.” The woman seems disappointed. She continues to spoon gruel like an automaton. The tropical fish catch her eye, casting an underwater glow, rippling across the ceiling in the growing twilight. They swim in oblivious circles, unaware of human life, or the span of time. Their tails swish in elegant wonder.

“Abroad?”

“Yes.” He follows her gaze. “My daughter…she’ll stay with my sister for a while. You know, we have been looking for a home for our fish, if you’d be interested?”

By the end of the week, they are gone. The house lies empty, gathering layers of fine dust, the home of trapeze artist spiders and weevils of ancient appearance.