No Sudden Movements

He could hear her moving again. If he probed carefully, eyes closed, peeling back each layer of silence, he knew that once again it would be there, her steady, unhurried shuffle in the next room. This had become a kind of ritual for him now, a nightly sortie into lands dangerous and unknown, the sounds of the darkness the same as every night yet each time holding a new, fresh texture. Each night delivered a twist on the last, more to explore. There were sometimes other, different sounds to contend with. An uneven faraway snoring, the sudden rising crackle of rain against his window above the bass-heavy drumming on the pitch of his extension’s flat roof, a dog barking just within range. He sometimes tried to probe further away, listening to the night. But once he found it, once that shuffling began, he retreated and prayed for sleep, covers pulled up to muffle what he wished he hadn’t heard.
Sleep came easily, of course, once the whole thing was over. The eventual release, however teased, pulled, sometimes almost forced from him in the silence, brought on that wave of opiatic tiredness as only it could. But that kind of peace was still a way off.
Now, the shuffling stopped abruptly and even through the duvet he could hear her fumbling with the door handle in that same slow, patient way as every night until, with a click, the shuffling began again like a switch had been flicked. It was closer this time, preceded by the slightest of creaks and the faint swish of old glossed wood over worn carpet. It was her slippers that made her shuffle. Pink, faded and filthy, with no back section to support the heel and a worn three-inch band across the instep, she had to shuffle even when fully awake. It’s a strange feature of sleepwalking that little everyday things are remembered instinctively. It is highly unlikely, for instance, that the sleepwalker will fall out of a window in his or her own home, knock over any ornaments still in their rightful place, or fall down the stairs. They may even avoid objects placed in different positions only earlier that day, and have been known to make drinks and meals, only to leave them on the sideboard to be found the next morning. Many mundane tasks are possible for the sleepwalker, who will remember none of it, even having spent the night wide-eyed and walking.
Ever since he was very young, he’d been afraid to wake her – terrified, in fact. Maybe that was why he allowed this little dance to be played out night after night even now, years later, because his father had once told him that a roused sleepwalker could not only turn dangerous, but may die on the spot. They could just drop down dead there and then, the shock of being woken too much of a strain on the heart, too sudden. And he still believed it now, as the shuffling stopped once again and that fumbling began, this time at his own door.
Sleep, of course, was by this point not even remotely possible, a kind of paralysis having overtaken him. He would lie there pretending to be asleep, comatose, even regulating his own breathing to complete the act. He was so practiced at this, in fact, that he could will himself to do it even through the mounting tension. He would hear his thumping pulse, now loud in his skull, slow with his breathing until he was taking the long, slow breaths of a deep sleep and his heart rate had slowed to almost nothing. A creak and a swish and the shuffling continued, advancing louder and closer than ever.
A clever child, he’d always known the dangers of saying anything of home in school. He’d watched classmates make faux pas that had led to investigations, social services, the invasion of a family’s happy life on the strength of a comment made in innocence to a teacher or simply across the classroom, and had kept quiet. This was something different, something sacred. Family; not the world’s concern, too much at stake. At university he’d first tried the nightline, then the college’s counselling service. Not out of desperation you understand – he was far from suicidal - more a kind of curiosity. He was intrigued, really, to see if all this was normal. He also wanted to see what they would make of it, but to his utmost surprise they’d referred to it as a “disturbed, recurring dream” – possibly a product of an earlier, more sinister event, deeply buried but bursting to come out, finding it’s only outlet in the unchecked dreamscape of his nightly unconscious. It seemed they simply couldn’t entertain the possibility of the reality of what was happening. Needless to say, he’d kept quiet. He hadn’t gone back.
It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t. No. But this had nagged at him ever since, and the question, really, was could he be sure? He’d pinched himself in the classic attempt, but to no avail. After all, some dreams could be more real than reality – he at least knew this for certain. He’d more than once got up, had a shower, shaved, got dressed - all with the radio on, whistling along as always - but as the front door had slammed he’d opened gummy eyes to see the red glow of 11.04 on his clock-radio, the volume knob turned to nothing.
Right now this seemed very real indeed, as the shuffling once more progressed across his floor, timed almost to his own pared-down breathing, and another person’s heavy breathing joined his own, close-by now at the foot of the bed.
Something else had worried him for some time. Worried him very much in fact. He, maybe, enjoyed this. Not in the adolescent sense, the naughty, illicit, giggly, behind-the-bike-sheds, carry-on sense. This was something more adult. More seedy. It was the familiarity of marital relief, when the spark has gone but it’s safe, just what happens nowadays, comforting in its predictability. That kind of enjoyment. He was certainly loved – that wasn’t missing, generally. He wasn’t replacing any longed-for family love. The kind your friends’ stupidly “happy” families always put on with visitors before collapsing into tired, weary, shouting routine on their leaving. This family was fine. That was it though, there: routine. He was quite happy, he found now - grateful even, to relax into it as an old sofa after a heavy day on your feet. And what that meant he had no idea, psychologically. Did he even care these days? Difficult to say, really, as you feel the duvet gently lift and your mother’s hot, slow, zombie-breathing move up past the ankles as the pyjamas slide slowly down. Somewhat distracting, that. You soon forget as her warm, familiar chest heaves on your thigh and you gasp, then sigh, at the enclosing warmth, then relax into it. Why worry, you think. It’s not so bad, you tell yourself. Just don’t wake her, whatever you do. No sudden movements.