Sleepwalkers by Tom Grieves Page A

New Zealand and there, there. And there are your folks, but … where are the ones of me? When I was younger.’
    ‘I don’t know. You tell me.’
    ‘No, but—’
    ‘You want to put some up, you dig them out.’
    ‘But I don’t know where they are.’
    The hand around my waist is a tiny, tiny bit tighter.
    ‘I don’t know where … I, when I look back, when I try to think back about life before you, before the kids, I … I sort of remember stuff but I … it’s so vague.’
    ‘Same with everyone.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yeah. Of course.’
    ‘But I … no, cos I can tell you when I first joined the scouts, I can tell you what marks I got at school, but I can’t
feel
any of it. I know it like I know dates in history, but I don’t feel like I was there in any of them.’
    It’s so quiet.
    ‘It’s like …’ But I can’t explain it. She waits. ‘Do you remember how you felt when you were little?’
    ‘A bit. Some things. You know, like trying on Mum’s makeup when she was downstairs.’
    ‘And what do you remember?’
    ‘I … the smell of the food she was cooking. Feeling excited. Feeling … naughty.’
    ‘Yeah. I don’t … I don’t feel anything like that.’
    ‘Maybe everyone’s different. Maybe I’m the odd one.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    One of the photos shows Carrie at her hen night. She’s surrounded by cackling, drunken gals, all in identical T-shirts, with devil’s horns in their hair and an oiled-up stripper looking cocksure next to her. She’s got a hand on his pumped chest. My stag do was a blur. But there’s an obvious reason for that.
    ‘Honey, you’re worrying yourself for no reason. You need a good night’s sleep. Come to bed. Come to bed, baby.’
    I look down at my scratched hands. How can you think straight when you’re this knackered?
    Go to bed. Sleep with your wife. Be still. Choose the life you know.
    I take Carrie’s hand. Let her lead me there. Let her slip the clothes from my back. Let my hands take her.
    We fuck. Slow, rhythmic, gentle, a little sad. I imagine us lost together in the jungle. Fucking in a bamboo forest. Green, hot, sweaty, silent.
    She falls asleep with her arm across my chest. But I don’t sleep. All I can think about now are my parents. I feel my mother’s arm around my shoulders, smell her perfume. Myfather walks in from work and I run to him and he pulls me to him, laughing. I pull on his tie and he scolds me gently. This must be real.
    Later, when it’s safe, I’m drawn back to the wonder wall. I sit facing it, my back against the other wall. I look at every photo. I feel numb. Something inside of me is missing. Taken.
    *
    Breakfast is absolutely normal in every way. I look at everyone and it’s almost like we’re in an advert: ‘the average family’. Carrie and I laugh and argue, then scold and chivvy the children to school. I head off to the garage with a smile and you’d never know that anything was wrong. Work at the garage is steady. I smile at Jeff and make the appropriate groans at his terrible puns. We get on with things and lose a few hours stuck under the bonnet of a choking engine.
    I remember my father staring at the engine of our beaten-up Morris Minor, an oily rag in his hand, his head dripping with sweat. An ice cream van’s bell rang out a familiar tune from a nearby street. He swore, angry, then saw me watching him and made me promise I wouldn’t tell Mum. We fixed it together.
    ‘Nothing more satisfying than fixing something with your own two hands, my boy.’
    I must have taken it to heart.
    Jeff revs the engine. It’s sounding better.
    ‘One more time,’ I bark at him. He revs it again. I remember how different that old car sounded. Like a sewing machine. Tiny, simple engines for a smaller, simpler time.
    ‘And again,’ I call. Jeff revs the engine. We’re nearly there.
    Nearly there. I remember Dad saying exactly that as the car turned left and below we could suddenly see the sea and Mumsqueezed my