COUNT ME OUT

-1-

In the the cooling darkened room the only visible part of her body was a naked shoulder - round, hard and smooth as a baby's kneecap. Across the pillow the girl's brown hair lay like a stole. Her warm tangled bed held the scent of sweat and body fluids mingled with perfume, and when Jet moved beside her she hardly stirred. He could smell guttered candle and unfinished wine.

For several seconds he stared dully at the wall. When he twisted to look at the girl a second time, the room began to spin around his head. He closed his eyes but it continued whirling. Inside his cranium his brain slurped like loose porridge in a bowl. He placed his hands beside his forehead.

The girl shifted. He looked at her sheet of tangled hair and wondered who she was. Whether it might matter. He watched his left hand - someone's hand - yes, it was his - drift towards her head to lift the hair away from her face. A faint memory came seeping back. The girl mumbled, looked for a moment as if she might open her eyes, but she couldn't make it. He dropped her hair.

As the motion of the room slowed to match his deadened pulse, Jet tried to think. He didn't often behave like this. Not often. Hardly ever. When was the last time he had wakened in the night with a pretty stranger by his side? When - what was the time?

As he fumbled beside the bed, the girl grumbled behind his back. He couldn't find his watch. Was it on the floor? Tumbling off the mattress, his knee bumped against the floor, making her complain again. He found the lamp and switched it on.

She became more vocal, sat up in bed, and raised one hand to shield her eyes from the glare. Jet looked at her breasts, but they did not identify her. He stooped to peep below her hand. "Trying to find my watch."

"Want to time yourself?"

She cautiously removed her hand. He said, "You look good."

They examined each other blankly. She saw Jet's naked muscular frame, his tousled black hair and lazy smile, and decided there were worse things a girl could discover beside her bed. She said, "Um, now you've woken me up - "

"Seen my watch?"

As if that would interest her. He stood up carefully and tottered through to the other room. He had an attractive bum but seemed obsessed about the time.

"Jesus Christ!"

That sounded bad, she thought.

"One o'clock."

It was bad.

"Listen, I'm sorry, but um..."

"You have to go."

She had one final consoling glimpse of him - bollock naked was the phrase - clutching a bundle of clothes to his chest and smiling apologetically as if he meant it. Then he said, "I'm sorry. I have to get home to Stella."

*

One o'clock in the morning, his brother Scott is awake as well. Two hours sleep but fully alert. It keeps happening to him now. He lies in bed, eyes staring, mind racing, trying not to move in case he disturbs Claire. When they were first married, Scott had enjoyed talking with her in the night - about the way she had transformed their rented flat, and then, two years later, about how she was wreaking miracles in their new house. They spent evenings and weekends decorating. When they had covered every surface, Claire embroidered cushion covers, made patchwork quilts, bought trinkety ornaments to stand on shelves. She had been particular about it, but not obsessed. Scott found it comforting - even flattering - to have her fuss about him, build a nest. Then he lost the job. He had been a manager at Fords in Dagenham, had stayed with them six years - till the redundancies. Fords was almost the only job he had had. Just as Claire wanted a tidy house, Scott Heywood wanted a tidy life.

After his dismissal, Scott spent eight weeks on the dole. He chased every job, bought every paper, wrote a string of letters without reply. The first interview he got, he accepted the post they offered because he had already decided to turn nothing down. That evening he sat with Claire to persuade her that, the way things were, he was lucky to get any job - even as a driver for a security firm. For the next year, Claire encouraged him to keep applying for better jobs. He doesn't bother to do that any more, though Claire thinks he does.

Now he visits the local library every week. When Claire asks where he finds time to read all those books, whether he skims through or doesn't finish them, he smiles and describes the stories, wondering why he is not affected by lack of sleep. Some nights he stays out of bed three hours, has some tea, half reads a book, and then returns to doze beside her till the alarm. She never knows.

Tonight Scott eases himself gently out of bed, into the familiar slippers and dressing gown, then slips out through the bedroom door. He creeps downstairs and she does not stir.

But little Tommy is also awake. Like his father a few minutes before, the boy lies staring in the dark, absorbing the velvet silence of the house. Unlike his father he has stayed in bed, lying on his back. When Tommy wakes late at night, he likes to rest in the peaceful darkness, watching the pattern of streetlights on his ceiling. There is a little chink between his curtains, and whenever a car passes, a ray of night-time yellow arcs above his head like the beam of a distant searchlight. Tommy has learnt that the sound of an approaching car becomes different as it moves away. He doesn't know why. He has also learnt that when the streets are silent the footsteps of someone passing can sound uncannily loud, and that when occasionally he hears drunken laughter or frightening shouts, he should always get up and peep through his curtains so he can reassure himself that what sounds terrifying is just ordinary people rolling home.

Never lie still and wonder. Always get up and look.

*

By the time Jet arrives home it is almost two o'clock. He lets himself in at the street door, walks up two flights of stairs. The flat where he and Stella live - two rooms, kitchen, bathroom - is small, untidy and in poor repair. When he unlocks its shabby door from the landing he catches the smell of the supper they ate earlier. In the flat's only living room, a small table lamp is aglow. Stella doesn't like the dark. Jet tiptoes across the thin carpet towards the bedroom, whose door is not fully closed. He pushes it open wider to peer inside.

The little girl sits up and says, "Hello Daddy. I'm awake."

"You can sleep now, Stella. I've come home."



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