Nightmare Free

An extract

Someone was pounding at the door of the man who never had nightmares. The pounding was blunt and low, and was paced for the most part with comparative deliberation; every so often the impacts rose in rapidity and timbre as the furious flat of the palm stood in for the bruised yet persistent fist. Nagged from oblivion, the man who never had nightmares opened his eyes to the daylight. Through the yellowed window he could hear the chanting of children, to which the pounding on his door provided an eccentric bass-line. He listened through a cycle of punches and slaps, wondering vaguely who the percussionist might be and why they did not use the doorbell, which played brief tunes that changed automatically at random intervals to prevent the hearer becoming inured. The man who never had nightmares had missed no rental payments, had asked for no repairs, was not expecting a package and was in no trouble with the law. That seemed to exhaust most of the possibilities, except for a sudden emergency; but the man lived and slept on the top floor of a tall, elderly building with minimal amenities and no lifts, so his door would hardly be the first choice of anyone seeking immediate aid, and if the emergency concerned himself he would surely have noticed by this time.

In any case, it was becoming apparent that whoever was pounding on the door had no intention of giving up and going away. In fact, a further element had now been introduced into the morning's music, namely a muffled, incomprehensible, but imperious baritone. The man pushed back the bedclothes and sat for a few moments with his feet on the floor. One foot started tapping in time to the children's chant outside, but the next bout of beating on his door disrupted the rhythm.

"All right," called the man who never had nightmares. His throat was dry and his voice cracked into a cough; but his activity must have registered on the other side of the door, because the pounding stopped in the middle of a volley and the muffled baritone took on a querying note.

"All right," the man called again. His dressing-gown was draped over the back of the chair, and seemed to have adapted itself during the night for a different anatomy to his own. The sleeves were in the wrong places, and the collar and hemline had apparently undergone some sort of unnatural coupling. The noise from the door started again, more loudly than ever, but stopped when he ordered it to wait. The dressing-gown was fitted with a hood; once he found this and ascertained that it wasn't inside-out, the rest was relatively simple. He pushed his arms through the sleeves, tied the cord around his waist and pulled the hood up over his dishevelment.

Once outside his bedroom, the front door was along a short passage and round a bend. However long the pounding had been going on before he woke, there was no sign of any damage. Evidently the emergency was not, in the opinion of his guest, sufficiently severe to justify kicking the door down, at least for the moment.

The door was solid, with no window and no spy-hole. "Who's there?" called the man who never had nightmares.
"Logue, it's me, it's me." The voice was indistinct and excited. "Open up now. Open up this minute."
"But what's going on? Who are you?"
"It's me, I told you. Don't you recognise my voice? Open this door."
"What do you mean, me? What do you want, what's your name?"

There was a pause, as if the voice's owner were attempting to gather his patience, or perhaps to gather the strength for another assault. Then the voice spoke again, very slowly; far more slowly than necessary in fact, with a suppressed and trapdoor-rattling undertone of haste that made it sound almost inebriated: "Slee," said the voice. "Slee. Practitioner Slee. Do you understand? Slee. Now open this door. Open up. Open up."

Although the sounds of Logue taking off the chain and turning the key must certainly have been audible outside, the litany continued all the while. As soon as the door began to move Slee gave it a violent shove; perhaps he had even taken a few steps back and charged. He stumbled heavily inside, knocking Logue sideways against the wall. Slee turned too fast, stumbled again and pushed clumsily to close the door. His fat hands scrabbled at the lock and chain, and he tugged a couple of times at the latch to make certain. He and Logue stared at each other.

"What's going on?" demanded Logue, and Slee gestured frantically for silence. Under his light raincoat, the practitioner was dressed as Logue always saw him during their weekly appointments, in the casual-professorial style designed to exude whatever combination of authority and friendliness might be necessary to place the average patient at ease: the jacket smart and discreet like a diplomatic spy, the shirt-collar loose and open to avoid unsightly bulging of the neck. Logue's next appointment was two days away, and was supposed to take place at Slee's office. Logue had not even been aware that Slee knew where he lived, although of course his address and various other details had been required of him when they began his therapy. He had assumed that the information was needed purely for administrative purposes, or for occasional written correspondence, rather than for the practitioner to drop in on the patient whenever the fancy took him.

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