J: The Number Six Problem

One

J and I are at a country house somewhere in the suburbs of London. A
circular courtyard. Shady cloisters. I am sorting out my bag. It
contains clothes, a litter of kittens and my mother's meat mincer, the
one I could assemble at the age of eighteen months. I was precocious in
my mechanical ability.

J is ignoring me. Eventually he wanders off and I go after him to stand
on the terrace overlooking the grounds. A work colleague is there too,
explaining that he cannot just stand anywhere he wants to on the
crunchy gravel because of his contract - all his standing positions
have to be pre-arranged.
- Is that what it means being flexible, being phoned up while you're on
holiday?
I realise too late that there is a rather obvious note of sarcasm in my
question.

I woke with a start. It was 5.58. I could hear a rhythmic knocking in
the wall by the bed. There were spasms of three or four knocks,
repeated at irregular intervals. It was sharp and insistent. By 7.00 it
had stopped but it was too late now to go back to sleep. I wondered if
it was some one's heating coming on. Pipes juddering after the summer
break. It was early October.

Two

The bus arrives, a block of red sailing past towards a bus stop further
up the quiet housing estate road. The kind of road where there
shouldn't be a double-decker London bus. I can see my sister strolling
far ahead towards the bus. Unconcerned. Leisurely. J is meant to be
with me but he is nowhere to be seen. My sister gets on and the bus
pulls away. I can see her in the window putting sun-tan lotion on her
arms.

Then J reappears. The bus has stopped at the traffic lights at the end
of the road. We start to run. My chest hurts. It feels hopeless. Just
as we approach the door of the bus, the traffic light changes to a
green arrow pointing right. The bus starts to move off. The driver
laughs. J bangs on the door and the driver relents but as we get on he
is still laughing. I shout at him for making fun of us and ignore my
sister as we go to sit down.

The knocking woke me at 4.03. Surely no one's heating could be coming
on at that time? After a few minutes it seemed to have stopped. Every
now and then there was a siren. Law being enforced, fires put out,
people taken to hospital while the city slept. I found this
comforting.

The next morning I bumped into my neighbour on the walkway as I was
leaving. He was wearing a pin-striped suit and an invisible bowler hat.
At weekends he wore turn-up jeans and 18-hole DMs. I asked him if he
had heard banging in the night, but he hadn't.
- Once my eyes are shut, I'm out like a light.
I wished I were like that, but these days I was a light sleeper.

Three

A stripy mattress in a sports hall. I am lying on it with J, kissing
him.
- I love you, he tells me.
- So, you did after all then. I knew there were times when you
did.
- Oh no, it's only now that I do. When we were together I got so bored.
After going to the cinema with you I'd rather read a newspaper than
talk.

4.17. The clock glowed blue.

For a week after that, there was no more knocking. Then there was a run
of four days when I was woken every night - 3.05, 3.48, 2.43, 6.35.
Sometimes it went on for hours. When I went to bed I would lie without
breathing, listening. It took me longer and longer to get to sleep.
After the knocking had woken me I would be rigid with anxiety, braced
for repetitions that sometimes came after five minutes, sometimes after
half an hour. I would often not sleep again for ages. In the mornings
my eyes felt sucked into my skull, and there was a soft-edged smear of
purple around them.

Four

I am with J in a large attic room. Two double beds. Mine has white
bedclothes. They are new. The pillow-slips are too large and keep
slipping off. The fabric is thin so you can see the pattern of another
pillow-slip underneath - a pink and purple teenage cartoon of dancing
girls in funky clothes. I feel pleased that it shows through. I think
it looks nice.

5.29

By the third week there was knocking nearly every night. I started
wearing earplugs but my hearing soon become so acute that I woke
despite the little flesh-coloured cylinders of foam. I bought some
sleeping tablets. They didn't always stop me waking up but at least
they meant I was more likely to fall back to sleep again. My mouth was
dessicated and foul tasting in the mornings.

I decided to phone the managing agent, Keith. I was not optimistic. He
always spoke at length about the difficulties of maintenance, slackly
pursed lips wet above the babyish rolls of fat on his neck.

When I called him, the phone was answered by his wife, Anne. She had a
friendly Irish accent but never passed messages on. I asked Anne
whether anyone else had complained about banging in the night. She said
not, sounding surprised. I felt foolish and hung up.

Five

I go with J to his family's home for the weekend. It's actually a
version of my parents' house. All the bedrooms are in a mess so J says
he's going to tidy up.

While J is tidying I move around aimlessly downstairs, not really
knowing any of the other people who are there. I go back upstairs and
look into the bedrooms. The room J and I are staying in looks
completely different to how it looked earlier. Much more ordered and
welcoming.

I go into the bedroom I had as a girl. The orientation has swung
through ninety degrees and it seems to have no window. It is cosily lit
with a lamp. Warm and bright. The bed-head is slotted into a wall
covered by bookcases. The bed and bookcases are made of carved wood.
Swiss-style. There is a shelf with a child's pull-along horse on
it.

I turn to leave the room. At the other end, which has no wall
separating it from the landing, it is darker. There is an antique
writing table with a vase of black flowers, and a chair. J's brother
appears in a dinner jacket and little round glasses saying he needs to
come in to look in the mirror. There isn't one in his room. I ask him
where J is and am told he's gone out for a walk with a friend. I feel a
stab of jealousy. I know there is something going on between J and his
friend.

The landing window overlooks the river and I suddenly have an urgent
need to look out of it. The river has flooded and merged with the
adjacent rowing trench. There is a field of water and treetops,
shimmering blue-green in a golden light. It is unaccountably beautiful.
I am engulfed by despair.

They call me from downstairs and I drag myself away from the view.
People are arriving for dinner but J has not returned. I contemplate
just leaving then and there but I have too much baggage. Suitcases. I'd
have to get a taxi. But it would be good to leave before the
recriminations begin. Before I start making unreasonable demands.

I was woken by a loud bang, followed by the familiar sequence of
knocks. 1.35. I jumped out of bed, startled and angry and decided to
investigate. It was mild so I put on track-suit bottoms and a cardigan
and went out onto the walkway. I could hear nothing apart from the
faint sound of traffic. It was very still. Tesco's car-park was empty.
No one was moving. I went downstairs and along the walkway below until
I was outside the flat beneath mine. No sound. I did the same on the
next floor, before climbing the stairs again. It was so quiet it didn't
seem worth going all the way down.

The next day was a Saturday. I decided I must talk to some of the other
neighbours. I went first to the couple on the other side of me to the
man with the invisible hat. They were smiling and sympathetic but had
not heard anything. Then I went to see the elderly woman downstairs,
who came to the door in her overcoat and a blast of hot air. She had
not heard anything either, although she had much to say about Keith and
Anne.

The weekends were not so bad. At least then I was more likely to get
back to sleep without the pressure of knowing I had to be up at 7.30 to
go to work. Most days during the week were spent fighting waves of
tiredness that alternated with spells of heightened concentration.
Sleep seemed very far away. I never felt like dozing off after lunch
any more. It was as if all my natural rhythms of sleeping and
wakefulness had been bulldozed into one monotonous level state. The
rare days when I was not tired were shiny and liquid like
mercury.

Six

An abandoned fairground. Scaffolding poles strewn where dodgems used to
be. My interest is focused on some carrier bags of food sitting on a
trestle table. What I particularly want are soft white finger-rolls. I
sort some out and put them to one side. J is standing apart from me
with his arms folded, watching. He has put on a lot of weight and is
scarcely recognisable except for the T-shirt he is wearing. It's a dark
red one that I gave to him the previous year. I carry the rolls over to
a wardrobe at the side of the dodgem track and am placing them in there
when I sense J behind me. I turn round. He is blocking my path between
the open doors of the wardrobe. We embrace.

That night I only got about two hours sleep. At 5.00 in the morning I
decided that I must write to all the other residents, asking them if
they also heard the banging and if they knew what caused it. I wrote my
note looking out of the kitchen window at the red square of a window
two streets away, which I now know always has a light on in the small
hours. I made photocopies at work the next day. That evening I posted
them. I had now done everything I could think of.

I was about to leave work when my mobile rang.
- Hello, said a male voice. This is Kamal Suleiman from number seven.
I'm calling about your note.

Kamal told me he knew all about the knocking. It was the Number Six
Problem. The person at Number Six banged his head on the wall at night.
Or thumped it with his fists. Sometimes he used hammers and iron bars
to hit the radiators and pipes. The sound travelled up to my bed
through bricks and mortar and four concrete floors.

I felt relief and elation. It was not my imagination. This was very
important. I had discovered what the knocking was. It was a person.
That was all.

Seven

I am in a large house by the sea. The walls are pale blue and there are
white muslin curtains blowing in the breeze. The house is pristine and
empty. I really want it to be my new house but I'm not sure if it
is.