Harvey - The shapeless unease: a year of not sleeping

The Wilderness
All is Song
Dear Thief
The Western Wind

Samantha Harvey

Copyright 2020 by Samantha Harvey

Cover illustration cut-out tiger Collection IM/Kharbine-Tapabor
Cover design by Suzanne Dea

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The quotation on p.56 is from The Old Fools by Philip Larkin and is used with the permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. The quotation on pp. 5758 is from The Windmills of Your Mind, with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The quota-tion on p.159 is from Absolute Beginners, with lyrics by David Bowie.

First published in 2020 in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Vintage.

Published simultaneously in Canada

First Grove Atlantic edition: May 2020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

eISBN978-0-8021-4884-1

Grove Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011

Distributed by Publishers Group West

groveatlantic.com

For all those awake in the night.

And for those Ive woken up; Im sorry.

Midnight:

Into bed and lie down. Head goes on pillow.

Out of bed; superstitiously plucking the strewn clothes from the floor to fold them into rough bundles and put them away one of countless little routines undertaken to forfend a sleepless night. One of countless little routines forcibly dismissed as superstition, in the superstition that superstitious acts will only shorten the odds of sleep but unignorable in the end. Needs must. The attaining of sleep long ago left the realm of natural act and entered that of black magic.

Back into bed and read, a collection of William Trevor short stories. Theres sleepiness soon, like something calling from around the corner. Theres a sharp, stinging pain at the crown of my head; the scalp is being stitched with embroidery needles. The lamp is shut off and the room is more or less dark. An odd creak issues from who knows where.

The heart starts up its thrup-thrup-thrup, a tripping percussion in a chest that now fills with breath. Breathe, breathe. And with the light out, here they come, all of them, the holy and the horrifying; here they are.

In the medieval Ars moriendi the deathbed of a man is crowded with them, saints and demons, each vying for his soul. The demons try to tempt him into despair theres something monkey-like with horns and a mans face on its belly, holding a dagger; something dog-like with a single antler and a perverse grin, a luring finger; a ram-headed demon looking over his shoulder; a satyr-like being with a hooked nose, licking its lips. Come with us into death, they say. Forsake your faith and come with us.

And then a picture of the same man, the satyr fallen at his bedside, the leg of another demon that has scrambled in fear under the bed. Mary Magdalene and St Peter stand by his pillow, St Peter holding the key to heaven. Behind them, Jesus is crucified, his head slumped backwards over the horizontal strut of the cross, and on the headboard of the bed is the rooster of Peters redemption, the rooster whose crow awoke him from his denial of Christ and caused him to repent. Come with us, say the rooster, St Peter, the Christ here is your restoration, come with us to the kingdom of heaven.

I close my eyes and try to keep hold of that sleepiness, whose call is still there behind the hearts syncopation. The heart a tough lump of meat, flooded with fear. Fifty minutes pass; its almost one. Usually if sleep is going to come it would have come by now; and if it hasnt come by now, the probability is no sleep at all. Sweat, the first inkling of panic like a storm heard across a distant plain, just the vaguest muffled thunder. Still time to sleep; the storm might yet not come.

St Peter hovers with the key; take it, he says, itll get you there. I reach out and the Devil steps in because the desire for sleep is also the denial of it; the more you want it the less it comes. The word greed is whispered somewhere from the darkness. You are too greedy for sleep. Jesus slumps backwards, dead, mouth agape at the ceiling. The word come is whispered afterwards and I dont know from which quarter. Saint or demon? I dont know.