Free The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe Page A

disappeared: done a comprehensive and unequivocal vanishing trick which now, in retrospect, struck Terry as being rather impressive. He had thought little of it at the time, being heavily preoccupied that summer withthe launch of his own glorious career. Sarah, he seemed to remember, had made sporadic efforts to track him down. Unsuccessfully, though.
    Terry sat at the desk overlooking the sea and flipped open his PowerBook. He didn’t know what he was going to write, but the machine’s compact solidity, its laminated textures and neat, sexy contours never ceased to arouse and console him. He fetched the power cord from his suitcase and looked around for somewhere to plug it in. The only suitable mains outlet turned out to be just behind the wardrobe; but while there was enough space between the socket and the back of the wardrobe to accommodate a regular three-pin plug, Terry’s chunky A C adaptor was not going to fit. The wardrobe would have to be moved. It was made of teak, and very heavy. Terry put his whole weight against one side and shoved it about six inches along the wall, so that the mains socket was now fully exposed; and then he noticed something else. Something had been written on the wall, but the wardrobe had been hiding it. There was some writing, about three feet above the skirting board, and a smudge of some unidentifiable brown substance. There were two words.
    ‘Charming,’ said Terry to himself, aloud, and resolved to report it to Dr Dudden. It might earn him some credit.
    He booted up and skimmed through the files, his finger sweaty and jittery on the trackball. There were more than a thousand documents, in more than thirty folders, but nothing seemed to inspire him on this occasion. Next, he took a slim personal organizer from his jacket pocket, switched it on and began searching through the diary section. He hadn’t looked at this since the beginning of the Cinethon, and this time something immediately caught his attention. He reached again into the pocket of his jacket, which was slung over the armchair, fetched out a mobile phone and punched a couple of keys to call up a number from memory. The ringing tone was answered almost immediately.
    ‘Hello, Stuart? It’s Terry.
    ‘Not too bad. No ill-effects so far.
    ‘Listen – why haven’t you asked me to write about the new Kingsley film? It’s out on Friday.
    ‘Armstrong? What are you, out of your mind? He knows nothing about him. Nothing. He knows nothing about anything.
    ‘Of course I’m not on bloody holiday. I’m sitting down here in Arsehole-on-Sea with nothing to do all day, bored witless. I could be writing your whole fucking paper for you.
    ‘Who’s releasing it? Fox? Well, they could send me down a tape, couldn’t they?
    ‘Of course I could. When would you need it for?
    ‘That’s no problem.
    ‘No, I’ll phone them myself. I’ll do it now.
    ‘He’s had enough breaks. He doesn’t need any more breaks. More fucking talent is what he needs, not breaks.
    ‘No, I’ll phone them. I’ll get it all sorted. No problem. Tomorrow afternoon.
    ‘No, there’s no need for that.
    ‘It’s simple: if you haven’t heard from me in half an hour, then they’re sending me down a tape, and I’m doing it for you. Give it half an hour, then phone Armstrong, and tell him to fuck off.
    ‘Yep. Simple.
    ‘Ciao.’
    Galvanized now, Terry snapped the mobile shut and hurried downstairs. What used to be the television room in his student days was now the patients’ common room. There was still a television in the corner – a large colour set, with the volume turned down, on which a punkish-looking man in a chef’s hat was chopping vegetables and gabbling away silently to the empty room – but this wasn’t what Terry had been hoping to find. He clicked his tongue impatiently and went looking for a member of staff.
    In one of the observation rooms he found Lorna, the technician. She was sitting down, a clipboard on her lap and amug of