Behind Her Eyes(80)

‘I’ve got a headache,’ I say, popping my head around his bedroom door. ‘I’m going to lie down for a bit. Is that okay?’ He nods and smiles, today my perfect boy, and I remember how lucky I am to have him.

‘Wake me up if you need anything.’

I don’t think for a second that I’m going to sleep, I just want to close the curtains and lie in a darkened room and wish this headache away. I take a couple of pills and go to my room, relishing the cool pillow under my head, and let out a long sigh. A quiet half an hour is what I need. The headache is too invasive even to think much, and I focus on taking deep relaxing breaths. My heartbeat and the headache throb in unison like mad lovers. I try to let the tension out of my shoulders, hands, and feet, like they make you do in those endlessly dull yoga videos. I empty my body of breath and empty my mind of more clutter with each exhalation. The pain lessens a fraction as I relax, and my arms feel heavy by my sides as if they’re sinking into the bed beneath me. To escape for a while. That’s what I need.

I barely see the door this time, it comes so quickly. A flash of silver. Streaks of light and then—

—I’m looking down at myself. My mouth is half open. My eyes are closed. If I’m still taking deep breaths it doesn’t show. I look dead. Empty.

I am empty. The thought is like cold water running through me, whatever me is, right now. I’m up here. That’s just … a body. A machine. My machine. But no one’s at the controls. No one’s home.

I hover for a moment, resisting my panic of last time. I have no headache. I have no sense of any feeling; no arms, no legs, no tension, no breath. Maybe this is a dream. A different kind of dream. It’s something anyway. I move back towards my body and feel the immediate tug from it, and then I force myself to stop. I can go back if I want to – but do I want to?

I can see the line of dust on the top rim of the light shade, forgotten, grey and thick. I pull back slightly, towards the door, even though I’m terrified of losing sight of my body, as if I will somehow lose my way back completely. In the mirror I can see my frighteningly still figure behind me on the bed, but I have no reflection. Call me Count Dracula. I should be petrified, but it’s all so surreal I’m strangely entertained.

Now that my fear is fading, I feel something else. Free. Released. I have no weight. I almost go to Adam’s room, but worry that somehow he will see me. Where can I go? How far can I go?

Next door. Laura’s flat. I somehow expect to be there in a flash, as if I’m some kind of fairy godmother waving a magic wand, but nothing happens. I focus harder. I feel for Laura’s flat. The wholeness of it. The oversized TV that takes up most of one wall. Her awful pink faux leather sofa that I should hate but which makes me smile. Her cream carpet, the kind you can only have when you don’t have small children. The sofa, the carpet, her marshmallow colour scheme. I will myself into it. And then, as if propelled on a gust of wind, I’m there.

Laura’s sitting on the sofa, in jeans and a baggy green fleece, watching TV. A re-run of Friends is on. Laura breaks off a chunk of Fruit and Nut chocolate and puts it in her mouth. She has a mug of coffee beside her – a mug with little pretty flowers on it. I wait for her to notice me, to look up in shock and ask me how the hell I got into her sitting room, but she doesn’t. I even stand – for want of a better word – right in front of her, but nothing. I want to laugh. This is crazy. Maybe I am crazy. Maybe David should be giving me some of those pills he’s trying to fill Adele up with.

David and Adele. Their kitchen. Could I go as far as that? I focus, and for a moment, as I picture their granite surfaces and expensive tiles, the unused calendar discreetly hung on the far side of the fridge so it doesn’t disturb the lines of the room, I feel something change, the breath of wind rising to carry me there, but nothing happens.

At the core of this strange invisible me I feel as if I’m at the end of a stretched elastic band. I try again, but I can go no further, as if my body is tugging me back like a toddler. I move more carefully this time, out into Laura’s kitchen, where I take note of the unwashed dishes on the side, not too many, but enough to prove she’s having a lazy day, and then I go through the door to the external walkway between our flats. I feel no temperature change, even though it was chilly outside when I collected Adam from his party.

You can’t feel it because you’re not actually here, I tell myself. You just walked through a door.

I feel wonderful, as if all the stresses and strains have been left behind and I am entirely liberated. No hormones, no tiredness, no chemicals adjusting my mood; I’m simply me, whatever that is.

I try once more to get to Adele’s house, to check that she’s okay, and although I find myself at the far end of the walkway this time, that’s it. The elastic feels stretched to breaking point and it’s slowly pulling me back, despite my resistance. I move back, enjoying the height, the almost flying of it, towards my own front door, and then I’m inside my home.

‘Mummy!’ I hear him before I see him.

In my bedroom, Adam is beside the bed, tugging at my arm, my mobile phone in one hand.

‘Wake up, Mummy! Wake up!’ He’s almost in tears as he shakes me. My head has lolled sideways, and my hand is dead in his. How long has he been here? How long have I been gone? Ten minutes at most, but enough to worry my baby boy trying to wake me. I’m alarmed to see him so upset and I panic and I—