‘Jesus! Seriously?’ Alex nodded and Rob said in disbelief, ‘Ten years?’
Alex nodded again, saying, ‘Insomnia mainly, but that’s almost better than what happens when I sleep. I study sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, the deep end of nightmares to put it in layman’s terms, I explain the patterns of sleep that surround them and I drench them in science. And if I’m truthful, I do it all in an attempt to convince myself that Emily Barratt isn’t haunting me, because she does, like she’s always there, waiting to catch me off-guard.’
‘Fuck,’ said Rob, his voice quiet with astonishment.
‘And what about you?’ Rob didn’t answer, looking shocked still, as if his memory of who Alex was had just shattered, the reality spilt before him now and making no sense.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘I said what about you? I’m guessing the same, that it’s affected you in some way.’
‘I suppose so,’ he said and took another gulp of wine, still looking like someone struggling to move on with the conversation. ‘But Christ, not like that.’
Alex wasn’t convinced and said, ‘You don’t think, at a subconscious level, you might have been drawn to all this horror by a desire to bury what happened in the past?’
‘Fuck, no.’ He looked baffled by the whole argument. ‘Alex, that girl...’
‘Emily Barratt.’
‘Okay, Emily Barratt. She ran in front of our car, bounced off it, bang. I’m happy to admit it was one hell of a shock. I wish it hadn’t happened. And I’m sure we all reacted to it differently, but for me, personally, it wasn’t a life-changing experience.’
Alex still looked disbelieving and said, ‘You’re saying it played no part whatsoever in your decision to go into this line of work?’ Rob frowned and Alex countered before he could even argue his point. ‘I know you always intended to be a journalist. I’m talking about the kind of places you go, things you cover.’
‘You do what you do,’ said Rob, sounding dismissive. ‘Okay, it must have had an effect on me but who knows what it was? Maybe it gave me a taste for it, showed me how raw life could be. And Jesus, you know, it wasn’t that bad. I’ve had afternoon tea with a guy who sawed off his opponent’s ears on live television, and you think I should have nightmares because a girl threw herself in front of a car in which I was a passenger. You know, Alex...’ He stopped and shook his head, as if unsure whether to proceed.
‘Say what you were gonna say.’
Rob weighed it up for a second or two, saying then, ‘From what I hear, you’ve done really well. I’m not knocking that. I wonder how healthy it is, that’s all. I mean, you were only a passenger too - there’s no way you should have let this fuck up your whole life.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t. Who’s to say?’ Rob shrugged and they ate in silence for a second or two. Alex was desperate to change the subject now, feeling vulnerable, and after casting around for another subject he said, ‘Tell me about Natalie.’
‘Natalie,’ said Rob, as if trying to sum up her decade in the sound of her name alone. ‘Of course, Natalie had something else to deal with after leaving college.’
‘She left me,’ said Alex, his tone too defensive.
‘I see you remember that! She left you geographically. I get the impression the reality was a little more complicated.’ Alex deferred with a shrug, sensing the uneasy resonance, the way Natalie’s name could probably be substituted by Kate’s and the statement still hold true. ‘Anyway, her career path in the city’s been pretty stellar. Okay, she’s a workaholic as far as I can tell, but no kidding, she’s left us in the dust.’
Alex nodded. He wanted to ask if she was seeing anyone, married, whatever, but he didn’t want to sound like he was still curious. He didn’t think Rob would know things like that anyway so he drew a line under it, saying, ‘Which just leaves Matt. And he wasn’t just a passenger.’
Rob looked puzzled for a second, as if he couldn’t understand why Alex was still coming back to the accident. He appeared to go along with it then and said, ‘Yeah, who knows about Matty? He seemed to take it bad at the time, but he’ll have been okay. These patrician American families, they have a way of dealing with things like this.’ He laughed then, adding, ‘I lay money that if one of us is killing the others, it’s Matt, probably getting rid of the skeletons before he runs for office.’ Alex looked intrigued, confused for a second, hearing the words and not the sentiment. ‘Jesus, Alex, I’m kidding! This is Matt we’re talking about. I’m kidding!’