HE KNOWS IT ISN’T REAL BUT, EVEN SO, HE’S TERRIFIED, pinned to the bed by sleep paralysis while snake-headed demons swoop at him from the picture hanging on the wall. It’s an oil painting of an elderly woman with a bonnet and the purple weeds of a Victorian widow. In his bedroom at home he doesn’t have anything on the walls, no posters or photos. He took them down after the nightmares started.
Nick shuts his eyes tight and imagines his limbs moving, concentrates so hard that it feels as though his mind might burst. His foot twitches first, and with that the demons vanish, and relief floods him. Then he can move his arms, his torso, his legs. He shakes his feet under the sheet, opens and closes his fists, twists his neck from side to side and relaxes back with a sigh.
Sometimes, maybe once every couple of months, his brain wakes up before his body. He’s paralysed. It’s seriously unpleasant, but it’s become so familiar that he can get through it. This additional waking problem is something else, though. The creatures appear real and they come straight for him and, because he’s awake but still dreaming, he thinks he’s going to die. It’s fucking terrifying. No kidding.
He wonders whether Taisie’s vindictive, spiteful game is going to go on, or if the others will get bored with it.
He gets up and goes to the loo, peeing for a long time, his hand pressed against the wall. There’s no sound yet from downstairs. Back in his room he takes the picture down and hides it in the wardrobe, where it can’t bother him again, then twitches open the curtains. It’s dawn. With a groan he gets back into bed and pulls the sheet and blanket over him.
Angus clearly does not believe Tim’s bullshit stories. He thinks Nick’s dad is a jerk and he’s already sussed that it’s his mum who’s keeping a roof over their heads. Angus can see straight through Tim, and the sad thing is, Tim doesn’t get it; he thinks he’s rolling them all over and tickling their tummies. Can’t he see that Angus is successful because he’s fucking intelligent and knows a chancer when he sees one?
Apart from the whole ‘pretend Nick doesn’t exist’ scenario, because it hasn’t been forgotten, cancelled or deferred, he also has this crap to deal with. It is blindingly obvious that the Moodys are wishing them a million miles away. Why the hell did Taisie’s mum and dad suggest they come? Or did his father wheedle an invitation? Despite his and Taisie’s families being so close, they’ve never actually been away on holiday together and it’s intense. It’s like everyone has turned their emotional dial up a notch. There’s a real bromance going on between Taisie’s dad Sean and Tim. Jesus, get him out of here. Then there’s his mum feeling threatened by Lorna Moody, who is much more attractive. A slender brunette with a pair of oversized sunglasses permanently pushed up into her hair.
The only person in this entire place who is on his side is Izzy. She’s the only one with the guts to deviate from Taisie’s strict instructions. It’s all about loyalty with Taisie. He knows because Izzy told him that she’s practically blackmailed every one of them into this.
The days seem endless, the heat turns sultry, pressing in on him so that Nick finds himself longing for an autumnal breeze. He gradually grows accustomed to sitting in a silent vortex while the others enjoy themselves around him. It’s a bizarre kind of kaleidoscope with him in the centre feeling both acutely self-conscious and invisible. Sometimes he touches his skin, presses his fingers into the muscles in his thigh or arm, so the pain will remind him that he’s there, not trapped in a claustrophobic dream.
He could shrug it off – Angus is great to talk to, really interesting and sound, but he’s often in his study working; Nick thinks he’s probably avoiding his father – but it’s getting him down. When people deliberately shut you out, when they walk past you as though you aren’t there, when they talk through you and over you, it starts to make you doubt your own worth. It’s so fucking stupid. All because Taisie can’t bear the fact that he might not fancy her. Of course he does, but it’s not a particularly comfortable feeling. It feels wrong, bordering on incest. But the worst thing is the way she behaves around his dad. He’s known her since she was a toddler. He’s seen her naked in the paddling pool, for Christ’s sake. The whole thing makes him sick. Tim humours her up to a point, but fortunately he has the sense not to respond, at least most of the time. When she gets all flirty with him, his dad starts mucking around with the younger kids, and has them in stitches.
That morning, watching his father charge round the garden with Alex on his back, chased by Rory and Izzy, Nick had never felt so lonely. He had watched the girls covertly as they lounged on a rug, painting their toenails, about twenty feet from him, and their laughter grated so much he had to go inside. In the cool of the library, he felt as though he was hiding from himself as much as from them.