Nightmares
I am jolted awake into the dark by a crash. I don’t know where it’s coming from. I am disoriented, but I’m sure the whole neighbourhood can hear my heart trying to escape from the confines of my ribcage. I look down at my chest, almost expecting to see a Roger Rabbit style heart pounding out a foot into the room.
Lying in my bed, alone in my little flat, I feel very vulnerable. I am glad that I remembered to lock the burglar bars – something I have done every night since my friend Michael told me about how he found a man with a gun in his living room at 2am, trying to steal his laptop.
Another crash; it’s very close. I hear laughter. My neighbours are all elderly. I can’t imagine they would be throwing a wild party at 1.30am, or asking builders to dismantle the house in the dead of night.
As the crashing continues, I become increasingly frightened. There is no-one here who could protect me if someone broke in. Cocooned in my web of burglar bars, I am reminded once more that should someone successfully gain entry into my haven, my safety net would become a trap.
I am afraid to turn on the light, in case I attract attention to the fact that someone has heard what is going on. The crashing continues. There are shouts and screaming. I stumble into the living room to retrieve the phone book, and then I lock myself in the bathroom to call the police. They promise to send someone round. I crawl back into bed, and wish desperately that I was at home, safe, in London. The thought makes me laugh, particularly in the light of a recent email from my friend, who told me that she looked out of her window in Camberwell the other day, to see a group of boys firing guns into the air.
As the crashing and shouting escalates I wonder who I can call. I left David, the security guard next door’s number at work, and in any case, he might not be working tonight. I don’t know my landlord’s phone number – a fact that strikes me suddenly as ludicrous – and they are not listed. Also, I don’t know what I would hope to achieve by waking two pensioners in the night with stories of armed robbers.
I would call my bloke, but he’s had a horrendous and tragic day; he’s sick, and he’s tired, and he’s heartbroken. He could do nothing from where he is, and I can’t bring myself to call him and wake him up, just because I am scared and I feel alone. So I call the police again, and weep down the phone at them. I feel pathetic that I am so frightened of burglars who aren’t even trying to get into my house, but the police are very kind. Apparently they are outside my house – can I go outside to speak with them?
I am flabbergasted. ‘You want me to go outside?’, I ask. All my senses are telling me not to do this, but I unlock my gate, and go up to the main gates. As I walk up the drive, I hear laughing, two loud bangs, and the silver confetti of breaking glass from the house next door. I let the policeman in; again, he is helpful and friendly, although he refuses to get out of the car because Boris is bounding around, delighted at the opportunity to make a new friend. I suddenly feel enormous affection for this fat, stupid dog, who just wants to love everyone. If he wasn’t so hairy and moulting, and if he didn’t wave his pink doggy penis around so arbitrarily, I would drag him into bed with me, for something warm to hold.
The police car departs on a tour of the block, sirens wooping in the dark. I draw all my curtains, curl up into bed, and cry, although I’m no longer sure what it is I’m crying about. Soon, everything becomes quiet, and I drift into a fitful sleep, my dreams populated with would be burglars and thieves, their hyena faces at my window, snarling and laughing.
This morning, in the warm sunshine, my fear seems completely out of place. David the security guard next door steps out to greet me as I leave for work, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. Everything is normal.
He asks me about last night. When he arrived for work this morning, his colleague told him that he had seen two men standing quietly, either side of my front gate, at 2am. He didn’t shoot them; David seems disapproving of this. He tells me that if he had been there, he would have at least threatened to shoot them. He says it is his responsibility to protect not only the house he works at, but all the houses he can see from his post. He shows me his gun. I feel oddly comforted, until he tells me I shouldn’t have left the house.
Those robbers, he says, his face concerned, they could shoot you.