The Incubus

How total is the sleep of a child?

Lost to our world but cast adrift in an exclusive dreamland of magic and sometimes terror. The off switch has been swung; there is no half measure, the lights are out now, to be woken in an instant when that sleep is done. So calm. No angst now, no disappointments or envy, no refusal or unfairness, just an endearing peace.

I am lying on a pull-out bed on the floor of my grandson’s room. The mattress is bone hard, and the pillow is a wedge of hard foam. The Boy is splayed sideways across the bed, but I can’t nab his pillow as he is lying on it. The duvet is wound round his lower half, an arm cranked across his forehead. I can see it all in the glow of the nightlight as I wrestle with the bedclothes I don’t need. He didn’t wake when I crept into bed after 11, but now he occasionally murmurs private thoughts and messages. It must be midnight, but sleep eludes me. I run through a repertoire of distractions to turn off my racing brain with little success.

It had been a fraught week, chasing a fault that caused Nashy to misfire and even stop when warm. I had run through all the usual checks and replaced parts likely to be the culprit; new coil, new condenser, changed the plugs, fitted a new fuel pump, and still it wasn’t right. I was left with a nagging suspicion that I still hadn’t got to the bottom of the problem. But we had run out of time and with my anxieties parked, we packed up the car, and Peter and I left Brill at three-o-clock. It was a beautiful afternoon and optimism nudged aside my silly worries.

All was going swimmingly until we climbed that magnificent woodland road through the Chilterns where the old A40 carves through the escarpment, when we developed a terminal misfire and had to pull off into a woodland track. It was a truly awful moment. Whatever it was, it hadn’t gone away.

We fiddled and faffed about – it really was that because there was no point in changing the parts that I had already changed, and we didn’t know what else to do. Peter phoned various professional ‘fettlers’ for advice but none provided a lightbulb insight. The problem with a misfire when an engine is hot is that while you fiddle about getting grubby and poking things, the engine cools and then starts because it is cool not because of what you have done.

In addition to the misfire, we had another huge issue, a deadline. We were to be driving hard for three days through France to catch a ferry from Venice to Greece, meeting fellow travellers for the early morning Shuttle at Folkestone. Unless we could get to Kent that evening, the whole trip would unravel. A year of planning and excitement obliterated by a mischievous but elusive gremlin. Massive personal disappointment aligned with letting down the team.

I press the starter button again and the engine cracks into life and runs well. Do we return home where we have better equipment and tools, or do we carry on? We can’t see any advantage in turning back and Peter is bullish. We decide to go for it, the car starts and we head onwards. All seems OK for half an hour.

Could we have fixed it? But what nagged in a corner of my cortex was that we hadn’t really done anything different and certainly hadn’t found a fault worthy of the name.

The Boy mutters something in his sleep and rolls over giving a little chuckle. What is he dreaming about? Lego Star Wars kits or WW II tanks probably, or maybe helicopters. It is hot and I fold the pillow double, but that isn’t good for the aged neck. I focus on my breathing. ‘Feel the breath on the lip’, as the meditation instruction demands. I try to synchronise my breathing with Jack’s but his is way too fast. The lip and the breath can’t counteract the likelihood of not making the ferry in the morning. I dare to look at my watch. It is 2am.

But just ten miles further on, once again we are stationary, with the bonnet open, in a layby on the A4040 fiddling with carburettors under a miserable cloud of gloom, a terrible pit of fear sitting under my diaphragm like a malign dyspepsia. Surely, we aren’t going anywhere at this rate? Peter is sure it is the fuel pump and I fit a spare in line with the old pump. Perhaps it makes a difference, but petrol pisses out because the pressure is much higher.

Then once again we are on the move, and this time make it onto the M25 as dusk falls. Luckily the traffic has eased – sensible people are eating dinner and have got where they are going by now. But we keep going with the occasional splutter and get to the turn off for Sevenoaks, to struggle through the weald-land lanes with feeble headlights and arrive at Kate and Marks barn just after ten. Seven hours from home. At this rate it will be a long trip, but . . . we had made it, and actually the Anzani seemed to be running well. Perhaps the devil in the machine had been exorcised by our efforts. Just maybe it would all be fine. . .

The house is quiet, but Katie emerges and feeds us perfect food: easy to eat chicken and fries. We gulp down the Pinot Grigio and head for bed. I creep into the Boys room and stretch out on the mattress. The alarm is set for 4 am.

He grunts and mutters, but this is not the response to the hushed figure creeping into the bed next to his, rather the simple imaginings of a happy child. He makes a run of little munching noises like the geckos in Greece after they have caught a moth.

At some time I guess I must have dozed for an hour or so but am awake before the alarm. Strangely I feel alert and focussed, perhaps driven by the adrenaline of anxiety. But the question remains – fifty miles to the Shuttle, and dawn not yet breaking – if we fail now we will be in the dark on the side of a busy motorway.

I creep out of the room giving the little fella a peck on the cheek. Lucky chap he doesn’t carry his into the small hours, he parks them and hurtles into oblivion. He will be confused in the morning, asking where Grandpa was. Could he really have come and gone all in one long night? I felt like some sort of incubus creeping into his room in the small hours, lying away aside him steeling energy from his innocent sleep.

We tiptoe out of the slumbering house, put on our jackets and press the starter. The Anzani rumbles into life and we on our way.

Just fifty miles to go keep our trip alive.