ZZZZZZZ BED

Tuesday February the third. 1981. 03:45, I think.

Who knows? Could be any date, any time, how would I tell?

Laying awake in bed, again.

On bed really, filthy skinny sleeping bag covering my freezing battered body. Hunger is keeping me up again.

Pain in my hips from the cold metal bars of the bed is keeping me up again.

Voices from the previous day at school are keeping me up again.

The taunting of the other kids. The safe kids, the warm cosy kids who laugh and mock me day in day out without a single thought to why I’m dirty, skinny, tired and desperately unhappy.

My “Bed” is an old rusted Z-bed, a folding nightmare bought third hand from a junk shop for next to nothing. With a filthy dirty skinny mattress worn out years ago and long past its sell-by date and now no thicker than a sheet.

Every time I move the springs creak and the whole thing shudders like it might finally give up completely.

Sometimes I think it might be better if it did.

I’ve gone to this hell dressed in my school uniform again. Too cold to strip off properly. Shirt still on, trousers still on, jumper pulled tight round me inside the sleeping bag trying to trap whatever warmth my body has left.

The house is quiet.

Not peaceful quiet.

Just empty quiet.

The sort of quiet that makes the night feel longer.

In a few hours from now it would all start again.

Bunk off school in the morning, go in at lunch time for my free school dinner and then fuck off quick before lessons start in the afternoon.

Same routine.

Same trying to pretend everything is fine.

Then I turn over.

And here I am, back.

Back in my king-size bed tucked up with my beautiful wife in lovely clean sheets and a warm duvet.

The whole thing has been that dream again.

The nightmare of the bedroom in Wood Green, 1981.

Forty-five years ago and still I’m haunted by it.

Still feeling the bite of the cold steel on my hips.

Still wishing for a night's sleep.

Just one.

I live like a king nowadays but just can’t shake that bastard dream. It always turns up at times of uncertainty or stress. One of those moments when life isn’t quite going the way I’d like it to.

I’ve been off work lately for a few months this time.

Able to breathe.

To write.

To create.

The website.

The book.

This piece you’re reading right now.

Strange really.

That kid laying on a rusted Z-bed half frozen and half starving would never in a million years imagine he’d end up here one day. Warm house. Warm bed. Wife beside him. Tapping away on a laptop writing stories about it all.

Life’s funny like that.

But at the end of the week it’s all change again.

Back to reality.

Back to work.

And I suppose a bit of anxiety.

Anxiety does funny things to sleep.

You’d think the old dreams would be enough.

The Z-bed.

The cold.

The hunger.

But no.

These days my brain has come up with a brand new one.

Imagine for a second, if you would.

I’m driving down a busy road in my sweeper lorry. Tortoise mode on the gearbox, a slow sweeping gear. Early morning traffic starting to build, engines humming around me as the garden city wakes up.

My eyes feel tired so I shut them.

Just for a second.

Maybe a long slow blink.

But now they won’t reopen.

No matter how hard I try.

I start shouting.

“Open up.”

Nothing.

“Open up.”

Then panic.

“Fucking open up.”

The lorry is moving faster now.

I can feel the vibration of the steering wheel through my hands. The engine noise rising as the revs climb.

Still my eyes won’t open.

I try blinking harder.

Nothing.

The road is still rushing underneath me, twenty-six tonnes of metal rolling forward and I can’t even see where the bloody thing is going.

Now the panic really kicks in.

I start shouting again.

“Open ya eyes.”

“Open ya eyes.”

As I put my hands to my face to manually drag my eyes open they stick to my eyelids.

And now I’m screaming.

A massive sense of fear and real panic building in my chest.

I can’t breathe.

Soon there’s no breath left to shout.

Or even whisper.

Then I wake with a start.

Always the same dream.

I lie there in the dark for a minute letting my breathing settle.

The room is quiet again.

Alison breathing softly beside me.

No Z-bed.

No runaway lorry.

Just warm sheets and the gentle creak of the house settling in the night.

Funny thing about dreams though.

They never quite leave you.

They just wait.

Waiting for those moments when life gets a little uncertain again.

Still…

I’m not in Wood Green anymore.

And that counts for something.

Just as I’m finally drifting back towards sleep, peaceful at last, there’s an almighty screeching row in the back garden.

The cat again.

I sigh into the pillow and mutter to myself,

“Oh for fuck’s sake.”

Welcome back to reality.