The Peacock Cloak

thorn bushes, a brick wall appearing right in front of her face, a lorry rushing towards her, a child screaming. The scenes went round and round until her head felt it was bursting. And behind it all she felt emptiness pulling at her, nothingness, that void at the core of everything which she’d always had to struggle to keep from overwhelming her.
    She got out of bed and crept across the landing to where Angus lay in the dark, also sleepless, in his marriage bed with its pink cushioned headboard, under the wedding photograph of himself and his gimlet-eyed wife, and beside the pink dressing table on which sat his wife’s make-up and her mirror and her three teddy bears.
    “Angus,” she whispered.
    Angus sat up like a jack-in-a-box, snapping on his light. Tammy was amazed to see that he was wearing blue and white striped pyjamas, like a character in some old film.
    “Yes? Hello? What is it?”
    “I can’t sleep. I can’t stop seeing things.”
    “Well, um, perhaps you could…”
    “I’m scared of being alone. Could I just stay in here with you for a bit?”
    “Um, listen, I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
    “Please.”
    Tammy went over to his bed and took his hand.
    “You wouldn’t believe the shit that’s in my head.”
    Once again tears began to roll down her cheeks.
    Angus couldn’t bear tears. He put an arm awkwardly round her shoulders.
    “There there, Tammy,” he murmured stiffly.
    Tammy slithered up against him. This didn’t look good, this wouldn’t look good, this wouldn’t look good at all.
    “You’re a kind man,” Tammy said. “I don’t know what I’d of done without you.”
    She snuggled up closer. She could tell that Angus was aroused.

    Ten minutes later he was on top of her. Thirty minutes later he was telling her that he would give up everything for her: this magical glimmering girl who had materialised from another world before his eyes, and before his eyes alone.
    “I love you Angus,” she whispered, she murmured, she moaned, “I don’t want you never to leave me.” And all night she held him, and drew him to her, desperate to keep the emptiness at bay. Why had she abandoned her own world, after all, except in search of somewhere where she would feel less alone?
    But at 6 o’clock in the morning, when Angus had finally sunk into a sated sleep, Tammy was still wide awake. She looked down at the mild, foolish, gentle man lying beside her and gave a small snort of loathing and contempt.
    He stirred sleepily as she got out of bed.
    “Where are you going Tammy?”
    “I want a cup of tea.”
    “Bring me one too then. But don’t be long. I want you here with me. I want you with me always. You make me feel my life has just begun.”
    She went into the other bedroom, put on clothes and went downstairs.
    He would never see her again. Having already slipped back into sleep, he didn’t hear the front door quietly opening and closing.

    When he finally woke three hours later, he saw she wasn’t beside him and flung on a dressing gown to follow her downstairs. He could hear the radio on in the kitchen.
    “Tammy?” he called cheerily. “Sorry about that. I went right back to sleep.”
    His wife was coming home in less than eight hours’ time but as yet he was untouched by that fact, or by all the other things that somehow had to be decided between now and then. He was just as contented and at peace with himself as he would have been if there were no obstacles at all to prevent his glimmering girl spending every night and every day with him between now and forever. It was as if he was inside a bubble which had separated itself from the rest of the universe.
    “Sorry, Tammy,” he said again with a laugh as he went into the kitchen. “I just went right out like a light again. It’s…”
    But the radio was chattering away in an empty room. There was no sign of Tammy other than the open back door, and the contents of several drawers and shelves which she had flung across the floor, looking for things which she could use or sell.
    Then the bubble burst and Angus found himself standing instead in a ransacked home which had to be restored to normality in a matter of hours. He scoured the house for any possible trace of Tammy. He washed and dried the bedsheets, he swept and hoovered the ash from the garage floor. He gathered up the contents of the shelves and drawers. Of course he had no way of knowing whether Tammy might suddenly reappear, or write, or even