insomniac,’ I tell her. ‘A proper one.’
‘Which forces me to ask: what’s an improper insomniac?’
‘Someone who has difficulty falling asleep, but when they do, they sleep for eight hours solid. Or someone who falls asleep straight away, but wakes up too early – four a.m. instead of seven. All the people who say, “Oh, I never sleep properly” and it turns out they mean they wake up twice or three times a night to go to the loo – that’s not a sleep problem, that’s a bladder problem.’
‘People who use “insomniac” to mean “light sleeper”?’ Ginny suggests. ‘Any little noise wakes them? Or who can only fall asleep if they’ve got earphones piping music into their ears, or with the radio on?’
I nod, trying not to be impressed that she appears to know all the people I hate. ‘They’re the most infuriating of pretend insomniacs. Anyone who says, “I can only get to sleep if ” and then names a requirement – that’s not insomnia. They satisfy the “if” and they get to sleep.’
‘Do you resent people who sleep well?’ Ginny asks.
‘Not if they admit it.’ I might be too exhausted to be nice, but I like to think I’m still reasonable. ‘What I object to is people who don’t have a problem pretending that they do.’
‘So people who say, “I sleep like a log, me – nothing wakes me” – they’re okay?’
Is she trying to catch me out? I’m tempted to lie, but what would be the point of that? This woman doesn’t have to like me. She’s obliged to try to help me whether she likes me or not. That’s what I’m paying for. ‘No, they’re smug beyond belief,’ I say.
‘And yet if it’s true – if they do sleep like logs – what should they say?’
If she mentions logs again, I’m leaving. ‘There are ways and ways of telling people you’re a good sleeper,’ I say, perilously close to tears. ‘They could say, “No, I don’t have a problem sleeping”, and then quickly point out that they have plenty of other problems. Everyone has problems, right?’
‘Absolutely,’ says Ginny, looking as if she has never worried about a single thing in her entire life. I stare past her, out of the two large windows behind the leather sofa. Her back garden is a long, skinny strip of green. At the far end, I can see a small brown patch of wooden fence, and fields beyond it that look greener and more promising than the ones I saw on the other side of the road. If I lived here, I would worry about a developer buying up the land and cramming it full of as many houses as he could squash in.
‘Tell me about your sleeping problem,’ Ginny says. ‘After that build-up, I’m expecting a horror story. There’s a wooden lever under the arm of your chair, if you want to lie back.’
I don’t want to, but I do it anyway, putting my feet up on the footstool so that I’m almost horizontal. It’s easier if I can’t see her face; I can pretend I’m talking to a recorded voice.
‘So. Are you the world’s worst-afflicted insomniac?’
Is she mocking me? I can’t help noticing I’m not in any kind of trance yet. When’s she going to get started? We’ve got less than an hour.
‘No,’ I say stiffly. ‘I’m better off than people who never sleep. I sleep for stretches of fifteen, twenty minutes at a time, on and off throughout the night. And always in front of the TV in the evening. That’s the best chunk of sleep I get, usually, between eight thirty and nine thirty – a whole hour, if I’m lucky.’
‘Anyone who never slept would die,’ says Ginny. This throws me, until I realise she must be talking about the insomniacs I mentioned in passing, those less fortunate than me.
‘People do die,’ I tell her. ‘People with FFI.’
I sense she’s waiting for me to continue.
‘Fatal Familial Insomnia. It’s a hereditary condition. As diseases go, it’s not much fun. Total sleeplessness, panic attacks, phobias, hallucinations, dementia, death.’
‘Go