Sketches, Dispatches, Hull Tales and Ballads - University of Hull

‘You study insomnia.’
Gerald nodded. The driver behind overtook them with a squeal
of tires, giving Gerald the finger as he passed.
‘Writers who suffer from insomnia, to be precise.’
‘Do you believe in fate, Gerald?’
‘No, not really.’
Mick nodded to himself, as if Gerald had unwittingly confirmed
something, then turned back round and drove on, though more
slowly than before. He searched out Gerald’s eyes in the mirror.
‘I believe in fate. I have felt its workings.’
Gerald looked away, he was finding Mick’s stare a little
disconcerting.
‘Tell me, have many writers suffered from insomnia?’
‘Yes, quite few.’
‘Which ones?’
Gerald, who was never comfortable with discussions about fate,
god or the meaning of life, eagerly seized the opportunity to
introduce some solid facts into the conversation. He leant back,
assumed a scholarly tone.
‘William Wordsworth, Shelley, Sylvia Plath – now she wrote a
poem called ‘Insomniac’, where she describes sleep as a kind of
death-wish, the only possible cure for the white disease of daylight
and consciousness.’
‘The white disease of daylight,’ Mick savoured the words like a man
discovering fine wine for the first time in his life. ‘I interrupted you
– go on.’
‘That’s quite all right. Then there was Franz Kafka,’ Gerald laughed,
‘Naturally, I mean you can’t really imagine Kafka as an eight hour a
night man, can you?’
Mick looked at him blankly. Gerald cleared his throat.
‘Then there was Thomas de Quincey, Charlotte and Emily Brontë.’
‘The two Yorkshire lasses?’
‘Yes, that’s rather a tragic story, actually.’
‘Go on.’
51