A Good Night's Sleep by Brian McCabe

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A Good Night's Sleep by Brian McCabe

A Good Night’s Sleep was written by Brian McCabe and appeared for the first time in ‘In a Dark Room with a Stranger’. It is a story written to inform or remind the reader of the very serious problem in all larger cities – namely homelessness. Brian McCabe does this trough an ordinary guy who lives in one of these larger cities I referred to earlier.

In A Good Night’s Sleep George Lockhart is this guy. George Lockhart is a teacher of Communication and General Studies; he is just recently divorced, because he has to make an effort not to think of Elaine, his ex-wife, and with Elaine he has a son named Ben, which stays with George in the weekends. Lockhart is also an insomniac; I do not know if there is a deeper reason to this, other than it is a reason that he is awake in the middle of the night.

Edinburgh, Scotland is the larger city, in which this story takes place; more precisely the story takes place in Lockhart’s bed in his flat in Edinburgh, and right outside his flat door. This is not much of an environment to make a conclusion. One thing we can see is that it is a middle class flat because there is a late-night bar downstairs and it can not be very isolated or ‘sound proof’, otherwise this late-night bar would not disturb him nor would the neighbour’s good times. The fact that Lockhart is a teacher just strengthens this allegation.

Then there is the girl; she’s a young girl but she has already lived on the streets for some time now, she has probably run away from home. She used to stay at a hostel but they don’t let her in anymore, the reason for this is not clear, but since then she has slept in stairs, and apparently on doormats. Living on the streets most likely influences ones personality heavily, and I think it has made this girl more defensive, this I get from her first reaction to George offering her a bed for the night, namely, “no way!” Maybe once she accepted the offer, and someone did something to her, rape could be a possibility. Throughout the story she is scornful and hostile. Once and only once she talks with no hostility but with politeness, this is when there is a door between them and she bids him goodnight, earlier I said she is defensive, and in this situation there is a door between them that defends her, so she doesn’t have to.

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