THE first time I saw Alfred Hitchcock's film of Rebecca, I knew I was supposed to be rooting for the sweet, second Mrs De Winter, but something soon happened that made me want to give her a good slap.
It was the scene where Mrs Danvers shows her Rebecca's old bedroom, which Danvers keeps exactly as Rebecca left it. This exquisite boudoir is about a mile across; has a monumental, four-poster bed with damask hangings; huge windows with gorgeous, flo
aty, silk voile curtains; more hanging space than Harrods; a dressing table the size of an altar – and what does the silly mare do? She runs away in terror. I'd have said: "Sod Rebecca, I'm having this," sacked Danvers on the spot and spent the rest of the day jumping up and down on the four-poster, shrieking with glee.
In the film, the fact that Rebecca has a separate bedroom – in a separate wing, no less – from her wedded husband is shown as evidence of her unacceptably wild, independent personality, but honestly, if you had the space, wouldn't you?
In America – which means this will happen in Britain in about five years' time – the National Association of Home Builders is predicting that within the next decade, 60 per cent of custom-built houses will contain not one, but two master bedrooms. One for him, one for her. Some 23 per cent of Americans in permanent relationships already spend their nights apart to get a good night's sleep, and new research in the UK by the Yorkshire-based Sleep Council has found that 7 per cent of cohabiting British couples sleep apart every night and 25 per cent frequently resort to the same tactics in order to preserve their sanity.
If you're married to a snorer, a duvet-wrangler, sleepwalker, talker, or even singer (oh yes, it happens) surely there should be no embarrassment about preferring to sleep alone, but for some reason, people are reluctant to do it. A lot of couples who love each other passionately seem to feel that they can prove it best by suffering each other's company in a state of miserable half-consciousness every night. The sensible solution of twin beds – or the bliss of a whole, separate room to sleep in – is shunned as being somehow indicative of a failure in the relationship. It's as though they're scared that one day the Through the Keyhole team will pop by unexpectedly and Loyd Grossman will raise a judgmental eyebrow and sneer: "Who would live in a sham marriage like this?"
At the risk of sounding like a teenager who's had to share with siblings its whole life, I would love my own room. (In my dreams it has a four-poster with damask hangings, but sometimes I make do with a blanket on the sofa.) I adore my husband, but he's not a silent sleeper. Apart from the snoring, his dreaming is a tad proactive for my comfort. Over the years he has unconsciously pushed me out of bed, yelled at me, called me outside because he's sleepwalked and locked himself out of the flat and, on one memorable occasion, dreamed he was a bear storing nuts in a cave for the winter. And here's one for the psychologists – when he's asleep, he's always Irish.
I don't have the space for the luxury of a spare bedroom, but if I did, and either my spouse or I retreated to it every night, I wouldn't consider our relationship to be on the rocks. Quite the opposite, in fact. The moment you start getting enough quality sleep, you immediately gain energy and a renewed zest for, well, all sorts of things you don't feel like doing when you're permanently zombified.
Reassuringly, one sleep expert at the University of Surrey has said: "Historically, we were never meant to sleep in the same bed. It's an offshoot of romantic love. Sharing a bed with someone who snores, or fights for the duvet, disturbs your sleep and there is no shame in having separate beds."
Sometimes, when I'm lying awake, listening to the comatose rantings of an Irish bear, the nearest I get to dreaming are thoughts of my own vast room, in its own wing of a stately home. Rebecca's room was fabulous, but in The Wicked Lady, the heroine's apartments include a secret staircase she uses to sneak out at night and get up to no good. Girls with their own rooms seem to have much more fun. I think I'll start building an extension now.
