Before I Go to Sleep (35 page)

I felt myself go cold. I tried to imagine the anger I must have felt to write a letter like that, but at the same time realized maybe I hadn’t felt angry at all. To me, Claire would hardly have existed, any friendship between us forgotten.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I couldn’t imagine being able to remember her betrayal. Ben must have helped me write the letter.

She smiled. ‘No. Don’t apologize. You were right. But I didn’t stop hoping you’d change your mind. I wanted to see you. I wanted to tell you the truth, to your face.’ I said nothing. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said then. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’

I took her hand. How could I be angry with her? Or with Ben? My condition has placed an impossible burden on us all.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes. I forgive you.’

We left soon after. At the bottom of the slope she turned to face me.

‘Will I see you again?’ she said.

I smiled. ‘I hope so!’

She looked relieved. ‘I’ve missed you, Chrissy. You’ve no idea.’

It was true. I did have no idea. But with her, and this journal, there was a chance I could rebuild a life worth living. I thought of the letter in my bag. A message from the past. The final piece of the puzzle. The answers I need.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ she said. ‘Early next week. OK?’

‘OK,’ I said. She hugged me, and my voice was lost in the curls of her hair. She felt like my only friend, the only person I could rely on, along with Ben. My sister. I squeezed her hard. ‘Thank you for telling me the truth,’ I said. ‘Thank you. For everything. I love you.’ When we parted and looked at each other both of us were crying.

At home, I sat down to read Ben’s letter. I felt nervous – would it tell me what I needed to know? Will I finally understand why Ben left me? – but at the same time excited. I felt sure it would. Felt certain that with it, with Ben and Claire, I will have everything I need.

Darling Christine,

This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Already I’ve kicked off with a cliché, but you know I’m not a writer – that was always you! – so I’m sorry, but I’ll do my best.

By the time you read this you’ll know, but I’ve decided I have to leave you. I can’t bear to write it, or even to think it, but I have to. I have tried so hard to find another way, but I can’t. Believe me.

You have to understand that I love you. I always have. I always will. I don’t care what has happened, or why. This isn’t about revenge, or anything like that. I haven’t met anybody else. When you were in that coma I realized just how much a part of me you are – I felt like I was dying every time I looked at you. I realized I didn’t care what you were doing that night in Brighton, or who you were seeing. I just wanted you to come back to me.

And then you did, and I was so happy. You will never know how happy I was, the day they told me you were out of danger, that you wouldn’t die. That you weren’t going to leave me. Or us. Adam was just little, but I think he understood.

When we realized you had no memory of what had happened I thought it was a good thing. Can you believe that? I feel ashamed now, but I thought it was for the best. But then we realized that you were forgetting other things too. Gradually, over time. At first it was the names of the people in the beds next to you, the doctors and nurses treating you. But you got worse. You forgot why you were in the hospital, why you weren’t allowed to come home with me. You convinced yourself that the doctors were experimenting on you. When I took you home for a weekend you didn’t recognize our street, our house. Your cousin came to see you and you had no idea who she was. We took you back to the hospital and you had no idea where you were going.

I think that’s when things started to get difficult. You loved Adam so much. It shone out of your eyes when we arrived, and he would run over to you and into your arms, and you would pick him up, and know who he was, straight away. But then – I’m sorry, Chris, but I have to tell you this – you started to believe that Adam had been away from you when he was a baby. Every time you saw him you thought that it was the first time since he was a few months old. I would ask him to tell you when he last saw you and he would say, ‘Yesterday, Mummy,’ or ‘Last week,’ but you didn’t believe him. ‘What have you been telling him?’ you’d say. ‘It’s a lie.’ You started accusing me of keeping you locked there. You thought another woman was raising Adam as her own while you were in the hospital.

One day I arrived and you didn’t recognize me. You became hysterical. You grabbed Adam when I wasn’t looking and ran to the door, to rescue him, I suppose, but he started screaming. He didn’t understand why you’d do that. I took him home and tried to explain, but he didn’t understand. He started being really frightened of you.

It got worse. One day I called the hospital. I asked them what you were like when I wasn’t there, when Adam wasn’t there. ‘Describe her, right now,’ I said. They said you were calm. Happy. You were sitting in the chair next to your bed. ‘What’s she doing?’ I said. They said you were talking to one of the other patients, a friend of yours. Sometimes you played cards together.

‘Played cards?’ I said. I couldn’t believe it. They said you were good at cards. They had to explain the rules to you every day, but then you could beat just about anybody.

‘Is she happy?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ they said. ‘Yes. She’s always happy.’

‘Does she remember me?’ I said. ‘Adam?’

‘Not unless you’re here,’ they said.

I think I knew then that one day I would have to leave you. I’ve found you a place where you can live for as long as you need to. Somewhere you can be happy. Because you will be happy, without me, without Adam. You won’t know us, and so you won’t miss us.

I love you so much, Chrissy. You must understand that. I love you more than I love anything. But I have to give our son a life, a life he deserves. Soon he will be old enough to understand what’s going on. I will not lie to him, Chris. I will explain the choice I have made. I will tell him that although he may want to see you very much it would be enormously upsetting for him to do so. Maybe he will hate me. Blame me. I hope not. But I want him to be happy. And I want you to be happy, too. Even if you can only find that happiness without me.

You’ve been in Waring House for a while now. You don’t panic any more. You have a sense of routine. That’s good. And so it’s time for me to go.

I’m going to give this letter to Claire. I’ll ask her to keep it for me, and to show it to you when you’re well enough to read it, and to understand it. I can’t keep it myself, I’ll just brood over it, and won’t be able to resist giving it to you next week, or next month, or even next year. Too soon.

I cannot pretend I don’t hope that one day we can be together again. When you are recovered. The three of us. A family. I have to believe that might happen. I have to, or else I will die from grief.

I am not abandoning you, Chris. I will never abandon you. I love you too much.

Believe me, this is the right thing, the only thing for me to do.

Don’t hate me. I love you.

Ben

X

I read it again now, and fold the paper. It feels crisp, as though it might have been written yesterday, but the envelope into which I slip it is soft, its edges frayed, with a sweet smell clinging to it, like perfume. Has Claire carried it with her, tucked in a corner of her bag? Or, more likely, has she stored it in a drawer at home, out of sight, but never quite forgotten? For years it waited for the right time to be read. Years that I spent not knowing who my husband was, not even knowing who I was. Years in which I could never have bridged the gap between us, because it was a gap I had never known existed.

I slip the envelope between the pages of my journal. I am crying as I write this, but I don’t feel unhappy. I understand everything. Why he left me, why he has been lying to me.

Because he
has
been lying to me. He has not told me about the novel I wrote so that I will not be devastated by the fact that I will never write another. He has been telling me my best friend moved away to protect me from the fact that the two of them betrayed me. Because he didn’t trust me to love them both far too much to not forgive them. He has been telling me that I was hit by a car, that this was an accident, so that I don’t have to deal with the fact that I was attacked and what happened to me was the result of a deliberate act of ferocious hatred. He has been telling me that we never had children, not only to protect me from the knowledge that my only son is dead, but to protect me, too, from having to deal with the grief of his death every single day of my life. And he has not told me that, after years of trying to find a way for our family to be together, he had to face the fact that we couldn’t be and take our son and leave in order to find happiness.

He must have thought that our separation would be for ever, when he wrote that letter, but he must also have hoped that it would not, or else why write it? What was he thinking, as he sat there, in his home, our home as it must once have been, and took out his pen and began to try to explain to someone who he could never expect to understand why he felt he had no option but to leave her? I am no writer, he said, and yet his words are beautiful to me, profound. They read as if he is talking about someone else, and yet, somewhere inside me, under the skin and bones, the tissue and blood, I know that he is not. He is talking about, and to, me. Christine Lucas. His broken wife.

But it has not been for ever. What he hoped for has happened. Somehow my condition has improved, or else he found separation from me even harder than he imagined, and he came back for me.