Before I Go to Sleep (39 page)

‘Good girl,’ says Ben. ‘I meant to bring champagne. I think I’ll go and get some. There’s a shop, I think. It’s not far.’ He smiles. ‘Then I’ll join you.’

I turn to face him, and he kisses me. Now, here, his kiss lingers. He brushes my lips with his, puts his hand in my hair, strokes my back. I fight the urge to pull away. His hand moves lower, down my back, coming to rest on the top of my buttock. I swallow hard.

I cannot trust anybody. Not my husband. Not the man who has claimed to be helping me. They have been working together, building to this day, the day when, clearly, they have decided I am to face the horror in my past.

How dare they!
I think.
How dare they!

‘OK,’ I say. I turn my head away slightly, push him gently so that he lets me go.

He turns, and leaves the room. ‘I’ll just lock the door,’ he says, as he closes it behind him. ‘You can’t be too careful …’ I hear the key turn in the door outside, and I begin to panic. Is he really going to buy champagne? Or is he meeting Dr Nash? I cannot believe he has brought me to this room without telling me; another lie to go with all the others. I hear him go down the stairs.

Wringing my hands, I sit on the edge of the bed. I cannot calm my mind, cannot settle on just one thought. Instead thoughts race, as if, in a mind devoid of memory, each idea has too much space to grow and move, to collide with others in a shower of sparks before spinning off into its own distance.

I stand up. I feel enraged. I cannot face the thought of him coming back, pouring champagne, getting into bed with me. Neither can I face the thought of his skin next to mine, or his hands on me in the night, pawing at me, pressing me, encouraging me to give myself to him. How can I, when there is no me to give?

I would do anything, I think. Anything, except for that.

I cannot stay here, in this place where my life was ruined and everything taken away from me. I try to work out how much time I have. Ten minutes? Five? I go over to Ben’s bag and open it. I don’t know why; I am not thinking of why, or how, only that I must move, while Ben is away, before he returns and things change again. Perhaps I intend to find the car keys, to force the door and go downstairs, out into the rainy street, to the car. Although I’m not even certain I can drive, perhaps I mean to try, to get in and go far, far away.

Or perhaps I mean to find a picture of Adam; I know they’re in there. I will take just one, and then I will leave the room and run. I will run and run, and then, when I can run no more, I will call Claire, or anybody, and I will tell them that I cannot take it any more, and beg them to help me.

I dig my hands deep in the bag. I feel metal, and plastic. Something soft. And then an envelope. I take it out, thinking it might contain photographs, and see that it is the one I found in the office at home. I must have put it in Ben’s bag as I packed, intending to remind him it had not been opened. I turn it over and see that the word
Private
has been written on the front. Without thinking, I tear it open and remove its contents.

Paper. Pages and pages. I recognize it. The faint blue lines, the red margins. These pages are the same as those in my journal, in the book that I have been writing.

And then I see my own handwriting, and begin to understand.

I have not read all of my story. There is more. Pages and pages more.

I find my journal in my bag. I had not noticed before, but after the final page of writing a whole section has been removed. The pages have been excised neatly, cut with a scalpel or a razor blade, close to the spine.

Cut out by Ben.

I sit on the floor, the pages spread in front of me. This is the missing week of my life. I read the rest of my story.

The first entry is dated.
Friday, 23 November
, it says. The same day I met Claire. I must have written it that evening, after speaking to Ben. Perhaps we had had the conversation I was anticipating, after all.
I sit here
, it begins,

on the floor of the bathroom, in the house in which, supposedly, I woke up every morning. I have this journal in front of me, this pen in my hand. I write, because it’s all I can think of to do.

Tissues are balled around me, soaked with tears, and blood. When I blink my vision turns red. Blood drips into my eye as fast as I can wipe it away.

When I looked in the mirror I could see that the skin above my eye is cut, and my lip, too. When I swallow I taste the metallic tang of blood.

I want to sleep. To find a safe place somewhere, and close my eyes, and rest, like an animal.

That is what I am. An animal. Living from moment to moment, day to day, trying to make sense of the world in which I find myself.

My heart races. I read back over the paragraph, my eyes drawn again and again to the word
blood
. What had happened?

I begin to read quickly, my mind stumbling over words, lurching from line to line. I don’t know when Ben will get back and can’t risk him taking these pages before I have read them. Now may be my only chance.

I’d decided it was best to speak to him after dinner. We ate in the lounge – sausage, mash, our plates balanced on our knees – and when we had both finished I asked if he would turn the television off. He seemed reluctant. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I said.

The room felt too quiet, filled only with the ticking of the clock and the distant hum of the city. And my voice, sounding hollow and empty.

‘Darling,’ said Ben, putting his plate on the coffee table between us. A half-chewed lump of meat sat on the side of the plate, peas floated in thin gravy. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Everything’s fine.’ I didn’t know how to continue. He looked at me, his eyes wide, waiting. ‘You do love me, don’t you?’ I said. I felt almost as if I was gathering evidence, insuring myself against any later disapproval.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. What’s this about? What’s wrong?’

‘Ben,’ I said. ‘I love you, too. And I understand your reasons for doing what you’ve been doing, but I know you’ve been lying to me.’

Almost as soon as I finished the sentence I regretted starting it. I saw him flinch. He looked at me, his lips pulled back as if to speak, his eyes wounded.

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘Darling—’

I had to continue now. There was no way out of the stream into which I had begun to wade.

‘I know you’ve been doing it to protect me, not telling me things, but it can’t go on. I need to know.’

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘I haven’t been lying to you.’

I felt a surge of anger. ‘Ben,’ I said, ‘I know about Adam.’

His face changed, then. I saw him swallow, and look away, towards the corner of the room. He brushed something off the arm of his pullover. ‘What?’

‘Adam,’ I said. ‘I know we had a son.’

I half expected him to ask me how I knew, but then realized this conversation was not unusual. We have been here before, on the day I saw my novel, and other days when I have remembered Adam too.

I saw he was about to speak, but didn’t want to hear any more lies.

‘I know he died in Afghanistan,’ I said.

His mouth shut, then opened again, almost comically.

‘How do you know that?’

‘You told me,’ I said. ‘Weeks ago. You were eating a biscuit, and I was in the bathroom. I came downstairs and told you that I had remembered we had had a son, even remembered what he was called, and then we sat down and you told me how he’d been killed. You showed me some photographs, from upstairs. Photos of me and him, and letters that he’d written. A letter to Santa Claus—’ Grief washed over me again. I stopped talking.

Ben was staring at me. ‘You remembered? How?’

‘I’ve been writing things down. For a few weeks. As much as I can remember.’

‘Where?’ he said. He had begun to raise his voice, as if in anger, though I didn’t understand what he might be angry about. ‘Where have you been writing things down? I don’t understand, Christine. Where have you been writing things down?’

‘I’ve been keeping a notebook.’

‘A notebook?’ The way he said it made it sound so trivial, as if I have been using it to write shopping lists and record phone numbers.

‘A journal,’ I said.

He shifted forward in his chair, as if he was about to get up. ‘A journal? For how long?’

‘I don’t know exactly. A couple of weeks?’

‘Can I see it?’

I felt petulant and angry. I was determined not to show it to him. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

He was furious. ‘Where is it? Show it to me.’

‘Ben, it’s personal.’

He shot the word back at me. ‘Personal? What do you mean, personal?’

‘I mean it’s private. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with you reading it.’

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Have you written about me?’