Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel Read online

  I could not tell who the man was — his head was too close to mine for me to see his face — but I could feel everything, even the hairs on his chest, rough against my naked breasts. There was a taste on my tongue, furry, sweet. He was kissing me. He was too rough; I wanted him to stop, but said nothing. ‘I love you,’ he said, murmuring, his words lost in my hair, the side of my neck. I knew I wanted to speak — though I didn’t know what I wanted to say — but I could not understand how to do so. My mouth didn’t seem connected to my brain, and so I lay there as he kissed me and spoke into my hair. I remembered how I had both wanted him and wanted him to stop, how I had told myself, as he began to kiss me, that we would not have sex, but his hand had moved down the curve of my back to my buttocks and I had let it. And again, as he had lifted my blouse and put his hand beneath it, I thought, This, this is as far as I will let you go. I will not stop you, not now, because I am enjoying this. Because your hand feels warm on my breast, because my body is responding with tiny shudders of pleasure. Because, for the first time, I feel like a woman. But I will not have sex with you. Not tonight. This is as far as we will go, thus far and no further. And then he had taken off my blouse and unhooked my bra, and it was not his hand on my breast, but his mouth, and still I thought I would stop him, soon. The word no had even began to form, cemented itself in my mind, but by the time I had spoken it he was pushing me back towards the bed and sliding down my underwear and it had turned into something else, into a moan of something that I dimly recognized as pleasure.

  I felt something between my knees. It was hard. ‘I love you,’ he said again, and I realized it was his knee, that he was forcing my legs apart with one of his own. I did not want to let him, but at the same time knew that somehow I ought to, that I had left it too late, watched my chances to say something, to stop this, disappear one by one. And now I had no choice. I had wanted it then, as he unzipped his trousers and stepped clumsily out of his underwear, and so I must still want it now, now that I am beneath his body.

  I tried to relax. He arched up, and moaned — a low, startling noise that started deep within him — and I saw his face. I didn’t recognize it, not in my dream, but now I knew it. Ben. ‘I love you,’ he said, and I knew that I should say something, that he was my husband, even though I felt I had met him for the first time just that morning. I could stop him. I could trust him to stop himself.

  ‘Ben, I—’

  He silenced me with his wet mouth, and I felt him tear into me. Pain, or pleasure. I could not tell where one ended and the other began. I clung to his back, moist with sweat, and tried to open myself to him, tried first to enjoy what was happening, and then, when I found I could not, tried to ignore it. I asked for this, I thought, at the same time as I never asked for this. Is it possible to both want and not want something at the same time? For desire to ride with fear?

  I closed my eyes. I saw a face. A stranger, with dark hair, a beard. A scar down his cheek. He looked familiar, and yet I had no idea from where. As I watched him his smile disappeared and that was when I cried out, in my dream. That was the moment I woke up to find myself in a still, quiet bed, with Ben lying next to me and no idea where I was.

  I got out of bed. To use the bathroom? To escape? I didn’t know where I was going, what I would do. If I had somehow known of its existence I would have opened the wardrobe door, as quietly as I could, and lifted out the shoebox that contained my journal, but I did not. And so I went downstairs. The front door was locked, the moonlight blue through the frosted glass. I realized I was naked.

  I sat on the bottom of the stairs. The sun rose, the hall turned through blue to burnt orange. Nothing made sense; the dream least of all. It felt too real, and I had woken in the same bedroom I had dreamed myself in, next to a man I was not expecting to see.

  And now, now I have read my journal after Dr Nash called me, a thought forms. Might it have been a memory? A memory I had retained from the previous night?

  I do not know. If so then it is a sign of progress, I suppose. But also it means Ben forced himself on me and, worse, as he did so I saw an image of a bearded stranger, a scar running down his face. Of all possible memories this seems a cruel one to retain.

  But perhaps it means nothing. It was just a dream. Just a nightmare. Ben loves me and the bearded stranger does not exist.

  But how can I ever know for sure?

  Later, I saw Dr Nash. We were sitting at traffic lights, Dr Nash tapping his fingers on the rim of the steering wheel, not quite in time to the music that played from the stereo — pop that I neither recognized nor enjoyed — while I stared ahead. I’d called him this morning, almost as soon as I had finished reading my journal, finished writing about the dream that might have been a memory. I had to speak to someone — the news that I was a mother had felt like a tiny rip in my life that now threatened to snag, tearing it apart — and he’d suggested we move our next meeting to today. He asked me to bring my journal. I hadn’t told him what was wrong, intending to wait until we were in his offices, but now didn’t know whether I could.

  The lights changed. He stopped tapping and we jerked back into motion. ‘Why doesn’t Ben tell me about Adam?’ I heard myself say. ‘I don’t understand. Why?’

  He glanced at me, but said nothing. We drove a little further. A plastic dog sat on the parcel shelf of the car in front of us, its head nodding comically, and beyond it I could see the blond hair of a toddler. I thought of Alfie.

  Dr Nash coughed. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  It was true, then. Part of me was hoping he would ask me what I was talking about, but as soon as I said the word Adam I realized how futile that hope had been, how misguided. Adam feels real. He exists, within me, within my consciousness, taking up space in a way that no one else does. Not Ben, or Dr Nash. Not even myself.

  I felt angry. He had known all along.

  ‘And you,’ I said. ‘You gave me my novel. So why didn’t you tell me about Adam?’

  ‘Christine,’ he said, ‘tell me what happened.’

  I stared out of the front window. ‘I had a memory,’ I said.

  He glanced across at me. ‘Really?’ I didn’t say anything. ‘Christine,’ he said, ‘I’m trying to help.’

  I told him. ‘It was the other day,’ I said. ‘After you’d given me my novel. I looked at the photograph that you’d put with it and, suddenly, I remembered the day it was taken. I can’t say why. It just came to me. And I remembered that I’d been pregnant.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘You knew about him?’ I said. ‘About Adam?’

  He spoke slowly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I did. It’s in your file. He was a couple of years old when you lost your memory.’ He paused. ‘Plus we’ve spoken about him before.’

  I felt myself go cold. I shivered, despite the warmth in the car. I knew it was possible, even probable, that I had remembered Adam before, but this bare truth — that I had gone through all this before and would therefore go through it all again — shook me.

  He must have sensed my surprise.

  ‘A few weeks ago,’ he said. ‘You told me you’d seen a child, out in the street. A little boy. At first you had the overwhelming sense that you knew him, that he was lost, but was coming home, to your house, and you were his mother. Then it came back to you. You told Ben, and he told you about Adam. Later that day you told me.’

  I remembered nothing of this. I reminded myself that he was not talking about a stranger, but about me.

  ‘But you haven’t told me about him since?’

  He sighed. ‘No—’

  Without warning I remembered what I had read this morning, of the images they had shown me as I lay in the scanner.

  ‘There were pictures of him!’ I said. ‘When I had my scan! There were pictures …’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘From your file.’

  ‘But you didn’t mention him! Why? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Christine, you must accept that I can’t begin every sessi
on by telling you all the things I know but you don’t. Plus, in this case, I decided it wouldn’t necessarily benefit you.’

  ‘Benefit me?’

  ‘No. I knew it would be very upsetting for you to know that you had a child and have forgotten him.’

  We were pulling into an underground car park. The soft daylight faded, replaced by harsh fluorescence and the smell of petrol and concrete. I wondered what else he might feel it unethical to tell me, what other time bombs I am carrying in my head, primed and ticking, ready to explode.

  ‘There aren’t any more—?’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘You only had Adam. He was your only child.’

  The past tense. Then Dr Nash knew he was dead, too. I didn’t want to ask, but knew that I must.

  ‘You know he was killed?’

  He stopped the car and turned off the engine. The car park was dim, lit only by pools of fluorescent light, and silent. I heard nothing but the occasional door slamming, the rattle of a lift. For a moment I thought there was still a chance. Maybe I was wrong. Adam was alive. My mind lit with the idea. Adam had felt real to me as soon as I read about him this morning, yet still his death did not. I tried to picture it, or to remember how it must have felt to be given the news that he had been killed, yet I could not. It did not seem right. Grief should surely overwhelm me. Every day would be filled with constant pain, with longing, with the knowledge that part of me has died and I will never be whole again. Surely my love for my son would be strong enough for me to remember my loss. If he really were dead, then surely my grief would be stronger than my amnesia.

  I realized I didn’t believe my husband. I didn’t believe my son was dead. For a moment my happiness hung, balancing, but then Dr Nash spoke.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  Excitement discharged within me like a tiny explosion, turned to its opposite. Something worse than disappointment. More destructive, shot through with pain.

  ‘How …?’ was all I could say.

  He told me the same story as Ben. Adam, in the army. A roadside bomb. I listened, determined to find the strength to not cry. When he had finished there was a pause, a moment of stillness, before he put his hand on mine.

  ‘Christine,’ he said softly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  I didn’t know what to say. I looked at him. He was leaning towards me. I looked down at his hand, covering mine, criss-crossed with tiny scratches. I saw him at home, later. Playing with a kitten, perhaps a small dog. Living a normal life.

  ‘My husband doesn’t tell me about Adam,’ I said. ‘He keeps all the photographs of him locked away in a metal box. For my own protection.’ Dr Nash said nothing. ‘Why would he do that?’

  He looked out of the window. I saw the word cunt sprayed on to the wall in front of us. ‘Let me ask you the same question. Why do you think he would do that?’

  I thought. I thought of all the reasons I could. So that he can control me. Have power over me. So that he can deny me this one thing that might make me feel complete. I realized I didn’t believe any of those were true. I was left only with the mundane fact. ‘I suppose it’s easier for him. Not to tell me, if I don’t remember.’

  ‘Why is it easier for him?’

  ‘Because I find it so upsetting? It must be a horrible thing to have to do, to tell me every day that not only have I had a child but that he has died. And in such a horrible way.’

  ‘Any other reasons, do you think?’

  I was silent, and then realized. ‘Well, it must be hard for him, too. He was Adam’s father and, well …’ I thought how he must be managing his own grief, as well as mine.

  ‘This is difficult for you, Christine,’ he said. ‘But you must try to remember that it is difficult for Ben, too. More difficult, in some ways. He loves you very much, I expect, and—’

  ‘—and yet I don’t even remember he exists.’

  ‘True,’ he said.

  I sighed. ‘I must have loved him, once. After all, I married him.’ He said nothing. I thought of the stranger I had woken up with that morning, of the photos of our lives together I had seen, of the dream — or the memory — I had had in the middle of the night. I thought of Adam, and of Alfie, of what I had done, or thought about doing. A panic rose in me. I felt trapped, as though there was no way out, my mind skittering from one thing to another, searching for freedom and release.

  Ben, I thought to myself. I can cling to Ben. He is strong.

  ‘What a mess,’ I said. ‘I just feel overwhelmed.’

  He turned back to face me. ‘I wish I could do something to make this easier for you.’

  He looked as though he really meant it, as though he would do anything he could to help me. There was a tenderness in his eyes, in the way he rested his hand on mine, and there, in the dim half-light of the underground car park, I found myself wondering what would happen if I put my hand on his, or moved my head slightly forward, holding his gaze, opening my mouth as I did so, just a touch. Would he too lean forward? Would he try to kiss me? Would I let him, if he did?

  Or would he think me ridiculous? Absurd? I may have woken this morning thinking I am in my twenties, but I am not. I am almost fifty. Nearly old enough to be his mother. And so, instead, I looked at him. He sat perfectly still, looking at me. He seemed strong. Strong enough to help me. To get me through.

  I opened my mouth to speak, without knowing what I was going to say, but the muffled ringing of a telephone interrupted me. Dr Nash didn’t move, other than to take his hand away, and I realized the phone must be one of mine.

  I retrieved the ringing phone from my bag. It was not the one that flipped open, but the one my husband has given me. Ben, it said on the screen.

  When I saw his name I realized how unfair I was being. He was bereaved, too. And he had to live with it every day, without being able to speak to me about it, without being able to come to his wife for support.

  And he did all that for love.

  And here was I, sitting in a car park with a man he barely knew existed. I thought of the photos I had seen that morning, in the scrapbook. Me and Ben, over and over again. Smiling. Happy. In love. If I were to go home and look at them now I might only see in them the thing that was missing. Adam. But they are the same pictures, and in them we look at each other as if no one else in the world exists.

  We had been in love; it was obvious.

  ‘I’ll ring him back later,’ I said. I put the phone back in my bag. I will tell him tonight, I thought. About my journal. Dr Nash. Everything.

  Dr Nash coughed. ‘We should go up to the office. Make a start.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. I did not look at him.

  I began to write that in the car as Dr Nash drove me home. Much of it is barely legible, a hasty scrawl. Dr Nash said nothing as I wrote, but I saw him glancing at me as I searched for the right word or a better phrase. I wondered what he was thinking — before we left his office he had asked me to consent to him discussing my case at a conference he had been invited to attend. ‘In Geneva,’ he said, unable to disguise a flash of pride. I said yes, and I imagined he would soon ask me if he could take a photocopy of my journal. For research.

  When we arrived back at the house he said goodbye, adding, ‘I’m surprised you wanted to write your book in the car. You seem very … determined. I suppose you don’t want to miss anything out.’

  I know what he meant, though. He meant frantic. Desperate. Desperate to get everything down.

  And he is right. I am determined. Once I got in I finished the entry at the dining table and closed my journal and put it back in its hiding place before slowly undressing. Ben had left me a message on the phone. Let’s go out tonight, he’d said. For dinner. It’s Friday …

  I stepped out of the navy-blue trousers I had found in the wardrobe that morning. I peeled off the pale-blue blouse that I had decided matched them best. I was bewildered. I had given Dr Nash my journal during our session — he’d asked if he could read it and I’d
said yes. This was before he’d mentioned his invite to Geneva, and I wonder now if that’s why he asked. ‘This is excellent!’ he’d said when he finished. ‘Really good. You’re remembering lots of things, Christine. Lots of memories are coming back. There’s no reason that won’t continue. You should feel very encouraged …’

  But I did not feel encouraged. I felt confused. Had I flirted with him, or he with me? It was his hand on mine, but I had let him put it there, and let him keep it. ‘You should continue to write,’ he said, when he gave me the journal back, and I told him that I would.

  Now, in my bedroom, I tried to convince myself I had done nothing wrong. I still felt guilty. Because I had enjoyed it. The attention, the feeling of connection. For a moment, in the middle of everything else that was going on, there had been a tiny pinprick of joy. I had felt attractive. Desirable.

  I went to my underwear drawer. There, tucked at the back, I found a pair of black silk knickers and a matching bra. I put them on — these clothes that I know must be mine even though they don’t feel as though they are — all the time thinking of my journal hidden in the wardrobe. What would Ben think, if he found it? If he read all that I had written, all that I had felt? Would he understand?

  I stood in front of the mirror. He would, I told myself. He must. I examined my body with my eyes and my hands. I explored it, ran my fingers over its contours and undulations as if it were something new, a gift. Something to be learned from scratch.

  Though I knew that Dr Nash had not been flirting with me, for that brief space in which I thought he was I had not felt old. I had felt alive.

  I don’t know how long I stood there. For me time stretches, is almost meaningless. Years have slipped through me, leaving no trace. Minutes don’t exist. I only had the chime of the clock downstairs to show me that time was passing at all. I looked at my body, at the weight in my buttocks and on my hips, the dark hairs on my legs, under my arms. I found a razor in the bathroom and soaped my legs, then drew the cold blade across my skin. I must have done this before, I thought, countless times, yet still it seemed an odd thing to be doing, faintly ridiculous. I nicked the skin on my calf — a tiny stab of pain and then a red plush welled, quivering before it began to trickle down my leg. I stemmed it with a finger, smearing the blood like treacle, brought it to my lips. The taste of soap and warm metal. It didn’t clot. I let it bleed down my skin, newly smooth, then mopped it with a damp tissue.