Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel Page 2

  ‘A what?’ I say.

  ‘A phone,’ he says. ‘It’s cordless. You can use it anywhere. Outside the house, anywhere. It’ll be in your handbag. Make sure you take it with you if you go out.’

  ‘I will,’ I say.

  ‘Right,’ he says. We go into the hall and he picks up a battered leather satchel by the door. ‘I’ll be off, then.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. I am not sure what else to say. I feel like a child kept out of school, left alone at home while her parents go to work. Don’t touch anything, I imagine him saying. Don’t forget to take your medicine.

  He comes over to where I stand. He kisses me, on the cheek. I don’t stop him, but neither do I kiss him back. He turns towards the front door, and is about to open it when he stops.

  ‘Oh!’ he says, looking back at me. ‘I almost forgot!’ His voice sounds suddenly forced, the enthusiasm affected. He is trying too hard to make it seem natural; it is obvious he has been building up to what he is about to say for some time.

  In the end it is not as bad as I feared. ‘We’re going away this evening,’ he says. ‘Just for the weekend. It’s our anniversary, so I thought I’d book something. Is that OK?’

  I nod. ‘That sounds nice,’ I say.

  He smiles, looks relieved. ‘Something to look forward to, eh? A bit of sea air? It’ll do us good.’ He turns back to the door and opens it. ‘I’ll call you later,’ he says. ‘See how you’re getting on.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Do. Please.’

  ‘I love you, Christine,’ he says. ‘Never forget that.’

  He closes the door behind him and I turn. I go back into the house.

  Later, mid-morning. I sit in an armchair. The dishes are done and neatly stacked on the drainer, the laundry is in the machine. I have been keeping myself busy.

  But now I feel empty. It’s true, what Ben said. I have no memory. Nothing. There is not a thing in this house that I remember seeing before. Not a single photograph — either around the mirror or in the scrapbook in front of me — that triggers a recollection of when it was taken, not a moment with Ben that I can recall, other than those since we met this morning. My mind feels totally empty.

  I close my eyes, try to focus on something. Anything. Yesterday. Last Christmas. Any Christmas. My wedding. There is nothing.

  I stand up. I move through the house, from room to room. Slowly. Drifting, like a wraith, letting my hand brush against the walls, the tables, the backs of the furniture, but not really touching any of it. How did I end up like this? I think. I look at the carpets, the patterned rugs, the china figurines on the mantelpiece and ornamental plates arranged on the display racks in the dining room. I try to tell myself that this is mine. All mine. My home, my husband, my life. But these things do not belong to me. They are not part of me. In the bedroom I open the wardrobe door and see a row of clothes I don’t recognize, hanging neatly, like empty versions of a woman I have never met. A woman whose home I am wandering through, whose soap and shampoo I have used, whose dressing gown I have discarded and slippers I am wearing. She is hidden to me, a ghostly presence, aloof and untouchable. This morning I had selected my underwear guiltily, searching through the pairs of knickers, balled together with tights and stockings, as if I was afraid of being caught. I held my breath as I found knickers in silk and lace at the back of the drawer, items bought to be seen as well as worn. Rearranging the unused ones exactly as I had found them, I chose a pale-blue pair that seemed to have a matching bra and slipped them both on, before pulling a heavy pair of tights over the top, and then trousers and a blouse.

  I had sat down at the dressing table to examine my face in the mirror, approaching my reflection cautiously. I traced the lines on my forehead, the folds of skin under my eyes. I smiled and looked at my teeth, and at the wrinkles that bunched around the edge of my mouth, the crow’s feet that appeared. I noticed the blotches on my skin, a discoloration on my forehead that looked like a bruise that had not quite faded. I found some make-up, and put a little on. A light powder, a touch of blusher. I pictured a woman — my mother, I realize now — doing the same, calling it her warpaint, and this morning, as I blotted my lipstick on a tissue and recapped the mascara, the word felt appropriate. I felt that I was going into some kind of battle, or that some battle was coming to me.

  Sending me off to school. Putting on her make-up. I tried to think of my mother doing something else. Anything. Nothing came. I saw only a void, vast gaps between tiny islands of memory, years of emptiness.

  Now, in the kitchen, I open cupboards: bags of pasta, packets of a rice labelled arborio, tins of kidney beans. I don’t recognize this food. I remember eating cheese on toast, boil-in-the-bag fish, corned-beef sandwiches. I pull out a tin labelled chickpeas, a sachet of something called couscous. I don’t know what these things are, let alone how to cook them. How then do I survive, as a wife?

  I look up at the wipe-clean board that Ben had shown me before he left. It is a dirty grey colour, words have been scrawled on it and wiped out, replaced, amended, each leaving a faint residue. I wonder what I would find if I could go back and decipher the layers, if it were possible to delve into my past that way, but realize that, even if it were possible, it would be futile. I am certain that all I would find are messages and lists, groceries to buy, tasks to perform.

  Is that really my life? I think. Is that all I am? I take the pen and add another note to the board. Pack bag for tonight? it says. Not much of a reminder, but my own.

  I hear a noise. A tune, coming from my bag. I open it and empty its contents on to the sofa. My purse, some tissues, pens, a lipstick. A powder compact, a receipt for two coffees. A diary, just a couple of inches square and with a floral design on the front and a pencil in its spine.

  I find something that I guess must be the phone that Ben described — it is small, plastic, with a keypad that makes it look like a toy. It is ringing, the screen flashing. I press what I hope is the right button.

  ‘Hello?’ I say. The voice that replies is not Ben’s.

  ‘Hi,’ it says. ‘Christine? Is that Christine Lucas?’

  I don’t want to answer. My surname seems as strange as my first name had. I feel as though any solid ground I had attained has vanished again, replaced by quicksand.

  ‘Christine? Are you there?’

  Who can it be? Who knows where I am, who I am? I realize it could be anyone. I feel panic rise in me. My finger hovers over the button that will end the call.

  ‘Christine? It’s me. Dr Nash. Please answer.’

  The name means nothing to me, but still I say, ‘Who is this?’

  The voice takes on a new tone. Relief? ‘It’s Dr Nash,’ he says. ‘Your doctor?’

  Another flash of panic. ‘My doctor?’ I say. I’m not ill, I want to add, but I don’t know even this. I feel my mind begin to spin.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘But don’t worry. We’ve just been doing some work on your memory. Nothing’s wrong.’

  I notice the tense he has used. Have been. So this is someone else I have no memory of.

  ‘What kind of work?’ I say.

  ‘I’ve been trying to help you, to improve things,’ he says. ‘Trying to work out exactly what’s caused your memory problems, and whether there’s anything we can do about them.’

  It makes sense, though another thought comes to me. Why had Ben not mentioned this doctor before he left this morning?

  ‘How?’ I say. ‘What have we been doing?’

  ‘We’ve been meeting over the last few weeks. A couple of times a week, give or take.’

  It doesn’t seem possible. Another person I see regularly who has left no impression on me whatsoever.

  But I’ve never met you before, I want to say. You could be anyone.

  The same could be said of the man I woke up with this morning, and he turned out to be my husband.

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I say instead.

  His voice softens. ‘Don’t worry. I know.’ If what he says is tr
ue then he must understand that as well as anyone. He explains that our next appointment is today.

  ‘Today?’ I say. I think back to what Ben told me this morning, to the list of jobs written on the board in the kitchen. ‘But my husband hasn’t mentioned anything to me.’ I realize it is the first time I have referred to the man I woke up with in this way.

  There is a pause, and then Dr Nash says, ‘I’m not sure Ben knows you’re meeting me.’

  I notice that he knows my husband’s name, but say, ‘That’s ridiculous! How can he not? He would have told me!’

  There is a sigh. ‘You’ll have to trust me,’ he says. ‘I can explain everything, when we meet. We’re really making progress.’

  When we meet. How can we do that? The thought of going out, without Ben, without him even knowing where I am or who I am with, terrifies me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Christine,’ he says, ‘it’s important. If you look in your diary you’ll see what I’m saying is true. Do you have it? It should be in your bag.’

  I pick up the floral book from where it had fallen on to the sofa and register the shock of seeing the year printed on the front in gold lettering. Two thousand and seven. Twenty years later than it should be.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look at today’s date,’ he says. ‘November thirtieth. You should see our appointment.’

  I don’t understand how it can be November — December tomorrow — but still I skim through the leaves, thin as tissue, to today’s date. There, tucked between the pages, is a piece of paper, and on it, printed in handwriting I don’t recognize, are the words November 30th — seeing Dr Nash. Beneath them are the words Don’t tell Ben. I wonder if Ben has read them, whether he looks through my things.

  I decide there is no reason he would. The other days are blank. No birthdays, no nights out, no parties. Does this really describe my life?

  ‘OK,’ I say. He explains that he will come and pick me up, that he knows where I live and will be there in an hour.

  ‘But my husband—’ I say.

  ‘It’s OK. We’ll be back long before he gets in from work. I promise. Trust me.’

  The clock on the mantelpiece chimes and I glance at it. It is old-fashioned, a large dial in a wooden case, edged with roman numerals. It reads eleven thirty. Next to it sits a silver key for winding it, something that I suppose Ben must remember to do every evening. It looks old enough to be an antique, and I wonder how we came to own such a clock. Perhaps it has no history, or none with us at least, but is simply something we saw once, in a shop or on a market stall, and one of us liked it. Probably Ben, I think. I realize I don’t like it.

  I’ll see him just this once, I think. And then, tonight, when he gets home, I will tell Ben. I can’t believe I’m keeping something like this from him. Not when I rely so utterly on him.

  But there is an odd familiarity to Dr Nash’s voice. Unlike Ben, he does not seem entirely alien to me. I realize I almost find it easier to believe that I have met him before than I do my husband.

  We’re making progress, he’d said. I need to know what kind of progress he means.

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘Come.’

  When he arrives Dr Nash suggests we go for a cup of coffee. ‘Are you thirsty?’ he says. ‘I don’t think there’s much point in driving all the way to the office. I mostly wanted to talk to you today, anyway.’

  I nod, and say yes. I was in the bedroom when he arrived and watched him park his car and lock it, saw him rearrange his hair, smooth his jacket, pick up his briefcase. Not him, I thought as he nodded to the workmen who were unloading tools from a van, but then he walked up the path to our house. He looked young — too young to be a doctor — and, though I don’t know what I had been expecting him to be wearing, it was not the sports jacket and grey corduroy trousers that he had on.

  ‘There’s a park at the end of the street,’ he says. ‘I think it has a café. We could go there?’

  We walk together. The cold is biting and I pull my scarf tight around my neck. I am glad I have in my bag the mobile phone that Ben has given me. Glad too that Dr Nash has not insisted we drive somewhere. There is some part of me that trusts this man, but another, larger part tells me he could be anyone. A stranger.

  I am an adult, but a damaged one. It would be easy for this man to take me somewhere, though I don’t know what he would want to do. I am as vulnerable as a child.

  We reach the main road that separates the end of the street from the park opposite, and wait to cross. The silence between us feels oppressive. I had intended to wait until we were sitting down before asking him, but find myself speaking. ‘What sort of doctor are you?’ I am saying. ‘What do you do? How did you find me?’

  He looks over at me. ‘I’m a neuropsychologist,’ he says. He is smiling. I wonder if I ask him the same question every time we meet. ‘I specialize in patients with brain disorders, with an interest in some of the newer functional neuroimaging techniques. For a long time I’ve been particularly interested in researching memory process and function. I heard about you through the literature on the subject, and tracked you down. It wasn’t too difficult.’

  A car rounds the bend further up the road and heads towards us. ‘The literature?’

  ‘Yes. There have been a couple of case studies written about you. I got in touch with the place where you were being treated before you came to live at home.’

  ‘Why? Why did you want to find me?’

  He smiles. ‘Because I thought I could help you. I’ve been working with patients with these sorts of problems for a little while. I believe they can be helped; however, they require more intensive input than the usual one hour per week. I had a few ideas about how real improvements could be effected and wanted to try some of them out.’ He pauses. ‘Plus I’ve been writing a paper on your case. The definitive work, you might say.’ He begins to laugh, but cuts it short when I do not join in. He clears his throat. ‘Your case is unusual. I believe we can discover a lot more about the way memory works than we already know.’

  The car passes and we cross the road. I feel myself get anxious, uptight. Brain disorders. Researching. Tracked you down. I try to breathe, to relax, but find I cannot. There are two of me, now, in the same body: one is a forty-seven-year-old woman, calm, polite, aware of what kind of behaviour is appropriate and what is not — and the other is in her twenties, and screaming. I can’t decide which is me, but the only noise I hear is that of distant traffic and the shouts of children from the park, and so I guess it must be the first.

  On the other side I stop and say, ‘Look, what’s going on? I woke up this morning in a place I’ve never seen but that’s apparently my home, lying next to a man I’ve never met who tells me I’ve been married to him for years. And you seem to know more about me than I know about myself.’

  He nods, slowly. ‘You have amnesia,’ he says, putting his hand on my arm. ‘You’ve had amnesia for a long time. You can’t retain new memories, so you’ve forgotten much of what’s happened to you for your entire adult life. Every day you wake up as if you are a young woman. Some days you wake as if you are a child.’

  Somehow it seems worse, coming from him. A doctor. ‘So it’s true?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. Yes. The man at home is your husband. Ben. You’ve been married to him for years. Since long before your amnesia began.’ I nod. ‘Shall we go on?’

  I say yes, and we walk into the park. A path circles its edge, and there is a children’s playground nearby, next to a hut from which I see people emerge carrying trays of snacks. We head there, and I take a seat at one of the chipped Formica tables while Dr Nash orders our drinks.

  When he returns he is carrying two plastic cups filled with strong coffee, mine black, his white. He adds sugar from the bowl on the table but offers none to me, and it is that, more than anything, that convinces me we have met before. He looks up and asks me how I hurt my forehead.

  ‘What—?’ I say at firs
t, but then I remember the bruise I saw this morning. My make-up has clearly not covered it. ‘That?’ I say. ‘I’m not sure. It’s nothing, really. It doesn’t hurt.’

  He doesn’t answer. He stirs his coffee.

  ‘So my husband looks after me at home?’ I say.

  He looks up. ‘Yes, though he hasn’t always. At first your condition was so severe that you required round-the-clock care. It has only been fairly recently that Ben felt he could look after you alone.’

  So the way I feel at the moment is an improvement, then. I am glad I can’t remember the time when things were worse.

  ‘He must love me very much,’ I say, more to myself than to Nash.

  He nods. There is a pause. We both sip our drinks. ‘Yes. I think he must.’

  I smile, and look down, at my hands holding the hot drink, at the gold wedding band, at the short nails, at my legs, crossed politely. I don’t recognize my own body.

  ‘Why doesn’t my husband know that I’m seeing you?’ I say.

  He sighs, and closes his eyes. ‘I’ll be honest,’ he says, clasping his hands together and leaning forward in his seat. ‘Initially I asked you not to tell Ben that you were seeing me.’

  A jolt of fear goes through me, almost an echo. Yet he does not look untrustworthy.

  ‘Go on,’ I say. I want to believe he can help me.

  ‘Several people — doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and so on — have approached you and Ben in the past, wanting to work with you. But he has always been extremely reluctant to let you see these professionals. He has made it very clear that you have had extensive treatment before, and in his opinion it has achieved nothing other than to upset you. Naturally he wanted to spare you — and himself — from any more upset.’

  Of course; he doesn’t want to raise my hopes. ‘So you persuaded me to come and see you without him knowing?’