Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel Read online

  I read again of the excitement I felt on the way home yesterday. It has disappeared. Now I feel content. Still. Cars pass. Occasionally someone walks by, a man, whistling, or a young mother taking her child to the park and then, later, away from it. In the distance a plane, coming in to land, seems almost to be stationary.

  The houses opposite are empty, the street quiet apart from the whistling man and the bark of an unhappy dog. The commotion of the morning, with its symphony of closing doors and sing-song goodbyes and revved engines, has disappeared. I feel alone in the world.

  It begins to rain. Large droplets spatter the window in front of my face, hang for a moment, and then, joined by others, begin their slow slide down the pane. I put my hand up to the cold glass.

  So much separates me from the rest of the world.

  I read of visiting the home I had shared with my husband. Was it really only yesterday those words were written? They do not feel as if they belong to me. I read of the day I had remembered too. Of kissing my husband — in the house we bought together, so long ago — and when I close my eyes I can see it again. It is dim at first, unfocused, but then the image shimmers and resolves, snapping to sharpness with an almost overwhelming intensity. My husband, tearing at my clothes. Ben, holding me, his kisses becoming more urgent, deeper. I remember we neither ate the fish nor drank the wine; instead, when we had finished making love we stayed in bed for as long as we could, our legs entwined, my head on his chest, his hand stroking my hair, semen drying on my stomach. We were silent. Happiness surrounded us like a cloud.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. He was whispering, as if he had never said those words before, and, though he must have done so many times, they sounded new. Forbidden and dangerous.

  I looked up at him, at the stubble on his chin, the flesh of his lips and the outline of his nose above them. ‘I love you too,’ I said, whispering into his chest as if the words were fragile. He squeezed my body to his, then, and kissed me, softly. The top of my head, my brow. I closed my eyes and he kissed my eyelids, barely brushing them with his lips. I felt safe, at home. I felt as if here, against his body, was the only place in which I belonged. The only place I had ever wanted to be. We lay in silence for a while, holding each other, our skin merging, our breathing synchronized. I felt as if silence might allow the moment to last for ever, which would still not be enough.

  Ben broke the spell. ‘I have to leave,’ he said, and I opened my eyes and took his hand in mine. It felt warm. Soft. I brought it to my mouth and kissed it. The taste of glass, and earth.

  ‘Already?’ I said.

  He kissed me again. ‘Yes. It’s later than you think. I’ll miss my train.’

  I felt my body plunge. Separation seemed unthinkable. Unbearable. ‘Stay a bit longer?’ I said. ‘Get the next one?’

  He laughed. ‘I can’t, Chris,’ he said. ‘You know that.’

  I kissed him again. ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know.’

  I showered, after he left. I took my time, soaping myself slowly, feeling the water on my skin as if it were a new sensation. In the bedroom I sprayed myself with perfume and put on my nightdress and a gown, and then I went downstairs, into the dining room.

  It was dark. I turned on the light. On the table in front of me was a typewriter, threaded with blank paper, and next to it a shallow stack of pages, turned face down. I sat down, in front of the machine. I began to type. Chapter Two.

  I paused then. I could not think what to write next, how to begin. I sighed, resting my fingers on the keyboard. It felt natural beneath me, cool and smooth, contoured to my fingertips. I closed my eyes and typed again.

  My fingers danced across the keys, automatically, almost without thought. When I opened my eyes I had typed a single sentence.

  Lizzy did not know what she had done, or how it could be undone.

  I looked at the sentence. Solid. Sitting there, on the page.

  Rubbish, I thought. I felt angry. I knew I could do better. I had done so before, two summers previously when the words had flown out of me, scattering my story on to the page like confetti. But now? Now something was wrong. Language had become solid, stiff. Hard.

  I took a pencil and drew a line through the sentence. I felt a little better with it scored out, but now I had nothing again; nowhere to start.

  I stood up and lit a cigarette from the packet that Ben had left on the table. I drew the smoke deep into my lungs, held it, exhaled. For a moment I wished it was weed, wondered where I could get some from, for next time. I poured myself a drink — neat vodka into a whisky tumbler — and took a mouthful. It would have to do. Writer’s block, I thought. How did I become such a fucking cliché?

  Last time. How did I do it last time? I went over to the bookcases that lined the wall of the dining room and, with the cigarette dangling between my lips, took down a book from the top shelf. There must be clues here, surely?

  I put the vodka down and turned the book over in my hands. I rested my fingertips on the cover, as if the book were delicate, and brushed them gently over the title. For the Morning Birds, it said. Christine Lucas. I opened the cover and flicked through the pages.

  *

  The image vanished. My eyes opened. The room I was in looked drab and grey, but my breathing was ragged. I dimly registered the surprise that I had once smoked, but it was replaced by something else. Was it true? Had I written a novel? Was it published? I stood up; my journal slid from my lap. If so, I had been someone, someone with a life, with goals and ambitions, and achievements. I ran down the stairs.

  Was it true? Ben had said nothing to me this morning. Nothing about being a writer. This morning I had read of our trip to Parliament Hill. There, he had told me I had been working as a secretary when I had my accident.

  I scanned the bookshelves in the living room. Dictionaries. An atlas. A guide to DIY. A few novels, hardback and, from their condition, I guessed unread. But nothing by me. Nothing to suggest I had had a novel published. I spun round, half crazy. It must be here, I thought. It must. But then another thought struck me. Perhaps my vision was not memory but invention. Perhaps, without a true history to hold and ponder, my mind had created one of its own. Perhaps my subconscious decided that I was a writer because that is what I always wanted to be.

  I ran back upstairs. The shelves in the office were filled with box files and computer manuals, and I had seen no books in either bedroom as I explored the house that morning. I stood for a moment, then saw the computer in front of me, silent and dark. I knew what to do, though I didn’t know how I knew. I switched it on and it whirred into life beneath the desk, the screen lighting up a moment later. A swell of music from the rattling speaker by the side of the screen, and then an image appeared. A photograph of Ben and me, both smiling. Across the middle of our faces there was a box. Username, it said, and beneath it there was another. Password.

  In my vision I was touch-typing, my fingers dancing over the keys as if powered by instinct. I positioned the flashing cursor in the box marked Username and held my hands above the keyboard. Was it true? Had I learned to type? I let my fingers rest on the raised letters. They moved, effortlessly, my little fingers seeking the keys over which they belonged, the rest falling into place beside them. I closed my eyes and, without thinking, began to type, listening only to the sound of my breathing and the plastic clatter of the keys. When I had finished I looked at what I had done, at what was written in the box. I expected nonsense, but what I saw shocked me.

  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

  I stared at the screen. It was true. I could touch-type. Maybe my vision was not invention but memory.

  Maybe I had written a novel.

  I ran into the bedroom. It didn’t make sense. For a moment I had the almost overwhelming feeling that I was going mad. The novel seemed to exist and not exist at the same time, to be real and also totally imaginary. I could remember nothing of it, nothing about its plot or characters, not even the reason I had given it its titl
e, yet still it felt real, as if it beat within me like a heart.

  And why had Ben not told me? Not kept a copy on display? I pictured it, hidden in the house, wrapped in tissue, stored in a box in the loft or the cellar. Why?

  An explanation came to me. Ben had told me I had been working as a secretary. Perhaps that was why I could type: the only reason.

  I dug one of the phones out of my bag, not caring which one, hardly even caring who I rang. My husband or my doctor? Both seemed equally alien to me. I flipped it open and scrolled through the menu until I saw a name I recognized, then pressed the call button.

  ‘Dr Nash?’ I said, when the call was answered. ‘It’s Christine.’ He began to say something but I interrupted him. ‘Listen. Did I ever write anything?’

  ‘Sorry?’ he said. He sounded confused, and for a moment I had the sense I had done something terribly wrong. I wondered whether he even knew who I was, but then he said, ‘Christine?’

  I repeated what I had said. ‘I just remembered something. That I was writing something, years ago, when I first knew Ben, I think. A novel. Did I ever write a novel?’

  He didn’t seem to understand what I meant. ‘A novel?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I seem to remember wanting to be a writer, when I was little. I just wondered whether I ever wrote anything. Ben told me I worked as a secretary, but I was just thinking—’

  ‘He hasn’t told you?’ he said. ‘You were working on your second novel when you lost your memory. Your first was published. It was a success. I wouldn’t say it was a bestseller, but it was certainly a success.’

  The words spun in on each other. A novel. A success. Published. It was true, my memory had been real. I didn’t know what to say. What to think.

  I said goodbye, then came upstairs to write this.

  The bedside clock reads ten thirty. I imagine Ben will come to bed soon, but still I sit here on the edge of the bed, writing. I spoke to him after dinner. I had spent the afternoon fretful, pacing from one room to another, looking at everything as if for the first time, wondering why he would so thoroughly remove evidence of even this modest success. It didn’t make sense. Was he ashamed? Embarrassed? Had I written about him, our life together? Or was the reason something worse? Something darker I could not yet see?

  By the time he got home I had resolved to ask him directly, but now? Now that did not seem possible. It felt like I would be accusing him of lying.

  I spoke as casually as I could. ‘Ben?’ I said. ‘What did I do for a living?’ He looked up from the newspaper. ‘Did I have a job?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You worked as a secretary for a while. Just after we were married.’

  I tried to keep my voice even. ‘Really? I have the feeling I used to want to write.’

  He folded his pages together, giving me his full attention.

  ‘A feeling?’

  ‘Yes. I definitely remember loving books as a child. And I seem to have a vague memory of wanting to be a writer.’ He held out his hand across the dinner table and took mine. His eyes seemed sad. Disappointed. What a shame, they seemed to say. Bad luck. I don’t suppose you ever will now. ‘Are you sure?’ I began. ‘I seem to remember—’

  He interrupted me. ‘Christine,’ he said, ‘please. You’re imagining things …’

  For the rest of the evening I was silent, hearing only the thoughts that echoed in my head. Why would he do that? Why would he pretend I had never written a word? Why? I watched him, asleep on the sofa, snoring softly. Why had I not told him that I knew I had written a novel? Did I really trust him so little? I had remembered us lying in each other’s arms, murmuring our love for each other as the sky grew darker. How had we gone from that to this?

  But then I began to imagine what would happen if I did stumble upon a copy of my novel in a cupboard or at the back of a high shelf. What would it say to me, other than, Look how far you have fallen. Look what you could do, before a car on an icy road took it all from you, leaving you worse than useless.

  It would not be a happy moment. I saw myself becoming hysterical — much more so than this afternoon when at least the realization was gradual, triggered by a longed-for memory — screaming, crying. The effect might be devastating.

  No wonder Ben might want to hide it from me. I picture him now, removing all the copies, burning them in the metal barbecue on the back porch, before deciding what to tell me. How best to reinvent my past to make it tolerable. What I needed to believe for the remainder of my years.

  But that is over now. I know the truth. My own truth, one I have not been told but have remembered. And it is written now, etched in this journal rather than my memory, but permanent nevertheless.

  I know that the book I am writing — my second, I realize with pride — may be dangerous, as well as necessary. It is not fiction. It may reveal things best left undiscovered. Secrets that ought not to see the light of day.

  But still my pen moves across the page.

  Wednesday, 14 November

  This morning I asked Ben if he’d ever grown a moustache. I was still feeling confused, unsure of what was true and what not. I had woken early and, unlike previous days, had not thought I was still a child. I had felt adult. Sexual. The question in my mind was not Why am I in bed with a man? but instead, Who is he? and What did we do? In the bathroom I looked at my reflection with horror, but the pictures around it seemed to resonate with truth. I saw the man’s name — Ben — and it was familiar, somehow. My age, my marriage, these facts seemed to be things I was being reminded of, not told about for the first time. Buried, but not deeply.

  Dr Nash called me almost as soon as Ben left for work. He reminded me about my journal and then — once he had told me that he would be picking me up later to take me for my scan — I read it. There were a few things in it I could perhaps recall, and maybe whole passages I could remember writing. It was as if some residue of memory had survived the night.

  Perhaps that was why I had to be sure the things contained within it were true. I called Ben.

  ‘Ben,’ I said, once he’d told me he wasn’t busy. ‘Did you ever have a moustache?’

  ‘That’s an odd question!’ he said. I heard the clink of a spoon against a cup and pictured him spooning sugar into his coffee, a newspaper spread in front of him. I felt awkward. Unsure how much to say.

  ‘I just—’ I began. ‘I had a memory, I think.’

  Silence. ‘A memory?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think so.’ My mind flashed on the things I had written about the other day — his moustache, his naked body, his erection — and those I had remembered yesterday. The two of us in bed. Kissing. Briefly they were illuminated, before sinking back into the depths. Suddenly I felt afraid. ‘I just seem to remember you with a moustache.’

  He laughed, and I heard him put down his drink. I felt solid ground begin to slip away. Maybe everything I had written was a lie. I am a novelist, after all, I thought. Or I used to be.

  The futility of my logic hit me. I used to write fiction, therefore my assertion that I had been a novelist might be one of those fictions. In which case I had not written fiction. My head spun.

  It had felt true, though. I told myself that. Plus I could touch-type. Or I had written that I could …

  ‘Did you?’ I asked, desperate. ‘It’s just … it’s important.’

  ‘Let’s think,’ he said. I imagined him closing his eyes, biting his bottom lip in a parody of concentration. ‘I suppose I might have done, once,’ he said. ‘Very briefly. It was years ago. I forget …’ A pause, then, ‘Yes. Actually, yes. I think I probably did. For a week or so. A long time ago.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, relieved. The ground on which I stood felt a little more secure.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked, and I said that I was.

  Dr Nash picked me up at midday. He’d told me to have some lunch first, but I wasn’t hungry. Nervous, I suppose. ‘We’re meeting a colleague of mine,’ he said in the car. ‘Dr Paxton.’
I said nothing. ‘He’s an expert in the field of functional imaging of patients with problems like yours. We’ve been working together.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, and now we sat in his car, stationary in stuck traffic. ‘Did I call you yesterday?’ I asked. He said that I had.

  ‘You read your journal?’

  ‘Most of it. I skipped bits. It’s already quite long.’

  He seemed interested. ‘What sections did you skip?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘There are parts that seem familiar to me. I suppose they feel as if they’re just reminding me of things I already know. Already remember …’

  ‘That’s good.’ He glancied at me. ‘Very good.’

  I felt a glow of pleasure. ‘So what did I call about? Yesterday?’

  ‘You wanted to know if you’d really written a novel,’ he said.

  ‘And had I? Have I?’

  He turned back to me. He was smiling. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, you have.’

  The traffic moved again and we pulled away. I felt relief. I knew what I had written was true. I relaxed into the journey.

  Dr Paxton was older than I expected. He was wearing a tweed jacket, and white hair sprouted unchecked from his ears and nose. He looked as though he ought to have retired.

  ‘Welcome to the Vincent Hall Imaging Centre,’ he said once Dr Nash had introduced us, and then, without taking his eyes off mine, he winked and shook my hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he added. ‘It’s not as grand as it sounds. Here, come in. Let me show you round.’