Before I Go to Sleep (32 page)

‘Chris,’ he began, then, ‘What—’

‘It’s not fair, Ben,’ I said. ‘You have no right to keep these things to yourself. To tell me lies just because it’s easier for you. No right.’

He stood up. ‘Easier for me?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Easier for me? You think I told you that Claire lives abroad because it was easier for me? You’re wrong, Christine. Wrong. None of this is easy for me. None of it. I don’t tell you you’ve written a novel because I can’t bear to remember how much you wanted to write another, or to see the pain when you realize you never will. I told you that Claire lives abroad because I can’t stand to hear the pain in your voice when you realize that she abandoned you in that place. Left you there to rot, like all the others.’ He waited for a reaction. ‘Did she tell you that?’ he said when none came, and I thought, No, no she didn’t, and in fact today I read in my journal that she used to visit me all the time.

He said it again. ‘Did she tell you that? That she stopped visiting as soon as she realized that fifteen minutes after she left you’d forgotten she even existed? Sure, she might ring up at Christmas to find out how you’re doing, but it was me who stood by you, Chris. Me who visited you every single day. Me who was there, who waited, praying for you to be well enough that I could come and take you away from there, and bring you here, to live with me, in safety. Me. I didn’t lie to you because it was easy for me. Don’t you ever make the mistake of thinking that I did. Don’t you ever!’

I remembered reading what Dr Nash had told me. I looked him in the eye. Except you didn’t, I thought. You didn’t stand by me.

‘Claire said you divorced me.’

He froze, then stepped back, as if punched. His mouth opened, then closed. It was almost comical. At last a single word escaped.

‘Bitch.’

His face melted into fury. I thought he was going to hit me, but found I didn’t care.

‘Did you divorce me?’ I said. ‘Is it true?’

‘Darling—’

I stood up. ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Tell me!’ We stood, opposite each other. I didn’t know what he was going to do, didn’t know what I wanted him to do. I only knew I needed him to be honest. To tell me no more lies. ‘I just want the truth.’

He stepped forward and fell to his knees in front of me, grasping for my hands. ‘Darling—’

‘Did you divorce me? Is it true, Ben? Tell me!’ His head dropped, then he looked up at me, his eyes wide, frightened. ‘Ben!’ I shouted. He began to cry. ‘Ben. She told me about Adam, too. She told me we had a son. I know he’s dead.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought it was for the best.’ And then, through gentle sobs, he said he would tell me everything.

The light had faded completely, night replacing dusk. Ben switched on a lamp and we sat in its rosy glow, opposite each other, across the dining table. There was a pile of photographs between us, the same ones I had looked at earlier. I feigned surprise as he passed each one to me, telling me of its origins. He lingered on the photos of our wedding – telling me what an amazing day it had been, how special, explaining how beautiful I had looked – but then began to get upset. ‘I never stopped loving you, Christine,’ he said. ‘You have to believe that. It was your illness. You had to go into that place, and, well … I couldn’t … I couldn’t bear it. I would’ve followed you. I would’ve done anything to get you back. Anything. But they … they wouldn’t … I couldn’t see you … they said it was for the best.’

‘Who?’ I said. ‘Who said?’ He was silent. ‘The doctors?’

He looked up at me. He was crying, his eyes circled with red.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. The doctors. They said it was for the best. It was the only way …’ He wiped away a tear. ‘I did as they told me. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d fought for you. I was weak, and stupid.’ His voice softened to a whisper. ‘I stopped seeing you, yes,’ he said, ‘but for your own sake. Even though it nearly killed me, I did it for you, Christine. You have to believe me. You, and our son. But I never divorced you. Not really. Not here.’ He leaned over and took my hand, pressing it to his shirt. ‘Here, we’ve always been married. We’ve always been together.’ I felt warm cotton, damp with sweat. The quick beat of his heart. Love.

I have been so foolish, I thought. I have allowed myself to believe he did these things to hurt me, when really he tells me he has done them out of love. I should not condemn him. Instead I should try to understand.

‘I forgive you,’ I said.

Thursday, 22 November

Today, when I woke up, I opened my eyes and saw a man sitting on a chair in the room in which I found myself. He was sitting perfectly still. Watching me. Waiting.

I didn’t panic. I didn’t know who he was, but I didn’t panic. Some part of me knew that everything was all right. That he had a right to be there.

‘Who are you?’ I said. ‘How did I get here?’ He told me. I felt no horror, no disbelief. I understood. I went to the bathroom and approached my reflection as I might a long-forgotten relative, or the ghost of my mother. Cautious. Curious. I dressed, getting used to my body’s new dimensions and unexpected behaviours, and then ate breakfast, dimly aware that, once, there might have been three places at the table. I kissed my husband goodbye and it didn’t feel wrong to do so; then, without knowing why, I opened the shoebox in the wardrobe, and found this journal. I knew straight away what it was. I had been looking for it.

The truth of my situation now sits nearer the surface. It is possible that one day I will wake up and know it already. Things will begin to make sense. Even then, I know, I will never be normal. My history is incomplete. Years have vanished, without trace. There are things about myself, my past, that no one can tell me. Not Dr Nash – who knows me only through what I have told him, what he has read in my journal and what is written in my file – and not Ben, either. Things that happened before I met him. Things that happened after but that I chose not to share. Secrets.

But there is one person who might know. One person who might tell me the rest of the truth. Who I had been seeing in Brighton. The real reason my best friend vanished from my life.

I have read this journal. I know that tomorrow I will meet Claire.

Friday, 23 November

I am writing this at home. The place I finally understand as mine, somewhere I belong. I have read this journal through, and I have seen Claire, and between them they have told me all I need to know. Claire has promised me that she is back in my life now and will not leave again. In front of me is a tatty envelope with my name on it. An artefact. One that completes me. At last my past makes sense.

Soon, my husband will be home, and I am looking forward to seeing him. I love him. I know that now.

I will get this story down and then, together, we will be able to make everything better.

It was a bright day as I got off the bus. The light was suffused with the blue coolness of winter, the ground hard. Claire had told me she would wait at the top of the hill, by the main steps up to the palace, and so I folded the piece of paper on which I had written her directions and began to climb the gentle incline as it arced around the park. It took longer than I expected, and, still unused to my body’s limitations, I had to rest as I neared the top. I must have been fit once, I thought. Or fitter than this, anyway. I wondered if I ought to get some exercise.

The park opened out to an expanse of mowed grass, criss-crossed with tarmac, dotted with litter bins and women with pushchairs. I realized I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. How could I? In the images I had of Claire she was wearing a lot of black. Jeans, T-shirts. I saw her in heavy boots and a trench coat. Or else she was wearing a long skirt, tie-dyed, made of some material that I suppose would be described as
floaty
. I could imagine neither vision representing her now – not at the age we have become – but had no idea what might have taken their place.

I looked at my watch. I was early. Without thinking, I told myself that Claire is always late, then instantly wondered how I knew, what residue of memory had reminded me. There is so much, I thought, just under the surface. So many memories, darting like silvery minnows in a shallow stream. I decided to wait on one of the benches.

Long shadows extended themselves lazily across the grass. Over the trees rows of houses stretched away from me, packed claustrophobically close. With a start I realized that one of the houses I could see was the one in which I now lived, looking indistinguishable from the others.

I imagined lighting a cigarette and inhaling an anxious lungful, tried to resist the temptation to stand and pace. I felt nervous, ridiculously so. Yet there was no reason. Claire had been my friend. My best friend. There was nothing to worry about. I was safe.

Paint was flaking off the bench and I picked at it, revealing more of the damp wood beneath. Someone had used the same method to scratch two sets of initials next to where I sat, then surrounded them with a heart and added the date. I closed my eyes. Will I ever get used to the shock of seeing evidence of the year in which I am living? I breathed in: damp grass, the tang of hot dogs, petrol.

A shadow fell across my face and I opened my eyes. A woman stood over me. Tall, with a shock of ginger hair, she was wearing trousers and a sheepskin jacket. A little boy held her hand, a plastic football in the crook of his other arm. ‘Sorry,’ I said, and shuffled along the bench to allow room for them both to sit beside me, but as I did so the woman smiled.

‘Chrissy!’ she said. The voice was Claire’s. Unmistakably so. ‘Chrissy darling! It’s me.’ I looked from the child to her face. It was furrowed where once it must have been smooth, her eyes had a downturn to them that was absent from my mental image, but it was
her
. There was no doubt. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘I’ve been so worried about you.’ She pushed the child towards me. ‘This is Toby.’

The boy looked at me. ‘Go on,’ said Claire. ‘Say hello.’ For a moment I thought she was talking to me, but then he took a step forward. I smiled. My only thought was, is this Adam? even though I knew it couldn’t be.

‘Hello,’ I said.

Toby shuffled his feet and murmured something I didn’t catch, then turned to Claire and said, ‘Can I go and play now?’

‘Don’t go out of sight, though. Yes?’ She stroked his hair and he ran over to the park.

I stood up and turned to face her. I didn’t know if I would have preferred to turn and run myself, so vast was the chasm between us, but then she held out her arms. ‘Chrissy darling,’ she said, the plastic bracelets that hung from her wrists clattering into each other. ‘I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so fucking much.’ The weight that had been pressing down on me somersaulted, lifted and vanished, and I fell sobbing into her arms.

For the briefest of moments I felt as if I knew everything about her, and everything about myself, too. It was as if the emptiness, the void that sat at the centre of my soul, had been lit with light brighter than the sun. A history – my history – flashed in front of me, but too quickly for me to do anything but snatch at it. ‘I remember you,’ I said. ‘I remember you,’ and then it was gone and the darkness swept in once more.

We sat on the bench and, for a long time, silently watched Toby playing football with a group of boys. I felt happy to be connected with my unknown past, yet there was an awkwardness between us that I could not shake. A phrase kept repeating in my head.
Something to do with Claire
.

‘How are you?’ I said in the end, and she laughed.

‘I feel like hell,’ she said. She opened her bag and took out a packet of tobacco. ‘You haven’t started again, have you?’ she said, offering it to me, and I shook my head, aware again of how she was someone else who knew so much more about me than I did myself.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

She began to roll her cigarette, nodding towards her son. ‘Oh, you know. Tobes has ADHD. He was up all night, and hence so was I.’

‘ADHD?’ I said.

She smiled. ‘Sorry. It’s a fairly new phrase, I suppose. Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. We have to give him Ritalin, though I fucking hate it. It’s the only way. We’ve tried just about everything else, and he’s an absolute beast without it. A horror.’

I looked over at him, running in the distance. Another faulty, fucked-up brain in a healthy body.

‘He’s OK, though?’

‘Yes,’ she said, sighing. She balanced her cigarette paper on her knee and began sprinkling tobacco along its fold. ‘He’s just exhausting sometimes. It’s like the terrible twos never ended.’

I smiled. I knew what she meant, but only theoretically. I had no point of reference, no recollection of what Adam might have been like, either at Toby’s age or younger.

‘Toby seems quite young?’ I said.

She laughed. ‘You mean I’m quite old!’ She licked the gum of her paper. ‘Yes. I had him late. Pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen, so we were being careless …’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You mean …?’

She laughed again. ‘I wouldn’t say he was an accident, but let’s just say he was something of a shock.’ She put the cigarette in her mouth. ‘Do you remember Adam?’

I looked at her. She had her head turned away from me, shielding her lighter from the wind, and I couldn’t see her expression, or tell whether the move was deliberately evasive.