Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

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 title, 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 …