Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

He stopped the car. Switched off the engine. I opened my eyes. We had left the main road and in front of me was a park. Through the blur of my tears I could see a group of boys — teenagers, I suppose — playing football, with two piles of coats for goal posts. It had begun to rain, but they didn’t stop. Dr Nash turned to face me.

‘Christine,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps today was a mistake. I don’t know. I thought we might trigger other memories. I was wrong. In any case, you shouldn’t’ve seen that picture …’

‘I don’t even know if it was the picture,’ I said. I had stopped sobbing now, but my face was wet and I could feel a great looping mass of mucus escaping from my nose. ‘Do you have a tissue?’ I asked. He reached across me and looked in the glove compartment. ‘It was everything,’ I went on. ‘Seeing those people, imagining that I’d been like that, once. And the diary. I can’t believe that was me, writing that. I can’t believe I was that ill.’

He handed me a tissue. ‘But you’re not any more,’ he said. I took it from him and blew my nose.

‘Maybe it’s worse,’ I said, quietly. ‘I’d written that it was like being dead. But this? This is worse. This is like dying every day. Over and over. I need to get better,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine going on like this for much longer. I know I’ll go to sleep tonight and then tomorrow I will wake up and not know anything again, and the next day, and the day after that, for ever. I can’t imagine it. I can’t face it. It’s not life, it’s just an existence, jumping from one moment to the next with no idea of the past, and no plan for the future. It’s how I imagine animals must be. The worst thing is that I don’t even know what I don’t know. There might be lots of things, waiting to hurt me. Things I haven’t even dreamed about yet.’

He put his hand on mine. I fell into him, knowing what he would do, what he must do, and he did. He opened his arms and held me, and I let him embrace me. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’ I could feel his chest under my cheek and I breathed, inhaling his scent, fresh laundry and, faintly, something else. Sweat, and sex. His hand was on my back and I felt it move, felt it touch my hair, my head, lightly at first, but then more firmly as I sobbed again. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said, whispering, and I closed my eyes.

‘I just want to remember what happened,’ I said, ‘on the night I was attacked. Somehow I feel that if I could only remember that, then I would remember everything.’

He spoke softly. ‘There’s no evidence that’s the case. No reason—’

‘But it’s what I think,’ I said. ‘I know it, somehow.’

He squeezed me. Gently, almost so gently that I couldn’t feel it. I felt his body, hard against mine, and breathed in deeply, and as I did so I thought of another time when I was being held. Another memory. My eyes are closed, just the same, and my body is being pressed up against that of another, though this is different. I do not want to be held by this man. He is hurting me. I am struggling, trying to get away, but he is strong and pulls me to him. He speaks. Bitch, he says. Slut. And though I want to argue with him I do not. My face is pressed against his shirt, and, just like with Dr Nash, I am crying, screaming. I open my eyes and see the blue fabric of his shirt, a door, a dressing table with three mirrors and a picture — a painting of a bird — above it. I can see his arm, strong, muscled, a vein running down its length. Let me go! I say, and then I am spinning, and falling, or the floor is rising to meet me, I cannot tell. He grabs a handful of my hair and drags me towards the door. I twist my head to see his face.

It is there that memory fails me again. Though I remember looking at his face, I cannot remember what I saw. It is featureless, a blank. As if unable to cope with this vacuum, my mind cycles through faces I know, through absurd impossibilities. I see Dr Nash. Dr Wilson. The receptionist at Fisher Ward. My father. Ben. I even see my own face, laughing as I raise a fist to strike.

Please, I cry, please don’t. But my many-faced attacker hits anyway, and I taste blood. He drags me along the floor, and then I am in the bathroom, on the cold tiles, black and white. The floor is damp with condensation, the room smells of orange blossom, and I remember how I had been looking forward to bathing, to making myself beautiful, thinking that maybe I would still be in the bath when he arrived, and then he could join me, and we would make love, making waves in the soapy water, soaking the floor, our clothes, everything. Because finally, after all these months of doubt, it has become clear to me. I love this man. Finally, I know it. I love him.

My head slams into the floor. Once, twice, a third time. My vision blurs and doubles, then returns. A buzzing in my ears, and he shouts something, but I can’t hear what. It echoes, as if there are two of him, both holding me, both twisting my arm, both grabbing handfuls of my hair as they kneel on my back. I beg him to leave me alone, and there are two of me, too. I swallow. Blood.

My head jerks back. Panic. I am on my knees. I see water, bubbles, already thinning. I try to speak but cannot. His hand is round my throat, and I cannot breathe. I am pitched forward, down, down, so quickly that I think I will never stop, and then my head is in the water. Orange blossom in my throat.

I heard a voice. ‘Christine!’ it said. ‘Christine! Stop!’ I opened my eyes. Somehow, I was out of the car. I was running. Across the park, as fast as I could, and running after me was Dr Nash.

We sat on a bench. It was concrete, crossed with wooden slats. One was missing, and the remainder sagged beneath us. I felt the sun against the back of my neck, saw its long shadows on the ground. The boys were still playing football, though the game must be finishing now; some were drifting off, others talked, one of the piles of jackets had been removed, leaving the goal unmarked. Dr Nash had asked me what had happened.

‘I remembered something,’ I said.

‘About the night you were attacked?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘How did you know?’

‘You were screaming,’ he said. ‘You kept saying, “Get off me,” over and over.’

‘It was like I was there,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Please, don’t apologize. Do you want to tell me what you saw?’

The truth was I did not. I felt as if some ancient instinct was telling me that this was a memory best kept to myself. But I needed his help, knew I could trust him. I told him everything.

When I had finished he was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Anything else?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t remember what he looked like? The man who attacked you?’

‘No. I can’t see that at all.’

‘Or his name?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing.’ I hesitated. ‘Do you think it might help to know who did this to me? To see him? Remember him?’

‘Christine, there’s no real evidence to suggest that remembering the attack would help.’

‘But it might?’

‘It seems to be one of your most deeply repressed memories—’

‘So it might?’

He was silent, then said, ‘I’ve suggested it before, but it might help to go back there …’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No. Don’t even say it.’

‘We can go together. You’d be fine, I promise. If you were there again … Back in Brighton—’

‘No.’

‘You might remember then—’

‘No! Please!’

‘It might help?’

I looked down at my hands, folded in my lap.

‘I can’t go back there,’ I said. ‘I just can’t.’

He sighed. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Maybe we’ll talk about it again?’

‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I can’t.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK.’

He smiled, but seemed disappointed. I felt eager to give him something, to have him not give up on me. ‘Dr Nash?’ I said.

‘Yes?’

‘The other day I wrote that something had come to me. Perhaps it’s relevant. I don’t know.’

He turned to face me.

‘Go on.’ Our knees touched. Neither of us drew away.