Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

what is convenient?

Whatever’s quickest, too. He must be so bored with telling me the same thing, over and over again, every day. It occurs to me that the reason he shortens explanations and changes stories is not to do with me at all. Perhaps it’s so that he doesn’t drive himself crazy with the constant repetition.

I feel like I am going mad. Everything is fluid, everything shifts. I think one thing and then, a moment later, the opposite. I believe everything my husband says, and then I believe nothing. I trust him, and then I don’t. Nothing feels real, everything invented. Even myself.

I wish I knew one thing for certain. One single thing that I have not had to be told, about which I don’t need to be reminded.

I wish I knew who I was with, that day in Brighton. I wish I knew who did this to me.

Later. I have just finished speaking to Dr Nash. I was dozing in the living room when the phone rang. The television was on, the sound turned down. For a moment I couldn’t tell where I was, whether I was asleep or awake. I thought I heard voices, getting louder. I realized one was mine, and the other sounded like Ben. But he was saying, You fucking bitch, and worse. I screamed at him, in anger, and then in fear. A door slammed, the thud of a fist, breaking glass. It was then I realized I was dreaming.

I opened my eyes. A chipped mug of cold coffee sat on the table in front of me, a phone buzzed nervously next to it. The one that flips open. I picked it up.

It was Dr Nash. He introduced himself, though his voice had sounded familiar anyway. He asked me if I was OK. I told him I was, and that I’d read my journal.

‘You know what we talked about yesterday?’ he said.

I felt a flash of shock. Horror. He had decided to tackle things, then. I felt a bubble of hope — perhaps he really had felt the same way I had, the same confused mix of desire and fear — but it didn’t last. ‘About going to the place where you lived after you left the ward?’ he said. ‘Waring House?’

I said, ‘Yes.’

‘Well, I called them this morning. It’s all fine. We can go and visit. They said pretty much any time we liked.’ The future. Again it seemed almost irrelevant to me. ‘I’m busy over the next couple of days,’ he said. ‘We could go on Thursday?’

‘That seems fine,’ I said. It didn’t seem to matter to me when we went. I was not optimistic it would help in any case.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll call you.’

I was about to say goodbye when I remembered what I had been writing before I dozed. I realized that my sleep couldn’t have been deep, or else I would have forgotten everything.

‘Dr Nash?’ I said. ‘Can I talk to you about something?’

‘Yes?’

‘About Ben?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, it’s just that I’m confused. He doesn’t tell me about things. Important things. Adam. My novel. And he lies about other things. He tells me it was an accident that caused me to be like this.’

‘OK,’ he said. A pause. ‘Why do you think he does this?’ He emphasized the you rather than the why.

I thought for a second. ‘He doesn’t know I’m writing things down. He doesn’t know I know any different. I suppose it’s easier for him.’

‘Just him?’

‘No. I suppose it’s easier for me, too. Or he thinks it is. But it isn’t. It just means I don’t even know if I can trust him.’

‘Christine, we’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it. Isn’t that what Ben’s doing?’

‘I suppose,’ I said. ‘But I feel like he’s taking advantage of me. Advantage of my illness. He thinks he can rewrite history in any way that he likes and I will never know, never be any the wiser. But I do know. I know exactly what he’s doing. And so I don’t trust him. In the end he’s pushing me away, Dr Nash. Ruining everything.’

‘So,’ he said. ‘What do you think you can do about it?’

I knew the answer already. I have read what I wrote this morning, over and over. About how I should trust him. About how I don’t. In the end all I could think of was: This cannot go on.

‘I have to tell him I am writing my journal,’ I said. ‘I have to tell him I have been seeing you.’

He said nothing for a moment. I don’t know what I expected. Disapproval? But when he spoke he said, ‘I think you might be right.’

Relief flooded me. ‘You agree?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking for a couple of days it might be wise. I had no idea that Ben’s version of the past would be so different from what you’re starting to remember. No idea how upsetting that might be. But it also occurs to me that we’re only really getting half the picture now. From what you’ve said, more and more of your repressed memories are beginning to emerge. It might be helpful for you to talk with Ben. About the past. It might help that process.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think perhaps keeping our work from Ben was a mistake. Plus I spoke to the staff at Waring House today. I wanted to get an idea of what things were like there. I spoke to a woman you became close to. One of the staff. Her name is Nicole. She told me that she’s only recently returned to work there, but she was so happy when she found out that you’d gone back to live at home. She said no one could have loved you more than Ben. He came to see you pretty much every day. She said he would sit with you, in your room, or the gardens. And he tried so hard to be cheerful, despite everything. They all got to know him very well. They looked forward to him coming.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Why don’t you suggest Ben comes with us when we go and visit?’ Another pause. ‘I probably ought to meet him anyway.’

‘You’ve never met?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We only spoke briefly on the phone when I first approached him about meeting you. It didn’t go too well …’

It struck me then. That was the reason he was suggesting I invite Ben. He wanted to meet him, finally. He wants to bring everything into the open, to make sure that the awkwardness of yesterday can never be repeated.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘If you think so.’

He said that he did. He waited for a long time, and then he said, ‘Christine? You said you’d read your journal?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He waited again. ‘I didn’t ring this morning. I didn’t tell you where it was.’

I realized it was true. I had gone to the wardrobe myself and, though I didn’t know what I would find inside it, I found the shoebox and opened it almost without thinking. I had found it myself. As if I had remembered it would be there.

‘That’s excellent,’ he said.

I am writing this in bed. It is late, but Ben is in his office, across the landing. I can hear him work, the clatter of the keyboard, the click of the mouse. I can hear an occasional sigh, the creak of his chair. I imagine him squinting at the screen, deep in concentration. I trust that I will hear him switch off his machine in readiness for bed, that I will have time to hide my journal when he does. Now, despite what I thought this morning and agreed with Dr