Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

‘OK,’ she said. ‘But let’s sit down. I’m just gasping for a coffee.’

We walked up to the main building.

The cafeteria doubled as a bar. The chairs were steel, the tables plain. Palm trees were dotted around, an attempt at atmosphere ruined by the cold air that blasted in whenever someone opened the door. We sat opposite each other across a table that swam with spilled coffee, warming our hands on our drinks.

‘What happened?’ I said again. ‘I need to know.’

‘It’s not easy to say,’ said Claire. She spoke slowly as if picking her way through difficult terrain. ‘I suppose it started not long after you had Adam. Once the initial excitement had worn off there was a period when things were extremely tough.’ She paused. ‘It’s so difficult, isn’t it? To see what’s going on when you’re in the absolute middle of something? It’s only with hindsight we can see things for what they are.’ I nodded, but didn’t understand. Hindsight is something I don’t have. She went on. ‘You cried, awfully. You worried you weren’t bonding with the baby. All the usual stuff. Ben and I did what we could, and your mother, when she was around, but it was tough. And even when the absolute worst was over you still found it hard. You couldn’t get back into your work. You’d call me up, in the middle of the day. Upset. You said you felt like a failure. Not a failure at motherhood — you could see how happy Adam was — but a failure as a writer. You thought you’d never be able to write again. I’d come round and see you, and you’d be in a mess. Crying, the works.’ I wondered what was coming next — how bad it would get — then she said, ‘You and Ben were arguing, too. You resented him, how easy he found life. He offered to pay for a nanny but, well …’

‘Well?’

‘You said that was typical of him. To throw money at the problem. You had a point, but … Perhaps you weren’t being terribly fair.’

Perhaps not, I thought. It struck me that back then we must have had money — more money than we had after I lost my memory, more money than I guess we have now. What a drain on our resources my illness must have been.

I tried to picture myself, arguing with Ben, looking after a baby, trying to write. I imagined bottles of milk, or Adam at my breast. Dirty nappies. Mornings in which getting both myself and my baby fed were the only ambitions I could reasonably have, and afternoons in which I was so exhausted the only thing I craved was sleep — sleep that was still hours away — and the thought of trying to write was pushed far from my mind. I could see it all, and feel the slow, burning resentment.

But that’s all they were. Imaginings. I remembered nothing. Claire’s story felt like it had nothing to do with me at all.

‘So I had an affair?’

She looked up. ‘I was free. I was doing my painting then. I said I’d look after Adam two afternoons a week, so you could write. I insisted.’ She took my hand in hers. ‘It was my fault, Chrissy. I even suggested you go to a cafe.’

‘A cafe?’ I said.

‘I thought it would be a good idea if you got out of the house. Gave yourself space. A few hours a week, away from everything. After a few weeks you seemed to get better. You were happier in yourself, you said your work was going well. You started going to the cafe almost every day, taking Adam when I couldn’t look after him. But then I noticed that you were dressing differently, too. The classic thing, though I didn’t realize what it was at the time. I thought it was just because you were feeling better. More confident. But then Ben called me, one evening. He’d been drinking, I think. He said you were arguing, more than ever, and he didn’t know what to do. You were off sex, too. I told him it was probably just because of the baby, that he was probably worrying unnecessarily. But—’

I interrupted. ‘I was seeing someone.’

‘I asked you. You denied it at first, but then I told you I wasn’t stupid, and neither was Ben. We had an argument, but after a while you told me the truth.’

The truth. Not glamorous, not exciting. Just the bald facts. I had turned into a living cliche, taken to fucking someone I’d met in a cafe while my best friend was babysitting my child and my husband was earning the money to pay for the clothes and underwear I was wearing for someone other than him. I pictured the furtive phone calls, the aborted arrangements when something unexpected came up and, on the days we could get together, the sordid, pathetic afternoons, spent in bed with a man who had temporarily seemed better — more exciting? attractive? a better lover? richer? — than my husband. Was this the man I had been waiting for in that hotel room, the man who would eventually attack me, leave me with no past and no future?

I closed my eyes. A flash of memory. Hands gripping my hair, around my throat. My head under water. Gasping, crying. I remember what I was thinking. I want to see my son. One last time. I want to see my husband. I should never have done this to him. I should never have betrayed him with this man. I will never be able to tell him I am sorry. Never.

I open my eyes. Claire was squeezing my hand. ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

‘Tell me,’ I said.

‘I don’t know whether—’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Tell me. Who was it?’

She sighed. ‘You said you’d met someone else who went to the cafe regularly. He was nice, you said. Attractive. You’d tried, but you hadn’t been able to stop yourself.’

‘What was his name?’ I said. ‘Who was he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You must!’ I said. ‘His name at least! Who did this to me?’

She looked into my eyes. ‘Chrissy,’ she said, her voice calm, ‘you never even told me his name. You just said you’d met him in a coffee shop. I suppose you didn’t want me to know any details. Any more than I had to, at least.’

I felt another sliver of hope slip away, washed downstream in the river. I would never know who did this to me.

‘What happened?’

‘I told you that I thought you were being silly. There was Adam to think about, as well as Ben. I thought you ought to call it off. Stop seeing him.’

‘But I wouldn’t listen.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not at first. We fought. I told you that you were putting me in an impossible situation. Ben was my friend too. You were asking me to lie to him.’

‘What happened? How long did it go on for?’

She was silent, then said, ‘I don’t know. One day — it must have been only a few weeks — you announced that it was all over. You’d told this man that it wasn’t working, that you’d made a mistake. You said you were sorry, you’d been foolish. Crazy.’

‘I was lying?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. You and I didn’t lie to each other. We just didn’t.’ She blew across the top of her coffee. ‘A few weeks later you were found in Brighton,’ she said. ‘I have no idea what happened in that time.’

Perhaps it was those words — I have no idea what happened in that time — that set it off, the realization that I may never know how I came to be attacked, but a sound suddenly escaped me. I tried to clamp it down, but failed. Something between a gasp and a howl, it was the cry of an animal in pain. Toby looked up from his colouring book. Everyone in the cafe turned to stare at me, at the mad woman with no memory. Claire grabbed my arm.

‘Chrissy!’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’

I was sobbing now, my body heaving, gasping for breath. Crying for all the years that I had lost, and for all those that I would continue to lose between now and the day that I died. Crying because, however hard it had been for her to tell me about the affair, and my marriage, and my son, she would have to do it all again tomorrow. Crying mostly, though, because I had brought all this on myself.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

Claire stood up and came round the table. She crouched beside me, her arm around my shoulder, and I rested my head against hers. ‘There, there,’ she said as I sobbed. ‘It’s all right, Chrissy darling. I’m here now. I’m