Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

here.’

We left the cafe. As if unwilling to be outdone, Toby had become boisterously noisy after my own outburst — he threw his colouring book on the floor, along with a plastic cup of juice. Claire cleaned up and then said, ‘I need to get some air. Shall we?’

Now we sat on one of the benches that overlooked the park. Our knees were angled towards each other, and Claire held my hands in hers, stroking them as if they were cold.

‘Did I—’ I began. ‘Did I have lots of affairs?’

She shook her head. ‘No. None. We had fun at university, you know? But no more than most. And once you met Ben that stopped. You were always faithful to him.’

I wondered what had been so special about the man in the cafe. Claire had said that I’d told her he was nice. Attractive. Was that all it was? Was I really so shallow?

My husband was both of those things, I thought. If only I’d been content with what I had.

‘Ben knew I was having an affair?’

‘Not at first. No. Not until you were found. It was a dreadful shock for him. For all of us. At first it looked as though you might not even live. Later, Ben asked me if I knew why you’d been in Brighton. I told him. I had to. I’d already told the police all I knew. I had no choice but to tell Ben.’

Guilt punctured me once more as I thought of my husband, of the father of my son, trying to work out why his dying wife had turned up miles away from home. How could I do this to him?

‘He forgave you, though,’ said Claire. ‘He never held it against you, ever. All he cared about was that you lived, and that you got better. He would have given everything for that. Everything. Nothing else mattered.’

I felt a surge of love for my husband. Real. Unforced. Despite everything, he had taken me in. Looked after me.

‘Will you talk to him?’ I said.

She smiled. ‘Of course! But about what?’

‘He’s not telling me the truth,’ I said. ‘Or not always, anyway. He’s trying to protect me. He tells me what he thinks I can cope with, what he thinks I want to hear.’

‘Ben wouldn’t do that,’ she said. ‘He loves you. He always has.’

‘Well, he is,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t know I know. He doesn’t know I’m writing things down. He doesn’t tell me about Adam, other than when I remember him and ask. He doesn’t tell me he left me. He tells me you live on the other side of the world. He doesn’t think I can cope. He’s given up on me, Claire. Whatever he used to be like, he’s given up on me. He doesn’t want me to see a doctor because he doesn’t think I will ever get any better, but I’ve been seeing one, Claire. A Dr Nash. In secret. I can’t even tell Ben.’

Claire’s face fell. She looked disappointed. In me, I suppose. ‘That’s not good,’ she said. ‘You ought to tell him. He loves you. He trusts you.’

‘I can’t. He only admitted he was still in touch with you the other day. Until then he’d been saying he hadn’t spoken to you in years.’

Her expression of disapproval changed. For the first time I could see that she was surprised.

‘Chrissy!’

‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘I know he loves me. But I need him to be honest with me. About everything. I don’t know my own past. And only he can help me. I need him to help me.’

‘Then you should just talk to him. Trust him.’

‘But how can I?’ I said. ‘With all the things he’s lied to me about? How can I?’

She squeezed my hands in hers. ‘Chrissy, Ben loves you. You know he does. He loves you more than life itself. He always has.’

‘But—’ I began, but she interrupted.

‘You have to trust him. Believe me. You can sort everything out, but you have to tell him the truth. Tell him about Dr Nash. Tell him what you’ve been writing. It’s the only way.’

Somewhere, deep down, I knew she was right, but still I could not convince myself I should tell Ben about my journal.

‘But he might want to read what I’ve written.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘There’s nothing in there you wouldn’t want him to see, is there?’ I didn’t reply. ‘Is there? Chrissy?’

I looked away. We didn’t speak, and then she opened her bag.

‘Chrissy,’ she said. ‘I’m going to give you something. Ben gave it to me, when he decided he needed to leave you.’ She took out an envelope and handed it to me. It was creased, but still sealed. ‘He told me it explained everything.’ I stared at it. My name was written on the front in capitals. ‘He asked me to give it to you, if I ever thought you were well enough to read it.’ I looked up at her, feeling every emotion at once. Excitement, and fear. ‘I think it’s time you read it,’ she said.

I took it from her, and put it in my bag. Though I didn’t know why, I didn’t want to read it there, in front of Claire. Perhaps I was worried that she would be able to read its contents reflected in my face, and they would no longer be mine to own.

‘Thank you,’ I said. She did not smile.

‘Chrissy,’ she said. She looked down, at her hands. ‘There’s a reason Ben tells you I moved away.’ I felt my world begin to change, though in what way I was not yet certain. ‘I have to tell you something. About why we lost touch.’

I knew then. Without her saying anything, I knew. The missing piece of the puzzle, the reason Ben had gone, the reason my best friend had disappeared from my life and my husband had lied about why this had happened. I had been right. All along. I had been right.

‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘Oh God. It’s true. You’re seeing Ben. You’re fucking my husband.’

She looked up, horrified. ‘No!’ she said. ‘No!’

A certainty overtook me. I wanted to shout Liar! but I did not. I was about to ask her again what she wanted to tell me when she wiped something from her eye. A tear? I don’t know.

‘Not now,’ she whispered, then looked back to the hands in her lap. ‘But we were once.’

Of all the emotions I might have expected to feel, relief wasn’t one of them. But it was true: I felt relieved. Because she was being honest? Because now I had an explanation for everything, one that I could believe? I’m not sure. But the anger that I may have felt was not there; neither was the pain. Perhaps I was happy to feel a tiny spark of jealousy, concrete proof that I loved my husband. Perhaps I was just relieved that Ben had an infidelity to go with my own, that we were equal now. Quits.

‘Tell me,’ I whispered.

She did not look up. ‘We were always close,’ she said, softly. ‘The three of us, I mean. You. Me. Ben. But there had never been anything between me and him. You must believe that. Never.’ I told her to go on. ‘After your accident I tried to help out in whatever way I could. You can imagine how terribly difficult it was for Ben. Just on a practical level if nothing else. Having to look after Adam … I did what I could. We spent a lot of time together. But we didn’t sleep together. Not then. I swear, Chrissy.’

‘So when?’ I said. ‘When did it happen?’

‘Just before you were moved to Waring House,’ she said.

‘You were at your worst. Adam was being difficult. Things were tough.’ She looked away. ‘Ben was drinking. Not too much, but enough. He wasn’t coping. One night we got back from visiting you. I put Adam to bed. Ben was in the living room crying. “I can’t do it,” he kept saying. “I can’t keep doing this. I love her, but it’s killing me.”’

The wind gusted up the hill. Cold. Biting. I pulled my coat around my body.

‘I sat next to him. And …’

I could see it all. The hand on the shoulder, then the hug. The mouths that find each other through the tears, the moment when guilt and the certainty that things must go no further gives way to lust and the certainty that they cannot stop.

And then what? The fucking. On the sofa? The floor? I do not want to know.

‘And?’