‘Ben?’
‘There were arguments,’ he says.
‘Before Adam died, or after?’
‘Both.’
The illusion of support vanishes, replaced by a sick feeling. What if Adam and I had fought too? Surely he would have sided with his girlfriend, over his mother?
‘Were Adam and I close?’ I say.
‘Oh yes,’ says Ben. ‘Until you had to go to the hospital. Until you lost your memory. Even then you were close, of course. As close as you could be.’
His words hit me like a punch. I realize that Adam was a toddler when he lost his mother to amnesia. Of course I had never known my son’s fiancee; every day I saw him would have been like the first.
I close the book.
‘Can we bring it with us?’ I say. ‘I’d like to look at it some more later.’
We have a drink, cups of tea that Ben made in the kitchen as I finished packing for the journey, and then we get into the car. I check I have my handbag, my journal still within it. Ben has added a few things to the bag I packed for him, and he has brought another bag, too — the leather satchel that he left with this morning — as well as two pairs of walking boots from the back of the wardrobe. I had stood by the door as he loaded these things into the boot and then waited while he checked the doors were closed, the windows locked. Now, I ask him how long the journey may take.
He shrugs his shoulders. ‘Depends on the traffic,’ he says. ‘Not too long, once we’re out of London.’
A refusal to provide an answer, disguised as an answer itself. I wonder if this is what he is always like. I wonder if years of telling me the same thing have worn him down, bored him to the point where he can no longer bring himself to tell me anything.
He is a careful driver, that much I can see. He proceeds slowly, checking his mirror frequently, slowing down at the merest hint of an approaching hazard.
I wonder if Adam drove. I suppose he must have done so to be in the army, but did he ever drive when he was on leave? Did he pick me up, his invalid mother, and take me on trips, to places he thought I might like? Or did he decide there was no point, that whatever enjoyment I might have had at the time would disappear overnight like snow melting on a warm roof?
We are on the motorway, heading out of the city. It has begun to rain; huge droplets smack into the windscreen, hold their shape for a moment before beginning the swift slide down the glass. In the distance the lights of the city bathe the concrete and glass in a soft orange glow. It is beautiful and terrible, but I am struggling inside. I want so much to think of my son as something other than abstract, but without a concrete memory of him I cannot. I keep coming back to the single truth: I cannot remember him, and so he might as well never have existed.
I close my eyes. I think back to what I read about our son this afternoon and an image explodes in front of me — Adam as a toddler pushing the blue tricycle along a path. But even as I marvel at it I know it is not real. I know I am not remembering the thing that happened, I am remembering the image I formed in my mind this afternoon as I read about the thing, and even that was a recollection of an earlier memory. Memories of memories, most people’s going back through years, through decades, but, for me, just a few hours.
Failing to remember my son I do the next best thing, the only thing to quieten my sparking mind. I think of nothing. Nothing at all.
The smell of petrol, thick and sweet. There is a pain in my neck. I open my eyes. Up close I see the wet windscreen, misted with my breath, and beyond it there are distant lights, blurred, out of focus. I realize that I have been dozing. I am leaning against the glass, my head twisted awkwardly. The car is silent, the engine off. I look over my shoulder.
Ben is there, sitting next to me. He is awake, looking ahead, out of the window. He doesn’t move, doesn’t even seem to have noticed that I have woken up, but instead continues to stare, his expression blank, unreadable in the dark. I turn to see what he is looking at.
Beyond the rain-spattered windscreen is the bonnet of the car, and beyond that a low wooden fence, dimly illuminated in the glow from the street-lamps behind us. Beyond the fence I see nothing, a blackness, huge and mysterious, in the middle of which hangs the moon, full and low.
‘I love the sea,’ he says, without looking at me, and I realize we are parked on a cliff top, have made it as far as the coast.
‘Don’t you?’ He turns to me. His eyes seem impossibly sad. ‘You do love the sea, don’t you, Chris?’ he says.
‘I do,’ I say. ‘Yes.’ He is speaking as if he doesn’t know, as if we have never been to the coast before, as if we have never been on holiday together. Fear begins to burn within me, but I resist it. I try to stay here, in the present, with my husband. I try to remember all that I learned from my journal this afternoon. ‘You know that, darling.’
He sighs. ‘I know. You always used to, but I just don’t know any more. You change. You’ve changed, over the years. Ever since what happened. Sometimes I don’t know who you are. I wake up each day and I don’t know how you’re going to be.’
I am silent. I can think of nothing to say. We both know how senseless it would be for me to try to defend myself, to tell him that he is wrong. We both know that I am the last person who knows how much I change from day to day.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say at last.
He looks at me. ‘Oh, it’s all right. You don’t need to apologize. I know it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. I’m being unfair, I suppose. Thinking of myself.’
He looks back out to sea. There is a single light in the distance. A boat, on the waves. Light in a sea of treacly blackness. Ben speaks. ‘We’ll be all right, won’t we, Chris?’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Of course we will. This is a new beginning for us. I have my journal now, and Dr Nash will help me. I’m getting better, Ben. I know I am. I think I’m going to start writing again. There’s no reason not to. I should be fine. And anyway, I’m in touch with Claire now, and she can help me.’ An idea comes to me. ‘We can all get together, don’t you think? Just like old times? Just like at university? The three of us. And her husband, I suppose — I think she said she had a husband. We can all meet up and spend time together. It’ll be fine.’ My mind fixes on the lies I have read, on all the ways I have not been able to trust him, but I force it away. I remind myself that all that has been resolved. It is my turn to be strong now. To be positive. ‘As long as we promise to always be honest with each other,’ I say, ‘then everything is going to be OK.’
He turns back to face me. ‘You do love me, don’t you?’
‘Of course. Of course I do.’
‘And you forgive me? For leaving you? I didn’t want to. I had no choice. I’m sorry.’
I take his hand. It feels both warm and cold at the same time, slightly damp. I try to hold it between my hands, but he neither assists nor resists my action. Instead his hand rests, lifeless, on his knee. I squeeze it, and only then does he seem to notice that I am holding it.
‘Ben. I understand. I forgive you.’ I look into his eyes. They too seem dull and lifeless, as if they have seen so much horror already that they cannot cope with any more.
‘I love you, Ben,’ I say.
His voice drops to a whisper. ‘Kiss me.’
I do as he asks, and then, when I have drawn back, he whispers, ‘Again. Kiss me again.’
I kiss him a second time. But, even though he asks me to, I cannot kiss him a third. Instead we gaze out over the sea, at the moonlight on the water, at the drops of rain on the windscreen reflecting back the yellow glow from the headlights of passing cars. Just the two of us, holding hands. Together.
We sit there for what feels like hours. Ben is beside me, staring out to sea. He scans the water, as if looking
