Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

for something, some answer in the dark, and he doesn’t speak. I wonder why he has brought us here, what he is hoping to find.

‘Is it really our anniversary?’ I say. There is no answer. He doesn’t appear to have heard me, and so I say it again.

‘Yes,’ he replies softly.

‘Our wedding anniversary?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s the anniversary of the night we met.’

I want to ask him whether we are supposed to be celebrating, and to tell him that it doesn’t feel like a celebration, but it seems cruel.

The busy road behind us has quietened, the moon is rising high in the sky. I begin to worry that we will stay out all night, looking at the sea while the rain falls around us. I affect a yawn.

‘I’m sleepy,’ I say. ‘Can we go to our hotel?’

He looks at his watch. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Of course. Sorry. Yes.’ He starts the car. ‘We’ll go there right now.’

I am relieved. I am both craving sleep, and dreading it.

*

The coast road dips and rises as we skirt the edges of a village. The lights of another, larger town begin to draw nearer, tightening into focus through the damp glass. The road becomes busier, a marina appears with its moored boats and shops and nightclubs, and then we are in the town itself. On our right every building seems to be a hotel, advertising vacancies on white signs that blow in the wind. The streets are busy; it is not as late as I had thought, or else this is the kind of town which is alive night and day.

I look out to sea. A pier juts into the water, flooded with light and with an amusement park at its end. I can see a domed pavilion, a rollercoaster, a helter-skelter. I can almost hear the whoops and cries of the riders as they are spun above the pitch-black sea.

An anxiety I cannot name begins to form in my chest.

‘Where are we?’ I say. There are words over the entrance to the pier, picked out in bright white lights, but I can’t make them out through the rain-washed windscreen.

‘We’re here,’ says Ben, as we turn up a side street and stop outside a terraced house. There is lettering on the canopy over the door. Rialto Guest House, it says.

There are steps up to the front door, an ornate fence separating the building from the road. Beside the door is a small, cracked pot that would once have held a shrub but is now empty. I am gripped with an intense fear.

‘Have we been here before?’ I say. He shakes his head. ‘You’re sure? It looks familiar.’

‘I’m certain,’ he says. ‘We might have stayed somewhere near here once. You’re probably remembering that.’

I try to relax. We get out of the car. There is a bar next to the guest house and through its large windows I can see throngs of drinkers and a dance floor, pulsing at the back. Music thuds, muffled by the glass. ‘We’ll check in, and then I’ll come back for the luggage. OK?’

I pull my coat tight around me. The wind is cold now, and the rain heavy. I rush up the steps and open the front door. There is a sign taped to the glass. No vacancies. I go through and into the lobby.

‘You’ve booked?’ I say, when Ben joins me. We are standing in a hallway. Further down a door is ajar, and from behind it comes the sound of a television, its volume turned up, competing with the music next door. There is no reception desk, but instead a bell sits on a small table, a sign next to it inviting us to ring it to attract attention.

‘Yes, of course,’ says Ben. ‘Don’t worry.’ He rings the bell.

For a moment nothing happens, and then a young man comes from a room somewhere at the back of the house. He is tall and awkward, and I notice that, despite it being far too big for his frame, his shirt is untucked. He greets us as though he was expecting us, though not warmly, and I wait while he and Ben complete the formalities.

It is clear the hotel has seen better days. The carpet is threadbare in places, and the paintwork around the doorways scuffed and marked. Opposite the lounge is another door, marked Dining Room, and at the back are several more doors through which, I imagine, one would find the kitchen and private rooms of the staff.

‘I’ll take you to the room now, shall I?’ says the tall man when he and Ben have finished. I realize he is talking to me; Ben is on his way back outside, presumably to get the bags.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

He hands me a key and we go up the stairs. On the first landing are several bedrooms, but we walk past them and up another flight. The house seems to shrink as we go higher; the ceilings are lower, the walls closer. We pass another bedroom and then stand at the bottom of a final flight of stairs that must lead to the very top of the house.

‘Your room is up there,’ he says. ‘It’s the only one.’

I thank him, and then he turns and goes back downstairs and I climb to our room.

I open the door. The room is dark, and bigger than I was expecting, up here at the top of the house. I can see a window opposite, and through it a dim grey light is shining, picking out the outline of a dressing table, a bed, a table and an armchair. The music from the club next door thuds, stripped of its clarity, reduced to a dull, crunching bass.

I stand still. Fear has gripped me again. The same fear that I experienced outside the guest house, but worse, somehow. I go cold. Something is wrong, but I can’t say what. I breathe deeply, but can’t get enough air into my lungs. I feel as if I am about to drown.

I close my eyes, as if hoping the room will look different when I open them, but it doesn’t. I am filled with an overwhelming terror of what will happen when I switch on the light, as if that simple action will spell disaster, the end of everything.

What will happen if I leave the room shrouded in blackness and instead go back downstairs? I could walk calmly past the tall man, and along the corridor, past Ben if necessary, and out, out of the hotel.

But they would think I had gone mad, of course. They would find me, and bring me back. And what would I tell them? That the woman who remembers nothing had a feeling she didn’t like, an inkling? They would think me ridiculous.

I am with my husband. I have come here to be reconciled with him. I am safe with Ben.

And so I switch on the light.

There is a flash as my eyes adjust, and then I see the room. It is unimpressive. There is nothing to be frightened of. The carpet is a mushroom grey, the curtains and wallpaper both in a floral pattern, though they don’t match. The dresser is battered, with three mirrors on it and a faded painting of a bird above it, the armchair wicker with yet another floral pattern on the cushion, and the bed covered with an orange bedspread in a diamond design.

I can see how disappointing it would be to someone who has booked it for their holiday, but, though Ben has booked it for ours, it is not disappointment that I feel. The fear has burned itself down to dread.

I close the door behind me and try to calm myself. I am being stupid. Paranoid. I must keep busy. Do something.

It feels cold in the room and a slight draught wafts the curtains. The window is open and I go over to close it. I look out before I do. We are high up; the street-lamps are far below us; seagulls sit silently upon them. I look out across the rooftops, see the cool moon hanging in the sky, and in the distance the sea. I can make out the pier, the helter-skelter, the flashing lights.

And then I see them. The words, over the entrance to the pier.

Brighton Pier.