Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

When I looked in the mirror I could see that the skin above my eye is cut, and my lip, too. When I swallow I taste the metallic tang of blood.

I want to sleep. To find a safe place somewhere, and close my eyes, and rest, like an animal.

That is what I am. An animal. Living from moment to moment, day to day, trying to make sense of the world in which I find myself.

My heart races. I read back over the paragraph, my eyes drawn again and again to the word blood. What had happened?

I begin to read quickly, my mind stumbling over words, lurching from line to line. I don’t know when Ben will get back and can’t risk him taking these pages before I have read them. Now may be my only chance.

I’d decided it was best to speak to him after dinner. We ate in the lounge — sausage, mash, our plates balanced on our knees — and when we had both finished I asked if he would turn the television off. He seemed reluctant. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I said.

The room felt too quiet, filled only with the ticking of the clock and the distant hum of the city. And my voice, sounding hollow and empty.

‘Darling,’ said Ben, putting his plate on the coffee table between us. A half-chewed lump of meat sat on the side of the plate, peas floated in thin gravy. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Everything’s fine.’ I didn’t know how to continue. He looked at me, his eyes wide, waiting. ‘You do love me, don’t you?’ I said. I felt almost as if I was gathering evidence, insuring myself against any later disapproval.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. What’s this about? What’s wrong?’

‘Ben,’ I said. ‘I love you, too. And I understand your reasons for doing what you’ve been doing, but I know you’ve been lying to me.’

Almost as soon as I finished the sentence I regretted starting it. I saw him flinch. He looked at me, his lips pulled back as if to speak, his eyes wounded.

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘Darling—’

I had to continue now. There was no way out of the stream into which I had begun to wade.

‘I know you’ve been doing it to protect me, not telling me things, but it can’t go on. I need to know.’

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘I haven’t been lying to you.’

I felt a surge of anger. ‘Ben,’ I said, ‘I know about Adam.’

His face changed, then. I saw him swallow, and look away, towards the corner of the room. He brushed something off the arm of his pullover. ‘What?’

‘Adam,’ I said. ‘I know we had a son.’

I half expected him to ask me how I knew, but then realized this conversation was not unusual. We have been here before, on the day I saw my novel, and other days when I have remembered Adam too.

I saw he was about to speak, but didn’t want to hear any more lies.

‘I know he died in Afghanistan,’ I said.

His mouth shut, then opened again, almost comically.

‘How do you know that?’

‘You told me,’ I said. ‘Weeks ago. You were eating a biscuit, and I was in the bathroom. I came downstairs and told you that I had remembered we had had a son, even remembered what he was called, and then we sat down and you told me how he’d been killed. You showed me some photographs, from upstairs. Photos of me and him, and letters that he’d written. A letter to Santa Claus—’ Grief washed over me again. I stopped talking.

Ben was staring at me. ‘You remembered? How?’

‘I’ve been writing things down. For a few weeks. As much as I can remember.’

‘Where?’ he said. He had begun to raise his voice, as if in anger, though I didn’t understand what he might be angry about. ‘Where have you been writing things down? I don’t understand, Christine. Where have you been writing things down?’

‘I’ve been keeping a notebook.’

‘A notebook?’ The way he said it made it sound so trivial, as if I have been using it to write shopping lists and record phone numbers.

‘A journal,’ I said.

He shifted forward in his chair, as if he was about to get up. ‘A journal? For how long?’

‘I don’t know exactly. A couple of weeks?’

‘Can I see it?’

I felt petulant and angry. I was determined not to show it to him. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

He was furious. ‘Where is it? Show it to me.’

‘Ben, it’s personal.’

He shot the word back at me. ‘Personal? What do you mean, personal?’

‘I mean it’s private. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with you reading it.’

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Have you written about me?’

‘Of course I have.’

‘What have you written? What have you said?’

How to answer that? I thought of all the ways I have betrayed him. The things I have said to Dr Nash, and thought about him. The ways in which I have distrusted my husband, the things I have thought him capable of. I thought of the lies I have told, the days I have seen Dr Nash — and Claire — and told him nothing.

‘Lots of things, Ben. I’ve written lots of things.’

‘But why? Why have you been writing things down?’

I could not believe he had to ask me that question. ‘I want to make sense of my life,’ I said. ‘I want to be able to link one day to the next, like you can. Like anybody can.’

‘But why? Are you unhappy? Don’t you love me any more? Don’t you want to be with me, here?’

The question threw me. Why did he feel that wanting to make sense of my fractured life meant that I wanted to change it in some way?

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘What is happiness? I’m happy when I wake up, I think, though if this morning is anything to go by I’m confused. But I’m not happy when I look in the mirror and see that I’m twenty years older than I was expecting, that I have grey hairs and lines around my eyes. I’m not happy when I realize that all those years have been lost, taken from me. So I suppose a lot of the time I’m not happy, no. But it’s not your fault. I’m happy with you. I love you. I need you.’

He came and sat next to me, then. His voice softened. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I hate the fact that everything was ruined, just because of that car accident.’

I felt anger rise in me again, but clamped it down. I had no right to be angry with him; he did not know what I had learned and what I hadn’t.

‘Ben,’ I said, ‘I know what happened. I know it wasn’t a car accident. I know I was attacked.’

He didn’t move. He looked at me, his eyes expressionless. I thought he hadn’t heard me, and then he said, ‘What attack?’

I raised my voice. ‘Ben!’ I said. ‘Stop it!’ I couldn’t help it. I had told him I was keeping a journal, told him I was piecing together the details of my story, and yet here he was, still prepared to lie to me when it was obvious I knew the truth. ‘Don’t keep fucking lying to me! I know there was no car accident. I know what happened to me. There’s no point in trying to pretend it was anything other than it was. Denying it doesn’t get us anywhere. You have to stop lying to me!’

He stood up. He looked huge, looming over me, blocking my vision.

‘Who told you?’ he said. ‘Who? Was it that bitch Claire? Did she go shooting her ugly fat mouth off, telling you lies? Sticking her oar in where it isn’t wanted?’

‘Ben—’ I began.

‘She’s always hated me. She’d do anything to poison you against me. Anything! She’s lying, my darling. She’s lying!’

‘It wasn’t Claire,’ I said. I bowed my head. ‘It was somebody else.’

‘Who?’ he shouted. ‘Who?’