Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

‘I’ve been seeing a doctor,’ I whispered. ‘We’ve been talking. He told me.’

He was perfectly motionless apart from the thumb of his right hand which was tracing slow circles on the knuckle of his left. I could feel the warmth of his body, hear the slow drawing in of his breath, the hold, the release. When he spoke his voice was so low I struggled to make out the words.

‘What do you mean, a doctor?’

‘His name is Dr Nash. Apparently he contacted me a few weeks ago.’ Even as I said it I felt like I wasn’t telling my own story, but that of someone else.

‘Saying what?’

I tried to remember. Had I written about our first conversation?

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I wrote down what he said.’

‘And he encouraged you to write things down?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ he said.

‘I want to get better, Ben.’

‘And is it working? What have you been doing? Has he been giving you drugs?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ve been doing some tests, some exercises. I had a scan—’

The thumb stopped moving. He turned to face me.

‘A scan?’ His voice was louder again.

‘Yes. An MRI. He said it might help. They didn’t really have them when I was first ill. Or they weren’t as sophisticated as they are now—’

‘Where? Where have you been doing these tests? Tell me!’

I was starting to feel confused. ‘In his office,’ I said. ‘In London. The scan was there too. I don’t remember exactly.’

‘How have you been getting there? How did someone like you get to a doctor’s office?’ His voice was pinched and urgent now. ‘How?’

I tried to speak calmly. ‘He’s been collecting me from here,’ I said. ‘And driving me—’

Disappointment flashed on his face, and then anger. I had never wanted the conversation to go like this, never intended it to become difficult.

I needed to try and explain things to him. ‘Ben—’ I began.

What happened next was not what I was expecting. A dull moan began in Ben’s throat, somewhere deep. It built quickly until, unable to hold it in any more, he let out a terrible screech, like nails on glass.

‘Ben!’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’

He turned around, staggering as he did so, averting his face from me. I worried he was having some kind of attack. I stood up and put my hand out for him to hold on to. ‘Ben!’ I said again, but he ignored it, steadying himself against the wall. When he turned back to me his face was bright red, his eyes wide. I could see that spittle had gathered at the corners of his mouth. It looked as though he had put on some kind of grotesque mask, so distorted were his features.

‘You stupid fucking bitch,’ he said, moving up against me as he did so. I flinched. His face was just inches from mine. ‘How long has this been going on?’

‘I—’

‘Tell me! Tell me, you slut. How long?’

‘Nothing’s going on!’ I said. Fear welled within me, rising up. It did a slow roll on the surface and then sank beneath. ‘Nothing!’ I said again. I could smell the food on his breath. Meat, and onion. Spittle flew, striking me in the face, the lips. I could taste his warm, wet anger.

‘You’re sleeping with him. Don’t lie to me.’

The backs of my legs pressed against the edge of the sofa and I tried to move along it, to get away from him, but he grabbed my shoulders and shook them. ‘You’ve always been the same,’ he said. ‘A stupid lying bitch. I don’t know what made me think you’d be any different with me. What have you been doing, eh? Sneaking off while I’ve been at work? Or have you been having him round here? Or maybe you’ve been doing it in a car, parked up on the heath?’

I felt his hands grip tight, his fingers and nails digging into my skin even through the cotton of my blouse.

‘You’re hurting me!’ I shouted, hoping to shock him out of his rage. ‘Ben! Stop it!’

He stopped shaking, and loosened his grip a fraction. It didn’t seem possible that the man gripping my shoulders, his face a mixture of rage and hate, could be the same man who had written the letter that Claire had given me. How could we have reached this level of distrust? How much miscommunication must it have taken to bring us from there to here?

‘I’m not sleeping with him,’ I said. ‘He’s helping me. Helping me to get better so that I can live a normal life. Here, with you. Don’t you want that?’

His eyes began darting around the room. ‘Ben?’ I said again. ‘Talk to me!’ He froze. ‘Don’t you want me to get better? Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted, always hoped for?’ He began to shake his head, rocking it from side to side. ‘I know it is,’ I said. ‘I know it’s what you’ve wanted all this time.’ Hot tears ran down my cheeks, but I spoke through them, my voice fracturing into sobs. He was still holding me, but gently now, and I put my hands on his.

‘I met Claire,’ I said. ‘She gave me your letter. I’ve read it, Ben. After all these years. I’ve read it.’

There is a stain there, on the page. Ink, mixed with water in a smudge that resembles a star. I must have been crying as I wrote. I carried on reading.

I don’t know what I expected to happen. Perhaps I thought he’d fall into my arms, sobbing with relief, and we would stand there, holding each other silently for as long as it took for us to relax, to feel our way back into each other again. And then we would sit and talk things through. Perhaps I would go upstairs and get the letter that Claire had given me, and we would read it together, and begin the slow process of rebuilding our lives on a foundation of truth.

Instead, there was an instant in which nothing at all seemed to move and everything was quiet. There was no sound of breathing, no traffic from the road. I didn’t even hear the ticking of the clock. It was as if life was suspended, hovering on the cusp between one state and another.

And then it was over. Ben drew away from me. I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead I was aware of a blur out of the corner of my eye and my head cracked to one side. Pain radiated from my jaw. I fell, the sofa coming towards me, and the back of my head connected with something hard and sharp. I cried out. There was another blow, and then another. I closed my eyes, waiting for the next — but nothing came. Instead I heard footsteps moving away, and a door slamming.

I opened my eyes and inhaled in an angry gasp. The carpet stretched away from me, now vertical. A smashed plate sat near to my head and gravy oozed on to the floor, soaking into the carpet. Green peas had been trodden into the weave of the rug, and the half-chewed sausage. The front door swung open, then slammed. Footsteps on the path. Ben had left.

I exhaled. I closed my eyes. I must not sleep, I thought. I must not.

I opened them again. Dark swirls in the distance and the smell of flesh. I swallowed, and tasted blood.

What have I done? What have I done?

I made sure he was gone, then came upstairs and found my journal. Blood dripped on to the carpet from my split lip. I don’t know what has happened. I don’t know where my husband is, or if he will come back, or whether I want him to.

But I need him to. Without him I can’t live.

I am scared. I want to see Claire.

I stop reading and my hand goes to my forehead. It feels tender. The bruise I saw this morning, the one I covered up with make-up. Ben had hit me. I look back at the date. Friday, 23 November. It was one week ago. One week spent believing that everything is all right.