I stand up to look in the mirror. It is still there. A faint blue contusion. Proof that what I wrote was true. I wonder what lies I have been telling myself to explain my injury, or what lies he has been telling me.
But now I know the truth. I look at the pages in my hand and it hits me.
Suddenly I hear him on the stairs and, almost for the first time, realize fully that I am here, in this hotel room. With Ben. With the man who has hit me. I hear his key in the lock.
I have to know what happened, so I push the pages under the pillow and lie on the bed. As he comes into the room, I close my eyes.
‘Are you OK, darling?’ he says. ‘Are you awake?’
I open my eyes. He is standing in the doorway, clutching a bottle. ‘I could only get Cava,’ he says. ‘OK?’
He puts the bottle on the dresser and kisses me. ‘I think I’ll take a shower,’ he whispers. He goes into the bathroom and turns on the taps.
When he has closed the door I pull out the pages. I don’t have long — surely he will not be more than five minutes — and so I must read as quickly as I can. My eyes flick down the page, not even registering all the words but seeing enough.
That was hours ago. I have been sitting in the darkened hallway of our empty house, a slip of paper in one hand, a telephone in the other. Ink on paper. A number smudged. There was no answer, just an endless ringing. I wonder if she has turned off her answering machine, or if the tape is full. I try again. And again. I have been here before. My time is circular. Claire is not there to help me.
I looked in my bag and found the phone that Dr Nash had given me. It is late, I thought. He won’t be at work. He’ll be with his girlfriend, doing whatever it is that the two of them do during their evenings. Whatever two normal people do. I have no idea what that is.
His home number was written in the front of my journal. It rang and rang, and then was silent. There was no recorded voice to tell me there was an error, no invitation to leave a message. I tried again. The same. His office number was now the only one I had.
I sat there for a while. Helpless. Looking at the front door, half hoping to see Ben’s shadowy figure appear in the frosted glass and insert a key in the lock, half fearing it.
Eventually I could wait no more. I went upstairs and got undressed, and then I got into bed and wrote this. The house is still empty. In a moment I will close this book and hide it, and then switch off the light and sleep.
And then I will forget, and this journal will be all that is left.
I look at the next page with dread, fearing I will find it blank, but it is not.
He hit me on Friday. Two days, and I have written nothing.
For all that time, did I believe things were all right?
My face is bruised and sore. Surely I knew that something was not right?
Today he said that I fell. The biggest cliche in the book and I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? He’d already had to explain who I was, and who he was, and how I’d come to be waking up in a strange house, decades older than I thought I should be, so why would I question his reason for my bruised and swollen eye, my cut lip?
And so I went ahead with my day. I kissed him as he left for work. I cleared up our breakfast things. I ran a bath.
And then I came in here, found this journal, and learned the truth.
A gap. I realize I have not mentioned Dr Nash. Had he abandoned me? Had I found the journal without his help?
Or had I stopped hiding it? I read on.
Later, I called Claire. The phone that Ben had given me didn’t work — the battery was probably dead, I thought — and so I used the one that Dr Nash had given me. There was no answer, and so I sat in the living room. I could not relax. I picked up magazines, put them down again. I put the TV on and spent half an hour staring at the screen, not even noticing what was on. I looked at my journal, unable to concentrate, unable to write. I tried her again, several times, each time hearing the same message inviting me to leave one of my own. It was just after lunchtime when she answered.
‘Chrissy,’ she said. ‘How are you?’ I could hear Toby in the background, playing.
‘I’m OK,’ I said, although I wasn’t.
‘I was going to call you,’ she said. ‘I feel like hell, and it’s only Monday!’
Monday. Days meant nothing to me; each melted away, indistinguishable from the one that had preceded it.
‘I need to see you,’ I said. ‘Can you come over?’
She sounded surprised. ‘To your place?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Please? I want to talk to you.’
‘Is everything OK, Chrissy? You read the letter?’
I took a deep breath, and my voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Ben hit me.’ I heard a gasp of surprise.
‘What?’
‘The other night. I’m bruised. He told me I’d fallen, but I wrote down that he hit me.’
‘Chrissy, there is no way Ben would hit you. Ever. He just isn’t capable of it.’
Doubt flooded me. Was it possible I’d made it all up?
‘But I wrote it in my journal,’ I said.
She said nothing for a moment, and then, ‘But why do you think he hit you?’
I put my hands to my face, felt the swollen flesh around my eyes. I felt a flash of anger. It was clear she didn’t believe me.
I thought back to what I had written. ‘I told him that I’ve been keeping a journal. I said I had been seeing you, and Dr Nash. I told him I knew about Adam. I told him you’d given me the letter he’d written, that I’d read it. And then he hit me.’
‘He just hit you?’
I thought of all the things he’d called me, the things he’d accused me of. ‘He said I was a bitch.’ I felt a sob rise in my chest. ‘He — he accused me of sleeping with Dr Nash. I said I wasn’t, then—’
‘Then?’
‘Then he hit me.’
A silence, then Claire said, ‘Has he ever hit you before?’
I had no way of knowing. Perhaps he had? It was possible that ours had always been an abusive relationship. My mind flashed on Claire and me, marching, holding home-made placards –
I remembered how I had always looked down on women who found themselves with husbands who beat them and stayed put. They were weak, I thought. Weak, and stupid.
Was it possible that I had fallen into the same trap as they had?
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘It’s difficult to imagine Ben hurting anything, but I suppose it’s not impossible. Christ! He used to make even me feel guilty. Do you remember?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t. I don’t remember anything.’
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. It’s just so hard to imagine. He’s the one who convinced me that fish have as much right to life as an animal with legs. He wouldn’t even kill a spider!’
The wind gusts the curtains of the room. I hear a train in the distance. Screams from the pier. Downstairs, on the street, someone shouts ‘Fuck!’ and I hear the sound of breaking glass. I do not want to read on, but know that I
