Steven Watson - Before I Go to Sleep

I tried to remember motherhood, my son’s childhood. Nothing.

“And Ben?”

She paused, then said, “Ben was a great father. Always. He loved that boy. He would race home from work every evening to see him. When he said his first word, he called everyone up and told them. The same when he began to crawl, or took his first step. As soon as he could walk, Ben was taking him to the park, with a football, whatever. And Christmas! So many toys! I think that was just about the only thing I ever saw you argue about—how many toys Ben would buy for Adam. You were worried he’d be spoiled.”

I felt a twinge of regret, an urge to apologize for ever having tried to deny my son anything.

“I would let him have anything he wanted, now,” I said. “If only I could.”

She looked at me sadly. “I know,” she said. “I know. But be happy knowing that he didn’t want for anything from you, ever.”

We carried on walking. A van was parked on the footpath, selling ice creams, and we turned toward it. Toby began to tug at his mother’s arm. She leaned down and gave him a bill from her purse before letting him go. “Choose one thing!” she shouted after him. “Just one! And wait for the change!”

I watched him run to the van. “Claire,” I said. “How old was Adam when I lost my memory?”

She smiled. “He must have been three. Maybe four, just.”

I felt I was stepping into new territory now. Into danger. But it was the place I had to go. The truth I had to discover. “My doctor told me I was attacked,” I said. She did not reply. “In Brighton. Why was I there?”

I looked at Claire, scanning her face. She seemed to be making a decision, weighing up options, deciding what to do. “I don’t know for sure,” she said. “Nobody does.”

She stopped speaking, and we both watched Toby for a while. He had his ice cream now and was unwrapping it; a look of determined concentration scored his face. Silence stretched in front of me. Unless I say something, I thought, this will last forever .

“I was having an affair, wasn’t I?”

There was no reaction. No intake of breath, no gasp of denial or look of shock. Claire looked at me steadily. Calmly. “Yes,” she said. “You were cheating on Ben.”

Her voice had no emotion. I wondered what she thought of me. Either then, or now.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. “But let’s sit down. I’m just gasping for a coffee.”

We walked up to the main building.

The cafeteria doubled as a bar. The chairs were steel, the tables plain. Palm trees were dotted around, an attempt at atmosphere ruined by the cold air that blasted in whenever someone opened the door. We sat opposite each other across a table that swam with spilled coffee, warming our hands on our drinks.

“What happened?” I said again. “I need to know.”

“It’s not easy to say,” said Claire. She spoke slowly, as if picking her way through a difficult terrain. “I suppose it started not long after you had Adam. Once the initial excitement had worn off, there was a period when things were extremely tough.” She paused. “It’s so difficult, isn’t it? To see what’s going on when you’re in the absolute middle of something? It’s only with hindsight we can see things for what they are.” I nodded but didn’t understand. Hindsight is something I don’t have. She went on. “You cried, awfully. You worried you weren’t bonding with the baby. All the usual stuff. Ben and I did what we could, and your mother, when she was around, but it was tough. And even when the absolute worst was over, you still found it hard. You couldn’t get back into your work. You’d call me up, in the middle of the day. Upset. You said you felt like a failure. Not a failure at motherhood—you could see how happy Adam was—but a failure as a writer. You thought you’d never be able to write again. I’d come over and see you, and you’d be a mess. Crying, the works.” I wondered what was coming next—how bad it would get—then she said, “You and Ben were arguing, too. You resented him, how easy he found life. He offered to pay for a nanny, but, well…”

“Well?”

“You said that was typical of him. To throw money at the problem. You had a point, but… Perhaps you weren’t being terribly fair.”

Perhaps not, I thought. It struck me that back then we must have had money—more money than we had after I lost my memory, more money than I guess we have now. What a drain on our resources my illness must have been.

I tried to picture myself, arguing with Ben, looking after a baby, trying to write. I imagined bottles of milk, or Adam at my breast. Dirty diapers. Mornings in which getting both myself and my baby fed were the only ambitions I could reasonably have and afternoons in which I was so exhausted the only thing I craved was sleep—sleep that was still hours away—and the thought of trying to write was pushed far from my mind. I could see it all, and feel the slow, burning resentment.

But that’s all they were. Imaginings. I remembered nothing. Claire’s story felt like it had nothing to do with me at all.

“So I had an affair?”

She looked up. “I was free. I was doing my painting, then. I said I’d look after Adam, two afternoons a week, so you could write. I insisted.” She took my hand in hers. “It was my fault, Chrissy. I even suggested you go to a café.”

“A café?” I said.

“I thought it would be a good idea if you got out of the house. Gave yourself space. A few hours a week, away from everything. After a few weeks you seemed to get better. You were happier in yourself, you said your work was going well. You started going to the café almost every day, taking Adam when I couldn’t look after him. But then I noticed that you were dressing differently, too. The classic thing, though I didn’t realize what it was at the time. I thought it was just because you were feeling better. More confident. But then Ben called me, one evening. He’d been drinking, I think. He said you were arguing, more than ever, and he didn’t know what to do. You were off sex, too. I told him it was probably just because of the baby, that he was probably worrying unnecessarily. But—”

I interrupted. “I was seeing someone.”

“I asked you. You denied it at first, but then I told you I wasn’t stupid, and neither was Ben. We had an argument, but after a while you told me the truth.”

The truth. Not glamorous, not exciting. Just the bald facts. I had turned into a living cliché, taken to fucking someone I’d met in a café while my best friend was babysitting my child and my husband was earning the money to pay for the clothes and underwear I was wearing for someone other than him. I pictured the furtive phone calls, the aborted arrangements when something unexpected came up, and, on the days we could get together, the sordid, pathetic afternoons spent in bed with a man who had temporarily seemed better—more exciting? attractive? a better lover? richer?—than my husband. Was this the man I had been waiting for in that hotel room, the man who would eventually attack me, leave me with no past and no future?

I closed my eyes. A flash of memory. Hands gripping my hair, around my throat. My head under water. Gasping, crying. I remember what I was thinking. I want to see my son. One last time. I want to see my husband. I should never have done this to him. I should never have betrayed him with this man. I will never be able to tell him I am sorry. Never.

I opened my eyes. Claire was squeezing my hand. “Are you all right?” she said.

“Tell me,” I said.

“I don’t know whether—”

“Please,” I said. “Tell me. Who was it?”

She sighed. “You said you’d met someone else who went to the café regularly. He was nice, you said. Attractive. You’d tried, but you hadn’t been able to stop yourself.”