Steven Watson - Before I Go to Sleep

I want to trust him now. No more lies.

“Yes,” I say. “I’ve been to see a doctor.” He doesn’t speak. “Ben?” I say.

“Sorry, yes,” he says. “I heard.” I register his lack of surprise. So he had known then, known that I was seeing Dr. Nash. “I’m in traffic,” he says. “It’s a bit tricky. Listen, I just wanted to make sure you’ve remembered to pack? We’re going away…”

“Of course,” I say, and then I add, “I’m looking forward to it!” and I realize I am. It will do us good, I think, to get away. It can be another beginning for us.

“I’ll be home soon,” he says. “Can you try to have our bags packed? I’ll help when I get in, but it’d be better if we can set off early.”

“I’ll try,” I say.

“There’re two bags in the spare bedroom. In the closet. Use those.”

“Okay.”

“I love you,” he says, and then, after a moment too long, a moment in which he has already ended the call, I tell him that I love him too.

I GO TO the bathroom. I am a woman, I tell myself. An adult. I have a husband. One I love. I think back to what I have read. Of the sex. Of him fucking me. I had not written that I enjoyed it.

Can I enjoy sex? I realize I don’t even know that. I flush the toilet and step out of my trousers, my tights, my panties. I sit on the edge of the bath. How alien my body is. How unknown to me. How can I be happy giving it to someone else, when I don’t recognize it myself?

I lock the bathroom door, then part my legs. Slightly at first, then more. I lift my blouse and look down. I see the stretch marks I saw the day I remembered Adam, the wiry shock of my pubic hair. I wonder if I ever shave it, whether I choose not to, based on my preference or my husband’s. Perhaps those things do not matter anymore. Not now.

I cup my hand and place it over my pubic mound. My fingers rest on my labia, parting them slightly. I brush the tip of what must be my clitoris and press, moving my fingers gently as I do, already feeling a faint tingle. The promise of sensation, rather than sensation itself.

I wonder what will happen later.

The bags are in the spare room, where he said they would be. Both are compact, sturdy, one a little larger than the other. I take them into the bedroom in which I woke this morning, and put them on the bed. I open the top drawer and see my underwear, next to his.

I select clothes for us both, socks for him, tights for me. I remember reading of the night we had sex and realize I must have stockings and garters somewhere. I decide it would be nice to find them now, to take them with me. It might be good for both of us.

I move to the closet. I choose a dress, a skirt. Some trousers, a pair of jeans. I notice the shoebox on the floor—the one that must have hidden my journal—now empty. I wonder what kind of couple we are, when we go on holiday. Whether we spend our evenings in restaurants, or sitting in cozy pubs, relaxing in the rosy heat of a real fire. I wonder whether we walk, exploring the town and its surroundings, or take taxis to carefully selected events. These are the things I don’t know yet. These are the things I have the rest of my life to find out. To enjoy.

I select some clothes for both of us, almost randomly, and fold them, placing them into the cases. As I do, I feel a jolt, a surge of energy, and I close my eyes. I see a vision, bright but shimmering. It is unclear at first, as if hovering, out of both reach and focus, and I try to open my mind, to let it come.

I see myself standing in front of a bag; a soft suitcase in worn leather. I am excited. I feel young again, like a child about to go on holiday, or a teenager preparing for a date, wondering how it will go, whether he’ll ask me back to his house, whether we’ll fuck. I feel that newness, that anticipation, can taste it. I roll it on my tongue, savoring it, because I know it will not last. I open my drawers in turn, selecting blouses, stockings, underwear. Thrilling. Sexy. Underwear that is worn only with the anticipation of its removal. I put in a pair of heels in addition to the flat shoes I am wearing, take them out, put them in again. I do not like them, but this night is about fantasy, about dressing up, about being other than what we are. Only then do I move onto the functional things. I take a quilted toiletries bag in bright red leather and add perfume, shower gel, toothpaste. I want to look beautiful tonight, for the man I love, for the man I have been so close to losing. I add bath salts. Orange blossom. I realize I am remembering the night I packed to go to Brighton.

The memory evaporates. My eyes open. I could not have known, back then, that I was packing for the man who would take everything from me.

I carry on packing for the man I still have.

I hear a car pull up outside. The engine dies. A door opens and then shuts. A key in the lock. Ben. He is here.

I feel nervous. Scared. I am not the same person he left this morning; I have learned my own story. I have discovered myself. What will he think when he sees me? What will he say?

I must ask him if he knows about my journal. If he has read it. What he thinks.

He calls out as he closes the door behind him. “Christine? Chris? I’m home.” His voice does not sing, though; he sounds exhausted. I call back, and tell him I am in the bedroom.

The lowest step creaks as it accepts his weight, and I hear an exhalation as first one shoe is removed, and then the other. He will be putting his slippers on, now, and then he will come to find me. I feel a surge of pleasure at knowing his rituals—my journal has clued me in to them, even though my memory cannot—but, as he ascends the stairs, another emotion takes over. Fear. I think of what I wrote in the front of my journal. Don’t trust Ben.

He opens the bedroom door. “Darling!” he says. I have not moved. I still sit on the edge of the bed, the bags open behind me. He stands by the door until I stand and open my arms, then he comes over and kisses me.

“How was your day?” I say.

He takes off his tie. “Oh,” he says. “Let’s not talk about that. We’re on holiday!”

He begins to unbutton his shirt. I fight the instinct to look away, remind myself that he is my husband, that I love him.

“I packed the bags,” I say. “I hope yours is okay. I didn’t know what you’d want to take.”

He steps out of his trousers and folds them before hanging them in the closet. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Only I wasn’t exactly sure where we were going. So I didn’t know what to pack.”

He turns, and I wonder whether I catch a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I’ll check, before we put the bags in the car. It’s fine. Thanks for making a start.” He sits on the chair at the dressing table and pulls on a pair of faded blue jeans. I notice a perfect crease ironed down their front, and the twentysomething me has to resist the urge to find him ridiculous.

“Ben?” I say. “You know where I’ve been today.”

He looks at me. “Yes,” he says. “I know.”

“You know about Dr. Nash?”

He turns away from me. “Yes,” he says. “You told me.” I can see him, reflected in the mirrors arranged around the dresser. Three versions of the man I married. The man I love. “Everything,” he says. “You told me about it all. I know everything.”

“You don’t mind? About me seeing him?”

He does not look around. “I wish you’d told me. But no. No, I don’t mind.”

“And my journal? You know about my journal?”

“Yes,” he says. “You told me. You said it helped.”

A thought comes. “Have you read it?”

“No,” he says. “You said it was private. I would never look through your private things.”