Steven Watson - Before I Go to Sleep

He sighs. “I know. You always used to, but I just don’t know anymore. You change. You’ve changed, over the years. Ever since what happened. Sometimes I don’t know who you are. I wake up each day and I don’t know how you’re going to be.”

I am silent. I can think of nothing to say. We both know how senseless it would be for me to try to defend myself, to tell him that he is wrong. We both know that I am the last person who knows how much I change from day to day.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He looks at me. “Oh. It’s all right. You don’t need to apologize. I know it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. I’m being unfair, I suppose. Thinking of myself.”

He looks back out to sea. There is a single light in the distance. A boat, on the waves. Light in a sea of treacly blackness. Ben speaks. “We’ll be all right, won’t we, Chris?”

“Of course,” I say. “Of course we will. This is a new beginning for us. I have my journal now, and Dr. Nash will help me. I’m getting better, Ben. I know I am. I think I’m going to start writing again. There’s no reason not to. I should be fine. And anyway, I’m in touch with Claire now, and she can help me.” An idea comes to me. “We can all get together, don’t you think? Just like old times? Just like at university? The three of us. And her husband, I suppose—I think she said she had a husband. We can all meet up and spend time together. It’ll be fine.” My mind fixes on the lies I have read, on all the ways I have not been able to trust him, but I force it away. I remind myself that all that has been resolved. It is my turn to be strong now. To be positive. “As long as we promise to always be honest with each other,” I say. “Then everything is going to be okay.”

He turns back to face me. “You do love me, don’t you?”

“Of course. Of course I do.”

“And you forgive me? For leaving you? I didn’t want to. I had no choice. I’m sorry.”

I take his hand. It feels both warm and cold at the same time, slightly damp. I try to hold it between my hands, but he neither assists nor resists my action. Instead, his hand rests, lifeless, on his knee. I squeeze it, and only then does he seem to notice that I am holding him.

“Ben. I understand. I forgive you.” I look into his eyes. They, too, seem dull and lifeless, as if they have seen so much horror already that they cannot cope with any more.

“I love you, Ben,” I say.

His voice drops to a whisper. “Kiss me.”

I do as he asks, and then, when I have drawn back, he whispers, “Again. Kiss me again.”

I kiss him a second time. But, even though he asks me to, I cannot kiss him a third. Instead we gaze out over the sea, at the moonlight on the water, at the drops of rain on the windshield reflecting back the yellow glow from the headlights of passing cars. Just the two of us, holding hands. Together.

We sit there for what feels like hours. Ben is beside me, staring out to sea. He scans the water, as if looking for something, some answer in the dark, and he does not speak. I wonder why he has brought us here, what he is hoping to find.

“Is it really our anniversary?” I say. There is no answer. He does not appear to have heard me, and so I say it again.

“Yes,” he replies softly.

“Our wedding anniversary?”

“No,” he says. “It’s the anniversary of the night we met.”

I want to ask him whether we are supposed to be celebrating, and to tell him that it doesn’t feel like a celebration, but it seems cruel.

The busy road behind us has quieted, the moon is rising high in the sky. I begin to worry that we will stay out all night, looking at the sea while the rain falls around us. I affect a yawn.

“I’m sleepy,” I say. “Can we go to our hotel?”

He looks at his watch. “Yes,” he says. “Of course. Sorry. Yes.” He starts the car. “We’ll go there right now.”

I am relieved. I am both craving sleep and dreading it.

The coast road dips and rises as we skirt the edges of a village. The lights of another, larger town begin to draw nearer, tightening into focus through the damp glass. The road becomes busier, a marina appears, with its moored boats and shops and nightclubs, and then we are in the town itself. On our right, every building seems to be a hotel, advertising vacancies on white signs that blow in the wind. The streets are busy; it is not as late as I had thought, or else this is the kind of town that is alive night and day.

I look out to sea. A pier juts into the water, flooded with light and with an amusement park at its end. I can see a domed pavilion, a roller coaster. I can almost hear the whoops and cries of the riders as they are spun above the pitch-black sea.

An anxiety I cannot name begins to form in my chest.

“Where are we?” I say. There are words over the entrance to the pier, picked out in bright white lights, but I cannot make them out through the rain-washed windshield.

“We’re here,” says Ben, as we turn up a side street and stop outside a terraced house. There is lettering on the canopy over the door. RIALTO GUEST HOUSE, it says.

There are steps up to the front door, an ornate fence separating the building from the road. Beside the door is a small, cracked pot that would once have held a shrub but is now empty. I am gripped with an intense fear.

“Have we been here before?” I say. He shakes his head. “You’re sure? It looks familiar.”

“I’m certain,” he says. “We might have stayed somewhere near here, once. You’re probably remembering that.”

I try to relax. We get out of the car. There is a bar next to the guesthouse, and through its large windows I can see throngs of drinkers and a dance floor, pulsing at the back. Music thuds, muffled by the glass. “We’ll check in, and then I’ll come back for the luggage. Okay?”

I pull my coat tight around me. The wind is cold now, and the rain heavy. I rush up the steps and open the front door. There is a sign taped to the glass. NO VACANCIES. I go through and into the lobby.

“You’ve booked?” I say, when Ben joins me. We are standing in a hallway. Farther down, a door is ajar, and from behind it comes the sound of a television, its volume turned up, competing with the music next door. There is no reception desk, but instead a bell sits on a small table, a sign next to it inviting us to ring it to attract attention.

“Yes, of course,” says Ben. “Don’t worry.” He rings the bell.

For a moment, nothing happens, and then a young man comes from a room somewhere at the back of the house. He is tall and awkward, and I notice that, despite it being far too big for his frame, his shirt is untucked. He greets us as though he was expecting us, though not warmly, and I wait while he and Ben complete the formalities.

It is clear the hotel has seen better days. The carpet is threadbare in places, and the paintwork around the doorways scuffed and marked. Opposite the lounge is another door, marked DINING ROOM, and at the back are several more doors, beyond which, I imagine, one would find the kitchen and private rooms of the staff.

“I’ll take you to the room, now, shall I?” says the tall man when he and Ben have finished. I realize he is talking to me; Ben is on his way back outside, presumably to get the bags.

“Yes,” I say. “Thank you.”

He hands me a key and we go up the stairs. On the first landing are several bedrooms, but we walk past them and up another flight of stairs. The house seems to shrink as we go higher; the ceilings are lower, the walls closer. We pass another bedroom and then stand at the bottom of a final flight of stairs that must lead to the very top of the house.

“Your room is up there,” he says. “It’s the only one.”