Steven Watson - Before I Go to Sleep

I thank him, and then he turns and goes back downstairs and I climb to our room.

I open the door. The room is dark, and bigger than I was expecting, up here at the top of the house. I can see a window opposite, and through it a dim gray light is shining, picking out the outline of a dressing table, a bed, a table, and an armchair. The music from the club next door thuds, stripped of its clarity, reduced to a dull, crunching bass.

I stand still. Fear has gripped me again. The same fear that I experienced outside the guesthouse, but worse, somehow. I go cold. Something is wrong, but I cannot say what. I breathe deeply but cannot get enough air into my lungs. I feel as if I am about to drown.

I close my eyes, as if hoping the room will look different when I open them, but it does not. I am filled with an overwhelming terror of what will happen when I switch on the light, as if that simple action will spell disaster, the end of everything.

What will happen if I leave the room shrouded in blackness and instead go back downstairs? I could walk calmly past the tall man, and along the corridor, past Ben if necessary, and out, out of the hotel.

But they would think I had gone mad, of course. They would find me, and bring me back. And what would I tell them? That the woman who remembers nothing had a feeling she didn’t like, an inkling? They would think me ridiculous.

I am with my husband. I have come here to be reconciled with him. I am safe with Ben.

And so, I switch on the light.

There is a flash as my eyes adjust, and then I see the room. It is unimpressive. There is nothing to be frightened of. The carpet is a mushroom-gray; the curtains and wallpaper both in a floral pattern, though they don’t match. The dresser is battered, with three mirrors on it and a faded painting of a bird above it; the armchair wicker, with yet another floral pattern on the cushion; and the bed covered with an orange bedspread, patterned with a diamond design.

I can see how disappointing it would be to someone who has booked it for their holiday, but, though Ben has booked it for ours, it is not disappointment that I feel. The fear has burned itself down to dread.

I close the door behind me and try to calm myself. I am being stupid. Paranoid. I must keep busy. Do something.

It feels cold in the room, and a slight draft wafts the curtains. The window is open, and I go over to close it. I look out before I do. We are high up; the streetlamps are far below us; seagulls sit silently upon them. I look out across the rooftops, see the cool moon hanging in the sky, and in the distance—the sea. I can make out the pier, the flashing lights.

And then I see them. The words, over the entrance to the pier.

BRIGHTON PIER.

Despite the cold, and even though I shiver, I feel a bead of sweat form on my brow. Now it makes sense. Ben has brought me here, to Brighton, to the place of my disaster. But why? Does he think I am more likely to remember what happened if I am back in the town in which my life was ripped from me? Does he think that I will remember who did this to me?

I remember reading that Dr. Nash had once suggested I come here, and I had told him no.

There are footsteps on the stairs, voices. The tall man must be bringing Ben here, to our room. They will be carrying the luggage together, lifting it up the stairs and around the tricky landings. He will be here soon.

What should I tell him? That he is wrong and being here will not help? That I want to go home?

I go back toward the door. I will help to bring the bags inside, and then I will unpack them, and we will sleep, and then tomorrow—

It hits me. Tomorrow I will know nothing again. That must be what Ben has in his satchel. Photographs. The scrapbook. He will have to use everything he has to explain who he is and where we are, all over again.

I wonder if I have brought my journal, then remember packing it, putting it in my bag. I try to calm myself. Tonight I will put it under the pillow, and tomorrow I will find it and read it. Everything will be fine.

I can hear Ben on the landing. He is talking to the tall man, discussing arrangements for breakfast. “We’d probably like it in our room,” I hear him say. A gull cries outside the window, startling me.

I go toward the door, and then I see it. To my right. A bathroom; the door is open. A bath, a toilet, a sink. But it is the floor that draws me, fills me with horror. It is tiled, and the pattern is unusual; black and white alternate in crazed diagonals.

My jaw opens. I feel myself go cold. I think I hear myself cry out.

I know, then. I recognize the pattern.

It is not only Brighton that I have recognized.

I have been here before. In this room.

The door opens. I say nothing as Ben comes in, but my mind spins. Is this the room in which I was attacked? Why didn’t he tell me we were coming here? How can he go from not even wanting to tell me about the assault to bringing me to the room in which it happened?

I can see the tall man standing just outside the door, and I want to call out to him, to ask him to stay, but he turns to leave and Ben closes the door. It is just the two of us, now.

He looks at me. “Are you all right, love?” he says. I nod and say yes, but the word feels as though it has been forced out of me. I feel the stirrings of hate in my stomach.

He takes my arm. He is squeezing the flesh just a little too tightly; any more and I would say something, any less and I doubt that I would notice. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” I say. Why is he doing this? He must know where we are, what this means. All along he must have been planning this. “Yes, I’m fine. I just feel a little tired.”

And then it hits me. Dr. Nash. He must have something to do with this. Otherwise, why would Ben—after all these years, when he could have but did not—decide to bring me here now?

They must have been in contact. Perhaps Ben called him, after I told him all about our meetings. Perhaps sometime during the last week—the week I know nothing about—they’d planned it all.

“Why don’t you lie down?” says Ben.

I hear myself speak. “I think I will.” I turn toward the bed. Perhaps they’d been in touch all along? Dr. Nash might have been lying about everything. I picture him, dialing Ben after he’d said good-bye to me, telling him about my progress, or lack of it.

“Good girl,” says Ben. “I meant to bring champagne. I think I’ll go and get some. There’s a shop, I think. It’s not far.” He smiles. “Then I’ll join you.”

I turn to face him, and he kisses me. Now, here, his kiss lingers. He brushes my lips with his, puts his hand in my hair, strokes my back. I fight the urge to pull away. His hand moves lower, down my back, coming to rest on the top of my buttock. I swallow hard.

I cannot trust anybody. Not my husband. Not the man who has claimed to be helping me. They have been working together, building to this day, the day when, clearly, they have decided I am to face the horror in my past.

How dare they! I think. How dare they!

“Okay,” I say. I turn my head away slightly, push him gently so that he lets me go.

He turns and leaves the room. “I’ll just lock the door,” he says, as he closes it behind him. “You can’t be too careful…” I hear the key turn in the door outside, and I begin to panic. Is he really going to buy champagne? Or is he meeting Dr. Nash? I cannot believe he has brought me to this room without telling me; another lie to go with all the others. I hear him go down the stairs.

Wringing my hands, I sit on the edge of the bed. I cannot calm my mind, cannot settle on just one thought. Instead, thoughts race, as if, in a mind devoid of memory, each idea has too much space to grow and move, to collide with others in a shower of sparks before spinning off into its own distance.