Steven Watson - Before I Go to Sleep

I stand up. I feel enraged. I cannot face the thought of him coming back, pouring champagne, getting into bed with me. Neither can I face the thought of his skin next to mine, or his hands on me in the night, pawing at me, pressing me, encouraging me to give myself to him. How can I, when there is no me to give?

I would do anything, I think. Anything except for that.

I cannot stay here, in this place where my life was ruined and everything taken away from me. I try to work out how much time I have. Ten minutes? Five? I go over to Ben’s bag and open it. I don’t know why; I am not thinking of why, or how, only that I must move, while Ben is away, before he returns and things change again. Perhaps I intend to find the car keys, to force the door and go downstairs, out into the rainy street, to the car. Although I’m not even certain I can drive, perhaps I mean to try, to get in and go far, far away.

Or perhaps I mean to find a picture of Adam; I know they’re in there. I will take just one, and then I will leave the room, and run. I will run and run, and then, when I can run no more, I will call Claire, or anybody, and I will tell them that I cannot take it anymore, and beg them to help me.

I dig my hands deep in the bag. I feel metal and plastic. Something soft. And then an envelope. I take it out, thinking it might contain photographs, and see that it is the one I found in the office at home. I must have put it in Ben’s bag as I packed, intending to remind him it had not been opened. I turn it over and see that Private has been written on the front. Without thinking, I tear it open and remove its contents.

Paper. Pages and pages. I recognize it. The faint blue lines, the red margins. These pages are the same as those in my journal, in the book that I have been writing.

And then I see my own handwriting and begin to understand.

I have not read all of my story. There is more. Pages and pages more.

I find my journal in my bag. I had not noticed before, but after the final page of writing, a whole section has been removed. The pages have been excised neatly, cut with a scalpel or a razor blade, close to the spine.

Cut out by Ben.

I sit on the floor, the pages spread in front of me. This is the missing week of my life. I read the rest of my story.

THE FIRST ENTRY is dated. Friday, November 23 , it says . The same day I met Claire. I must have written it that evening, after speaking to Ben. Perhaps we had had the conversation I was anticipating, after all. I sit here, it begins,

on the floor of the bathroom, in the house in which, supposedly, I wake up every morning. I have this journal in front of me, this pen in my hand. I write, because it’s all I can think of to do.

Tissues are balled around me, soaked with tears, and blood. When I blink, my vision turns red. Blood drips into my eye as fast as I can wipe it away.

When I look in the mirror, I can see that the skin above my eye is cut, and my lip, too. When I swallow, I taste the metallic tang of blood.

I want to sleep. To find a safe place, somewhere, and close my eyes, and rest, like an animal.

That is what I am. An animal. Living from moment to moment, day to day, trying to make sense of the world in which I find myself.

My heart races. I read back over the paragraph, my eyes drawn again and again to the word blood. What had happened?

I begin to read quickly, my mind stumbling over words, lurching from line to line. I don’t know when Ben will get back and cannot risk him taking these pages before I have read them. Now may be my only chance.

I’d decided it was best to speak to him after dinner. We ate in the den—roast beef and mashed potatoes, our plates balanced on our knees—and when we had both finished, I asked if he would turn the television off. He seemed reluctant. “I need to talk to you,” I said.

The room felt too quiet, filled only with the ticking of the clock and the distant hum of the city. And my voice, sounding hollow and empty.

“Darling,” said Ben, putting his plate on the coffee table between us. A half-chewed lump of meat sat on the side of the plate, peas floated in thin gravy. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “Everything’s fine.” I did not know how to continue. He looked at me, his eyes wide, waiting. “You do love me, don’t you?” I said. I felt almost as if I was gathering evidence, insuring myself against any later disapproval.

“Yes,” he said. “Of course. What’s this about? What’s wrong?”

“Ben,” I said. “I love you, too. And I understand your reasons for doing what you’ve been doing, but I know you’ve been lying to me.”

Almost as soon as I finished the sentence, I regretted starting it. I saw him flinch. He looked at me, his lips pulled back as if to speak, his eyes wounded.

“What do you mean?” he said. “Darling—”

I had to continue now. There was no way out of the stream into which I had begun to wade.

“I know you’ve been doing it to protect me, not telling me things, but it can’t go on. I need to know.”

“What do you mean?” he said. “I haven’t been lying to you.”

I felt a surge of anger. “Ben,” I said. “I know about Adam.”

His face changed, then. I saw him swallow and look away, toward the corner of the room. He brushed something off the arm of his pullover. “What?”

“Adam,” I said. “I know we had a son.”

I half-expected him to ask me how I knew, but then realized this conversation was not unusual. We have been here before, on the day I saw my novel, and other days when I have remembered Adam, too.

I saw he was about to speak, but didn’t want to hear any more lies.

“I know he died in Afghanistan,” I said.

His mouth shut, then opened again, almost comically.

“How do you know that?”

“You told me,” I said. “Weeks ago. You were eating a cookie, and I was in the bathroom. I came downstairs and told you that I had remembered we had had a son, even remembered what he was called, and then we sat down and you told me how he’d been killed. You showed me some photographs, from upstairs. Photos of me and him, and letters that he’d written. A letter to Santa Claus—” Grief washed over me again. I stopped talking.

Ben was staring at me. “You remembered? How—?”

“I’ve been writing things down. For a few weeks. As much as I can remember.”

“Where?” he said. He had begun to raise his voice, as if in anger, though I did not understand what he might be angry about. “Where have you been writing things down? I don’t understand, Christine. Where have you been writing things down?”

“I’ve been keeping a notebook.”

“A notebook?” The way he said it made it sound so trivial, as if I have been using it to write shopping lists and record phone numbers.

“A journal,” I said.

He shifted forward in his chair, as if he was about to get up. “A journal? For how long?”

“I don’t know, exactly. A couple of weeks?”

“Can I see it?”

I felt petulant and angry. I was determined not to show it to him. “No,” I said. “Not yet.”

He was furious. “Where is it? Show it to me.”

“Ben. It’s personal.”

He shot the word back at me. “Personal? What do you mean, personal?”

“I mean it’s private. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with you reading it.”

“Why not?” he said. “Have you written about me?”

“Of course I have.”

“What have you written? What have you said?”

How to answer that? I thought of all the ways I have betrayed him. The things I have said to Dr. Nash, and thought about him. The ways in which I have distrusted my husband, the things I have thought him capable of. I thought of the lies I have told, the days I have seen Dr. Nash—and Claire—and told him nothing.