S. Watson - Before I Go to Sleep - A Novel

Maybe, unlike today, Dr Nash didn’t call, and I didn’t find this journal. Or perhaps he did but I chose not to read it. I feel a chill. What would happen if one day he decides never to call again? I would never find it, never read it, never even know it existed. I would not know my past.

It would be unthinkable. I know that now. My husband is telling me one version of how I came to have no memory, my feelings another. I wonder if I have ever asked Dr Nash what happened. Even if I have, can I believe what he says? The only truth I have is what is written in this journal.

Written by me. I must remember that. Written by me.

I think back to this morning. I remember the sun slammed through the curtains, waking me suddenly. My eyes flicked open on an unfamiliar scene and I was confused. Yet, though particular events didn’t come to me, I had the sense of looking back on a wealth of history, not just a few short years. And I knew, however dimly, that that history contained a child of my own. In that fraction of a second before I was fully conscious, I knew that I was a mother. That I had borne a child, that mine was no longer the only body that I had a duty to nurture and protect.

I turned over, aware of another body in the bed, an arm draped over my waist. I didn’t feel alarmed, but secure. Happy. I woke more fully and the images and feelings began to coalesce into truth and memory. First I saw my little boy, heard myself calling his name — Adam — and saw him running towards me. And then I remembered my husband. His name. I felt deeply in love. I smiled.

The feeling of peace didn’t last. I looked over at the man next to me and his face was not the one I expected to see. A moment later I realized that I didn’t recognize the room in which I had slept, couldn’t remember getting there. And then, finally, I understood that I could remember nothing clearly. Those brief, disconnected snatches had not been representative of my memories, but their sum total.

Ben explained it to me, of course. Or parts of it at least. And this journal explained the rest, once Dr Nash phoned me and I found it. I didn’t have time to read it all — I had called down, feigning a headache, and then listened for the slightest movement downstairs, worried that Ben might come up at any moment with an aspirin and a glass of water. But I read enough. The journal told me who I am, how I came to be here, what I have, and what I have lost. It told me that all is not lost. That my memories are coming back, however slowly. Dr Nash told me so, on the day that I watched him read my journal. You’re remembering lots of things, Christine , he’d said. There’s no reason that won’t continue . And the journal told me that the hit-and-run was a lie, that somewhere, hidden deep, I can remember what happened to me on the night I lost my memory. That it doesn’t involve a car and icy roads, but champagne and flowers and a knock on the door of a hotel room.

And now I have a name. The name of the person I had expected to see when I opened my eyes this morning was not Ben.

Ed. I woke expecting to be lying next to someone called Ed.

At the time I didn’t know who he was, this Ed . I thought perhaps he was nobody, it was a name I invented, plucked from nowhere. Or perhaps he was an old lover, a one-night stand that I have not quite forgotten. But now I have read this journal. I have learned that I was assaulted in a hotel room. And so I know who this Ed is.

He is the man who was waiting on the other side of the door that night. The man who attacked me. The man who stole my life.

This evening I tested my husband. I didn’t want to, didn’t even plan to, but I had spent the whole day worrying. Why had he lied to me? Why? And does he lie to me every day? Is there only one version of the past that he tells me, or several? I need to trust him, I thought. I have no one else.

We were eating lamb; a cheap joint, fatty and overcooked. I was pushing the same forkful around my plate, dipping it in gravy, bringing it to my mouth, putting it down again.

‘How did I get to be like this?’ I asked. I had tried to summon up the vision of the hotel room, but it had remained elusive, just out of reach. In a way I was glad.

Ben looked up from his own plate, his eyes wide with surprise. ‘Christine,’ he said. ‘Darling. I don’t—’

‘Please,’ I interrupted him. ‘I need to know.’

He put his knife and fork down. ‘Very well,’ he said.

‘I need you to tell me everything,’ I said. ‘Everything.’

He looked at me, his eyes narrow. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I hesitated, but then I decided to say it. ‘Some people might think it would be better not to tell me all the details. Especially if they were upsetting. But I don’t think that. I think you should tell me everything, so that I can decide for myself what to feel. Do you understand?’

‘Chris,’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’

I looked away. My eyes rested on the photograph of the two of us that sat on the sideboard. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I know I wasn’t always like this. And now I am. So something must have happened. Something bad. I’m just saying that I know that. I know it must have been something awful. But even so, I want to know what. I have to know what it was. What happened to me. Don’t lie to me, Ben,’ I said. ‘Please.’

He reached across the table and took my hand. ‘Darling, I would never do that.’

And then he began. ‘It was December,’ he said. ‘Icy roads …’ and I listened, with a mounting sense of dread, as he told me about the car accident. When he had finished he picked up his knife and fork and carried on eating.

‘You’re sure?’ I said. ‘You’re sure it was an accident?’

He sighed. ‘Why?’

I tried to calculate how much to say. I didn’t want to reveal that I was writing again, keeping a journal, but wanted to be as honest as I could.

‘Earlier today I got an odd feeling,’ I said. ‘Almost like a memory. Somehow it felt like it had something to do with why I’m like this.’

‘What sort of feeling?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘A memory?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Well, did you remember specific things about what happened?’

I thought of the hotel room, the candles, the flowers. The feeling that they had not been from Ben, that it was not him I had opened the door to in that room. I thought, too, of the feeling that I could not breathe. ‘What sort of thing?’ I said.

‘Any details, really. The type of car that hit you? Even just the colour? Whether you saw who was driving it?’

I wanted to scream at him, Why are you asking me to believe I was hit by a car ? Can it really be that it is an easier story to believe than whatever did happen?

An easier story to hear, I thought, or an easier one to tell?

I wondered what he would do if I was to say, Actually, no. I don’t even remember being hit by a car. I remember being in a hotel room, waiting for someone who wasn’t you .

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really. It was more just a general impression.’

‘A general impression?’ he said. ‘What do you mean, “a general impression”?’

He had raised his voice, sounded almost angry. I was no longer sure I wanted to continue the discussion.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It was nothing. Just an odd feeling, as if something really bad were happening, and a feeling of pain. But I don’t remember any details.’

He seemed to relax. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ he said. ‘Just the mind playing tricks on you. Try to just ignore it.’

Ignore it? I thought. How could he ask me to do that? Was he frightened of me remembering the truth?