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

I thought of the picture I’d seen. The image was burned into me. Who did that to me? Why? I remembered the memory I’d had of the hotel room. It was still there, just under the surface, just out of reach. I had read this morning that I had reason to believe I had been having an affair but now realized that — even if that were true — I didn’t know who it had been with. All I had was a single name, remembered as I woke just a few days ago, with no promise of ever remembering more, even if I wanted to.

Dr Nash was still talking. I had no idea what about, and interrupted him. ‘Am I getting better?’ I said.

A heartbeat, during which I thought he had no answer, then he said, ‘Do you think you are?’

Did I? I couldn’t say. ‘I don’t know. Yes. I suppose so. I can remember things from my past, sometimes. Flashes of memory. They come to me when I read my journal. They feel real. I remember Claire. Adam. My mother. But they’re like threads I can’t keep hold of. Balloons that float into the sky before I can catch them. I can’t remember my wedding. I can’t remember Adam’s first steps, his first word. I can’t remember him starting at school, his graduation. Anything. I don’t even know if I was there. Maybe Ben decided there was no point in taking me.’ I took a breath. ‘I can’t even remember learning he was dead. Or burying him.’ I began to cry. ‘I feel like I’m going crazy. Sometimes I don’t even think that he’s dead. Can you believe that? Sometimes I think that Ben’s lying to me about that, as well as everything else.’

‘Everything else?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My novel. The attack. The reason I have no memory. Everything.’

‘But why do you think he would do that?’

A thought came to me. ‘Because I was having an affair?’ I said. ‘Because I was unfaithful to him?’

‘Christine,’ he said. ‘That’s unlikely, don’t you think?’

I said nothing. He was right, of course. Deep down I didn’t believe his lies could really be a protracted revenge for something that had happened years and years ago. The explanation was likely to be much more mundane.

‘You know,’ said Dr Nash, ‘I think you are getting better. You’re remembering things. Much more often than when we first met. These snatches of memory? They’re definitely a sign of progress. They mean—’

I turned to him. ‘Progress? You call this progress?’ I was almost shouting now, anger spilling out of me as if I could no longer contain it. ‘If that’s what it is, then I don’t know if I want it.’ The tears were flooding now, uncontrollable. ‘I don’t want it!’

I closed my eyes and abandoned myself to my grief. It felt better, somehow, to be helpless. I didn’t feel ashamed. Dr Nash was talking to me, telling me first not to be upset, that things would be all right, and then to calm down. I ignored him. I could not calm down, and did not want to.

He stopped the car. Switched off the engine. I opened my eyes. We had left the main road and in front of me was a park. Through the blur of my tears I could see a group of boys — teenagers, I suppose — playing football, with two piles of coats for goal posts. It had begun to rain, but they didn’t stop. Dr Nash turned to face me.

‘Christine,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps today was a mistake. I don’t know. I thought we might trigger other memories. I was wrong. In any case, you shouldn’t’ve seen that picture …’

‘I don’t even know if it was the picture,’ I said. I had stopped sobbing now, but my face was wet and I could feel a great looping mass of mucus escaping from my nose. ‘Do you have a tissue?’ I asked. He reached across me and looked in the glove compartment. ‘It was everything,’ I went on. ‘Seeing those people, imagining that I’d been like that, once. And the diary. I can’t believe that was me, writing that. I can’t believe I was that ill.’

He handed me a tissue. ‘But you’re not any more,’ he said. I took it from him and blew my nose.

‘Maybe it’s worse,’ I said, quietly. ‘I’d written that it was like being dead. But this? This is worse. This is like dying every day. Over and over. I need to get better,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine going on like this for much longer. I know I’ll go to sleep tonight and then tomorrow I will wake up and not know anything again, and the next day, and the day after that, for ever. I can’t imagine it. I can’t face it. It’s not life, it’s just an existence, jumping from one moment to the next with no idea of the past, and no plan for the future. It’s how I imagine animals must be. The worst thing is that I don’t even know what I don’t know. There might be lots of things, waiting to hurt me. Things I haven’t even dreamed about yet.’

He put his hand on mine. I fell into him, knowing what he would do, what he must do, and he did. He opened his arms and held me, and I let him embrace me. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘It’s OK.’ I could feel his chest under my cheek and I breathed, inhaling his scent, fresh laundry and, faintly, something else. Sweat, and sex. His hand was on my back and I felt it move, felt it touch my hair, my head, lightly at first, but then more firmly as I sobbed again. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said, whispering, and I closed my eyes.

‘I just want to remember what happened,’ I said, ‘on the night I was attacked. Somehow I feel that if I could only remember that, then I would remember everything.’

He spoke softly. ‘There’s no evidence that’s the case. No reason—’

‘But it’s what I think,’ I said. ‘I know it, somehow.’

He squeezed me. Gently, almost so gently that I couldn’t feel it. I felt his body, hard against mine, and breathed in deeply, and as I did so I thought of another time when I was being held. Another memory. My eyes are closed, just the same, and my body is being pressed up against that of another, though this is different. I do not want to be held by this man. He is hurting me. I am struggling, trying to get away, but he is strong and pulls me to him. He speaks . Bitch, he says . Slut. And though I want to argue with him I do not. My face is pressed against his shirt, and, just like with Dr Nash, I am crying, screaming. I open my eyes and see the blue fabric of his shirt, a door, a dressing table with three mirrors and a picture — a painting of a bird — above it. I can see his arm, strong, muscled, a vein running down its length . Let me go! I say, and then I am spinning, and falling, or the floor is rising to meet me, I cannot tell. He grabs a handful of my hair and drags me towards the door. I twist my head to see his face .

It is there that memory fails me again. Though I remember looking at his face, I cannot remember what I saw. It is featureless, a blank. As if unable to cope with this vacuum, my mind cycles through faces I know, through absurd impossibilities. I see Dr Nash. Dr Wilson. The receptionist at Fisher Ward. My father. Ben. I even see my own face, laughing as I raise a fist to strike.

Please, I cry , please don’t. But my many-faced attacker hits anyway, and I taste blood. He drags me along the floor, and then I am in the bathroom, on the cold tiles, black and white. The floor is damp with condensation, the room smells of orange blossom, and I remember how I had been looking forward to bathing, to making myself beautiful, thinking that maybe I would still be in the bath when he arrived, and then he could join me, and we would make love, making waves in the soapy water, soaking the floor, our clothes, everything. Because finally, after all these months of doubt, it has become clear to me. I love this man. Finally, I know it. I love him .

My head slams into the floor. Once, twice, a third time. My vision blurs and doubles, then returns. A buzzing in my ears, and he shouts something, but I can’t hear what. It echoes, as if there are two of him, both holding me, both twisting my arm, both grabbing handfuls of my hair as they kneel on my back. I beg him to leave me alone, and there are two of me, too. I swallow. Blood .