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

I turned away from the window and looked under the sink. Cleaning materials. Soap. Cartons of powder, plastic spray bottles. There was a red plastic bucket and I filled this with hot water, adding a squirt of soap and a tiny drop of vinegar. How have I repaid him? I thought. I took a sponge and began to soap the window, beginning at the top, working down. I have been sneaking around London, seeing doctors, having scans, visiting our old homes and the places I was treated after my accident, all without telling him. And why? Because I don’t trust him? Because he has made the decision to protect me from the truth, to keep my life as simple and easy as possible? I watched the soapy water run in tiny rivulets, pooling at the bottom, and then took another cloth and polished the window to a shine.

Now I know the truth is even worse. This morning I had woken with an almost overwhelming sense of guilt, the words You should be ashamed of yourself spinning in my head. You’ll be sorry . At first I’d thought I had woken with a man who was not my husband and it was only later I discovered the truth. That I have betrayed him. Twice. The first time years ago, with a man who would eventually take everything from me, and now I have done it again, with my heart if nothing else. I have developed a ridiculous, childish crush on a doctor who is trying to help me, trying to comfort me. A doctor who I can’t even begin to picture now, can’t remember having met before, but who I know is much younger than me, has a girlfriend. And now I have told him how I feel! Accidentally, yes, but still I have told him. I feel more than guilty. I feel stupid. I can’t even begin to imagine what must have brought me to this point. I am pathetic.

There, as I cleaned the glass, I make a decision. Even if Ben doesn’t share my belief that my treatment will work I can’t believe he would deny me the opportunity to see for myself. Not if it was what I wanted. I am an adult, he is not a monster; surely I can trust him with the truth? I sluiced the water down the sink and refilled the bucket. I will tell my husband. Tonight. When he gets home. This can’t go on. I continued to clean the windows.

I wrote that an hour ago, but now I am not so sure. I think about Adam. I have read about the photographs in the metal box, yet still there are no pictures of him on display. None. I can’t believe Ben — anyone — could lose a son and then remove all traces of him from his home. It doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem possible. Can I trust a man who can do that? I remembered reading about the day we sat on Parliament Hill when I had asked him straight. He had lied. I flick back through my journal now and read it again. We never had children? I said, and he had replied, No. No, we didn’t . Can he really have done that just to protect me? Can he really feel that is the best thing to do? To tell me nothing, other than what he must, what is convenient?

Whatever’s quickest, too. He must be so bored with telling me the same thing, over and over again, every day. It occurs to me that the reason he shortens explanations and changes stories is not to do with me at all. Perhaps it’s so that he doesn’t drive himself crazy with the constant repetition.

I feel like I am going mad. Everything is fluid, everything shifts. I think one thing and then, a moment later, the opposite. I believe everything my husband says, and then I believe nothing. I trust him, and then I don’t. Nothing feels real, everything invented. Even myself.

I wish I knew one thing for certain. One single thing that I have not had to be told, about which I don’t need to be reminded.

I wish I knew who I was with, that day in Brighton. I wish I knew who did this to me.

Later. I have just finished speaking to Dr Nash. I was dozing in the living room when the phone rang. The television was on, the sound turned down. For a moment I couldn’t tell where I was, whether I was asleep or awake. I thought I heard voices, getting louder. I realized one was mine, and the other sounded like Ben. But he was saying, You fucking bitch, and worse. I screamed at him, in anger, and then in fear. A door slammed, the thud of a fist, breaking glass. It was then I realized I was dreaming.

I opened my eyes. A chipped mug of cold coffee sat on the table in front of me, a phone buzzed nervously next to it. The one that flips open. I picked it up.

It was Dr Nash. He introduced himself, though his voice had sounded familiar anyway. He asked me if I was OK. I told him I was, and that I’d read my journal.

‘You know what we talked about yesterday?’ he said.

I felt a flash of shock. Horror. He had decided to tackle things, then. I felt a bubble of hope — perhaps he really had felt the same way I had, the same confused mix of desire and fear — but it didn’t last. ‘About going to the place where you lived after you left the ward?’ he said. ‘Waring House?’

I said, ‘Yes.’

‘Well, I called them this morning. It’s all fine. We can go and visit. They said pretty much any time we liked.’ The future. Again it seemed almost irrelevant to me. ‘I’m busy over the next couple of days,’ he said. ‘We could go on Thursday?’

‘That seems fine,’ I said. It didn’t seem to matter to me when we went. I was not optimistic it would help in any case.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll call you.’

I was about to say goodbye when I remembered what I had been writing before I dozed. I realized that my sleep couldn’t have been deep, or else I would have forgotten everything.

‘Dr Nash?’ I said. ‘Can I talk to you about something?’

‘Yes?’

‘About Ben?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, it’s just that I’m confused. He doesn’t tell me about things. Important things. Adam. My novel. And he lies about other things. He tells me it was an accident that caused me to be like this.’

‘OK,’ he said. A pause. ‘Why do you think he does this?’ He emphasized the you rather than the why .

I thought for a second. ‘He doesn’t know I’m writing things down. He doesn’t know I know any different. I suppose it’s easier for him.’

‘Just him?’

‘No. I suppose it’s easier for me, too. Or he thinks it is. But it isn’t. It just means I don’t even know if I can trust him.’

‘Christine, we’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it. Isn’t that what Ben’s doing?’

‘I suppose,’ I said. ‘But I feel like he’s taking advantage of me. Advantage of my illness. He thinks he can rewrite history in any way that he likes and I will never know, never be any the wiser. But I do know. I know exactly what he’s doing. And so I don’t trust him. In the end he’s pushing me away, Dr Nash. Ruining everything.’

‘So,’ he said. ‘What do you think you can do about it?’

I knew the answer already. I have read what I wrote this morning, over and over. About how I should trust him. About how I don’t. In the end all I could think of was: This cannot go on .

‘I have to tell him I am writing my journal,’ I said. ‘I have to tell him I have been seeing you.’

He said nothing for a moment. I don’t know what I expected. Disapproval? But when he spoke he said, ‘I think you might be right.’

Relief flooded me. ‘You agree?’