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

‘No,’ I said. ‘I was about to. He’s upstairs, I — What’s wrong?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s probably nothing to worry about. It’s just that someone from Waring House just called me. The woman I spoke to this morning? Nicole? She wanted to give me a phone number. She said that your friend Claire has apparently called there, wanting to talk to you. She left her number.’

I felt myself tense. I heard the toilet flush and the sound of water in the sink. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Recently?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It was a couple of weeks after you left to go and live with Ben. When you weren’t there she took Ben’s number, but, well, they said she called again later and said she couldn’t get through to him. She asked them if they’d give her your address. They couldn’t do that, of course, but said that she could leave her number with them, in case you or Ben ever called. Nicole found a note in your file after we spoke this morning, and she rang back to give the number to me.’

I didn’t understand. ‘But why didn’t they just post it to me? Or to Ben?’

‘Well, Nicole said they did. But they never heard back from either of you.’ He paused.

‘Ben handles all the mail,’ I said. ‘He picks it up in the morning. Well, he did today, anyway …’

‘Has Ben given you Claire’s number?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No. He said we haven’t been in touch for years. She moved away, not long after we got married. New Zealand.’

‘OK,’ he said, and then, ‘Christine? You told me that before, and … well … it’s not an international number.’

I felt a billowing sense of dread, though still I could not say why.

‘So she moved back?’

‘Nicole said that Claire used to visit you all the time at Waring House. She was there almost as much as Ben was. Nicole never heard anything about her moving away. Not to New Zealand. Not anywhere.’

It felt as though everything was suddenly taking off, things moving too fast for me to keep up with them. I could hear Ben upstairs. The water had stopped running now, the boiler was silent. There must be a rational explanation, I thought. There has to be. I felt that all I had to do was to slow things down so that I could catch up, could work out what it was. I wanted him to stop talking, to undo the things he had said, but he did not.

‘There’s something else,’ said Nash. ‘I’m sorry, Christine, but Nicole asked me how you were doing, and I told her. She said she was surprised that you were back living with Ben. I asked why.’

‘OK,’ I heard myself say. ‘Go on.’

‘I’m sorry, Christine, but listen. She said that you and Ben were divorced.’

The room tipped. I gripped the arm of the chair as if to steady myself. It didn’t make sense. On the television a blonde woman was screaming at an older man, telling him she hated him. I wanted to scream, too.

‘What?’ I said.

‘She said that you and Ben were separated. Ben left you. A year or so after you moved to Waring House.’

‘Separated?’ I said. It felt as if the room was receding, becoming vanishingly small. Disappearing. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. Apparently. That’s what she said. She said she felt it might have had something to do with Claire. She wouldn’t say anything else.’

‘Claire?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said. Even through my own confusion I could hear how difficult he was finding this conversation, the hesitancy in his voice, the slow picking through possibilities to decide the best thing to say. ‘I don’t know why Ben isn’t telling you everything,’ he said. ‘I did think he believed he was doing the right thing. Protecting you. But now? I don’t know. To not tell you that Claire is still local? To not mention your divorce? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right, but I suppose he must have his reasons.’ I said nothing. ‘I thought maybe you should speak to Claire. She might have some answers. She might even talk to Ben. I don’t know.’ Another pause. ‘Christine? Do you have a pen? Do you want the number?’

I swallowed hard. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, please.’

I reached for a corner of the newspaper on the coffee table, and the pen that was next to it, and wrote down the number that he gave me. I heard the bolt on the bathroom door slide open, Ben come on to the landing.

‘Christine?’ said Dr Nash. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t say anything to Ben. Not until we’ve figured out what’s going on. OK?’

I heard myself agree, say goodbye. He told me not to forget to write in this journal before I went to sleep. I wrote Claire next to the number, still not knowing what I was going to do. I tore it off and put it in my bag.

I said nothing when Ben came downstairs, nothing as he sat on the sofa across from me. I fixed my eyes on the television. A documentary about wildlife. The inhabitants of the ocean floor. A remote-controlled submersible craft was exploring an underwater trench with jerky twitches. Two lamps shone into places that had never known light before. Ghosts in the deep.

I wanted to ask him if I was still in touch with Claire, but did not want to hear another lie. A giant squid hung in the gloom, drifting in the gentle current. This creature has never been captured on film before, said the voiceover, to the accompaniment of electronic music.

‘Are you all right?’ he said. I nodded, without taking my eyes off the screen.

He stood up. ‘I have work to do,’ he said. ‘Upstairs. I’ll come to bed soon.’

I looked at him then. I didn’t know who he was.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you later.’

I have spent all morning reading this journal. Even so, I have not read it all. Some pages I have skimmed over, others I have read again and again, trying to believe them. And now I am in the bedroom, sitting in the bay, writing more.

I have the phone in my lap. Why does it feel so difficult to dial Claire’s number? Neuronal impulses, muscular contractions. That is all it will take. Nothing complicated. Nothing difficult. Yet it feels so much easier to take up a pen and write about it instead.

This morning I went into the kitchen. My life, I thought, is built on quicksand. It shifts from one day to the next. Things I think I know are wrong, things I am certain of, facts about my life, myself, belong to years ago. All the history I have reads like fiction. Dr Nash, Ben, Adam, and now Claire. They exist, but as shadows in the dark. As strangers, they criss-cross my life, connecting, disconnecting. Elusive, ethereal. Like ghosts.

And not just them. Everything. It is all invented. Conjured from nothing. I am desperate for solid ground, for something real, something that will not vanish as I sleep. I need to anchor myself.

I clicked open the lid of the bin. A warmth rose from it — the heat of decomposition and decay — and it smelled, faintly. The sweet, sick smell of rotting food. I could see a newspaper, the crossword part filled in, a solitary teabag soaking it brown. I held my breath and knelt down on the floor.

Inside the newspaper were shards of porcelain, crumbs, a fine white dust, and underneath it a carrier bag, knotted closed. I fished it out, thinking of dirty nappies, decided to tear it open later if I had to. Beneath it there were potato peelings and a near-empty plastic bottle that was leaking ketchup. I pushed both aside.

Eggshells — four or five — and a handful of papery onion skin. The remains of a de-seeded red pepper, a large mushroom, half rotten.

Satisfied, I replaced the things in the bin and closed it. It was true. Last night, we had eaten an omelette. A plate had been smashed. I looked in the fridge. Two pork chops lay in a polystyrene tray. In the hallway Ben’s slippers sat at the bottom of the stairs. Everything was there, exactly as I had described it in my journal last night. I hadn’t invented it. It was all true.