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

I interrupted. ‘I was seeing someone.’

‘I asked you. You denied it at first, but then I told you I wasn’t stupid, and neither was Ben. We had an argument, but after a while you told me the truth.’

The truth. Not glamorous, not exciting. Just the bald facts. I had turned into a living cliché, taken to fucking someone I’d met in a café while my best friend was babysitting my child and my husband was earning the money to pay for the clothes and underwear I was wearing for someone other than him. I pictured the furtive phone calls, the aborted arrangements when something unexpected came up and, on the days we could get together, the sordid, pathetic afternoons, spent in bed with a man who had temporarily seemed better — more exciting? attractive? a better lover? richer? — than my husband. Was this the man I had been waiting for in that hotel room, the man who would eventually attack me, leave me with no past and no future?

I closed my eyes. A flash of memory. Hands gripping my hair, around my throat. My head under water. Gasping, crying. I remember what I was thinking. I want to see my son. One last time. I want to see my husband. I should never have done this to him. I should never have betrayed him with this man. I will never be able to tell him I am sorry. Never .

I open my eyes. Claire was squeezing my hand. ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

‘Tell me,’ I said.

‘I don’t know whether—’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Tell me. Who was it?’

She sighed. ‘You said you’d met someone else who went to the café regularly. He was nice, you said. Attractive. You’d tried, but you hadn’t been able to stop yourself.’

‘What was his name?’ I said. ‘Who was he?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You must!’ I said. ‘His name at least! Who did this to me?’

She looked into my eyes. ‘Chrissy,’ she said, her voice calm, ‘you never even told me his name. You just said you’d met him in a coffee shop. I suppose you didn’t want me to know any details. Any more than I had to, at least.’

I felt another sliver of hope slip away, washed downstream in the river. I would never know who did this to me.

‘What happened?’

‘I told you that I thought you were being silly. There was Adam to think about, as well as Ben. I thought you ought to call it off. Stop seeing him.’

‘But I wouldn’t listen.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Not at first. We fought. I told you that you were putting me in an impossible situation. Ben was my friend too. You were asking me to lie to him.’

‘What happened? How long did it go on for?’

She was silent, then said, ‘I don’t know. One day — it must have been only a few weeks — you announced that it was all over. You’d told this man that it wasn’t working, that you’d made a mistake. You said you were sorry, you’d been foolish. Crazy.’

‘I was lying?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. You and I didn’t lie to each other. We just didn’t.’ She blew across the top of her coffee. ‘A few weeks later you were found in Brighton,’ she said. ‘I have no idea what happened in that time.’

Perhaps it was those words — I have no idea what happened in that time — that set it off, the realization that I may never know how I came to be attacked, but a sound suddenly escaped me. I tried to clamp it down, but failed. Something between a gasp and a howl, it was the cry of an animal in pain. Toby looked up from his colouring book. Everyone in the café turned to stare at me, at the mad woman with no memory. Claire grabbed my arm.

‘Chrissy!’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’

I was sobbing now, my body heaving, gasping for breath. Crying for all the years that I had lost, and for all those that I would continue to lose between now and the day that I died. Crying because, however hard it had been for her to tell me about the affair, and my marriage, and my son, she would have to do it all again tomorrow. Crying mostly, though, because I had brought all this on myself.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

Claire stood up and came round the table. She crouched beside me, her arm around my shoulder, and I rested my head against hers. ‘There, there,’ she said as I sobbed. ‘It’s all right, Chrissy darling. I’m here now. I’m here.’

We left the café. As if unwilling to be outdone, Toby had become boisterously noisy after my own outburst — he threw his colouring book on the floor, along with a plastic cup of juice. Claire cleaned up and then said, ‘I need to get some air. Shall we?’

Now we sat on one of the benches that overlooked the park. Our knees were angled towards each other, and Claire held my hands in hers, stroking them as if they were cold.

‘Did I—’ I began. ‘Did I have lots of affairs?’

She shook her head. ‘No. None. We had fun at university, you know? But no more than most. And once you met Ben that stopped. You were always faithful to him.’

I wondered what had been so special about the man in the café. Claire had said that I’d told her he was nice. Attractive . Was that all it was? Was I really so shallow?

My husband was both of those things, I thought. If only I’d been content with what I had.

‘Ben knew I was having an affair?’

‘Not at first. No. Not until you were found. It was a dreadful shock for him. For all of us. At first it looked as though you might not even live. Later, Ben asked me if I knew why you’d been in Brighton. I told him. I had to. I’d already told the police all I knew. I had no choice but to tell Ben.’

Guilt punctured me once more as I thought of my husband, of the father of my son, trying to work out why his dying wife had turned up miles away from home. How could I do this to him?

‘He forgave you, though,’ said Claire. ‘He never held it against you, ever. All he cared about was that you lived, and that you got better. He would have given everything for that. Everything. Nothing else mattered.’

I felt a surge of love for my husband. Real. Unforced. Despite everything, he had taken me in. Looked after me.

‘Will you talk to him?’ I said.

She smiled. ‘Of course! But about what?’

‘He’s not telling me the truth,’ I said. ‘Or not always, anyway. He’s trying to protect me. He tells me what he thinks I can cope with, what he thinks I want to hear.’

‘Ben wouldn’t do that,’ she said. ‘He loves you. He always has.’

‘Well, he is,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t know I know. He doesn’t know I’m writing things down. He doesn’t tell me about Adam, other than when I remember him and ask. He doesn’t tell me he left me. He tells me you live on the other side of the world. He doesn’t think I can cope. He’s given up on me, Claire. Whatever he used to be like, he’s given up on me. He doesn’t want me to see a doctor because he doesn’t think I will ever get any better, but I’ve been seeing one, Claire. A Dr Nash. In secret. I can’t even tell Ben.’

Claire’s face fell. She looked disappointed. In me, I suppose. ‘That’s not good,’ she said. ‘You ought to tell him. He loves you. He trusts you.’

‘I can’t. He only admitted he was still in touch with you the other day. Until then he’d been saying he hadn’t spoken to you in years.’

Her expression of disapproval changed. For the first time I could see that she was surprised.

‘Chrissy!’

‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘I know he loves me. But I need him to be honest with me. About everything. I don’t know my own past. And only he can help me. I need him to help me.’

‘Then you should just talk to him. Trust him.’

‘But how can I?’ I said. ‘With all the things he’s lied to me about? How can I?’