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

I try to relax. We get out of the car. There is a bar next to the guest house and through its large windows I can see throngs of drinkers and a dance floor, pulsing at the back. Music thuds, muffled by the glass. ‘We’ll check in, and then I’ll come back for the luggage. OK?’

I pull my coat tight around me. The wind is cold now, and the rain heavy. I rush up the steps and open the front door. There is a sign taped to the glass. No vacancies . I go through and into the lobby.

‘You’ve booked?’ I say, when Ben joins me. We are standing in a hallway. Further down a door is ajar, and from behind it comes the sound of a television, its volume turned up, competing with the music next door. There is no reception desk, but instead a bell sits on a small table, a sign next to it inviting us to ring it to attract attention.

‘Yes, of course,’ says Ben. ‘Don’t worry.’ He rings the bell.

For a moment nothing happens, and then a young man comes from a room somewhere at the back of the house. He is tall and awkward, and I notice that, despite it being far too big for his frame, his shirt is untucked. He greets us as though he was expecting us, though not warmly, and I wait while he and Ben complete the formalities.

It is clear the hotel has seen better days. The carpet is threadbare in places, and the paintwork around the doorways scuffed and marked. Opposite the lounge is another door, marked Dining Room , and at the back are several more doors through which, I imagine, one would find the kitchen and private rooms of the staff.

‘I’ll take you to the room now, shall I?’ says the tall man when he and Ben have finished. I realize he is talking to me; Ben is on his way back outside, presumably to get the bags.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

He hands me a key and we go up the stairs. On the first landing are several bedrooms, but we walk past them and up another flight. The house seems to shrink as we go higher; the ceilings are lower, the walls closer. We pass another bedroom and then stand at the bottom of a final flight of stairs that must lead to the very top of the house.

‘Your room is up there,’ he says. ‘It’s the only one.’

I thank him, and then he turns and goes back downstairs and I climb to our room.

I open the door. The room is dark, and bigger than I was expecting, up here at the top of the house. I can see a window opposite, and through it a dim grey light is shining, picking out the outline of a dressing table, a bed, a table and an armchair. The music from the club next door thuds, stripped of its clarity, reduced to a dull, crunching bass.

I stand still. Fear has gripped me again. The same fear that I experienced outside the guest house, but worse, somehow. I go cold. Something is wrong, but I can’t say what. I breathe deeply, but can’t get enough air into my lungs. I feel as if I am about to drown.

I close my eyes, as if hoping the room will look different when I open them, but it doesn’t. I am filled with an overwhelming terror of what will happen when I switch on the light, as if that simple action will spell disaster, the end of everything.

What will happen if I leave the room shrouded in blackness and instead go back downstairs? I could walk calmly past the tall man, and along the corridor, past Ben if necessary, and out, out of the hotel.

But they would think I had gone mad, of course. They would find me, and bring me back. And what would I tell them? That the woman who remembers nothing had a feeling she didn’t like, an inkling? They would think me ridiculous.

I am with my husband. I have come here to be reconciled with him. I am safe with Ben.

And so I switch on the light.

There is a flash as my eyes adjust, and then I see the room. It is unimpressive. There is nothing to be frightened of. The carpet is a mushroom grey, the curtains and wallpaper both in a floral pattern, though they don’t match. The dresser is battered, with three mirrors on it and a faded painting of a bird above it, the armchair wicker with yet another floral pattern on the cushion, and the bed covered with an orange bedspread in a diamond design.

I can see how disappointing it would be to someone who has booked it for their holiday, but, though Ben has booked it for ours, it is not disappointment that I feel. The fear has burned itself down to dread.

I close the door behind me and try to calm myself. I am being stupid. Paranoid. I must keep busy. Do something.

It feels cold in the room and a slight draught wafts the curtains. The window is open and I go over to close it. I look out before I do. We are high up; the street-lamps are far below us; seagulls sit silently upon them. I look out across the rooftops, see the cool moon hanging in the sky, and in the distance the sea. I can make out the pier, the helter-skelter, the flashing lights.

And then I see them. The words, over the entrance to the pier.

Brighton Pier .

Despite the cold, and even though I shiver, I feel a bead of sweat form on my brow. Now it makes sense. Ben has brought me here, to Brighton, to the place of my disaster. But why? Does he think I am more likely to remember what happened if I am back in the town in which my life was ripped from me? Does he think that I will remember who did this to me?

I remember reading that Dr Nash had once suggested I come here, and I had told him, no.

There are footsteps on the stairs, voices. The tall man must be bringing Ben here, to our room. They will be carrying the luggage together, lifting it up the stairs and round the tricky landings. He will be here soon.

What should I tell him? That he is wrong and being here will not help? That I want to go home?

I go back towards the door. I will help to bring the bags through, and then I will unpack them, and we will sleep, and then tomorrow—

It hits me. Tomorrow I will know nothing again. That must be what Ben has in his satchel. Photographs. The scrapbook. He will have to use everything he has to explain who he is and where we are all over again.

I wonder if I have brought my journal, then remember packing it, putting it in my bag. I try to calm myself. Tonight I will put it under the pillow and tomorrow I will find it, and read it. Everything will be fine.

I can hear Ben on the landing. He is talking to the tall man, discussing arrangements for breakfast. ‘We’d probably like it in our room,’ I hear him say. A gull cries outside the window, startling me.

I go towards the door, and then I see it. To my right. A bathroom, with the door open. A bath, a toilet, a basin. But it is the floor that draws me, fills me with horror. It is tiled, and the pattern is unusual; black and white alternate in crazed diagonals.

My jaw opens. I feel myself go cold. I think I hear myself cry out.

I know, then. I recognize the pattern.

It is not only Brighton that I have recognized.

I have been here before. In this room.

*

The door opens. I say nothing as Ben comes in, but my mind spins. Is this the room in which I was attacked? Why didn’t he tell me we were coming here? How can he go from not even wanting to tell me about the assault to bringing me to the room in which it happened?

I can see the tall man standing just outside the door, and I want to call out to him, to ask him to stay, but he turns to leave and Ben closes the door. It is just the two of us now.

He looks at me. ‘Are you all right, love?’ he says. I nod and say yes, but the word feels as though it has been forced out of me. I feel the stirrings of hate in my stomach.

He takes my arm. He is squeezing the flesh just a little too tightly; any more and I would say something, any less and I doubt that I would notice. ‘You’re sure?’