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

‘You stupid fucking bitch,’ he said, moving up against me as he did so. I flinched. His face was just inches from mine. ‘How long has this been going on?’

‘I—’

‘Tell me! Tell me, you slut. How long?’

‘Nothing’s going on!’ I said. Fear welled within me, rising up. It did a slow roll on the surface and then sank beneath. ‘Nothing!’ I said again. I could smell the food on his breath. Meat, and onion. Spittle flew, striking me in the face, the lips. I could taste his warm, wet anger.

‘You’re sleeping with him. Don’t lie to me.’

The backs of my legs pressed against the edge of the sofa and I tried to move along it, to get away from him, but he grabbed my shoulders and shook them. ‘You’ve always been the same,’ he said. ‘A stupid lying bitch. I don’t know what made me think you’d be any different with me. What have you been doing, eh? Sneaking off while I’ve been at work? Or have you been having him round here? Or maybe you’ve been doing it in a car, parked up on the heath?’

I felt his hands grip tight, his fingers and nails digging into my skin even through the cotton of my blouse.

‘You’re hurting me!’ I shouted, hoping to shock him out of his rage. ‘Ben! Stop it!’

He stopped shaking, and loosened his grip a fraction. It didn’t seem possible that the man gripping my shoulders, his face a mixture of rage and hate, could be the same man who had written the letter that Claire had given me. How could we have reached this level of distrust? How much miscommunication must it have taken to bring us from there to here?

‘I’m not sleeping with him,’ I said. ‘He’s helping me. Helping me to get better so that I can live a normal life. Here, with you. Don’t you want that?’

His eyes began darting around the room. ‘Ben?’ I said again. ‘Talk to me!’ He froze. ‘Don’t you want me to get better? Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted, always hoped for?’ He began to shake his head, rocking it from side to side. ‘I know it is,’ I said. ‘I know it’s what you’ve wanted all this time.’ Hot tears ran down my cheeks, but I spoke through them, my voice fracturing into sobs. He was still holding me, but gently now, and I put my hands on his.

‘I met Claire,’ I said. ‘She gave me your letter. I’ve read it, Ben. After all these years. I’ve read it.’

There is a stain there, on the page. Ink, mixed with water in a smudge that resembles a star. I must have been crying as I wrote. I carried on reading.

I don’t know what I expected to happen. Perhaps I thought he’d fall into my arms, sobbing with relief, and we would stand there, holding each other silently for as long as it took for us to relax, to feel our way back into each other again. And then we would sit and talk things through. Perhaps I would go upstairs and get the letter that Claire had given me, and we would read it together, and begin the slow process of rebuilding our lives on a foundation of truth.

Instead, there was an instant in which nothing at all seemed to move and everything was quiet. There was no sound of breathing, no traffic from the road. I didn’t even hear the ticking of the clock. It was as if life was suspended, hovering on the cusp between one state and another.

And then it was over. Ben drew away from me. I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead I was aware of a blur out of the corner of my eye and my head cracked to one side. Pain radiated from my jaw. I fell, the sofa coming towards me, and the back of my head connected with something hard and sharp. I cried out. There was another blow, and then another. I closed my eyes, waiting for the next — but nothing came. Instead I heard footsteps moving away, and a door slamming.

I opened my eyes and inhaled in an angry gasp. The carpet stretched away from me, now vertical. A smashed plate sat near to my head and gravy oozed on to the floor, soaking into the carpet. Green peas had been trodden into the weave of the rug, and the half-chewed sausage. The front door swung open, then slammed. Footsteps on the path. Ben had left.

I exhaled. I closed my eyes. I must not sleep, I thought. I must not.

I opened them again. Dark swirls in the distance and the smell of flesh. I swallowed, and tasted blood.

What have I done? What have I done?

I made sure he was gone, then came upstairs and found my journal. Blood dripped on to the carpet from my split lip. I don’t know what has happened. I don’t know where my husband is, or if he will come back, or whether I want him to.

But I need him to. Without him I can’t live.

I am scared. I want to see Claire.

I stop reading and my hand goes to my forehead. It feels tender. The bruise I saw this morning, the one I covered up with make-up. Ben had hit me. I look back at the date. Friday, 23 November . It was one week ago. One week spent believing that everything is all right.

I stand up to look in the mirror. It is still there. A faint blue contusion. Proof that what I wrote was true. I wonder what lies I have been telling myself to explain my injury, or what lies he has been telling me.

But now I know the truth. I look at the pages in my hand and it hits me. He wanted me to find them . He knows that even if I read them today, I will have forgotten them tomorrow.

Suddenly I hear him on the stairs and, almost for the first time, realize fully that I am here, in this hotel room. With Ben. With the man who has hit me. I hear his key in the lock.

I have to know what happened, so I push the pages under the pillow and lie on the bed. As he comes into the room, I close my eyes.

‘Are you OK, darling?’ he says. ‘Are you awake?’

I open my eyes. He is standing in the doorway, clutching a bottle. ‘I could only get Cava,’ he says. ‘OK?’

He puts the bottle on the dresser and kisses me. ‘I think I’ll take a shower,’ he whispers. He goes into the bathroom and turns on the taps.

When he has closed the door I pull out the pages. I don’t have long — surely he will not be more than five minutes — and so I must read as quickly as I can. My eyes flick down the page, not even registering all the words but seeing enough.

That was hours ago. I have been sitting in the darkened hallway of our empty house, a slip of paper in one hand, a telephone in the other. Ink on paper. A number smudged. There was no answer, just an endless ringing. I wonder if she has turned off her answering machine, or if the tape is full. I try again. And again. I have been here before. My time is circular. Claire is not there to help me.

I looked in my bag and found the phone that Dr Nash had given me. It is late, I thought. He won’t be at work. He’ll be with his girlfriend, doing whatever it is that the two of them do during their evenings. Whatever two normal people do. I have no idea what that is.

His home number was written in the front of my journal. It rang and rang, and then was silent. There was no recorded voice to tell me there was an error, no invitation to leave a message. I tried again. The same. His office number was now the only one I had.

I sat there for a while. Helpless. Looking at the front door, half hoping to see Ben’s shadowy figure appear in the frosted glass and insert a key in the lock, half fearing it.

Eventually I could wait no more. I went upstairs and got undressed, and then I got into bed and wrote this. The house is still empty. In a moment I will close this book and hide it, and then switch off the light and sleep.

And then I will forget, and this journal will be all that is left.

I look at the next page with dread, fearing I will find it blank, but it is not.

Monday, 26 November

He hit me on Friday. Two days, and I have written nothing.