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

For all that time, did I believe things were all right?

My face is bruised and sore. Surely I knew that something was not right?

Today he said that I fell. The biggest cliché in the book and I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? He’d already had to explain who I was, and who he was, and how I’d come to be waking up in a strange house, decades older than I thought I should be, so why would I question his reason for my bruised and swollen eye, my cut lip?

And so I went ahead with my day. I kissed him as he left for work. I cleared up our breakfast things. I ran a bath.

And then I came in here, found this journal, and learned the truth.

A gap. I realize I have not mentioned Dr Nash. Had he abandoned me? Had I found the journal without his help?

Or had I stopped hiding it? I read on.

Later, I called Claire. The phone that Ben had given me didn’t work — the battery was probably dead, I thought — and so I used the one that Dr Nash had given me. There was no answer, and so I sat in the living room. I could not relax. I picked up magazines, put them down again. I put the TV on and spent half an hour staring at the screen, not even noticing what was on. I looked at my journal, unable to concentrate, unable to write. I tried her again, several times, each time hearing the same message inviting me to leave one of my own. It was just after lunchtime when she answered.

‘Chrissy,’ she said. ‘How are you?’ I could hear Toby in the background, playing.

‘I’m OK,’ I said, although I wasn’t.

‘I was going to call you,’ she said. ‘I feel like hell, and it’s only Monday!’

Monday. Days meant nothing to me; each melted away, indistinguishable from the one that had preceded it.

‘I need to see you,’ I said. ‘Can you come over?’

She sounded surprised. ‘To your place?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Please? I want to talk to you.’

‘Is everything OK, Chrissy? You read the letter?’

I took a deep breath, and my voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Ben hit me.’ I heard a gasp of surprise.

‘What?’

‘The other night. I’m bruised. He told me I’d fallen, but I wrote down that he hit me.’

‘Chrissy, there is no way Ben would hit you. Ever. He just isn’t capable of it.’

Doubt flooded me. Was it possible I’d made it all up?

‘But I wrote it in my journal,’ I said.

She said nothing for a moment, and then, ‘But why do you think he hit you?’

I put my hands to my face, felt the swollen flesh around my eyes. I felt a flash of anger. It was clear she didn’t believe me.

I thought back to what I had written. ‘I told him that I’ve been keeping a journal. I said I had been seeing you, and Dr Nash. I told him I knew about Adam. I told him you’d given me the letter he’d written, that I’d read it. And then he hit me.’

‘He just hit you?’

I thought of all the things he’d called me, the things he’d accused me of. ‘He said I was a bitch.’ I felt a sob rise in my chest. ‘He — he accused me of sleeping with Dr Nash. I said I wasn’t, then—’

‘Then?’

‘Then he hit me.’

A silence, then Claire said, ‘Has he ever hit you before?’

I had no way of knowing. Perhaps he had? It was possible that ours had always been an abusive relationship. My mind flashed on Claire and me, marching, holding home-made placards –

Women’s rights. No to domestic violence

I remembered how I had always looked down on women who found themselves with husbands who beat them and stayed put. They were weak, I thought. Weak, and stupid.

Was it possible that I had fallen into the same trap as they had?

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘It’s difficult to imagine Ben hurting anything, but I suppose it’s not impossible. Christ! He used to make even me feel guilty. Do you remember?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t. I don’t remember anything.’

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. It’s just so hard to imagine. He’s the one who convinced me that fish have as much right to life as an animal with legs. He wouldn’t even kill a spider!’

The wind gusts the curtains of the room. I hear a train in the distance. Screams from the pier. Downstairs, on the street, someone shouts ‘Fuck!’ and I hear the sound of breaking glass. I do not want to read on, but know that I must.

I felt a chill. ‘Ben was vegetarian?’

‘Vegan,’ she said, laughing. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know?’

I thought of the night he’d hit me.

A lump of meat

, I’d written.

Peas floating in thin gravy

.

I went over to the window. ‘Ben eats meat …’ I said, speaking slowly. ‘He’s not vegetarian … Not now, anyway. Maybe he’s changed?’

There was another long silence.

‘Claire?’ She said nothing. ‘Claire? Are you there?’

‘Right,’ she said. She sounded angry now. ‘I’m ringing him. I’m sorting this out. Where is he?’

I answered without thinking. ‘He’ll be at the school, I suppose. He said he wouldn’t be back until five o’clock.’

‘At the school?’ she said. ‘Do you mean the university? Is he lecturing now?’

Fear began to stir within me. ‘No,’ I said. ‘He works at a school near here. I can’t remember the name.’

‘What does he do there?’

‘A teacher. He’s head of chemistry, I think he said.’ I felt guilty at not knowing what my husband does for a living, not being able to remember how he earns the money to keep us fed and clothed. ‘I don’t remember.’

I looked up and caught sight of my swollen face reflected in the window in front of me. The guilt evaporated.

‘What school?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he told me.’

‘What, never?’

‘Not this morning, no,’ I said. ‘For me that might as well be never.’

‘I’m sorry, Chrissy. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that, well—’ I sensed a change of mind, a sentence aborted. ‘Could you find out the name of the school?’

I thought of the office upstairs. ‘I guess so. Why?’

‘I’d like to speak to Ben, to make sure he’ll be coming home when I’m there this afternoon. I wouldn’t want it to be a wasted journey!’

I noticed the humour she was trying to inject into her voice, but didn’t mention it. I felt out of control, couldn’t work out what was best, what I should do, and so decided to surrender to my friend. ‘I’ll have a look,’ I said.

I went upstairs. The office was tidy, piles of papers arranged across the desk. It did not take long to find some headed paper; a letter about a parents’ evening that had already taken place.

‘It’s St Anne’s,’ I said. ‘You want the number?’ She said she’d find it out herself.

‘I’ll call you back,’ she said. ‘Yes?’

Panic hit again. ‘What are you going to say to him?’ I said.

‘I’m going to sort this out,’ she said. ‘Trust me, Chrissy. There has to be an explanation. OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and ended the call. I sat down, my legs shaking. What if my first hunch had been correct? What if Claire and Ben were still sleeping together? Maybe she was calling him now, warning him.

She suspects

, she might be saying.

Be careful

.

I remembered reading my journal earlier. Dr Nash had told me that I had once shown symptoms of paranoia.

Claiming the doctors were conspiring against you

, he’d said.

A tendency to confabulate. To invent things

.

What if that’s all happening again? What if I am inventing this, all of it? Everything in my journal might be fantasy. Paranoia.