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

‘After that I used to go to the café almost every day. It’s always easier to do something when you’ve done it once. Sometimes I’d wait for you to arrive, or make sure you were there before I went in, but sometimes I’d just go in anyway. And you noticed me. I know you did. You began to say hello to me, or you’d comment on the weather. And then one time I was held up, and when I arrived you actually said, “You’re late today!” as I walked past holding my tea and my flapjack, and when you saw that there were no free tables you said, “Why don’t you sit here?” and you pointed to the chair at your table, opposite you. The baby wasn’t there that day, so I said, “Are you sure you don’t mind? I won’t disturb you?” and then I felt bad for saying that, and I dreaded you saying that, yes, actually, on second thoughts it would disturb you. But you didn’t, you said, “No! Not at all! To be honest, it’s not going too well anyway. I’d be glad of a distraction!” and that was how I knew that you wanted me to speak to you, rather than just have my drink and eat my cake in silence. Do you remember?’

I shake my head. I have decided to let him speak. I want to find out everything he has to say.

‘So I sat, and we chatted. You told me you were a writer. You said you’d had a book published but you were struggling with your second one. I asked what it was about, but you wouldn’t tell me. “It’s fiction,” you said, and then you said, “supposedly”, and you suddenly looked very sad, so I offered to buy you another cup of coffee. You said that would be nice, but that you didn’t have any money with you to buy me one. “I don’t bring my purse when I come here,” you said. “I just bring enough money to buy one drink and one snack. That way I’m not tempted to pig out!” I thought it was an odd thing to say. You didn’t look as though you needed to worry about how much you ate at all. You were always so slim. But anyway I was glad, as it meant you must be enjoying speaking to me, and you would owe me a drink, so we’d have to see each other again. I said that it didn’t matter about the money, or buying me one back, and I got us some more tea and coffee. After that we started to meet quite regularly.’

I begin to see it all. Though I have no memory, somehow I know how these things work. The casual meeting, the exchange of a drink. The appeal of talking to — confiding in — a stranger, one who doesn’t judge or take sides because he can’t. The gradual acceptance into confidence, leading … to what?

I have seen the photographs of the two of us, taken years ago. We look happy. It is obvious where those confidences led us. He was attractive, too. Not film-star handsome, but better-looking than most; it is not difficult to see what drew me. At some point I must have started scanning the door anxiously as I sat trying to work, thinking more carefully about what clothes I would wear when I went to the café, whether to add a dash of perfume. And, one day, one or the other of us must have suggested we go for a walk, or to a bar, or maybe even to catch a film, and our friendship slipped over a line, into something else, something infinitely more dangerous.

I close my eyes and try to imagine it, and as I do I begin to remember. The two of us, in bed, naked. Semen drying on my stomach, in my hair, me turning to him as he begins to laugh and kiss me again. ‘Mike!’ I am saying. ‘Stop it! You have to leave soon. Ben’s back later today and I have to pick Adam up. Stop it!’ But he doesn’t listen. Instead he leans in, his moustachioed face in mine, and we are kissing again, forgetting about everything, about my husband, about my child. With a sickening plunge I realize that a memory of this day has come to me before. That day, as I had stood in the kitchen of the house I once shared with my husband I had not been remembering my husband, but my lover. The man I was fucking while my husband was at work. That’s why he had to leave that day. Not just to catch a train — because the man I was married to would be returning home.

I open my eyes. I am back in the hotel room and he is still crouching in front of me.

‘Mike,’ I say. ‘Your name is Mike.’

‘You remember!’ he says. He is pleased. ‘Chris! You remember!’

Hate bubbles up in me. ‘I remember your name,’ I say. ‘Nothing else. Just your name.’

‘You don’t remember how much in love we were?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t think I could ever have loved you, or surely I would remember more.’

I say it to hurt him, but his reaction surprises me. ‘You don’t remember Ben, though, do you? You can’t have loved him. And not Adam, either.’

‘You’re sick,’ I say. ‘How fucking dare you! Of course I loved him. He was my son!’

‘Is. Is your son. But you wouldn’t recognize him if he walked in now, would you? You think that’s love? And where is he? And where is Ben? They walked out on you, Christine. Both of them. I’m the only one who never stopped loving you. Not even when you left me.’

It is then that it hits me, finally, properly. How else could he have known about this room, about so much of my past?

‘Oh my God,’ I say. ‘It was you! It was you who did this to me! You who attacked me!’

He moves over to me then. He wraps his arms around me, as if to embrace me, and begins to stroke my hair. ‘Christine darling,’ he murmurs, ‘don’t say that. Don’t think about it. It’ll just upset you.’

I try to push him off me, but he is strong. He squeezes me tighter.

‘Let me go!’ I say. ‘Please, let me go!’ My words are lost in the folds of his shirt.

‘My love,’ he says. He has begun to rock me, as if soothing a baby. ‘My love. My sweet, my darling. You should never have left me. Don’t you see? None of this would have happened if you hadn’t gone.’

Memory comes again. We are sitting in a car, at night. I am crying, and he is staring out of the window, utterly silent. ‘Say something,’ I am saying. ‘Anything. Mike? ’

‘ You don’t mean it,’ he says. ‘You can’t .’

‘ I’m sorry. I love Ben. We have our problems, yes, but I love him. He’s the person I am meant to be with. I’m sorry .’

I am aware that I am trying to keep things simple, so that he will understand. I have come to realize, over the past few months with Mike, that it is better this way. Complicated things confuse him. He likes order. Routine. Things mixing in precise ratios with predictable results. Plus I don’t want to get too mired in details .

‘ It’s because I came round to your house, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Chris. I won’t do that again, I promise. I just wanted to see you, and I wanted to explain to your husband —’

I interrupt him. ‘Ben. You can say his name. It’s Ben .’

‘ Ben,’ he says, as if trying the word for the first time and finding it unpleasant. ‘I wanted to explain things to him. I wanted to tell him the truth .’

‘ What truth? ’

‘ That you don’t love him any more. That you love me, now. That you want to be with me. That was all I was going to say .’

I sigh. ‘Don’t you see that, even if it were true — which it isn’t — it’s not you who should be saying that to him? It’s me. You had no right to just turn up at the house .’

As I speak I think about what a lucky escape I have had .

Ben was in the shower, Adam playing in the dining room, and I was able to persuade Mike that he ought to go home before either of them were aware of his presence. That was the night I decided I had to end the affair .

‘ I have to go now,’ I say. I open the car door, step out on to the gravel. ‘I’m sorry .’