Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

That happened in the early hours of Saturday morning. Today is Sunday. Midday, or thereabouts. A whole day has gone, unrecorded. Twenty-four hours, lost. Twenty-four hours spent believing everything Ben told me. Believing that I have never written a novel, never had a son. Believing it was an accident that robbed me of my past.

Maybe, unlike today, Dr Nash didn’t call, and I didn’t find this journal. Or perhaps he did but I chose not to read it. I feel a chill. What would happen if one day he decides never to call again? I would never find it, never read it, never even know it existed. I would not know my past.

It would be unthinkable. I know that now. My husband is telling me one version of how I came to have no memory, my feelings another. I wonder if I have ever asked Dr Nash what happened. Even if I have, can I believe what he says? The only truth I have is what is written in this journal.

Written by me. I must remember that. Written by me.

I think back to this morning. I remember the sun slammed through the curtains, waking me suddenly. My eyes flicked open on an unfamiliar scene and I was confused. Yet, though particular events didn’t come to me, I had the sense of looking back on a wealth of history, not just a few short years. And I knew, however dimly, that that history contained a child of my own. In that fraction of a second before I was fully conscious, I knew that I was a mother. That I had borne a child, that mine was no longer the only body that I had a duty to nurture and protect.

I turned over, aware of another body in the bed, an arm draped over my waist. I didn’t feel alarmed, but secure. Happy. I woke more fully and the images and feelings began to coalesce into truth and memory. First I saw my little boy, heard myself calling his name — Adam — and saw him running towards me. And then I remembered my husband. His name. I felt deeply in love. I smiled.

The feeling of peace didn’t last. I looked over at the man next to me and his face was not the one I expected to see. A moment later I realized that I didn’t recognize the room in which I had slept, couldn’t remember getting there. And then, finally, I understood that I could remember nothing clearly. Those brief, disconnected snatches had not been representative of my memories, but their sum total.

Ben explained it to me, of course. Or parts of it at least. And this journal explained the rest, once Dr Nash phoned me and I found it. I didn’t have time to read it all — I had called down, feigning a headache, and then listened for the slightest movement downstairs, worried that Ben might come up at any moment with an aspirin and a glass of water. But I read enough. The journal told me who I am, how I came to be here, what I have, and what I have lost. It told me that all is not lost. That my memories are coming back, however slowly. Dr Nash told me so, on the day that I watched him read my journal. You’re remembering lots of things, Christine, he’d said. There’s no reason that won’t continue. And the journal told me that the hit-and-run was a lie, that somewhere, hidden deep, I can remember what happened to me on the night I lost my memory. That it doesn’t involve a car and icy roads, but champagne and flowers and a knock on the door of a hotel room.

And now I have a name. The name of the person I had expected to see when I opened my eyes this morning was not Ben.

Ed. I woke expecting to be lying next to someone called Ed.

At the time I didn’t know who he was, this Ed. I thought perhaps he was nobody, it was a name I invented, plucked from nowhere. Or perhaps he was an old lover, a one-night stand that I have not quite forgotten. But now I have read this journal. I have learned that I was assaulted in a hotel room. And so I know who this Ed is.

He is the man who was waiting on the other side of the door that night. The man who attacked me. The man who stole my life.

This evening I tested my husband. I didn’t want to, didn’t even plan to, but I had spent the whole day worrying. Why had he lied to me? Why? And does he lie to me every day? Is there only one version of the past that he tells me, or several? I need to trust him, I thought. I have no one else.

We were eating lamb; a cheap joint, fatty and overcooked. I was pushing the same forkful around my plate, dipping it in gravy, bringing it to my mouth, putting it down again.

‘How did I get to be like this?’ I asked. I had tried to summon up the vision of the hotel room, but it had remained elusive, just out of reach. In a way I was glad.

Ben looked up from his own plate, his eyes wide with surprise. ‘Christine,’ he said. ‘Darling. I don’t—’

‘Please,’ I interrupted him. ‘I need to know.’

He put his knife and fork down. ‘Very well,’ he said.

‘I need you to tell me everything,’ I said. ‘Everything.’

He looked at me, his eyes narrow. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I hesitated, but then I decided to say it. ‘Some people might think it would be better not to tell me all the details. Especially if they were upsetting. But I don’t think that. I think you should tell me everything, so that I can decide for myself what to feel. Do you understand?’

‘Chris,’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’

I looked away. My eyes rested on the photograph of the two of us that sat on the sideboard. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I know I wasn’t always like this. And now I am. So something must have happened. Something bad. I’m just saying that I know that. I know it must have been something awful. But even so, I want to know what. I have to know what it was. What happened to me. Don’t lie to me, Ben,’ I said. ‘Please.’

He reached across the table and took my hand. ‘Darling, I would never do that.’

And then he began. ‘It was December,’ he said. ‘Icy roads …’ and I listened, with a mounting sense of dread, as he told me about the car accident. When he had finished he picked up his knife and fork and carried on eating.

‘You’re sure?’ I said. ‘You’re sure it was an accident?’

He sighed. ‘Why?’

I tried to calculate how much to say. I didn’t want to reveal that I was writing again, keeping a journal, but wanted to be as honest as I could.

‘Earlier today I got an odd feeling,’ I said. ‘Almost like a memory. Somehow it felt like it had something to do with why I’m like this.’

‘What sort of feeling?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘A memory?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Well, did you remember specific things about what happened?’

I thought of the hotel room, the candles, the flowers. The feeling that they had not been from Ben, that it was not him I had opened the door to in that room. I thought, too, of the feeling that I could not breathe. ‘What sort of thing?’ I said.

‘Any details, really. The type of car that hit you? Even just the colour? Whether you saw who was driving it?’

I wanted to scream at him, Why are you asking me to believe I was hit by a car? Can it really be that it is an easier story to believe than whatever did happen?

An easier story to hear, I thought, or an easier one to tell?

I wondered what he would do if I was to say, Actually, no. I don’t even remember being hit by a car. I remember being in a hotel room, waiting for someone who wasn’t you.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really. It was more just a general impression.’

‘A general impression?’ he said. ‘What do you mean, “a general impression”?’

He had raised his voice, sounded almost angry. I was no longer sure I wanted to continue the discussion.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It was nothing. Just an odd feeling, as if something really bad were happening, and a feeling of pain. But I don’t remember any details.’

He seemed to relax. ‘It’s probably nothing,’ he said. ‘Just the mind playing tricks on you. Try to just ignore it.’

Ignore it? I thought. How could he ask me to do that? Was he frightened of me remembering the truth?

It is possible, I suppose. He has already told me today that I was hit by a car. He cannot enjoy the thought of being exposed as a liar, even for the rest of the one day that I could hold on to the memory. Particularly if he is lying for my benefit. I can see how believing I was hit by a car would be easier for both of us. But how will I ever find out what really happened?

And who I had been waiting for, in that room?

‘OK,’ I said, because what else could I say? ‘You’re probably right.’ We went back to our lamb, now cold. Another thought came then. Terrible, brutal. What if he is right? If it was a hit-and-run? What if my mind had invented the hotel room, the attack? It might all be invention. Imagination, not memory. Was it possible that, unable to comprehend the simple fact of an accident on an icy road, I had made it all up?

If so, then my memory is not working. Things are not coming back to me. I am not getting better at all, but going mad.

I found my bag and upended it over the bed. Things tumbled out. My purse, my floral diary, a lipstick, a powder contact, some tissues. A mobile phone, and then another. A packet of mints. Some loose coins. A yellow square of paper.

I sat on the bed, searching through the detritus. I fished out the tiny diary first, and thought I was in luck when I saw Dr Nash’s name scrawled in black ink at the back, but then I saw that the number beneath it had the word Office next to it in brackets. It was Sunday. He wouldn’t be there.

The yellow paper was gummed along one edge, with dust and hair sticking to it, but otherwise blank. I was beginning to wonder what on earth had made me think, even for a moment, that Dr Nash would have given me his personal number, when I remembered reading that he had written his number in the front of my journal. Ring me if you get confused, he’d said.

I found it, then picked up both phones. I couldn’t remember which one Dr Nash had given me. The larger of the two I checked quickly, seeing that every call was from, or to, Ben. The second — the one that flipped open — had hardly been used. Why had Dr Nash given it to me, I thought, if not for this? What am I now, if not confused? I opened it and dialled his number, then pressed Call.

Silence for a few moments, and then a buzzy ring, interrupted by a voice.

‘Hello?’ he said. He sounded sleepy, though it wasn’t late. ‘Who is this?’

‘Dr Nash,’ I said, whispering. I could hear Ben downstairs where I had left him, watching some kind of talent show on the television. Singing, laughter, sprinkled with punches of applause. ‘It’s Christine.’

There was a pause. A mental readjustment.

‘Oh. OK. How—’

I felt an unexpected plunge of disappointment. He didn’t sound pleased to be hearing from me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I got your number from the front of my journal.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course. How are you?’ I said nothing. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. The words fell out of me, one after another. ‘I need to see you. Now. Or tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow. I had a memory. Last night. I wrote it down. A hotel room. Someone knocked on the door. I couldn’t breathe. I … Dr Nash?’

‘Christine,’ he said. ‘Slow down. What happened?’

I took a breath. ‘I had a memory. I’m sure it has something to do with why I can’t remember anything. But it doesn’t make sense. Ben says I was hit by a car.’

I heard movement, as if he was adjusting his position, and another voice. A woman’s. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said quietly, and he muttered something I couldn’t quite hear.

‘Dr Nash?’ I said. ‘Dr Nash? Was I hit by a car?’

‘I can’t really talk right now,’ he said, and I heard the woman’s voice again, louder now, complaining. I felt something stir within me. Anger, or panic.

‘Please!’ I said. The word hissed out of me.

Silence at first, and then his voice again, now with authority. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m a little busy. Have you written it down?’

I didn’t answer. Busy. I thought of him and his girlfriend, wondered what it was that I’d interrupted. He spoke again. ‘What you’ve remembered — is it written in your journal? Make sure you write it down.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘but—’

He interrupted. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll call you, on this number. I promise.’

Relief, mixed with something else. Something unexpected. Hard to define. Happiness? Delight?

No. It was more than that. Part anxiety, part certainty, suffused with the tiny thrill of pleasure to come. I still feel it as I write this, an hour or so later, but now know it for what it is. Something I don’t know that I have ever felt before. Anticipation.

But anticipation of what? That he will tell me what I need to know, that he will confirm that my memories are beginning to trickle back to me, that my treatment is working? Or is it more?

I think of how I must have felt as he touched me in the car park, what I must have been thinking to ignore a call from my husband. Perhaps the truth is more simple. I’m looking forward to talking to him.

‘Yes,’ I had said when he told me he would call. ‘Yes. Please.’ But by then the line was already dead. I thought of the woman’s voice, realized they had been in bed.

I dismiss the thought from my mind. To chase it would be to go truly mad.