Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

It is morning. Ben has suggested that I clean the windows. ‘I’ve written it on the board,’ he said, as he got into his car. ‘In the kitchen.’

I looked. Wash windows he had written, adding a tentative question mark. I wondered if he thought I might not have time, wondered what he thought I did all day. He doesn’t know I now spend hours reading my journal, and sometimes hours more writing in it. He does not know there are days when I see Dr Nash.

I wonder what I did before my days were taken up like this. Did I really spend all my time watching television, or going for walks, or doing chores? Did I spend hour after hour sitting in an armchair, listening to the ticking of the clock, wondering how to live?

Wash windows. Possibly some days I read things like that and feel resentful, seeing it as an effort to control my life, but today I viewed it with affection, as nothing more sinister than the desire to keep me occupied. I smiled to myself but, even as I did so, I thought how difficult it must be to live with me. He must go to extraordinary lengths to make sure I am safe, and even so must worry constantly that I will get confused, will wander off, or worse. I remembered reading about the fire that had destroyed most of our past, the one Ben has never told me that I started, even though I must have done so. I saw an image — a burning door, almost invisible in the thick smoke, a sofa, melting, turning to wax — that hovered, just out of reach, but refused to resolve itself into a memory, and remained a half-imagined dream. But Ben has forgiven me for that, I thought, just as he must have forgiven me for so much more. I looked out of the kitchen window, and through the reflection of my own face I saw the mowed lawn, the tidy borders, the shed, the fences. I realized that Ben must have known that I was having an affair — certainly once I’d been discovered in Brighton, even if not before. How much strength it must have taken to look after me — once I had lost my memory — even with the knowledge that I had been away from home, intending to fuck someone else, when it had happened. I thought of what I had seen, of the diary I had written. My mind had been fractured. Destroyed. Yet still he had stood by me, where another man might have told me that I deserved everything, left me to rot.

I turned away from the window and looked under the sink. Cleaning materials. Soap. Cartons of powder, plastic spray bottles. There was a red plastic bucket and I filled this with hot water, adding a squirt of soap and a tiny drop of vinegar. How have I repaid him? I thought. I took a sponge and began to soap the window, beginning at the top, working down. I have been sneaking around London, seeing doctors, having scans, visiting our old homes and the places I was treated after my accident, all without telling him. And why? Because I don’t trust him? Because he has made the decision to protect me from the truth, to keep my life as simple and easy as possible? I watched the soapy water run in tiny rivulets, pooling at the bottom, and then took another cloth and polished the window to a shine.

Now I know the truth is even worse. This morning I had woken with an almost overwhelming sense of guilt, the words You should be ashamed of yourself spinning in my head. You’ll be sorry. At first I’d thought I had woken with a man who was not my husband and it was only later I discovered the truth. That I have betrayed him. Twice. The first time years ago, with a man who would eventually take everything from me, and now I have done it again, with my heart if nothing else. I have developed a ridiculous, childish crush on a doctor who is trying to help me, trying to comfort me. A doctor who I can’t even begin to picture now, can’t remember having met before, but who I know is much younger than me, has a girlfriend. And now I have told him how I feel! Accidentally, yes, but still I have told him. I feel more than guilty. I feel stupid. I can’t even begin to imagine what must have brought me to this point. I am pathetic.

There, as I cleaned the glass, I make a decision. Even if Ben doesn’t share my belief that my treatment will work I can’t believe he would deny me the opportunity to see for myself. Not if it was what I wanted. I am an adult, he is not a monster; surely I can trust him with the truth? I sluiced the water down the sink and refilled the bucket. I will tell my husband. Tonight. When he gets home. This can’t go on. I continued to clean the windows.

I wrote that an hour ago, but now I am not so sure. I think about Adam. I have read about the photographs in the metal box, yet still there are no pictures of him on display. None. I can’t believe Ben — anyone — could lose a son and then remove all traces of him from his home. It doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem possible. Can I trust a man who can do that? I remembered reading about the day we sat on Parliament Hill when I had asked him straight. He had lied. I flick back through my journal now and read it again. We never had children? I said, and he had replied, No. No, we didn’t. Can he really have done that just to protect me? Can he really feel that is the best thing to do? To tell me nothing, other than what he must, what is convenient?

Whatever’s quickest, too. He must be so bored with telling me the same thing, over and over again, every day. It occurs to me that the reason he shortens explanations and changes stories is not to do with me at all. Perhaps it’s so that he doesn’t drive himself crazy with the constant repetition.

I feel like I am going mad. Everything is fluid, everything shifts. I think one thing and then, a moment later, the opposite. I believe everything my husband says, and then I believe nothing. I trust him, and then I don’t. Nothing feels real, everything invented. Even myself.

I wish I knew one thing for certain. One single thing that I have not had to be told, about which I don’t need to be reminded.

I wish I knew who I was with, that day in Brighton. I wish I knew who did this to me.

Later. I have just finished speaking to Dr Nash. I was dozing in the living room when the phone rang. The television was on, the sound turned down. For a moment I couldn’t tell where I was, whether I was asleep or awake. I thought I heard voices, getting louder. I realized one was mine, and the other sounded like Ben. But he was saying, You fucking bitch, and worse. I screamed at him, in anger, and then in fear. A door slammed, the thud of a fist, breaking glass. It was then I realized I was dreaming.

I opened my eyes. A chipped mug of cold coffee sat on the table in front of me, a phone buzzed nervously next to it. The one that flips open. I picked it up.

It was Dr Nash. He introduced himself, though his voice had sounded familiar anyway. He asked me if I was OK. I told him I was, and that I’d read my journal.

‘You know what we talked about yesterday?’ he said.

I felt a flash of shock. Horror. He had decided to tackle things, then. I felt a bubble of hope — perhaps he really had felt the same way I had, the same confused mix of desire and fear — but it didn’t last. ‘About going to the place where you lived after you left the ward?’ he said. ‘Waring House?’

I said, ‘Yes.’

‘Well, I called them this morning. It’s all fine. We can go and visit. They said pretty much any time we liked.’ The future. Again it seemed almost irrelevant to me. ‘I’m busy over the next couple of days,’ he said. ‘We could go on Thursday?’

‘That seems fine,’ I said. It didn’t seem to matter to me when we went. I was not optimistic it would help in any case.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well, I’ll call you.’

I was about to say goodbye when I remembered what I had been writing before I dozed. I realized that my sleep couldn’t have been deep, or else I would have forgotten everything.

‘Dr Nash?’ I said. ‘Can I talk to you about something?’

‘Yes?’

‘About Ben?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, it’s just that I’m confused. He doesn’t tell me about things. Important things. Adam. My novel. And he lies about other things. He tells me it was an accident that caused me to be like this.’

‘OK,’ he said. A pause. ‘Why do you think he does this?’ He emphasized the you rather than the why.

I thought for a second. ‘He doesn’t know I’m writing things down. He doesn’t know I know any different. I suppose it’s easier for him.’

‘Just him?’

‘No. I suppose it’s easier for me, too. Or he thinks it is. But it isn’t. It just means I don’t even know if I can trust him.’

‘Christine, we’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it. Isn’t that what Ben’s doing?’

‘I suppose,’ I said. ‘But I feel like he’s taking advantage of me. Advantage of my illness. He thinks he can rewrite history in any way that he likes and I will never know, never be any the wiser. But I do know. I know exactly what he’s doing. And so I don’t trust him. In the end he’s pushing me away, Dr Nash. Ruining everything.’

‘So,’ he said. ‘What do you think you can do about it?’

I knew the answer already. I have read what I wrote this morning, over and over. About how I should trust him. About how I don’t. In the end all I could think of was: This cannot go on.

‘I have to tell him I am writing my journal,’ I said. ‘I have to tell him I have been seeing you.’

He said nothing for a moment. I don’t know what I expected. Disapproval? But when he spoke he said, ‘I think you might be right.’

Relief flooded me. ‘You agree?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking for a couple of days it might be wise. I had no idea that Ben’s version of the past would be so different from what you’re starting to remember. No idea how upsetting that might be. But it also occurs to me that we’re only really getting half the picture now. From what you’ve said, more and more of your repressed memories are beginning to emerge. It might be helpful for you to talk with Ben. About the past. It might help that process.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think perhaps keeping our work from Ben was a mistake. Plus I spoke to the staff at Waring House today. I wanted to get an idea of what things were like there. I spoke to a woman you became close to. One of the staff. Her name is Nicole. She told me that she’s only recently returned to work there, but she was so happy when she found out that you’d gone back to live at home. She said no one could have loved you more than Ben. He came to see you pretty much every day. She said he would sit with you, in your room, or the gardens. And he tried so hard to be cheerful, despite everything. They all got to know him very well. They looked forward to him coming.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Why don’t you suggest Ben comes with us when we go and visit?’ Another pause. ‘I probably ought to meet him anyway.’

‘You’ve never met?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We only spoke briefly on the phone when I first approached him about meeting you. It didn’t go too well …’

It struck me then. That was the reason he was suggesting I invite Ben. He wanted to meet him, finally. He wants to bring everything into the open, to make sure that the awkwardness of yesterday can never be repeated.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘If you think so.’

He said that he did. He waited for a long time, and then he said, ‘Christine? You said you’d read your journal?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He waited again. ‘I didn’t ring this morning. I didn’t tell you where it was.’

I realized it was true. I had gone to the wardrobe myself and, though I didn’t know what I would find inside it, I found the shoebox and opened it almost without thinking. I had found it myself. As if I had remembered it would be there.

‘That’s excellent,’ he said.

I am writing this in bed. It is late, but Ben is in his office, across the landing. I can hear him work, the clatter of the keyboard, the click of the mouse. I can hear an occasional sigh, the creak of his chair. I imagine him squinting at the screen, deep in concentration. I trust that I will hear him switch off his machine in readiness for bed, that I will have time to hide my journal when he does. Now, despite what I thought this morning and agreed with Dr Nash, I am certain that I don’t want my husband to find out what I have been writing.

I talked to him this evening, as we sat in the dining room. ‘Can I ask you a question?’ I said, and then, when he looked up, ‘Why did we never have children?’ I suppose I was testing him. I willed him to tell me the truth, to contradict my assertion.

‘It never seemed to be the right time,’ he said. ‘And then it was too late.’

I pushed my plate of food to the side. I was disappointed. He had got home late, called out my name as he came in, asked me how I was. ‘Where are you?’ he’d said. It had sounded like an accusation.

I shouted that I was in the kitchen. I was preparing dinner, chopping onions to fry in the olive oil I was heating on the hob. He stood in the doorway, as if hesitant to enter the room. He looked tired. Unhappy. ‘Are you OK?’ I said.

He saw the knife in my hand. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Just cooking dinner,’ I said. I smiled, but he did not reciprocate. ‘I thought we could have an omelette. I found some eggs in the fridge, and some mushrooms. Do we have any potatoes? I couldn’t find any anywhere, I—’

‘I had planned for us to have pork chops,’ he said. ‘I bought some. Yesterday. I thought we could have those.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I—’

‘But no. An omelette is fine. If that’s what you want.’

I could feel the conversation slipping, down into a place I didn’t want it to go. He was staring at the chopping board, above which my hand hovered, clutching the knife.

‘No,’ I said. I laughed, but he didn’t laugh with me. ‘It doesn’t matter. I didn’t realize. I can always—’

‘You’ve chopped the onions now,’ he said. His words were flat. A statement of fact, unadorned.

‘I know, but … we could still have the chops?’

‘Whatever you think,’ he said. He turned round, to go into the dining room. ‘I’ll set the table.’

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what it was that I had done, if anything. I went back to the onions.

Now we sat opposite each other. We had eaten in near silence. I had asked him if everything was OK, but he had shrugged and said that it was. ‘It’s been a long day’ was all he would tell me, adding nothing but ‘At work,’ when I looked for more. Discussion was choked off before it had really begun, and I thought better of telling him about my journal, and Dr Nash. I picked at my food, tried not to worry — after all, I told myself, he is entitled to have bad days too — but anxiety gnawed at me. I could feel the opportunity to speak slipping away, and didn’t know whether I would wake tomorrow with the same conviction that it was the right thing to do. Eventually I could bear it no longer. ‘But did we want children?’ I said.

He sighed. ‘Christine, do we have to?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I still didn’t know what I was going to say, if anything. It might have been better to let it go. But I realized I couldn’t do that. ‘It’s just that the oddest thing happened today,’ I said. I was trying to inject levity into my voice, a breeziness I didn’t feel. ‘I just thought I’d remembered something.’

‘Something?’

‘Yes. Oh, I don’t know …’

‘Go on,’ he said. He leaned forward, suddenly eager. ‘What did you remember?’

My eyes fixed on the wall behind him. A picture hung there, a photograph. Petals of a flower, close up, but black and white, with beads of water still clinging to them. It looked cheap, I thought. As if it belonged in a department store, not someone’s home.

‘I remembered having a baby.’

He sat back in his chair. His eyes widened, and then closed completely. He took a breath, letting it out in a long sigh.

‘Is it true?’ I said. ‘Did we have a baby?’ If he lies now, I thought, then I don’t know what I will do. Argue with him, I suppose. Tell him everything in one uncontrolled, catastrophic outpouring. He opened his eyes and looked into mine.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s true.’

He told me about Adam, and relief flooded me. Relief, but tinged with pain. All those years, lost for ever. All those moments that I have no memory of, that I can never get back. I felt longing stir within me, felt it grow, so big that it might engulf me. Ben told me about Adam’s birth, his childhood, his life. Where he’d gone to school, the nativity play he’d been in; his skills on the football pitch and the running track, his disappointment in his exam results. Girlfriends. The time an indiscreet roll-up had been mistaken for a joint. I asked questions and he answered them; he seemed happy to be talking about his son, as if his mood was chased away by memory.

I found myself closing my eyes as he spoke. Images floated through me — images of Adam, and me, and Ben — but I couldn’t say whether they were memories or imaginings. When he finished I opened my eyes and for a moment was shocked at who I saw sitting in front of me, at how old he had become, how unlike the young father I had been imagining. ‘But there are no photographs of him,’ I said. ‘Anywhere.’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You get upset.’

‘Upset?’

He said nothing. Perhaps he didn’t have the strength to tell me about Adam’s death. He looked defeated, somehow. Drained. I felt guilty, for what I was doing to him, what I did to him, every day.

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I know he’s dead.’

He looked surprised. Hesitant. ‘You … know?’

‘Yes,’ I said. I was about to tell him about my journal, that he had told me everything before, but I did not. His mood still seemed fragile, the air tense. It could wait. ‘I just feel it,’ I said.

‘That makes sense. I’ve told you about it before.’

It was true, of course. He had. Just as he had told me about Adam’s life before. And yet, I realized, one story felt real, and the other did not. I realized I didn’t believe that my son was dead.

‘Tell me again,’ I said.

He told me about the war, the roadside bomb. I listened, as calmly as I could. He talked about Adam’s funeral, told me about the salvo of shots that had been fired over the coffin, the Union Jack that was draped over it. I tried to push my mind towards memories, even ones as difficult — as horrific — as that. Nothing would come.

‘I want to go there,’ I said. ‘I want to see his grave.’

‘Chris,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure …’

I realized that, without memory, I would have to see evidence that he was dead, or else forever carry around the hope that he was not. ‘I want to,’ I said. ‘I have to.’

I still thought he might say no. Might tell me he didn’t think it was a good idea, that it might upset me far too much. What would I do then? How could I force him?

But he did not. ‘We’ll go at the weekend,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

Relief mixed with terror, leaving me numb.

We tidied away the dinner plates. I stood at the sink, dipping the dishes he passed to me into hot, soapy water, scrubbing them, passing them back to him to be dried, all the time avoiding my reflection in the window. I forced myself to think of Adam’s funeral, imagined myself standing on the grass on an overcast day, next to a mound of earth, looking at a coffin suspended over the hole in the ground. I tried to imagine the volley of shots, the lone bugler, playing, as we — his family, his friends — sobbed in silence.

But I could not. It was not long ago and yet I saw nothing. I tried to imagine how I must have felt. I would have woken up that morning without any knowledge that I was even a mother; Ben must have first had to convince me that I had a son, and then that we were to spend that very afternoon burying him. I imagine not horror but numbness, disbelief. Unreality. There is only so much that a mind can take and surely none can cope with that, certainly not mine. I pictured myself being told what to wear, led from the house to a waiting car, settled in the back seat. Perhaps I wondered whose funeral we were going to as we drove. Possibly it felt like mine.

I looked at Ben’s reflection in the window. He would have had to cope with all that, at a time when his own grief was at its most acute. It might have been kinder, for all of us, if he hadn’t taken me to the funeral at all. With a chill I wondered if that was what he had really done.

I still didn’t know whether to tell him about Dr Nash. He looked tired again now, almost depressed. He smiled only when I caught his gaze and smiled at him. Perhaps later, I thought, though whether there might be a better time I didn’t know. I couldn’t help but feel I was to blame for his mood, either through something I had done or something I had not done. I realized how much I cared for this man. I couldn’t say whether I loved him — and still can’t — but that is because I don’t really know what love is. Despite the nebulous, shimmering memory I have of him, I feel love for Adam, an instinct to protect him, the desire to give him everything, the feeling that he is part of me and without him I am incomplete. For my mother, too, when my mind sees her, I feel a different love. A more complex bond, with caveats and reservations. Not one I fully understand. But Ben? I find him attractive. I trust him — despite thelies he has told me I know that he has only my best interests at heart — but can I say I love him, when I am only distantly aware of having known him for more than a few hours?

I did not know. But I wanted him to be happy, and, on some level, I understood that I wanted to be the person to make him so. I must make more effort, I decided. Take control. This journal could be a tool to improve both our lives, not just mine.

I was about to ask how he was when it happened. I must have let go of the plate before he had gripped it; it clattered to the floor — accompanied by Ben’s muttered Shit! — and shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces. ‘Sorry!’ I said, but Ben didn’t look at me. He sank to the floor, cursing under his breath. ‘I’ll do that,’ I said, but he ignored me and instead began snatching at the larger chunks, collecting them in his right hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I’m so clumsy!’

I don’t know what I expected. Forgiveness, I suppose, or the reassurance that it wasn’t important. But instead Ben said, ‘Fuck!’ He dropped the remains of the plate and began to suck the thumb of his left hand. Droplets of blood spattered the linoleum.

‘Are you OK?’ I said.

He looked up at me. ‘Yes, yes. I cut myself, that’s all. Stupid fucking—’

‘Let me see.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he said. He stood up.

‘Let me see,’ I said again. I reached for his hand. ‘I’ll go and get a bandage. Or a plaster. Do we—?’

‘For fuck’s sake!’ he said, batting my hand away. ‘Just leave it! OK?’

I was stunned. I could see the cut was deep; blood welled at its edge and ran in a thin line down his wrist. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. He hadn’t shouted exactly, but neither had he made any attempt to hide his annoyance. We faced each other, in limbo, balanced on the edge of an argument, each waiting for the other to speak, both unsure what had happened, how much significance the moment held.

I couldn’t stand it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, even though part of me resented it.

His face softened. ‘It’s OK. I’m sorry too.’ He paused. ‘I just feel tense, I think. It’s been a very long day.’

I took a piece of kitchen roll and handed it to him. ‘You should clean yourself up.’

He took it from me. ‘Thanks,’ he said, dabbing the blood on his wrist and fingers. ‘I’ll just go upstairs. Take a shower.’ He bent forward, kissed me. ‘OK?’

He turned and left the room.

I heard the bathroom door close, a tap turn on. The boiler next to me fired to life. I gathered the rest of the pieces of the plate and put them in the bin, wrapping them in paper first, then swept up the tinier fragments before finally sponging up the blood. When I had finished I went into the living room.

The flip-top phone was ringing, muffled by my bag. I took it out. Dr Nash.

The TV was still switched on. Above me I could hear the creak of floorboards as Ben moved from room to room upstairs. I didn’t want him to hear me talking on a phone he doesn’t know I have. I whispered, ‘Hello?’

‘Christine,’ came the voice. ‘It’s Ed. Dr Nash. Can you speak?’

Where this afternoon he had sounded calm, almost reflective, now his voice was urgent. I began to feel afraid.

‘Yes,’ I said, lowering my voice still further. ‘What is it?’

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Have you spoken to Ben yet?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sort of. Why? What’s wrong?’

‘Did you tell him about your journal? About me? Did you invite him to Waring House?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I was about to. He’s upstairs, I — What’s wrong?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s probably nothing to worry about. It’s just that someone from Waring House just called me. The woman I spoke to this morning? Nicole? She wanted to give me a phone number. She said that your friend Claire has apparently called there, wanting to talk to you. She left her number.’

I felt myself tense. I heard the toilet flush and the sound of water in the sink. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Recently?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It was a couple of weeks after you left to go and live with Ben. When you weren’t there she took Ben’s number, but, well, they said she called again later and said she couldn’t get through to him. She asked them if they’d give her your address. They couldn’t do that, of course, but said that she could leave her number with them, in case you or Ben ever called. Nicole found a note in your file after we spoke this morning, and she rang back to give the number to me.’

I didn’t understand. ‘But why didn’t they just post it to me? Or to Ben?’

‘Well, Nicole said they did. But they never heard back from either of you.’ He paused.

‘Ben handles all the mail,’ I said. ‘He picks it up in the morning. Well, he did today, anyway …’

‘Has Ben given you Claire’s number?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘No. He said we haven’t been in touch for years. She moved away, not long after we got married. New Zealand.’

‘OK,’ he said, and then, ‘Christine? You told me that before, and … well … it’s not an international number.’

I felt a billowing sense of dread, though still I could not say why.

‘So she moved back?’

‘Nicole said that Claire used to visit you all the time at Waring House. She was there almost as much as Ben was. Nicole never heard anything about her moving away. Not to New Zealand. Not anywhere.’

It felt as though everything was suddenly taking off, things moving too fast for me to keep up with them. I could hear Ben upstairs. The water had stopped running now, the boiler was silent. There must be a rational explanation, I thought. There has to be. I felt that all I had to do was to slow things down so that I could catch up, could work out what it was. I wanted him to stop talking, to undo the things he had said, but he did not.

‘There’s something else,’ said Nash. ‘I’m sorry, Christine, but Nicole asked me how you were doing, and I told her. She said she was surprised that you were back living with Ben. I asked why.’

‘OK,’ I heard myself say. ‘Go on.’

‘I’m sorry, Christine, but listen. She said that you and Ben were divorced.’

The room tipped. I gripped the arm of the chair as if to steady myself. It didn’t make sense. On the television a blonde woman was screaming at an older man, telling him she hated him. I wanted to scream, too.

‘What?’ I said.

‘She said that you and Ben were separated. Ben left you. A year or so after you moved to Waring House.’

‘Separated?’ I said. It felt as if the room was receding, becoming vanishingly small. Disappearing. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. Apparently. That’s what she said. She said she felt it might have had something to do with Claire. She wouldn’t say anything else.’

‘Claire?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said. Even through my own confusion I could hear how difficult he was finding this conversation, the hesitancy in his voice, the slow picking through possibilities to decide the best thing to say. ‘I don’t know why Ben isn’t telling you everything,’ he said. ‘I did think he believed he was doing the right thing. Protecting you. But now? I don’t know. To not tell you that Claire is still local? To not mention your divorce? I don’t know. It doesn’t seem right, but I suppose he must have his reasons.’ I said nothing. ‘I thought maybe you should speak to Claire. She might have some answers. She might even talk to Ben. I don’t know.’ Another pause. ‘Christine? Do you have a pen? Do you want the number?’

I swallowed hard. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, please.’

I reached for a corner of the newspaper on the coffee table, and the pen that was next to it, and wrote down the number that he gave me. I heard the bolt on the bathroom door slide open, Ben come on to the landing.

‘Christine?’ said Dr Nash. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t say anything to Ben. Not until we’ve figured out what’s going on. OK?’

I heard myself agree, say goodbye. He told me not to forget to write in this journal before I went to sleep. I wrote Claire next to the number, still not knowing what I was going to do. I tore it off and put it in my bag.

I said nothing when Ben came downstairs, nothing as he sat on the sofa across from me. I fixed my eyes on the television. A documentary about wildlife. The inhabitants of the ocean floor. A remote-controlled submersible craft was exploring an underwater trench with jerky twitches. Two lamps shone into places that had never known light before. Ghosts in the deep.

I wanted to ask him if I was still in touch with Claire, but did not want to hear another lie. A giant squid hung in the gloom, drifting in the gentle current. This creature has never been captured on film before, said the voiceover, to the accompaniment of electronic music.

‘Are you all right?’ he said. I nodded, without taking my eyes off the screen.

He stood up. ‘I have work to do,’ he said. ‘Upstairs. I’ll come to bed soon.’

I looked at him then. I didn’t know who he was.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you later.’