Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel

I have spent all morning reading this journal. Even so, I have not read it all. Some pages I have skimmed over, others I have read again and again, trying to believe them. And now I am in the bedroom, sitting in the bay, writing more.

I have the phone in my lap. Why does it feel so difficult to dial Claire’s number? Neuronal impulses, muscular contractions. That is all it will take. Nothing complicated. Nothing difficult. Yet it feels so much easier to take up a pen and write about it instead.

This morning I went into the kitchen. My life, I thought, is built on quicksand. It shifts from one day to the next. Things I think I know are wrong, things I am certain of, facts about my life, myself, belong to years ago. All the history I have reads like fiction. Dr Nash, Ben, Adam, and now Claire. They exist, but as shadows in the dark. As strangers, they criss-cross my life, connecting, disconnecting. Elusive, ethereal. Like ghosts.

And not just them. Everything. It is all invented. Conjured from nothing. I am desperate for solid ground, for something real, something that will not vanish as I sleep. I need to anchor myself.

I clicked open the lid of the bin. A warmth rose from it — the heat of decomposition and decay — and it smelled, faintly. The sweet, sick smell of rotting food. I could see a newspaper, the crossword part filled in, a solitary teabag soaking it brown. I held my breath and knelt down on the floor.

Inside the newspaper were shards of porcelain, crumbs, a fine white dust, and underneath it a carrier bag, knotted closed. I fished it out, thinking of dirty nappies, decided to tear it open later if I had to. Beneath it there were potato peelings and a near-empty plastic bottle that was leaking ketchup. I pushed both aside.

Eggshells — four or five — and a handful of papery onion skin. The remains of a de-seeded red pepper, a large mushroom, half rotten.

Satisfied, I replaced the things in the bin and closed it. It was true. Last night, we had eaten an omelette. A plate had been smashed. I looked in the fridge. Two pork chops lay in a polystyrene tray. In the hallway Ben’s slippers sat at the bottom of the stairs. Everything was there, exactly as I had described it in my journal last night. I hadn’t invented it. It was all true.

And that meant the number was Claire’s. Dr Nash had really called me. Ben and I had been divorced.

I want to call Dr Nash now. I want to ask him what to do, or, better, to ask him to do it for me. But for how long can I be a visitor in my own life? Passive? I need to take control. The thought crosses my mind that I may never see Dr Nash again — not now that I have told him of my feelings, my crush — but I don’t let it take root. Either way, I need to speak to Claire myself.

But what will I say? There seems to be so much for us to talk about, and yet so little. So much history between us, but none of it known to me.

I think of what Dr Nash had told me about why Ben and I separated. Something to do with Claire.

It all makes sense. Years ago, when I needed him most but understood him least, my husband divorced me, and now we are back together he is telling me that my best friend moved to the other side of the world before any of this happened.

Is that why I can’t call her? Because I am afraid that she might have more to hide than I have even begun to imagine? Is that why Ben seems less than keen for me to remember more? Is that even why he has been suggesting that any attempts at treatment are futile, so that I will never be able to link memory to memory and know what has been happening?

I cannot imagine he would do that. Nobody would. It is a ridiculous thing. I think of what Dr Nash told me about my time in the hospital. You were claiming the doctors were conspiring against you, he said. Exhibiting symptoms of paranoia.

I wonder if that is what I am doing again now.

Suddenly a memory floods me. It strikes almost violently, rising up from the emptiness of my past to send me tumbling back, but then just as quickly disappears. Claire and me, another party. ‘Christ,’ she is saying. ‘It’s so annoying! You know what I think is wrong? Everyone’s so bloody hung up on sex. It’s just animals copulating, y’know? No matter how much we try and dance round it and dress it up as something else. That’s all it is.’

Is it possible that with me stuck in my own hell Claire and Ben have sought solace in each other?

I look down. The phone lies dead in my lap. I have no idea where Ben really goes when he leaves every morning, or where he might stop off on the way home. It might be anywhere. And I have no opportunity to build suspicion on suspicion, to link one fact to another. Even if one day I were to discover Claire and Ben in bed, the next I would forget what I had seen. I am the perfect person on whom to cheat. Perhaps they are still seeing each other. Perhaps I have already discovered them, and forgotten.

I think this, and yet, somehow, I don’t think this. I trust Ben, and yet I don’t. It’s perfectly possible to hold two opposing points of view in the mind at once, oscillating between them.

But why would he lie? He just thinks he’s doing the right thing, I keep telling myself. He’s protecting you. Keeping from you the things that you don’t need to know.

I dialled the number, of course. There was no way I could have not done so. It rang for a while, and then there was a click, and a voice. ‘Hi,’ it said. ‘Please leave a message.’

I knew the voice at once. It was Claire’s. Unmistakable.

I left her a message. Please call me, I said. It’s Christine.

I went downstairs. I had done all I could do.

I waited. For an hour that turned into two. I spent the time writing in my journal, and when she didn’t ring I made a sandwich and ate it in the living room. While I was in the kitchen — wiping down the work surface, sweeping crumbs into my palm, preparing to empty them into the sink — the doorbell rang. The noise startled me. I put down the sponge, dried my hands on the teatowel that hung from the handle of the oven and went to see who it was.

Through the frosted glass I could see the outline of a man. Not uniformed, he was instead wearing what looked like a suit, a tie. Ben? I thought, before realizing he would still be at work. I opened the door.

It was Dr Nash. I knew, partly because it could be no one else, but partly because — though when I read about him this morning I couldn’t picture him, and though my husband had remained unfamiliar to me even once I had been told who he was — I recognized him. His hair was short, parted, his tie loose and untidy, a jumper sat beneath a jacket that it didn’t match.

He must have seen the look of surprise on my face. ‘Christine?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ I didn’t open the door more than a fraction.

‘It’s me. Ed. Ed Nash. Dr Nash?’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I …’

‘Did you read your journal?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’

He lowered his voice. ‘Is Ben home?’

‘No. No, he’s not. It’s just, well, I wasn’t expecting you. Did we have a meeting arranged?’

He held back for a moment, a fraction of a second, enough to disrupt the rhythm of our exchange. We had not, I knew that. Or at least I had not written of one.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Did you not write it down?’

I hadn’t, but I said nothing. We stood across the threshold of the house that I still don’t think of as my home, looking at each other. ‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

I didn’t answer at first. I wasn’t sure I wanted to invite him in. It seemed wrong somehow. A betrayal.

But of what? Ben’s trust? I didn’t know how much that mattered to me any more. Not after his lies. Lies that I had spent most of my morning reading.

‘Yes,’ I said. I opened the door. He nodded as he stepped into the house, glancing left and right as he did so. I took his jacket and hung it on the coat rack next to a mac that I guessed must be mine. ‘In there,’ I said, pointing to the living room, and he went through.

I made us both a drink, gave his to him, sat opposite with mine. He didn’t speak, and I took a slow sip, waiting as he did the same. He put his cup down on the coffee table between us.

‘You don’t remember asking me to come round?’ he said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘When?’

His answer chilled me. ‘This morning. When I rang to tell you where to find your journal.’

I could remember nothing of him calling that morning, and still can’t, even now he has gone.

I thought of other things I had written of. A plate of melon I couldn’t remember ordering. A cookie I hadn’t asked for.

‘I don’t remember,’ I said. A panic began to rise within me.

Concern flashed on his face. ‘Have you slept at all today? Anything more than a quick doze?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘no. Not at all. I just can’t remember. When was it? When?’

‘Christine,’ he said. ‘Calm down. It’s probably nothing.’

‘But what if — I don’t—’

‘Christine, please. It doesn’t mean anything. You just forgot, that’s all. Everyone forgets things sometimes.’

‘But whole conversations? It must have only been a couple of hours ago!’

‘Yes,’ he said. He spoke softly, trying to calm me, but didn’t move from where he sat. ‘But you have been through a lot, lately. Your memory has always been variable. Forgetting one thing doesn’t mean that you’re deteriorating, that you won’t get better again. OK?’ I nodded, trying to believe him, desperate to. ‘You asked me here because you wanted to speak to Claire, but weren’t sure you could. And you wanted me to speak to Ben on your behalf.’

‘I did?’

‘Yes. You said you didn’t think you could do it yourself.’

I looked at him, thought of all the things I had written. I realized I didn’t believe him. I must have found my journal myself. I hadn’t asked him here today. I didn’t want him to talk to Ben. Why would I, when I had decided to say nothing to Ben myself yet? And why would I tell him I needed him here to help me speak to Claire, when I had already phoned her myself and left a message?

He’s lying. I wondered what other reasons he might have for coming. What he might not feel able to tell me.

I have no memory, but I am not stupid. ‘Why are you really here?’ I said. He shifted in his chair. Possibly he just wanted to see inside the place where I live. Or possibly to see me, one more time, before I speak to Ben. ‘Are you worried that Ben won’t let me see you after I tell him about us?’

Another thought comes. Perhaps he is not writing a research paper at all. Perhaps he has other reasons for wanting to spend so much of his time with me. I push it from my mind.

‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not it at all. I came because you asked me to. Besides, you’ve decided not to tell Ben that you’re seeing me. Not until you’ve spoken to Claire. Remember?’

I shook my head. I didn’t remember. I did not know what he was talking about.

‘Claire is fucking my husband,’ I said.

He looked shocked. ‘Christine,’ he said. ‘I—’

‘He’s treating me like I’m stupid,’ I said. ‘Lying to me about anything and everything. Well, I’m not stupid.’

‘I know you’re not stupid,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think—’

‘They’ve been fucking for years,’ I said. ‘It explains everything. Why he tells me she moved away. Why I haven’t seen her even though she’s supposedly my best friend.’

‘Christine,’ he said. ‘You’re not thinking straight.’ He came and sat beside me on the sofa. ‘Ben loves you. I know. I’ve spoken to him, when I wanted to persuade him to let me see you. He was totally loyal. Totally. He told me that he’d lost you once and didn’t want to lose you again. That he’d watched you suffer whenever people tried to treat you and wouldn’t see you in pain any more. He loves you. It’s obvious. He’s trying to protect you. From the truth, I suppose.’

I thought of what I had read this morning. Of the divorce. ‘But he left me. To be with her.’

‘Christine,’ he said. ‘You’re not thinking. If that was true, why would he bring you back? Back here? He would have just left you in Waring House. But he hasn’t. He looks after you. Every day.’

I felt myself collapse, folding in on myself. I felt as if I understood his words, yet at the same time didn’t. I felt the warmth his body gave off, saw the kindness in his eyes. He smiled as I looked at him. He seemed to become bigger, until his body was all I could see, his breathing all I could hear. He spoke, but I didn’t hear what he said. I heard only one word. Love.

I didn’t intend to do what I did. I didn’t plan it. It happened suddenly, my life shifting like a stuck lid that finally gives. In a moment all I could feel were my lips on his, my arms around his neck. His hair was damp and I neither understood nor cared why. I wanted to speak, to tell him what I felt, but I did not, because to do so would have been to stop kissing him, to end the moment that I wanted to go on for ever. I felt like a woman, finally. In control. Though I must have done so, I can remember — have written about no other time when I have kissed anyone but my husband; it might as well have been the first.

I don’t know how long it lasted. I don’t even know how it happened, how I went from sitting there, on the sofa next to him, diminished, so small that I felt I might disappear, to kissing him. I don’t remember willing it, which is not to say I don’t remember wanting it. I don’t remember it beginning. I remember only that I went from one state to another, with nothing in between, with no opportunity for conscious thought, no decision.

He did not push me away roughly. He was gentle. He gave me that, at least. He did not insult me by asking me what I was doing, much less what I thought I was doing. He simply removed first his lips from mine, then my hands from where they had come to rest on his shoulder, and, softly, said, ‘No.’

I was stunned. At what I had done? Or his reaction to it? I cannot say. It felt only that, for a moment, I had been somewhere else and a new Christine had stepped in, taken me over completely, and then vanished. I was not horrified, though. Not even disappointed. I was glad. Glad that, because of her, something had happened.

He looked at me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and I couldn’t tell what he felt. Anger? Pity? Regret? Any of those things might be possible. Perhaps the expression I saw was a mixture of all three. He was still holding my hands and he put them back in my lap, then let them go. ‘I’m sorry, Christine,’ he said again.

I didn’t know what to say. What to do. I was silent, about to apologize myself, and then I said, ‘Ed. I love you.’

He closed his eyes. ‘Christine,’ he began, ‘I—’

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Don’t. Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it too.’ He frowned. ‘You know you love me.’

‘Christine,’ he said. ‘Please, you’re … you’re …’

‘What?’ I said. ‘Crazy?’

‘No. Confused. You’re confused.’

I laughed. ‘“Confused”?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You don’t love me. You remember we talked about confabulation? It’s quite common with people who—’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I know. I remember. With people who have no memory. Is that what you think this is?’

‘It’s possible. Perfectly possible.’

I hated him then. He thought he knew everything, knew me better than I did myself. All he really knew was my condition.

‘I’m not stupid,’ I said.

‘I know. I know that, Christine. I don’t think you are. I just think—’

‘You must love me.’

He sighed. I was frustrating him, now. Wearing his patience thin.

‘Why else have you been coming here so much? Driving me around London. Do you do that with all your patients?’

‘Yes,’ he began, then, ‘well, no. Not exactly.’

‘Then why?’

‘I’ve been trying to help you,’ he said.

‘Is that all?’

A pause, then he said, ‘Well, no. I’ve been writing a paper, too. A scientific paper—’

‘Studying me?’

‘Sort of,’ he said.

I tried to push what he was saying from my mind. ‘But you didn’t tell me that Ben and I were separated,’ I said. ‘Why? Why didn’t you do that?’

‘I didn’t know!’ he said. ‘No other reason. It wasn’t in your file and Ben didn’t tell me. I didn’t know!’ I was silent. He moved, as if to take my hands again, then stopped, scratching his forehead instead. ‘I would have told you. If I’d known.’

‘Would you?’ I said. ‘Like you told me about Adam?’

He looked hurt. ‘Christine, please.’

‘Why did you keep him from me?’ I said. ‘You’re as bad as Ben!’

‘Jesus, Christine,’ he said. ‘We’ve been through this. I did what I thought was best. Ben wasn’t telling you about Adam. I couldn’t tell you. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t have been ethical.’

I laughed. A hollow, snorting laugh. ‘Ethical? What is ethical about keeping him from me?’

‘It was down to Ben to decide whether to tell you about Adam. Not me. I suggested you keep a journal, though. So that you could write down what you’d learned. I thought that was for the best.’

‘How about the attack, then? You were quite happy for me to go on thinking I’d been involved in a hit-and-run accident!’

‘Christine, no. No, I wasn’t. Ben told you that. I didn’t know that’s what he was saying to you. How could I?’

I thought of what I had seen. Orange-scented baths and hands around my throat. The feeling that I couldn’t breathe. The man whose face remained a mystery. I began to cry. ‘Then why did you tell me at all?’ I said.

He spoke kindly, but still didn’t touch me. ‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘I didn’t tell you that you were attacked. That, you remembered yourself.’ He was right, of course. I felt angry. ‘Christine, I—’

‘I want you to leave,’ I said. ‘Please.’ I was crying solidly now, yet felt curiously alive. I didn’t know what had just happened, could barely even remember what had been said, but it felt as if some awful thing had lifted, some dam within me finally burst.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘Please go.’

I expected him to argue. To beg me to let him stay. I almost wanted him to. But he did not. ‘If you’re sure?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ I whispered. I turned towards the window, determined to not look at him again. Not today, which for me will mean that by tomorrow I might as well never have seen him at all. He stood up, walked to the door.

‘I’ll call you,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow? Your treatment. I—’

‘Just go,’ I said. ‘Please.’

He said nothing else. I heard the door close behind him.

I sat there for a while. A few minutes? Hours? I don’t know. My heart raced. I felt empty, and alone. Eventually I went upstairs. In the bathroom I looked at the photos. My husband. Ben. What have I done? I have nothing, now. No one I can trust. No one I can turn to. My mind raced, out of control. I kept thinking of what Dr Nash had said. He loves you. He’s trying to protect you.

Protect me from what, though? From the truth. I thought the truth more important than anything. Maybe I am wrong.

I went into the study. Ben has lied about so much, there is nothing he has told me I can believe. Nothing at all.

I knew what I had to do. I had to know. Know that I could trust him, about this one thing.

The box was where I had described it, locked, as I suspected. I didn’t get upset.

I began to look. I told myself I wouldn’t stop until I found the key. I searched the office first. The other drawers, the desk. I did it methodically. I replaced everything where I had found it, and when I had finished I went into the bedroom. I looked in the drawers, digging beneath his underwear, the handkerchiefs, neatly ironed, the vests and T-shirts. Nothing, and nothing in the drawers I used, either.

There were drawers in the bedside tables. I intended to look in each, starting with Ben’s side of the bed. I opened the top drawer and rooted through its contents — pens, a watch that had stopped, a blister pack of pills I didn’t recognize — before opening the bottom drawer.

At first I thought it was empty. I closed it gently, but as I did so I heard a tiny rattle, metal scraping on wood. I opened it again, my heart already beating fast.

A key.

I sat on the floor with the open box. It was full. Photographs, mostly. Of Adam, and me. Some looked familiar — I guess the ones he had shown me before — but many not. I found his birth certificate, the letter he had written to Santa Claus. Handfuls of photos of him as a baby — crawling, grinning, towards the camera, feeding at my breast, sleeping, wrapped in a green blanket — and as he grew. The photo of him dressed as a cowboy, the school photographs, the tricycle. They were all here, exactly as I had described them in my journal.

I lifted them all out and spread them across the floor, looking at each one. There were photographs of Ben and me, too; one in which we are in front of the Houses of Parliament, both smiling, but standing awkwardly, as if neither of us knows the other exists; another from our wedding, a formal shot. We are in front of a church under an overcast sky. We look happy, ridiculously so, and even more so in one that must have been taken later, on our honeymoon. We are in a restaurant, smiling, leaning in over a half-eaten meal, our faces flushed with love and the bite of the sun.

I stared at the photograph. Relief began to flood me. I stared at the photograph of the woman sitting there with her new husband, gazing out at a future she could not predict and did not want to, and thought about how much I share with her. But all of it is physical. Cells and tissue. DNA. Our chemical signature. But nothing else. She is a stranger. There is nothing linking her to me, no means to thread my way back to her.

Yet, she is me, and I her, and I could see that she was in love. With Ben. The man she has just married. The man I still wake up with, every day. He did not break the vows he made on that day in the tiny church in Manchester. He has not let me down. I looked at the photograph and love welled inside me again.

But still I put it down, carried on searching. I knew what I wanted to find, and what I dreaded finding also. The one thing that would prove my husband wasn’t lying, that would give me my partner even if, in doing so, it would deny me my son.

It was there. At the bottom of the box, inside an envelope. A photocopy of a news article, folded, its edges crisp. I knew what it was, almost before I opened it, but still I shook as I read. A British soldier who died escorting troops in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, has been named by the Ministry of Defence. Adam Wheeler, it said, was 19 years old. Born in London … Clipped to it was a photograph. Flowers, arranged on a grave. The inscription read, Adam Wheeler, 1987–2006.

The grief hit me then, with a force I doubt it can ever have had before. I dropped the paper and doubled up in pain, too much pain even to cry, and emitted a noise like a howl, like a wounded animal, starving, praying for its end to come. I closed my eyes, and saw it then. A brief flash. An image, hanging in front of me, shimmering. A medal, given to me in a black velvet box. A coffin, a flag. I looked away from it, and prayed that it would never return. There are memories I am better off without. Things better lost for ever.

I began to tidy the papers away. I should have trusted him, I thought. All along. I should have believed that he was keeping things from me only because they are too painful to face, fresh, every day. All he was doing was trying to spare me from this. This brutal truth. I put the photographs back, the papers, just as I had found them. I felt satisfied. I put the box back in the filing cabinet, the key back in the drawer. I can look whenever I want now, I thought. As often as I like.

There was only one more thing I still had to do. I had to know why Ben had left me. And I had to know what I had been doing in Brighton, all those years ago. I had to know who had stolen my life from me. I had to try once more.

For the second time today, I dialled Claire’s number.

Static. Silence. Then a two-tone ring. She will not answer, I thought. She has not responded to my message, after all. She has something to hide, something to keep from me.

I almost felt glad. This was a conversation I wanted to have only in theory. I could not see how it could be anything but painful. I prepared myself for another emotionless invitation to leave a message.

A click. Then a voice. ‘Hello?’

It was Claire. I knew it, instantly. Her voice felt as familiar as my own. ‘Hello?’ she said again.

I did not speak. Images flooded me, flashing. I saw her face, her hair cut short, wearing a beret. Laughing. I saw her at a wedding — my own, I suppose, though I cannot say — dressed in emerald, pouring champagne. I saw her holding a child, carrying him, giving him to me with the words Dinner time! I saw her sitting on the edge of a bed, talking to the figure lying in it, and realized the figure was me.

‘Claire?’ I said.

‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Hello? Who is this?’

I tried to focus, to remind myself that we had been best friends once, no matter what had happened in the years since. I saw an image of her lying on my bed, clutching a bottle of vodka, giggling, telling me that men were fucking ridiculous.

‘Claire?’ I said. ‘It’s me. Christine.’

Silence. Time stretched so that it seemed to last for ever. At first I thought she wouldn’t speak, that she had forgotten who I was, or didn’t want to speak to me. I closed my eyes.

‘Chrissy!’ she said. An explosion. I heard her swallow, as if she had been eating. ‘Chrissy! My God. Darling, is that really you?’

I opened my eyes. A tear had begun its slow traverse down the unfamiliar lines of my face.

‘Claire?’ I said. ‘Yes. It’s me. It’s Chrissy.’

‘Jesus. Fuck,’ she said, and then again. ‘Fuck!’ Her voice was quiet. ‘Roger! Rog! It’s Chrissy! On the phone!’ Suddenly loud, she said, ‘How are you? Where are you?’ and then, ‘Roger!’

‘Oh, I’m at home,’ I said.

‘Home?’

‘Yes.’

‘With Ben?’

I felt suddenly defensive. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘With Ben. Did you get my message?’

I heard an intake of breath. Surprise? Or was she smoking? ‘Yep!’ she said. ‘I would have called you back but this is the landline and you didn’t leave a number.’ She hesitated, and for a moment I wondered if there were other reasons she had not returned my call. She went on. ‘Anyway, how are you, darling? It’s so good to hear your voice!’ I didn’t know how to answer, and when I didn’t reply Claire said, ‘Where are you living?’

‘I don’t know exactly,’ I said. I felt a surge of pleasure, certain that her question meant that she was not seeing Ben, followed by the realization that she might be asking me so that I don’t suspect the truth. I wanted so much to trust her — to know that Ben had not left me because of something he had found in her, some love to replace that which had been taken from me — because doing so meant that I could trust my husband as well. ‘Crouch End?’ I said.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘So how’s it going? How’re things?’

‘Well, you know,’ I said, ‘I can’t remember a fucking thing.’

We both laughed. It felt good, this eruption of an emotion that wasn’t grief, but it was short-lived, followed by silence.

‘You sound good,’ she said after a while. ‘Really good.’ I told her I was writing again. ‘Really? Wow. Super. What are you working on? A novel?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’d be kind of hard to write a novel when I can’t remember anything from one day to the next.’ Silence. ‘I’m just writing about what’s happening to me.’

‘OK,’ she said, then nothing. I wondered if perhaps she did not entirely understand my situation, and worried about her tone. It sounded cool. I wondered how things had been left, the last time we saw each other. ‘So what is happening with you?’ she said then.

What to say? I had an urge to let her see my journal, let her read it all for herself, but of course I could not. Or not yet, anyway. There seemed to be too much to say, too much I wanted to know. My whole life.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s difficult …’

I must have sounded upset, because she said, ‘Chrissy darling, whatever’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m fine. I just …’ The sentence petered out.

‘Darling?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. I thought of Dr Nash, of the things I’d said to him. Could I be sure that he wouldn’t talk to Ben? ‘I just feel confused. I think I’ve done something stupid.’

‘Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.’ Another silence — a calculation? — and then she said, ‘Listen. Can I speak to Ben?’

‘He’s out,’ I said. I felt relieved that our discussion seemed to have moved on to something concrete, factual. ‘At work.’

‘Right,’ said Claire. Another silence. The conversation felt suddenly absurd.

‘I need to see you,’ I said.

‘“Need”?’ she said. ‘Not “want”?’

‘No,’ I began. ‘Obviously I want …’

‘Relax, Chrissy,’ she said. ‘I’m kidding. I want to see you, too. I’m dying to.’

I felt relieved. I had had the idea that our talk might limp to a halt, end with a polite goodbye and a vague promise to speak again in the future, and another avenue into my past would slam shut for ever.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Chrissy,’ she said, ‘I’ve been missing you so much. Every day. Every single day I’ve been waiting for this bloody phone to ring, hoping it would be you, never for a second thinking it would be.’ She paused. ‘How … how is your memory now? How much do you know?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Better than it has been, I think. But I still don’t remember much.’ I thought of all the things I’d written down, all the images of me and Claire. ‘I remember a party,’ I said. ‘Fireworks on a rooftop. You painting. Me studying. But nothing after that, really.’

‘Ah!’ she said. ‘The big night! Jesus, that seems like a long time ago! There’s a lot I need to fill you in on. A lot.’

I wondered what she meant, but didn’t ask her. It can wait, I thought. There were more important things I needed to know.

‘Did you ever move away?’ I said. ‘Abroad?’

She laughed. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘For about six months. I met this bloke, years ago. It was a disaster.’

‘Where?’ I said. ‘Where did you go?’

‘Barcelona,’ she replied. ‘Why?’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘it’s nothing.’ I felt defensive, embarrassed to not know these details of my friend’s life. ‘It’s just something someone told me. They said you’d been to New Zealand. They must have made a mistake.’

‘New Zealand?’ she said, laughing. ‘Nope. Not been there. Ever.’

So Ben had lied to me about that, too. I still didn’t know why, couldn’t think of a reason he would feel the need to remove Claire from my life so thoroughly. Was it just like everything else he had lied about, or chosen not to tell me? Was it for my own benefit?

It was something else I would have to ask him, when we had the conversation I now knew we must. When I tell him all that I know, and how I have found it out.

We spoke some more, our conversation punctuated by long gaps and desperate rushes. Claire told me she had married, then divorced, and now was living with Roger. ‘He’s an academic,’ she said. ‘Psychology. Bugger wants me to marry him, which I shan’t in a hurry. But I love him.’

It felt good to talk to her, to listen to her voice. It seemed easy, familiar. Almost like coming home. She demanded little, seeming to understand that I had little to give. Eventually she stopped and I thought she might be about to say goodbye. I realized that neither of us had mentioned Adam.

‘So,’ she said instead. ‘Tell me about Ben. How long have you been, well …?’

‘Back together?’ I said. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t even know we’d ever been apart.’

‘I tried to call him,’ she said. I felt myself tense, though I couldn’t say why.

‘When?’

‘This afternoon. After you rang. I guessed that he must have given you my number. He didn’t answer, but then I only have an old work number. They said he’s not there any more.’

I felt a creeping dread. I looked around the bedroom, alien and unfamiliar. I felt sure she was lying.

‘Do you speak to him often?’ I said.

‘No. Not lately.’ A new tone entered her voice. Hushed. I didn’t like it. ‘Not for a few years.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve been so worried about you.’

I was afraid. Afraid that Claire would tell Ben that I had called her before I had a chance to speak to him.

‘Please don’t ring him,’ I said. ‘Please don’t tell him I’ve called you.’

‘Chrissy!’ she said. ‘Why ever not?’

‘I’d just rather you didn’t.’

She sighed heavily, then sounded cross. ‘Look, what on earth is going on?’

‘I can’t explain,’ I said.

‘Try.’

I couldn’t bring myself to mention Adam, but I told her about Dr Nash, and about the memory of the hotel room, and how Ben insists that I had a car accident. ‘I think he’s not telling me the truth because he knows it would upset me,’ I said. She didn’t answer. ‘Claire?’ I said. ‘What might I have been doing in Brighton?’

Silence stretched between us. ‘Chrissy,’ she said, ‘if you really want to know, then I’ll tell you. Or as much as I know, anyway. But not over the phone. When we meet. I promise.’

The truth. It hung in front of me, glistening, so close I could almost reach out and take it.

‘When can you come over?’ I said. ‘Today? Tonight?’

‘I’d rather not come to you,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘Why not?’

‘I just think … well … it’s better if we meet somewhere else. I can take you for a coffee?’

There was a jollity in her voice, but it seemed forced. False. I wondered what she was frightened of, but said, ‘OK.’

‘Alexandra Palace?’ she said. ‘Is that all right? You should be able to get there easily enough from Crouch End.’

‘OK,’ I said.

‘Cool. Friday? I’ll meet you at eleven. Is that OK?’

I told her it was. It would have to be. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. She told me which buses I would need and I wrote the details on a slip of paper. Then, after we’d chatted for a few minutes more, we said goodbye and I took out my journal and began to write.

‘Ben?’ I said, when he got home. He was sitting in the armchair in the living room, reading the newspaper. He looked tired, as if he’d not slept well. ‘Do you trust me?’ I said.

He looked up. His eyes sparked into life, lit with love, but also something else. Something that looked almost like fear. Not surprising, I suppose; the question is usually asked before an admission that such trust is misplaced. He swept his hair back from his forehead.

‘Of course, darling,’ he said. He came over and perched on the arm of my chair, taking one of my hands between his. ‘Of course.’

I was suddenly unsure whether I wanted to continue. ‘Do you talk to Claire?’

He looked down into my eyes. ‘Claire?’ he said. ‘You remember her?’

I had forgotten that until recently — until the memory of the firework party, in fact — Claire had not existed to me at all. ‘Vaguely,’ I said.

He glanced away, towards the clock on the mantelpiece.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I think she moved away. Years ago.’

I winced, as if with pain. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked. I could not believe he was still lying to me. It seemed almost worse of him to lie about this than about everything else. This, surely, would be an easy thing to be honest about? The fact that Claire was still local would cause me no pain, might even be something that — were I to see her — would help my memory to improve. So why the dishonesty? A dark thought entered my head — the same black suspicion — but I pushed it away.

‘Are you positive? Where did she go?’ Tell me, I thought. It’s not too late.

‘I don’t really remember,’ he said. ‘New Zealand, I think. Or Australia.’

I felt hope slip further away, but knew what I had to do. ‘You’re certain?’ I said. I took a gamble. ‘I have this odd memory that she once told me she was thinking of moving to Barcelona for a while. Years and years ago, it must have been.’ He said nothing. ‘You’re sure it wasn’t there?’

‘You remembered that?’ he said. ‘When?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s just a feeling.’

He squeezed my hand. A consolation. ‘It’s probably your imagination.’

‘It felt very real, though. You’re certain it wasn’t Barcelona?’

He sighed. ‘No. Not Barcelona. It was definitely Australia. Adelaide, I think. I’m not sure. It was a long time ago.’ He shook his head. ‘Claire,’ he said, smiling. ‘I haven’t thought of her for ages. Not for years and years.’

I closed my eyes. When I opened them he was grinning at me. He looked stupid, almost. Pathetic. I wanted to slap him. ‘Ben,’ I said, my voice little more than a whisper. ‘I’ve spoken to her.’

I didn’t know how he would react. He did nothing, almost as if I hadn’t spoken at all, but then his eyes flared.

‘When?’ he said. His voice was hard as glass.

I could either tell him the truth, or admit that I have been writing the story of my days. ‘This afternoon,’ I said. ‘She called me.’

‘She called you?’ he said. ‘How? How did she call you?’

I decided to lie. ‘She said you’d given her my number.’

‘What number? That’s ridiculous! How could I? You’re sure it was her?’

‘She said you spoke together, occasionally. Until fairly recently.’

He let go of my hand and it dropped into my lap, a dead weight. He stood up, rounding to face me. ‘She said what?’

‘She told me that the two of you had been in contact. Up until a few years ago.’

He leaned in close. I smelled coffee on his breath. ‘This woman just phoned you out of the blue? You’re sure it was even her?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Oh, Ben!’ I said. ‘Who else could it have been?’ I smiled. I had never thought this conversation would be easy, but it seemed infused with a seriousness I didn’t like.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You don’t know, but there have been people who have tried to get hold of you, in the past. The press. Journalists. People who have read about you, and what happened, and want your side of the story, or even just to nose around and find out how bad you really are, or see how much you’ve changed. They’ve pretended to be other people before, just to get you to talk. There are doctors. Quacks who think they can help you. Homeopathy. Alternative medicine. Even witch doctors.’

‘Ben,’ I said. ‘She was my best friend for years. I recognized her voice.’ His face sagged, defeated. ‘You have been speaking to her, haven’t you?’ I noticed that he was clenching and unclenching his right hand, balling it into a fist, releasing it. ‘Ben?’ I said, again.

He looked up. His face was red, his eyes moist. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘OK. I have spoken to Claire. She asked me to keep in touch with her, to let her know how you are. We speak every few months, just briefly.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ He said nothing. ‘Ben. Why?’ Silence. ‘You just decided it was easier to keep her from me? To pretend she’d moved away? Is that it? Just like you pretended I’d never written a novel?’

‘Chris,’ he began, then, ‘What—’

‘It’s not fair, Ben,’ I said. ‘You have no right to keep these things to yourself. To tell me lies just because it’s easier for you. No right.’

He stood up. ‘Easier for me?’ he said, his voice rising. ‘Easier for me? You think I told you that Claire lives abroad because it was easier for me? You’re wrong, Christine. Wrong. None of this is easy for me. None of it. I don’t tell you you’ve written a novel because I can’t bear to remember how much you wanted to write another, or to see the pain when you realize you never will. I told you that Claire lives abroad because I can’t stand to hear the pain in your voice when you realize that she abandoned you in that place. Left you there to rot, like all the others.’ He waited for a reaction. ‘Did she tell you that?’ he said when none came, and I thought, No, no she didn’t, and in fact today I read in my journal that she used to visit me all the time.

He said it again. ‘Did she tell you that? That she stopped visiting as soon as she realized that fifteen minutes after she left you’d forgotten she even existed? Sure, she might ring up at Christmas to find out how you’re doing, but it was me who stood by you, Chris. Me who visited you every single day. Me who was there, who waited, praying for you to be well enough that I could come and take you away from there, and bring you here, to live with me, in safety. Me. I didn’t lie to you because it was easy for me. Don’t you ever make the mistake of thinking that I did. Don’t you ever!’

I remembered reading what Dr Nash had told me. I looked him in the eye. Except you didn’t, I thought. You didn’t stand by me.

‘Claire said you divorced me.’

He froze, then stepped back, as if punched. His mouth opened, then closed. It was almost comical. At last a single word escaped.

‘Bitch.’

His face melted into fury. I thought he was going to hit me, but found I didn’t care.

‘Did you divorce me?’ I said. ‘Is it true?’

‘Darling—’

I stood up. ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Tell me!’ We stood, opposite each other. I didn’t know what he was going to do, didn’t know what I wanted him to do. I only knew I needed him to be honest. To tell me no more lies. ‘I just want the truth.’

He stepped forward and fell to his knees in front of me, grasping for my hands. ‘Darling—’

‘Did you divorce me? Is it true, Ben? Tell me!’ His head dropped, then he looked up at me, his eyes wide, frightened. ‘Ben!’ I shouted. He began to cry. ‘Ben. She told me about Adam, too. She told me we had a son. I know he’s dead.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought it was for the best.’ And then, through gentle sobs, he said he would tell me everything.

The light had faded completely, night replacing dusk. Ben switched on a lamp and we sat in its rosy glow, opposite each other, across the dining table. There was a pile of photographs between us, the same ones I had looked at earlier. I feigned surprise as he passed each one to me, telling me of its origins. He lingered on the photos of our wedding — telling me what an amazing day it had been, how special, explaining how beautiful I had looked — but then began to get upset. ‘I never stopped loving you, Christine,’ he said. ‘You have to believe that. It was your illness. You had to go into that place, and, well … I couldn’t … I couldn’t bear it. I would’ve followed you. I would’ve done anything to get you back. Anything. But they … they wouldn’t … I couldn’t see you … they said it was for the best.’

‘Who?’ I said. ‘Who said?’ He was silent. ‘The doctors?’

He looked up at me. He was crying, his eyes circled with red.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. The doctors. They said it was for the best. It was the only way …’ He wiped away a tear. ‘I did as they told me. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d fought for you. I was weak, and stupid.’ His voice softened to a whisper. ‘I stopped seeing you, yes,’ he said, ‘but for your own sake. Even though it nearly killed me, I did it for you, Christine. You have to believe me. You, and our son. But I never divorced you. Not really. Not here.’ He leaned over and took my hand, pressing it to his shirt. ‘Here, we’ve always been married. We’ve always been together.’ I felt warm cotton, damp with sweat. The quick beat of his heart. Love.

I have been so foolish, I thought. I have allowed myself to believe he did these things to hurt me, when really he tells me he has done them out of love. I should not condemn him. Instead I should try to understand.

‘I forgive you,’ I said.