Before I Go to Sleep

by S. J. Watson

  ‘He must love me very much,’ I say, more to myself than to Nash.

  He nods. There is a pause. We both sip our drinks. ‘Yes. I think he must.’

  I smile, and look down, at my hands holding the hot drink, at the gold wedding band, at the short nails, at my legs, crossed politely. I don’t recognize my own body.

  ‘Why doesn’t my husband know that I’m seeing you?’ I say.

  He sighs, and closes his eyes. ‘I’ll be honest,’ he says, clasping his hands together and leaning forward in his seat. ‘Initially I asked you not to tell Ben that you were seeing me.’

  A jolt of fear goes through me, almost an echo. Yet he does not look untrustworthy.

  ‘Go on,’ I say. I want to believe he can help me.

  ‘Several people – doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists and so on – have approached you and Ben in the past, wanting to work with you. But he has always been extremely reluctant to let you see these professionals. He has made it very clear that you have had extensive treatment before, and in his opinion it has achieved nothing other than to upset you. Naturally he wanted to spare you – and himself – from any more upset.’

  Of course; he doesn’t want to raise my hopes. ‘So you persuaded me to come and see you without him knowing?’

  ‘Yes. I did approach Ben first. We spoke on the phone. I even asked him to meet with me so that I could explain what I had to offer, but he refused. So I contacted you directly.’

  Another jolt of fear, as if from nowhere. ‘How?’ I say.

  He looked down at his drink. ‘I went to see you. I waited until you came out of the house and then introduced myself.’

  ‘And I agreed to see you? Just like that?’

  ‘Not at first. No. I had to persuade you that you could trust me. I suggested that we should meet once, just for one session. Without Ben’s knowledge if that was what it took. I said I would explain to you why I wanted you to come and see me, and what I thought I could offer you.’

  ‘And I agreed …’

  He looks up. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I told you that after that first visit it was entirely up to you whether you chose to tell Ben or not, but if you decided not to I would ring you to make sure you remembered our appointments, and so on.’

  ‘And I chose not to.’

  ‘Yes. That’s right. You’ve spoken about wanting to wait until we were making progress before telling him. You felt that was better.’

  ‘And are we?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Making progress?’

  He swallows some more coffee then puts his cup back on the table. ‘I believe so, yes. Though progress is somewhat difficult to quantify exactly. But lots of memories seem to have come back to you over the last few weeks – many of them for the first time, as far as we know. And there are certain truths that you are aware of more often, where there were few before. For example, you occasionally wake up and remember that you’re married now. And …’ He pauses.

  ‘And?’ I say.

  ‘And, well, you’re gaining independence, I think.’

  ‘Independence?’

  ‘Yes. You don’t rely on Ben as much as you did. Or me.’

  That’s it, I think. That is the progress he is talking about. Independence. Perhaps he means I can make it to the shops or a library without a chaperone, though right now I am not even sure that much is true. In any case, I have not yet made enough progress for me to wave it proudly in front of my husband. Not even enough for me to always wake up remembering I have one.

  ‘But that’s it?’

  ‘It’s important,’ he says. ‘Don’t underestimate it, Christine.’

  I don’t say anything. I take a sip of my drink and look around the café. It is almost empty. There are voices from a small kitchen at the back, the occasional rattle as the water in an urn reaches boiling point, the noise of children playing in the distance. It is difficult to believe that this place is so close to my home and yet I have no memory of ever being here before.

  ‘You say we’ve been meeting for a few weeks,’ I say to Dr Nash. ‘So what have we been doing?’

  ‘Do you remember anything of our previous sessions? Anything at all?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Nothing. As far as I know I am meeting you for the first time today.’

  ‘Forgive me asking,’ he says. ‘As I said, you have flashes of memory, sometimes. It seems you know more on some days than on others.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘I have no memory of ever meeting you before, or of what happened yesterday, or the day before, or last year, for that matter. Yet I can remember some things from years ago. My childhood. My mother. I remember being at university, just. I don’t understand how these old memories could have survived when everything else has been wiped clean.’

  He nods throughout my question. I don’t doubt he has heard it before. Possibly I ask the same thing every week. Possibly we have exactly the same conversation.

  ‘Memory is a complex thing,’ he says. ‘Human beings have a short-term memory that can store facts and information for about a minute or so, but also a long-term memory. Here we can store huge quantities of information, and retain it for a seemingly indefinite length of time. We now know that these two functions seem to be controlled by different parts of the brain, with some neural connections between them. There is also a part of the brain which seems to be responsible for taking short-term, transient memories and coding them as long-term memories for recall much later.’

  He speaks easily, quickly, as if he is now on solid territory. I would have been like that once, I suppose; sure of myself.

  ‘There are two main types of amnesia,’ he says. ‘Most commonly the affected person cannot recall past events, with more recent events being most severely affected. So if, for example, the sufferer has a motor accident, they may not remember the accident, or the days or weeks preceding it, but can remember everything up to, say, six months before the accident perfectly well.’

  I nod. ‘And the other?’

  ‘The other is rarer,’ he says. ‘Sometimes there is an inability to transfer memories from short-term storage into long-term storage. People with this condition live in the moment, able to recall only the immediate past, and then only for a small amount of time.’

  He stops talking, as if waiting for me to say something. It is as if we each have our lines, have rehearsed this conversation often.

  ‘I have both?’ I say. ‘A loss of the memories I had, plus an inability to form new ones?’

  He clears his throat. ‘Yes, unfortunately. It’s not common, but perfectly possible. What’s unusual in your case, however, is the pattern of your amnesia. Generally you have no consistent memory of anything that happened since your early childhood, but you seem to process new memories in a way I have never come across before. If I left this room now and returned in two minutes most people with anterograde amnesia would not remember having met me at all, certainly not today. But you seem to remember whole chunks of time – up to twenty-four hours – which you then lose. That’s not typical. To be honest, it doesn’t make any sense, considering the way we believe that memory works. It suggests you are able to transfer things from short-term to long-term storage perfectly well. I don’t understand why you can’t retain them.’

  I may be leading a shattered life, but at least it is shattered into pieces large enough for me to maintain a semblance of independence. I guess that means I am lucky.

  ‘Why?’ I say. ‘What has caused it?’

  He doesn’t say anything. The room goes quiet. The air feels still, and sticky. When he speaks his words seem to echo off the walls. ‘Many things can cause an impairment of memory,’ he says. ‘Either long-term or short-term. Disease, trauma, drug use. The exact nature of the impairment seems to differ, depending on the part of the brain that has been affected.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But what has caused mine?’

  He looks at me for a moment. ‘What has Ben told you?’

>   I think back to our conversation in the bedroom. An accident, he had said. A bad accident.

  ‘He didn’t really tell me anything,’ I say. ‘Nothing specific, anyway. He just said I’d had an accident.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, reaching for his bag that sits under the table. ‘Your amnesia was caused by trauma. That’s true, at least partly.’ He opens his bag and takes out a book. At first I wonder if he is going to consult his notes, but instead he passes it across the table to me. ‘Look. I want you to have this,’ he says. ‘It will explain everything. Better than I can. About what has caused your condition, especially. But other things as well.’

  I take it from him. It is brown, bound in leather, its pages held closed by an elastic band. I take that off and open it at random. The paper is heavy and faintly lined, with a red margin, and the pages filled with dense handwriting. ‘What is it?’ I say.

  ‘It’s a journal,’ he says. ‘One that you’ve been keeping over the past few weeks.’

  I am shocked. ‘A journal?’ I wonder why he has it.

  ‘Yes. A record of what we’ve been doing recently. I asked you to keep it. We’ve been doing a lot of work around trying to find out exactly how your memory behaves. I thought it might be helpful for you to keep a record of what we’ve been doing.’

  I look at the book in front of me. ‘So I’ve written this?’

  ‘Yes. I told you to write whatever you like in it. Many amnesiacs have tried similar things, but usually it’s not as helpful as you might think as they have such a small window of memory. But as there are some things that you can remember for the whole day, I didn’t see why you shouldn’t jot down some notes in a book every evening. I thought it might help you to maintain a thread of memory from one day to the next. Plus I felt that memory might be like a muscle, something that can be strengthened through exercise.’

  ‘And you’ve been reading it, as we’ve been going along?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘You’ve been writing it in private.’

  ‘But how—?’ I begin, and then say, ‘Ben’s been reminding me to write in it?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I suggested that you keep it secret,’ he says. ‘You’ve been hiding it, at home. I’ve been calling you to tell you where it’s hidden.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘Yes. More or less.’

  ‘Not Ben?’

  He pauses, then says, ‘No. Ben hasn’t read it.’

  I wonder why not, what it might contain that I do not want my husband to see. What secrets might I have? Secrets I don’t even know myself.

  ‘But you’ve read it?’

  ‘You left it with me a few days ago,’ he says. ‘You said you wanted me to read it. That it was time.’

  I look at the book. I am excited. A journal. A link back to a lost past, albeit only recent.

  ‘Have you read it all?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Most of it. I think I’ve read everything important, anyway.’ He pauses and looks away from me, scratching the back of his neck. Embarrassed, I think. I wonder if he is telling me the truth, what the book contains. He drains the last of his mug of coffee, and says, ‘I didn’t force you to let me see it. I want you to know that.’

  I nod, and finish the rest of my drink in silence, flicking through the pages of the book as I do so. On the inside of the front cover is a list of dates. ‘What are these?’ I say.

  ‘They’re the dates we’ve been meeting,’ he says. ‘As well as the ones we had planned. We’ve been arranging them as we go along. I’ve been calling to remind you, asking you to look in your journal.’

  I think of the yellow note tucked between the pages of my diary today. ‘But today?’

  ‘Today I had your journal,’ he says. ‘So we wrote a note instead.’

  I nod, and look through the rest of the book. It is filled with a dense handwriting that I don’t recognize. Page after page. Days and days of work.

  I wonder how I found the time, but then think of the board in the kitchen and the answer is obvious; I have had nothing else to do.

  I put it back on the table. A young man wearing jeans and a T-shirt comes in and glances over to where we sit, before ordering a drink and settling at a table with the newspaper. He doesn’t look up at me again, and the twenty-year-old me is upset. I feel as though I am invisible.

  ‘Shall we go?’ I say.

  We walk back the way we had come. The sky has clouded over and a thin mist hangs in the air. The ground feels soggy underfoot; it feels like walking on quicksand. On the playground I see a roundabout, turning slowly even though no one is riding it.

  ‘We don’t normally meet here?’ I say, when we reach the road. ‘In the café, I mean?’

  ‘No. No, we normally meet in my office. We do exercises. Tests and things.’

  ‘So why here today?’

  ‘I really just wanted to give you your book back,’ he says. ‘I was worried about you not having it.’

  ‘I’ve come to rely on it?’ I say.

  ‘In a way, yes.’

  We cross the road, and walk back down to the house I share with Ben. I can see Dr Nash’s car, still parked where he left it, the tiny garden outside our window, the short path and neat flower beds. I still can’t quite believe this is the place where I live.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’ I say. ‘Another drink?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. No, I won’t, thanks. I have to get going. Julie and I have plans this evening.’

  He stands for a moment, looking at me. I notice his hair, cut short, neatly parted, and the way his shirt has a vertical stripe that clashes with the horizontal one on his pullover. I realize that he is only a few years older than I thought I was when I woke this morning. ‘Julie is your wife?’

  He smiles and shakes his head. ‘No, my girlfriend. Actually, my fiancée. We got engaged. I keep forgetting.’

  I smile back at him. These are the details I should remember, I suppose. The little things. Perhaps it is these trivialities I have been writing down in my book, these small hooks on which a whole life is hung.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I say, and he thanks me.

  I feel like I ought to ask more questions, ought to show more interest, but there is little point. Anything he tells me now I will have forgotten by the time I wake tomorrow. Today is all I have. ‘I ought to get back anyway,’ I say. ‘We’re going away this weekend. To the coast. I need to pack later …’

  He smiles. ‘Goodbye, Christine,’ he says. He turns to leave, but then looks back at me. ‘Your journal has my numbers written in it,’ he says. ‘At the front. Call me if you’d like to see me again. To carry on with your treatment, I mean. OK?’

  ‘If?’ I say. I remember my journal, the appointments that we had pencilled in between now and the end of the year. ‘I thought we had more sessions booked?’

  ‘You’ll understand when you read your book,’ he says. ‘It will all make sense. I promise.’

  ‘OK,’ I say. I realize I trust him, and I am glad. Glad that I don’t only have my husband to rely on.

  ‘It’s up to you, Christine. Call me, whenever you like.’

  ‘I will,’ I say, and then he waves and gets into his car and, checking over his shoulder, he pulls out into the road and is gone.

  I make a cup of coffee and carry it into the living room. From outside I hear the sound of whistling, punctured by heavy drilling and an occasional burst of staccato laughter, but even that recedes to a gentle buzz as I sit in the armchair. The sun shines weakly through the net curtains and I feel its dull warmth on my arms and thighs. I take the journal out of my bag.

  I feel nervous. I do not know what this book will contain. What shocks and surprises. What mysteries. I see the scrapbook on the coffee table. In that book is a version of my past, but one chosen by Ben. Does the book I hold contain another? I open it.

  The first page is unlined. I have written my name in black ink across its centre. Christine Lucas. It’s a wonder I haven’t written Pr
ivate! beneath it. Or Keep out!

  Something has been added. Something unexpected, terrifying. More terrifying than anything else I have seen today. There, beneath my name, in blue ink and capital letters, are three words.

  DON’T TRUST BEN.

  There is nothing I can do but turn the page.

  I begin to read my history.

  Part Two

  The Journal of Christine Lucas

  Friday, 9 November

  My name is Christine Lucas. I am forty-seven. An amnesiac. I am sitting here, in this unfamiliar bed, writing my story dressed in a silk nightie that the man downstairs – who tells me that he is my husband, that he is called Ben – apparently bought me for my forty-sixth birthday. The room is silent and the only light comes from the lamp on the bedside table – a soft orange glow. I feel as if I am floating, suspended in a pool of light.

  I have the bedroom door closed. I am writing this in private. In secret. I can hear my husband in the living room – the soft sigh of the sofa as he leans forward or stands up, an occasional cough, politely stifled – but I will hide this book if he comes upstairs. I will put it under the bed, or the pillow. I don’t want him to see I am writing in it. I don’t want to have to tell him how I got it.

  I look at the clock on the bedside table. It is almost eleven; I must write quickly. I imagine that soon I will hear the TV silenced, a creak of a floorboard as Ben crosses the room, the flick of a light switch. Will he go into the kitchen and make a sandwich or pour himself a glass of water? Or will he come straight to bed? I don’t know. I don’t know his rituals. I don’t know my own.

  Because I have no memory. According to Ben, according to the doctor I met this afternoon, tonight, as I sleep, my mind will erase everything I know today. Everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I am still a child. Thinking I still have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me.

  And then I will find out, again, that I am wrong. My choices have already been made. Half my life is behind me.