Before I Go to Sleep

by S. J. Watson

  The truth of my situation now sits nearer the surface. It is possible that one day I will wake up and know it already. Things will begin to make sense. Even then, I know, I will never be normal. My history is incomplete. Years have vanished, without trace. There are things about myself, my past, that no one can tell me. Not Dr Nash – who knows me only through what I have told him, what he has read in my journal and what is written in my file – and not Ben, either. Things that happened before I met him. Things that happened after but that I chose not to share. Secrets.

  But there is one person who might know. One person who might tell me the rest of the truth. Who I had been seeing in Brighton. The real reason my best friend vanished from my life.

  I have read this journal. I know that tomorrow I will meet Claire.

  Friday, 23 November

  I am writing this at home. The place I finally understand as mine, somewhere I belong. I have read this journal through, and I have seen Claire, and between them they have told me all I need to know. Claire has promised me that she is back in my life now and will not leave again. In front of me is a tatty envelope with my name on it. An artefact. One that completes me. At last my past makes sense.

  Soon, my husband will be home, and I am looking forward to seeing him. I love him. I know that now.

  I will get this story down and then, together, we will be able to make everything better.

  It was a bright day as I got off the bus. The light was suffused with the blue coolness of winter, the ground hard. Claire had told me she would wait at the top of the hill, by the main steps up to the palace, and so I folded the piece of paper on which I had written her directions and began to climb the gentle incline as it arced around the park. It took longer than I expected, and, still unused to my body’s limitations, I had to rest as I neared the top. I must have been fit once, I thought. Or fitter than this, anyway. I wondered if I ought to get some exercise.

  The park opened out to an expanse of mowed grass, criss-crossed with tarmac, dotted with litter bins and women with pushchairs. I realized I was nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. How could I? In the images I had of Claire she was wearing a lot of black. Jeans, T-shirts. I saw her in heavy boots and a trench coat. Or else she was wearing a long skirt, tie-dyed, made of some material that I suppose would be described as floaty. I could imagine neither vision representing her now – not at the age we have become – but had no idea what might have taken their place.

  I looked at my watch. I was early. Without thinking, I told myself that Claire is always late, then instantly wondered how I knew, what residue of memory had reminded me. There is so much, I thought, just under the surface. So many memories, darting like silvery minnows in a shallow stream. I decided to wait on one of the benches.

  Long shadows extended themselves lazily across the grass. Over the trees rows of houses stretched away from me, packed claustrophobically close. With a start I realized that one of the houses I could see was the one in which I now lived, looking indistinguishable from the others.

  I imagined lighting a cigarette and inhaling an anxious lungful, tried to resist the temptation to stand and pace. I felt nervous, ridiculously so. Yet there was no reason. Claire had been my friend. My best friend. There was nothing to worry about. I was safe.

  Paint was flaking off the bench and I picked at it, revealing more of the damp wood beneath. Someone had used the same method to scratch two sets of initials next to where I sat, then surrounded them with a heart and added the date. I closed my eyes. Will I ever get used to the shock of seeing evidence of the year in which I am living? I breathed in: damp grass, the tang of hot dogs, petrol.

  A shadow fell across my face and I opened my eyes. A woman stood over me. Tall, with a shock of ginger hair, she was wearing trousers and a sheepskin jacket. A little boy held her hand, a plastic football in the crook of his other arm. ‘Sorry,’ I said, and shuffled along the bench to allow room for them both to sit beside me, but as I did so the woman smiled.

  ‘Chrissy!’ she said. The voice was Claire’s. Unmistakably so. ‘Chrissy darling! It’s me.’ I looked from the child to her face. It was furrowed where once it must have been smooth, her eyes had a downturn to them that was absent from my mental image, but it was her. There was no doubt. ‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘I’ve been so worried about you.’ She pushed the child towards me. ‘This is Toby.’

  The boy looked at me. ‘Go on,’ said Claire. ‘Say hello.’ For a moment I thought she was talking to me, but then he took a step forward. I smiled. My only thought was, is this Adam? even though I knew it couldn’t be.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  Toby shuffled his feet and murmured something I didn’t catch, then turned to Claire and said, ‘Can I go and play now?’

  ‘Don’t go out of sight, though. Yes?’ She stroked his hair and he ran over to the park.

  I stood up and turned to face her. I didn’t know if I would have preferred to turn and run myself, so vast was the chasm between us, but then she held out her arms. ‘Chrissy darling,’ she said, the plastic bracelets that hung from her wrists clattering into each other. ‘I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so fucking much.’ The weight that had been pressing down on me somersaulted, lifted and vanished, and I fell sobbing into her arms.

  For the briefest of moments I felt as if I knew everything about her, and everything about myself, too. It was as if the emptiness, the void that sat at the centre of my soul, had been lit with light brighter than the sun. A history – my history – flashed in front of me, but too quickly for me to do anything but snatch at it. ‘I remember you,’ I said. ‘I remember you,’ and then it was gone and the darkness swept in once more.

  We sat on the bench and, for a long time, silently watched Toby playing football with a group of boys. I felt happy to be connected with my unknown past, yet there was an awkwardness between us that I could not shake. A phrase kept repeating in my head. Something to do with Claire.

  ‘How are you?’ I said in the end, and she laughed.

  ‘I feel like hell,’ she said. She opened her bag and took out a packet of tobacco. ‘You haven’t started again, have you?’ she said, offering it to me, and I shook my head, aware again of how she was someone else who knew so much more about me than I did myself.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

  She began to roll her cigarette, nodding towards her son. ‘Oh, you know. Tobes has ADHD. He was up all night, and hence so was I.’

  ‘ADHD?’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘Sorry. It’s a fairly new phrase, I suppose. Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. We have to give him Ritalin, though I fucking hate it. It’s the only way. We’ve tried just about everything else, and he’s an absolute beast without it. A horror.’

  I looked over at him, running in the distance. Another faulty, fucked-up brain in a healthy body.

  ‘He’s OK, though?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, sighing. She balanced her cigarette paper on her knee and began sprinkling tobacco along its fold. ‘He’s just exhausting sometimes. It’s like the terrible twos never ended.’

  I smiled. I knew what she meant, but only theoretically. I had no point of reference, no recollection of what Adam might have been like, either at Toby’s age or younger.

  ‘Toby seems quite young?’ I said.

  She laughed. ‘You mean I’m quite old!’ She licked the gum of her paper. ‘Yes. I had him late. Pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen, so we were being careless …’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You mean …?’

  She laughed again. ‘I wouldn’t say he was an accident, but let’s just say he was something of a shock.’ She put the cigarette in her mouth. ‘Do you remember Adam?’

  I looked at her. She had her head turned away from me, shielding her lighter from the wind, and I couldn’t see her expression, or tell whether the move was deliberately evasive.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘A few weeks ago I remembered that I had a son, and ever since I wrote about i
t I feel like I’ve been carrying the knowledge around, like a heavy rock in my chest. But no. I don’t remember anything about him.’

  She sent a cloud of blue-tinged smoke skyward. ‘That’s a shame,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. Ben shows you pictures, though? Doesn’t that help?’

  I weighed up how much I should tell her. They seemed to have been in touch, to have been friends, once. I had to be careful, but still I felt an increasing need to speak, as well as hear, the truth.

  ‘He does show me pictures, yes. Though he doesn’t have any up around the house. He says I find them too upsetting. He keeps them hidden.’ I nearly said locked away.

  She seemed surprised. ‘Hidden? Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He thinks I would find it too disturbing if I were to stumble across a picture of him.’

  Claire nodded. ‘You might not recognize him? Know who he is?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I imagine that might be true,’ she said. She hesitated. ‘Now that he’s gone.’

  Gone, I thought. She said it as though he had just popped out for a few hours, had taken his girlfriend to the cinema, or to shop for a pair of shoes. I understood it, though. Understood the tacit agreement that we would not talk about Adam’s death. Not yet. Understood that Claire is trying to protect me, too.

  I said nothing. Instead I tried to imagine what it must have been like, to have seen my child every day, back when the phrase every day had some meaning, before every day became severed from the one before it. I tried to imagine waking every morning knowing who he was, being able to plan, to look forward to Christmas, to his birthday.

  How ridiculous, I thought. I don’t even know when his birthday is.

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to see him?’

  My heart leapt. ‘You have photographs?’ I said. ‘Could I—’

  She looked surprised. ‘Of course! Loads! At home.’

  ‘I’d like one,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But—’

  ‘Please. It’d mean so much to me.’

  She put her hand on mine. ‘Of course. I’ll bring one next time, but—’

  She was interrupted by a cry in the distance. I looked across the park. Toby was running towards us, crying, as, behind him, the game of football continued.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Claire under her breath. She stood up and called out. ‘Tobes! Toby! What happened?’ He kept running. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I’ll just go and sort him out.’

  She went to her son and crouched down to ask what was wrong. I looked at the ground. The path was carpeted with moss, and the odd blade of grass had poked through the tarmac, fighting towards the light. I felt pleased. Not only that Claire would give me a photograph of Adam, but that she had said she would do so next time we met. We were going to be seeing more of each other. I realized that every time would once again seem like the first. The irony: that I am prone to forgetting that I have no memory.

  I realized, too, that something about the way she had spoken of Ben – some wistfulness – made me think that the idea of them having an affair was ridiculous.

  She came back.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ she said. She flicked her cigarette away and ground it out with her heel. ‘Slight misunderstanding over ownership of the ball. Shall we walk?’ I nodded, and she turned to Toby. ‘Darling! Ice cream?’

  He said yes and we began to walk towards the palace. Toby was holding Claire’s hand. They looked so alike, I thought, their eyes lit with the same fire.

  ‘I love it up here,’ said Claire. ‘The view is so inspiring. Don’t you think?’

  I looked out at the grey houses, dotted with green. ‘I suppose. Do you still paint?’

  ‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘I dabble. I’ve become a dabbler. Our own walls are chock-full of my pictures, but nobody else has one. Unfortunately.’

  I smiled. I didn’t mention my novel, though I wanted to ask if she’d read it, what she thought. ‘What do you do now, then?’

  ‘I look after Toby mostly,’ she said. ‘He’s home-schooled.’

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  ‘Not through choice,’ she replied. ‘None of the schools will take him. They say he’s too disruptive. They can’t handle him.’

  I looked at her son as he walked with us. He seemed perfectly calm, holding his mother’s hand. He asked if he could have his ice cream, and Claire told him he’d be able to soon. I couldn’t imagine him being difficult.

  ‘What was Adam like?’ I said.

  ‘As a child?’ she said. ‘He was a good boy. Very polite. Well behaved, you know?’

  ‘Was I a good mother? Was he happy?’

  ‘Oh, Chrissy,’ she said. ‘Yes. Yes. Nobody was more loved than that boy. You don’t remember, do you? You had been trying for a while. You had an ectopic pregnancy. You were worried you might not be able to get pregnant again, but then along came Adam. You were so happy, both of you. And you loved being pregnant. I hated it. Bloated like a fucking house, and such dreadful sickness. Frightful. But it was different with you. You loved every second of it. You glowed, for the whole time you were carrying him. You lit up rooms when you walked into them, Chrissy.’

  I closed my eyes, even as we walked, and tried first to remember being pregnant, and then to imagine it. I could do neither. I looked at Claire.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then? The birth. It was wonderful. Ben was there, of course. I got there as soon as I could.’ She stopped walking, and turned to look at me. ‘And you were a great mother, Chrissy. Great. Adam was happy, and cared for, and loved. No child could have wished for more.’

  I tried to remember motherhood, my son’s childhood. Nothing.

  ‘And Ben?’

  She paused, then said, ‘Ben was a great father. Always. He loved that boy. He would race home from work every evening to see him. When Adam said his first word Ben called everyone up and told them. The same when he began to crawl, or took his first step. As soon as he could walk he was taking him to the park, with a football, whatever. And Christmas! So many toys! I think that was just about the only thing I ever saw you argue about – how many toys Ben would buy for Adam. You were worried he’d be spoilt.’

  I felt a twinge of regret, an urge to apologize for ever having tried to deny my son anything.

  ‘I would let him have anything he wanted, now,’ I said. ‘If only I could.’

  She looked at me sadly. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know. But be happy knowing that he didn’t want for anything from you, ever.’

  We carried on walking. A van was parked on the footpath, selling ice creams, and we turned towards it. Toby began to tug at his mother’s arm. She leaned down and gave him a note from her purse before letting him go. ‘Choose one thing!’ she shouted after him. ‘Just one! And wait for the change!’

  I watched him run to the van. ‘Claire,’ I said, ‘how old was Adam when I lost my memory?’

  She smiled. ‘He must have been three. Maybe four, just.’

  I felt I was stepping into new territory now. Into danger. But it was where I had to go. The truth I had to discover. ‘My doctor told me I was attacked,’ I said. She didn’t reply. ‘In Brighton. Why was I there?’

  I looked at Claire, scanning her face. She seemed to be making a decision, weighing up options, deciding what to do. ‘I don’t know, for sure,’ she said. ‘Nobody does.’

  She stopped speaking, and we both watched Toby for a while. He had his ice cream now and was unwrapping it, a look of determined concentration scoring his face. Silence stretched in front of me. Unless I say something, I thought, this will last for ever.

  ‘I was having an affair, wasn’t I?’

  There was no reaction. No intake of breath, no gasp of denial or look of shock. Claire looked at me steadily. Calmly. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You were cheating on Ben.’

  Her voice had no emotion. I wondered what she thought of me. Either then or now.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  ‘OK,’
she said. ‘But let’s sit down. I’m just gasping for a coffee.’

  We walked up to the main building.

  The cafeteria doubled as a bar. The chairs were steel, the tables plain. Palm trees were dotted around, an attempt at atmosphere ruined by the cold air that blasted in whenever someone opened the door. We sat opposite each other across a table that swam with spilled coffee, warming our hands on our drinks.

  ‘What happened?’ I said again. ‘I need to know.’

  ‘It’s not easy to say,’ said Claire. She spoke slowly as if picking her way through difficult terrain. ‘I suppose it started not long after you had Adam. Once the initial excitement had worn off there was a period when things were extremely tough.’ She paused. ‘It’s so difficult, isn’t it? To see what’s going on when you’re in the absolute middle of something? It’s only with hindsight we can see things for what they are.’ I nodded, but didn’t understand. Hindsight is something I don’t have. She went on. ‘You cried, awfully. You worried you weren’t bonding with the baby. All the usual stuff. Ben and I did what we could, and your mother, when she was around, but it was tough. And even when the absolute worst was over you still found it hard. You couldn’t get back into your work. You’d call me up, in the middle of the day. Upset. You said you felt like a failure. Not a failure at motherhood – you could see how happy Adam was – but a failure as a writer. You thought you’d never be able to write again. I’d come round and see you, and you’d be in a mess. Crying, the works.’ I wondered what was coming next – how bad it would get – then she said, ‘You and Ben were arguing, too. You resented him, how easy he found life. He offered to pay for a nanny but, well …’