by S. J. Watson
‘You told me,’ I said. ‘Weeks ago. You were eating a biscuit, and I was in the bathroom. I came downstairs and told you that I had remembered we had had a son, even remembered what he was called, and then we sat down and you told me how he’d been killed. You showed me some photographs, from upstairs. Photos of me and him, and letters that he’d written. A letter to Santa Claus—’ Grief washed over me again. I stopped talking.
Ben was staring at me. ‘You remembered? How?’
‘I’ve been writing things down. For a few weeks. As much as I can remember.’
‘Where?’ he said. He had begun to raise his voice, as if in anger, though I didn’t understand what he might be angry about. ‘Where have you been writing things down? I don’t understand, Christine. Where have you been writing things down?’
‘I’ve been keeping a notebook.’
‘A notebook?’ The way he said it made it sound so trivial, as if I have been using it to write shopping lists and record phone numbers.
‘A journal,’ I said.
He shifted forward in his chair, as if he was about to get up. ‘A journal? For how long?’
‘I don’t know exactly. A couple of weeks?’
‘Can I see it?’
I felt petulant and angry. I was determined not to show it to him. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’
He was furious. ‘Where is it? Show it to me.’
‘Ben, it’s personal.’
He shot the word back at me. ‘Personal? What do you mean, personal?’
‘I mean it’s private. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with you reading it.’
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Have you written about me?’
‘Of course I have.’
‘What have you written? What have you said?’
How to answer that? I thought of all the ways I have betrayed him. The things I have said to Dr Nash, and thought about him. The ways in which I have distrusted my husband, the things I have thought him capable of. I thought of the lies I have told, the days I have seen Dr Nash – and Claire – and told him nothing.
‘Lots of things, Ben. I’ve written lots of things.’
‘But why? Why have you been writing things down?’
I could not believe he had to ask me that question. ‘I want to make sense of my life,’ I said. ‘I want to be able to link one day to the next, like you can. Like anybody can.’
‘But why? Are you unhappy? Don’t you love me any more? Don’t you want to be with me, here?’
The question threw me. Why did he feel that wanting to make sense of my fractured life meant that I wanted to change it in some way?
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘What is happiness? I’m happy when I wake up, I think, though if this morning is anything to go by I’m confused. But I’m not happy when I look in the mirror and see that I’m twenty years older than I was expecting, that I have grey hairs and lines around my eyes. I’m not happy when I realize that all those years have been lost, taken from me. So I suppose a lot of the time I’m not happy, no. But it’s not your fault. I’m happy with you. I love you. I need you.’
He came and sat next to me, then. His voice softened. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I hate the fact that everything was ruined, just because of that car accident.’
I felt anger rise in me again, but clamped it down. I had no right to be angry with him; he did not know what I had learned and what I hadn’t.
‘Ben,’ I said, ‘I know what happened. I know it wasn’t a car accident. I know I was attacked.’
He didn’t move. He looked at me, his eyes expressionless. I thought he hadn’t heard me, and then he said, ‘What attack?’
I raised my voice. ‘Ben!’ I said. ‘Stop it!’ I couldn’t help it. I had told him I was keeping a journal, told him I was piecing together the details of my story, and yet here he was, still prepared to lie to me when it was obvious I knew the truth. ‘Don’t keep fucking lying to me! I know there was no car accident. I know what happened to me. There’s no point in trying to pretend it was anything other than it was. Denying it doesn’t get us anywhere. You have to stop lying to me!’
He stood up. He looked huge, looming over me, blocking my vision.
‘Who told you?’ he said. ‘Who? Was it that bitch Claire? Did she go shooting her ugly fat mouth off, telling you lies? Sticking her oar in where it isn’t wanted?’
‘Ben—’ I began.
‘She’s always hated me. She’d do anything to poison you against me. Anything! She’s lying, my darling. She’s lying!’
‘It wasn’t Claire,’ I said. I bowed my head. ‘It was somebody else.’
‘Who?’ he shouted. ‘Who?’
‘I’ve been seeing a doctor,’ I whispered. ‘We’ve been talking. He told me.’
He was perfectly motionless apart from the thumb of his right hand which was tracing slow circles on the knuckle of his left. I could feel the warmth of his body, hear the slow drawing in of his breath, the hold, the release. When he spoke his voice was so low I struggled to make out the words.
‘What do you mean, a doctor?’
‘His name is Dr Nash. Apparently he contacted me a few weeks ago.’ Even as I said it I felt like I wasn’t telling my own story, but that of someone else.
‘Saying what?’
I tried to remember. Had I written about our first conversation?
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I wrote down what he said.’
‘And he encouraged you to write things down?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’ he said.
‘I want to get better, Ben.’
‘And is it working? What have you been doing? Has he been giving you drugs?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘We’ve been doing some tests, some exercises. I had a scan—’
The thumb stopped moving. He turned to face me.
‘A scan?’ His voice was louder again.
‘Yes. An MRI. He said it might help. They didn’t really have them when I was first ill. Or they weren’t as sophisticated as they are now—’
‘Where? Where have you been doing these tests? Tell me!’
I was starting to feel confused. ‘In his office,’ I said. ‘In London. The scan was there too. I don’t remember exactly.’
‘How have you been getting there? How did someone like you get to a doctor’s office?’ His voice was pinched and urgent now. ‘How?’
I tried to speak calmly. ‘He’s been collecting me from here,’ I said. ‘And driving me—’
Disappointment flashed on his face, and then anger. I had never wanted the conversation to go like this, never intended it to become difficult.
I needed to try and explain things to him. ‘Ben—’ I began.
What happened next was not what I was expecting. A dull moan began in Ben’s throat, somewhere deep. It built quickly until, unable to hold it in any more, he let out a terrible screech, like nails on glass.
‘Ben!’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’
He turned around, staggering as he did so, averting his face from me. I worried he was having some kind of attack. I stood up and put my hand out for him to hold on to. ‘Ben!’ I said again, but he ignored it, steadying himself against the wall. When he turned back to me his face was bright red, his eyes wide. I could see that spittle had gathered at the corners of his mouth. It looked as though he had put on some kind of grotesque mask, so distorted were his features.
‘You stupid fucking bitch,’ he said, moving up against me as he did so. I flinched. His face was just inches from mine. ‘How long has this been going on?’
‘I—’
‘Tell me! Tell me, you slut. How long?’
‘Nothing’s going on!’ I said. Fear welled within me, rising up. It did a slow roll on the surface and then sank beneath. ‘Nothing!’ I said again. I could smell the food on his breath. Meat, and onion. Spittle flew, striking me in the face, the lips. I could taste his warm, wet anger.
‘You’re sleeping with him. Don’t lie to me.�
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The backs of my legs pressed against the edge of the sofa and I tried to move along it, to get away from him, but he grabbed my shoulders and shook them. ‘You’ve always been the same,’ he said. ‘A stupid lying bitch. I don’t know what made me think you’d be any different with me. What have you been doing, eh? Sneaking off while I’ve been at work? Or have you been having him round here? Or maybe you’ve been doing it in a car, parked up on the heath?’
I felt his hands grip tight, his fingers and nails digging into my skin even through the cotton of my blouse.
‘You’re hurting me!’ I shouted, hoping to shock him out of his rage. ‘Ben! Stop it!’
He stopped shaking, and loosened his grip a fraction. It didn’t seem possible that the man gripping my shoulders, his face a mixture of rage and hate, could be the same man who had written the letter that Claire had given me. How could we have reached this level of distrust? How much miscommunication must it have taken to bring us from there to here?
‘I’m not sleeping with him,’ I said. ‘He’s helping me. Helping me to get better so that I can live a normal life. Here, with you. Don’t you want that?’
His eyes began darting around the room. ‘Ben?’ I said again. ‘Talk to me!’ He froze. ‘Don’t you want me to get better? Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted, always hoped for?’ He began to shake his head, rocking it from side to side. ‘I know it is,’ I said. ‘I know it’s what you’ve wanted all this time.’ Hot tears ran down my cheeks, but I spoke through them, my voice fracturing into sobs. He was still holding me, but gently now, and I put my hands on his.
‘I met Claire,’ I said. ‘She gave me your letter. I’ve read it, Ben. After all these years. I’ve read it.’
There is a stain there, on the page. Ink, mixed with water in a smudge that resembles a star. I must have been crying as I wrote. I carried on reading.
I don’t know what I expected to happen. Perhaps I thought he’d fall into my arms, sobbing with relief, and we would stand there, holding each other silently for as long as it took for us to relax, to feel our way back into each other again. And then we would sit and talk things through. Perhaps I would go upstairs and get the letter that Claire had given me, and we would read it together, and begin the slow process of rebuilding our lives on a foundation of truth.
Instead, there was an instant in which nothing at all seemed to move and everything was quiet. There was no sound of breathing, no traffic from the road. I didn’t even hear the ticking of the clock. It was as if life was suspended, hovering on the cusp between one state and another.
And then it was over. Ben drew away from me. I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead I was aware of a blur out of the corner of my eye and my head cracked to one side. Pain radiated from my jaw. I fell, the sofa coming towards me, and the back of my head connected with something hard and sharp. I cried out. There was another blow, and then another. I closed my eyes, waiting for the next – but nothing came. Instead I heard footsteps moving away, and a door slamming.
I opened my eyes and inhaled in an angry gasp. The carpet stretched away from me, now vertical. A smashed plate sat near to my head and gravy oozed on to the floor, soaking into the carpet. Green peas had been trodden into the weave of the rug, and the half-chewed sausage. The front door swung open, then slammed. Footsteps on the path. Ben had left.
I exhaled. I closed my eyes. I must not sleep, I thought. I must not.
I opened them again. Dark swirls in the distance and the smell of flesh. I swallowed, and tasted blood.
What have I done? What have I done?
I made sure he was gone, then came upstairs and found my journal. Blood dripped on to the carpet from my split lip. I don’t know what has happened. I don’t know where my husband is, or if he will come back, or whether I want him to.
But I need him to. Without him I can’t live.
I am scared. I want to see Claire.
I stop reading and my hand goes to my forehead. It feels tender. The bruise I saw this morning, the one I covered up with make-up. Ben had hit me. I look back at the date. Friday, 23 November. It was one week ago. One week spent believing that everything is all right.
I stand up to look in the mirror. It is still there. A faint blue contusion. Proof that what I wrote was true. I wonder what lies I have been telling myself to explain my injury, or what lies he has been telling me.
But now I know the truth. I look at the pages in my hand and it hits me. He wanted me to find them. He knows that even if I read them today, I will have forgotten them tomorrow.
Suddenly I hear him on the stairs and, almost for the first time, realize fully that I am here, in this hotel room. With Ben. With the man who has hit me. I hear his key in the lock.
I have to know what happened, so I push the pages under the pillow and lie on the bed. As he comes into the room, I close my eyes.
‘Are you OK, darling?’ he says. ‘Are you awake?’
I open my eyes. He is standing in the doorway, clutching a bottle. ‘I could only get Cava,’ he says. ‘OK?’
He puts the bottle on the dresser and kisses me. ‘I think I’ll take a shower,’ he whispers. He goes into the bathroom and turns on the taps.
When he has closed the door I pull out the pages. I don’t have long – surely he will not be more than five minutes – and so I must read as quickly as I can. My eyes flick down the page, not even registering all the words but seeing enough.
That was hours ago. I have been sitting in the darkened hallway of our empty house, a slip of paper in one hand, a telephone in the other. Ink on paper. A number smudged. There was no answer, just an endless ringing. I wonder if she has turned off her answering machine, or if the tape is full. I try again. And again. I have been here before. My time is circular. Claire is not there to help me.
I looked in my bag and found the phone that Dr Nash had given me. It is late, I thought. He won’t be at work. He’ll be with his girlfriend, doing whatever it is that the two of them do during their evenings. Whatever two normal people do. I have no idea what that is.
His home number was written in the front of my journal. It rang and rang, and then was silent. There was no recorded voice to tell me there was an error, no invitation to leave a message. I tried again. The same. His office number was now the only one I had.
I sat there for a while. Helpless. Looking at the front door, half hoping to see Ben’s shadowy figure appear in the frosted glass and insert a key in the lock, half fearing it.
Eventually I could wait no more. I went upstairs and got undressed, and then I got into bed and wrote this. The house is still empty. In a moment I will close this book and hide it, and then switch off the light and sleep.
And then I will forget, and this journal will be all that is left.
I look at the next page with dread, fearing I will find it blank, but it is not.
Monday, 26 November
He hit me on Friday. Two days, and I have written nothing.
For all that time, did I believe things were all right?
My face is bruised and sore. Surely I knew that something was not right?
Today he said that I fell. The biggest cliché in the book and I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? He’d already had to explain who I was, and who he was, and how I’d come to be waking up in a strange house, decades older than I thought I should be, so why would I question his reason for my bruised and swollen eye, my cut lip?
And so I went ahead with my day. I kissed him as he left for work. I cleared up our breakfast things. I ran a bath.
And then I came in here, found this journal, and learned the truth.
A gap. I realize I have not mentioned Dr Nash. Had he abandoned me? Had I found the journal without his help?
Or had I stopped hiding it? I read on.
Later, I called Claire. The phone that Ben had given me didn’t work – the battery was probably dead, I thought – and so I used the one that Dr Nash had given me. There was no answer, and
so I sat in the living room. I could not relax. I picked up magazines, put them down again. I put the TV on and spent half an hour staring at the screen, not even noticing what was on. I looked at my journal, unable to concentrate, unable to write. I tried her again, several times, each time hearing the same message inviting me to leave one of my own. It was just after lunchtime when she answered.
‘Chrissy,’ she said. ‘How are you?’ I could hear Toby in the background, playing.
‘I’m OK,’ I said, although I wasn’t.
‘I was going to call you,’ she said. ‘I feel like hell, and it’s only Monday!’
