I said goodbye, then came upstairs to write this.

The bedside clock reads ten thirty. I imagine Ben will come to bed soon, but still I sit here on the edge of the bed, writing. I spoke to him after dinner. I had

spent the afternoon fretful, pacing from one room to another, looking at everything as if for the first time, wondering why he would so thoroughly remove

evidence of even this modest success. It didn’t make sense. Was he ashamed? Embarrassed? Had I written about him, our life together? Or was the

reason something worse? Something darker I could not yet see?

By the time he got home I had resolved to ask him directly, but now? Now that did not seem possible. It felt like I would be accusing him of lying.

I spoke as casually as I could. ‘Ben?’ I said. ‘What did I do for a living?’ He looked up from the newspaper. ‘Did I have a job?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You worked as a secretary for a while. Just after we were married.’

I tried to keep my voice even. ‘Really? I have the feeling I used to want to write.’

He folded his pages together, giving me his full attention.

‘A feeling?’

‘Yes. I definitely remember loving books as a child. And I seem to have a vague memory of wanting to be a writer.’ He held out his hand across the

dinner table and took mine. His eyes seemed sad. Disappointed. What a shame, they seemed to say. Bad luck. I don’t suppose you ever will now. ‘Are

you sure?’ I began. ‘I seem to remember—’

He interrupted me. ‘Christine,’ he said, ‘please. You’re imagining things …’

For the rest of the evening I was silent, hearing only the thoughts that echoed in my head. Why would he do that? Why would he pretend I had never written

a word? Why? I watched him, asleep on the sofa, snoring softly. Why had I not told him that I knew I had written a novel? Did I really trust him so little? I had

remembered us lying in each other’s arms, murmuring our love for each other as the sky grew darker. How had we gone from that to this?

But then I began to imagine what would happen if I did stumble upon a copy of my novel in a cupboard or at the back of a high shelf. What would it

say to me, other than, Look how far you have fallen. Look what you could do, before a car on an icy road took it all from you, leaving you worse than

useless.

It would not be a happy moment. I saw myself becoming hysterical – much more so than this afternoon when at least the realization was gradual,

triggered by a longed-for memory – screaming, crying. The effect might be devastating.

No wonder Ben might want to hide it from me. I picture him now, removing all the copies, burning them in the metal barbecue on the back porch,

before deciding what to tell me. How best to reinvent my past to make it tolerable. What I needed to believe for the remainder of my years.

But that is over now. I know the truth. My own truth, one I have not been told but have remembered. And it is written now, etched in this journal rather

than my memory, but permanent nevertheless.

I know that the book I am writing – my second, I realize with pride – may be dangerous, as well as necessary. It is not fiction. It may reveal things

best left undiscovered. Secrets that ought not to see the light of day.

But still my pen moves across the page.

Wednesday, 14 November

This morning I asked Ben if he’d ever grown a moustache. I was still feeling confused, unsure of what was true and what not. I had woken early and, unlike

previous days, had not thought I was still a child. I had felt adult. Sexual. The question in my mind was not Why am I in bed with a man? but instead, Who

is he? and What did we do? In the bathroom I looked at my reflection with horror, but the pictures around it seemed to resonate with truth. I saw the man’s

name – Ben – and it was familiar, somehow. My age, my marriage, these facts seemed to be things I was being reminded of, not told about for the first

time. Buried, but not deeply.

Dr Nash called me almost as soon as Ben left for work. He reminded me about my journal and then – once he had told me that he would be picking

me up later to take me for my scan – I read it. There were a few things in it I could perhaps recall, and maybe whole passages I could remember writing. It

was as if some residue of memory had survived the night.

Perhaps that was why I had to be sure the things contained within it were true. I called Ben.

‘Ben,’ I said, once he’d told me he wasn’t busy. ‘Did you ever have a moustache?’

‘That’s an odd question!’ he said. I heard the clink of a spoon against a cup and pictured him spooning sugar into his coffee, a newspaper spread