I am silent. I can think of nothing to say. We both know how senseless it would be for me to try to defend myself, to tell him that he is wrong. We both

know that I am the last person who knows how much I change from day to day.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say at last.

He looks at me. ‘Oh, it’s all right. You don’t need to apologize. I know it’s not your fault. None of this is your fault. I’m being unfair, I suppose.

Thinking of myself.’

He looks back out to sea. There is a single light in the distance. A boat, on the waves. Light in a sea of treacly blackness. Ben speaks. ‘We’ll be all

right, won’t we, Chris?’

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Of course we will. This is a new beginning for us. I have my journal now, and Dr Nash will help me. I’m getting better, Ben. I know I

am. I think I’m going to start writing again. There’s no reason not to. I should be fine. And anyway, I’m in touch with Claire now, and she can help me.’ An

idea comes to me. ‘We can all get together, don’t you think? Just like old times? Just like at university? The three of us. And her husband, I suppose – I

think she said she had a husband. We can all meet up and spend time together. It’ll be fine.’ My mind fixes on the lies I have read, on all the ways I have

not been able to trust him, but I force it away. I remind myself that all that has been resolved. It is my turn to be strong now. To be positive. ‘As long as we

promise to always be honest with each other,’ I say, ‘then everything is going to be OK.’

He turns back to face me. ‘You do love me, don’t you?’

‘Of course. Of course I do.’

‘And you forgive me? For leaving you? I didn’t want to. I had no choice. I’m sorry.’

I take his hand. It feels both warm and cold at the same time, slightly damp. I try to hold it between my hands, but he neither assists nor resists my

action. Instead his hand rests, lifeless, on his knee. I squeeze it, and only then does he seem to notice that I am holding it.

‘Ben. I understand. I forgive you.’ I look into his eyes. They too seem dull and lifeless, as if they have seen so much horror already that they cannot

cope with any more.

‘I love you, Ben,’ I say.

His voice drops to a whisper. ‘Kiss me.’

I do as he asks, and then, when I have drawn back, he whispers, ‘Again. Kiss me again.’

I kiss him a second time. But, even though he asks me to, I cannot kiss him a third. Instead we gaze out over the sea, at the moonlight on the water,

at the drops of rain on the windscreen reflecting back the yellow glow from the headlights of passing cars. Just the two of us, holding hands. Together.

We sit there for what feels like hours. Ben is beside me, staring out to sea. He scans the water, as if looking for something, some answer in the dark, and

he doesn’t speak. I wonder why he has brought us here, what he is hoping to find.

‘Is it really our anniversary?’ I say. There is no answer. He doesn’t appear to have heard me, and so I say it again.

‘Yes,’ he replies softly.

‘Our wedding anniversary?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s the anniversary of the night we met.’

I want to ask him whether we are supposed to be celebrating, and to tell him that it doesn’t feel like a celebration, but it seems cruel.

The busy road behind us has quietened, the moon is rising high in the sky. I begin to worry that we will stay out all night, looking at the sea while the

rain falls around us. I affect a yawn.

‘I’m sleepy,’ I say. ‘Can we go to our hotel?’

He looks at his watch. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Of course. Sorry. Yes.’ He starts the car. ‘We’ll go there right now.’

I am relieved. I am both craving sleep, and dreading it.

*

The coast road dips and rises as we skirt the edges of a village. The lights of another, larger town begin to draw nearer, tightening into focus through the

damp glass. The road becomes busier, a marina appears with its moored boats and shops and nightclubs, and then we are in the town itself. On our right

every building seems to be a hotel, advertising vacancies on white signs that blow in the wind. The streets are busy; it is not as late as I had thought, or

else this is the kind of town which is alive night and day.

I look out to sea. A pier juts into the water, flooded with light and with an amusement park at its end. I can see a domed pavilion, a rollercoaster, a

helter-skelter. I can almost hear the whoops and cries of the riders as they are spun above the pitch-black sea.

An anxiety I cannot name begins to form in my chest.

‘Where are we?’ I say. There are words over the entrance to the pier, picked out in bright white lights, but I can’t make them out through the rain-

washed windscreen.

‘We’re here,’ says Ben, as we turn up a side street and stop outside a terraced house. There is lettering on the canopy over the door. Rialto Guest

House, it says.

There are steps up to the front door, an ornate fence separating the building from the road. Beside the door is a small, cracked pot that would once

have held a shrub but is now empty. I am gripped with an intense fear.

‘Have we been here before?’ I say. He shakes his head. ‘You’re sure? It looks familiar.’

‘I’m certain,’ he says. ‘We might have stayed somewhere near here once. You’re probably remembering that.’

I try to relax. We get out of the car. There is a bar next to the guest house and through its large windows I can see throngs of drinkers and a dance

floor, pulsing at the back. Music thuds, muffled by the glass. ‘We’ll check in, and then I’ll come back for the luggage. OK?’

I pull my coat tight around me. The wind is cold now, and the rain heavy. I rush up the steps and open the front door. There is a sign taped to the

glass. No vacancies. I go through and into the lobby.

‘You’ve booked?’ I say, when Ben joins me. We are standing in a hallway. Further down a door is ajar, and from behind it comes the sound of a

television, its volume turned up, competing with the music next door. There is no reception desk, but instead a bell sits on a small table, a sign next to it

inviting us to ring it to attract attention.

‘Yes, of course,’ says Ben. ‘Don’t worry.’ He rings the bell.

For a moment nothing happens, and then a young man comes from a room somewhere at the back of the house. He is tall and awkward, and I

notice that, despite it being far too big for his frame, his shirt is untucked. He greets us as though he was expecting us, though not warmly, and I wait while

he and Ben complete the formalities.

It is clear the hotel has seen better days. The carpet is threadbare in places, and the paintwork around the doorways scuffed and marked. Opposite

the lounge is another door, marked Dining Room, and at the back are several more doors through which, I imagine, one would find the kitchen and

private rooms of the staff.

‘I’ll take you to the room now, shall I?’ says the tall man when he and Ben have finished. I realize he is talking to me; Ben is on his way back outside,

presumably to get the bags.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

He hands me a key and we go up the stairs. On the first landing are several bedrooms, but we walk past them and up another flight. The house

seems to shrink as we go higher; the ceilings are lower, the walls closer. We pass another bedroom and then stand at the bottom of a final flight of stairs

that must lead to the very top of the house.

‘Your room is up there,’ he says. ‘It’s the only one.’

I thank him, and then he turns and goes back downstairs and I climb to our room.

I open the door. The room is dark, and bigger than I was expecting, up here at the top of the house. I can see a window opposite, and through it a dim

grey light is shining, picking out the outline of a dressing table, a bed, a table and an armchair. The music from the club next door thuds, stripped of its

clarity, reduced to a dull, crunching bass.

I stand still. Fear has gripped me again. The same fear that I experienced outside the guest house, but worse, somehow. I go cold. Something is

wrong, but I can’t say what. I breathe deeply, but can’t get enough air into my lungs. I feel as if I am about to drown.

I close my eyes, as if hoping the room will look different when I open them, but it doesn’t. I am filled with an overwhelming terror of what will happen

when I switch on the light, as if that simple action will spell disaster, the end of everything.

What will happen if I leave the room shrouded in blackness and instead go back downstairs? I could walk calmly past the tall man, and along the

corridor, past Ben if necessary, and out, out of the hotel.

But they would think I had gone mad, of course. They would find me, and bring me back. And what would I tell them? That the woman who

remembers nothing had a feeling she didn’t like, an inkling? They would think me ridiculous.

I am with my husband. I have come here to be reconciled with him. I am safe with Ben.

And so I switch on the light.

There is a flash as my eyes adjust, and then I see the room. It is unimpressive. There is nothing to be frightened of. The carpet is a mushroom grey,

the curtains and wallpaper both in a floral pattern, though they don’t match. The dresser is battered, with three mirrors on it and a faded painting of a bird

above it, the armchair wicker with yet another floral pattern on the cushion, and the bed covered with an orange bedspread in a diamond design.

I can see how disappointing it would be to someone who has booked it for their holiday, but, though Ben has booked it for ours, it is not

disappointment that I feel. The fear has burned itself down to dread.

I close the door behind me and try to calm myself. I am being stupid. Paranoid. I must keep busy. Do something.

It feels cold in the room and a slight draught wafts the curtains. The window is open and I go over to close it. I look out before I do. We are high up;

the street-lamps are far below us; seagulls sit silently upon them. I look out across the rooftops, see the cool moon hanging in the sky, and in the distance

the sea. I can make out the pier, the helter-skelter, the flashing lights.

And then I see them. The words, over the entrance to the pier.

Brighton Pier.

Despite the cold, and even though I shiver, I feel a bead of sweat form on my brow. Now it makes sense. Ben has brought me here, to Brighton, to

the place of my disaster. But why? Does he think I am more likely to remember what happened if I am back in the town in which my life was ripped from

me? Does he think that I will remember who did this to me?

I remember reading that Dr Nash had once suggested I come here, and I had told him, no.

There are footsteps on the stairs, voices. The tall man must be bringing Ben here, to our room. They will be carrying the luggage together, lifting it

up the stairs and round the tricky landings. He will be here soon.

What should I tell him? That he is wrong and being here will not help? That I want to go home?

I go back towards the door. I will help to bring the bags through, and then I will unpack them, and we will sleep, and then tomorrow—

It hits me. Tomorrow I will know nothing again. That must be what Ben has in his satchel. Photographs. The scrapbook. He will have to use

everything he has to explain who he is and where we are all over again.

I wonder if I have brought my journal, then remember packing it, putting it in my bag. I try to calm myself. Tonight I will put it under the pillow and

tomorrow I will find it, and read it. Everything will be fine.

I can hear Ben on the landing. He is talking to the tall man, discussing arrangements for breakfast. ‘We’d probably like it in our room,’ I hear him

say. A gull cries outside the window, startling me.

I go towards the door, and then I see it. To my right. A bathroom, with the door open. A bath, a toilet, a basin. But it is the floor that draws me, fills

me with horror. It is tiled, and the pattern is unusual; black and white alternate in crazed diagonals.

My jaw opens. I feel myself go cold. I think I hear myself cry out.

I know, then. I recognize the pattern.

It is not only Brighton that I have recognized.

I have been here before. In this room.

*

The door opens. I say nothing as Ben comes in, but my mind spins. Is this the room in which I was attacked? Why didn’t he tell me we were coming here?

How can he go from not even wanting to tell me about the assault to bringing me to the room in which it happened?

I can see the tall man standing just outside the door, and I want to call out to him, to ask him to stay, but he turns to leave and Ben closes the door. It

is just the two of us now.

He looks at me. ‘Are you all right, love?’ he says. I nod and say yes, but the word feels as though it has been forced out of me. I feel the stirrings of

hate in my stomach.

He takes my arm. He is squeezing the flesh just a little too tightly; any more and I would say something, any less and I doubt that I would notice.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes,’ I say. Why is he doing this? He must know where we are, what this means. All along he must have been planning this. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I just feel

a little tired.’

And then it hits me. Dr Nash. He must have something to do with this. Otherwise why would Ben – after all these years, when he could have but did

not – decide to bring me here now?

They must have been in contact. Perhaps Ben called him, after I told him all about our meetings. Perhaps some time during the last week – the

week I know nothing about – they planned it all.

‘Why don’t you lie down?’ says Ben.

I hear myself speak. ‘I think I will.’ I turn towards the bed. Perhaps they’d been in touch all along? Dr Nash might have been lying about everything. I

pictured him, dialling Ben after he’d said goodbye to me, telling him about my progress, or lack of it.

‘Good girl,’ says Ben. ‘I meant to bring champagne. I think I’ll go and get some. There’s a shop, I think. It’s not far.’ He smiles. ‘Then I’ll join you.’

I turn to face him, and he kisses me. Now, here, his kiss lingers. He brushes my lips with his, puts his hand in my hair, strokes my back. I fight the

urge to pull away. His hand moves lower, down my back, coming to rest on the top of my buttock. I swallow hard.

I cannot trust anybody. Not my husband. Not the man who has claimed to be helping me. They have been working together, building to this day, the

day when, clearly, they have decided I am to face the horror in my past.

How dare they! I think. How dare they!

‘OK,’ I say. I turn my head away slightly, push him gently so that he lets me go.

He turns, and leaves the room. ‘I’ll just lock the door,’ he says, as he closes it behind him. ‘You can’t be too careful …’ I hear the key turn in the door

outside, and I begin to panic. Is he really going to buy champagne? Or is he meeting Dr Nash? I cannot believe he has brought me to this room without

telling me; another lie to go with all the others. I hear him go down the stairs.

Wringing my hands, I sit on the edge of the bed. I cannot calm my mind, cannot settle on just one thought. Instead thoughts race, as if, in a mind

devoid of memory, each idea has too much space to grow and move, to collide with others in a shower of sparks before spinning off into its own distance.

I stand up. I feel enraged. I cannot face the thought of him coming back, pouring champagne, getting into bed with me. Neither can I face the thought

of his skin next to mine, or his hands on me in the night, pawing at me, pressing me, encouraging me to give myself to him. How can I, when there is no

me to give?

I would do anything, I think. Anything, except for that.

I cannot stay here, in this place where my life was ruined and everything taken away from me. I try to work out how much time I have. Ten minutes?

Five? I go over to Ben’s bag and open it. I don’t know why; I am not thinking of why, or how, only that I must move, while Ben is away, before he returns and

things change again. Perhaps I intend to find the car keys, to force the door and go downstairs, out into the rainy street, to the car. Although I’m not even

certain I can drive, perhaps I mean to try, to get in and go far, far away.

Or perhaps I mean to find a picture of Adam; I know they’re in there. I will take just one, and then I will leave the room and run. I will run and run, and

then, when I can run no more, I will call Claire, or anybody, and I will tell them that I cannot take it any more, and beg them to help me.

I dig my hands deep in the bag. I feel metal, and plastic. Something soft. And then an envelope. I take it out, thinking it might contain photographs,

and see that it is the one I found in the office at home. I must have put it in Ben’s bag as I packed, intending to remind him it had not been opened. I turn it

over and see that the word Private has been written on the front. Without thinking, I tear it open and remove its contents.

Paper. Pages and pages. I recognize it. The faint blue lines, the red margins. These pages are the same as those in my journal, in the book that I

have been writing.

And then I see my own handwriting, and begin to understand.

I have not read all of my story. There is more. Pages and pages more.

I find my journal in my bag. I had not noticed before, but after the final page of writing a whole section has been removed. The pages have been

excised neatly, cut with a scalpel or a razor blade, close to the spine.

Cut out by Ben.

I sit on the floor, the pages spread in front of me. This is the missing week of my life. I read the rest of my story.

The first entry is dated. Friday, 23 November, it says. The same day I met Claire. I must have written it that evening, after speaking to Ben. Perhaps we

had had the conversation I was anticipating, after all. I sit here, it begins,

on the floor of the bathroom, in the house in which, supposedly, I woke up every morning. I have this journal in front of me, this pen in

my hand. I write, because it’s all I can think of to do.

Tissues are balled around me, soaked with tears, and blood. When I blink my vision turns red. Blood drips into my eye as fast as I can

wipe it away.

When I looked in the mirror I could see that the skin above my eye is cut, and my lip, too. When I swallow I taste the metallic tang of

blood.

I want to sleep. To find a safe place somewhere, and close my eyes, and rest, like an animal.

That is what I am. An animal. Living from moment to moment, day to day, trying to make sense of the world in which I find myself.

My heart races. I read back over the paragraph, my eyes drawn again and again to the word blood. What had happened?

I begin to read quickly, my mind stumbling over words, lurching from line to line. I don’t know when Ben will get back and can’t risk him taking these

pages before I have read them. Now may be my only chance.

I’d decided it was best to speak to him after dinner. We ate in the lounge – sausage, mash, our plates balanced on our knees – and

when we had both finished I asked if he would turn the television off. He seemed reluctant. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I said.

The room felt too quiet, filled only with the ticking of the clock and the distant hum of the city. And my voice, sounding hollow and

empty.

‘Darling,’ said Ben, putting his plate on the coffee table between us. A half-chewed lump of meat sat on the side of the plate, peas

floated in thin gravy. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Everything’s fine.’ I didn’t know how to continue. He looked at me, his eyes wide, waiting. ‘You do love me, don’t you?’ I

said. I felt almost as if I was gathering evidence, insuring myself against any later disapproval.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. What’s this about? What’s wrong?’

‘Ben,’ I said. ‘I love you, too. And I understand your reasons for doing what you’ve been doing, but I know you’ve been lying to me.’

Almost as soon as I finished the sentence I regretted starting it. I saw him flinch. He looked at me, his lips pulled back as if to speak,

his eyes wounded.

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘Darling—’

I had to continue now. There was no way out of the stream into which I had begun to wade.

‘I know you’ve been doing it to protect me, not telling me things, but it can’t go on. I need to know.’

‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘I haven’t been lying to you.’

I felt a surge of anger. ‘Ben,’ I said, ‘I know about Adam.’

His face changed, then. I saw him swallow, and look away, towards the corner of the room. He brushed something off the arm of his

pullover. ‘What?’

‘Adam,’ I said. ‘I know we had a son.’

I half expected him to ask me how I knew, but then realized this conversation was not unusual. We have been here before, on the day I

saw my novel, and other days when I have remembered Adam too.

I saw he was about to speak, but didn’t want to hear any more lies.

‘I know he died in Afghanistan,’ I said.

His mouth shut, then opened again, almost comically.

‘How do you know that?’

‘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?’