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.’

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!’

Monday. Days meant nothing to me; each melted away, indistinguishable from the one that had preceded it.

‘I need to see you,’ I said. ‘Can you come over?’

She sounded surprised. ‘To your place?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Please? I want to talk to you.’

‘Is everything OK, Chrissy? You read the letter?’

I took a deep breath, and my voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Ben hit me.’ I heard a gasp of surprise.

‘What?’

‘The other night. I’m bruised. He told me I’d fallen, but I wrote down that he hit me.’

‘Chrissy, there is no way Ben would hit you. Ever. He just isn’t capable of it.’

Doubt flooded me. Was it possible I’d made it all up?

‘But I wrote it in my journal,’ I said.

She said nothing for a moment, and then, ‘But why do you think he hit you?’

I put my hands to my face, felt the swollen flesh around my eyes. I felt a flash of anger. It was clear she didn’t believe me.

I thought back to what I had written. ‘I told him that I’ve been keeping a journal. I said I had been seeing you, and Dr Nash. I told him I

knew about Adam. I told him you’d given me the letter he’d written, that I’d read it. And then he hit me.’

‘He just hit you?’

I thought of all the things he’d called me, the things he’d accused me of. ‘He said I was a bitch.’ I felt a sob rise in my chest. ‘He – he

accused me of sleeping with Dr Nash. I said I wasn’t, then—’

‘Then?’

‘Then he hit me.’

A silence, then Claire said, ‘Has he ever hit you before?’

I had no way of knowing. Perhaps he had? It was possible that ours had always been an abusive relationship. My mind flashed on

Claire and me, marching, holding home-made placards – Women’s rights. No to domestic violence. I remembered how I had always looked

down on women who found themselves with husbands who beat them and stayed put. They were weak, I thought. Weak, and stupid.

Was it possible that I had fallen into the same trap as they had?

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘It’s difficult to imagine Ben hurting anything, but I suppose it’s not impossible. Christ! He used to make even me feel guilty. Do you

remember?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t. I don’t remember anything.’

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. It’s just so hard to imagine. He’s the one who convinced me that fish have as much right to life as an

animal with legs. He wouldn’t even kill a spider!’

The wind gusts the curtains of the room. I hear a train in the distance. Screams from the pier. Downstairs, on the street, someone shouts

‘Fuck!’ and I hear the sound of breaking glass. I do not want to read on, but know that I must.

I felt a chill. ‘Ben was vegetarian?’

‘Vegan,’ she said, laughing. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know?’

I thought of the night he’d hit me. A lump of meat, I’d written. Peas floating in thin gravy.

I went over to the window. ‘Ben eats meat …’ I said, speaking slowly. ‘He’s not vegetarian … Not now, anyway. Maybe he’s changed?’

There was another long silence.

‘Claire?’ She said nothing. ‘Claire? Are you there?’

‘Right,’ she said. She sounded angry now. ‘I’m ringing him. I’m sorting this out. Where is he?’

I answered without thinking. ‘He’ll be at the school, I suppose. He said he wouldn’t be back until five o’clock.’

‘At the school?’ she said. ‘Do you mean the university? Is he lecturing now?’

Fear began to stir within me. ‘No,’ I said. ‘He works at a school near here. I can’t remember the name.’

‘What does he do there?’

‘A teacher. He’s head of chemistry, I think he said.’ I felt guilty at not knowing what my husband does for a living, not being able to

remember how he earns the money to keep us fed and clothed. ‘I don’t remember.’

I looked up and caught sight of my swollen face reflected in the window in front of me. The guilt evaporated.

‘What school?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he told me.’

‘What, never?’

‘Not this morning, no,’ I said. ‘For me that might as well be never.’

‘I’m sorry, Chrissy. I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that, well—’ I sensed a change of mind, a sentence aborted. ‘Could you find out

the name of the school?’

I thought of the office upstairs. ‘I guess so. Why?’

‘I’d like to speak to Ben, to make sure he’ll be coming home when I’m there this afternoon. I wouldn’t want it to be a wasted journey!’

I noticed the humour she was trying to inject into her voice, but didn’t mention it. I felt out of control, couldn’t work out what was best,

what I should do, and so decided to surrender to my friend. ‘I’ll have a look,’ I said.

I went upstairs. The office was tidy, piles of papers arranged across the desk. It did not take long to find some headed paper; a letter

about a parents’ evening that had already taken place.

‘It’s St Anne’s,’ I said. ‘You want the number?’ She said she’d find it out herself.

‘I’ll call you back,’ she said. ‘Yes?’

Panic hit again. ‘What are you going to say to him?’ I said.

‘I’m going to sort this out,’ she said. ‘Trust me, Chrissy. There has to be an explanation. OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and ended the call. I sat down, my legs shaking. What if my first hunch had been correct? What if Claire and Ben were still

sleeping together? Maybe she was calling him now, warning him. She suspects, she might be saying. Be careful.

I remembered reading my journal earlier. Dr Nash had told me that I had once shown symptoms of paranoia. Claiming the doctors

were conspiring against you, he’d said. A tendency to confabulate. To invent things.

What if that’s all happening again? What if I am inventing this, all of it? Everything in my journal might be fantasy. Paranoia.

I thought of what they’d told me on the ward, and Ben in his letter. You were occasionally violent. I realized it might have been me who

caused the fight on Friday night. Did I lash out at Ben? Perhaps he hit back and then, upstairs in the bathroom, I took a pen and explained it

all away with a fiction.

What if all this journal means is that I’m getting worse again? That soon it really will be time for me to go back to Waring House?

I went cold, suddenly convinced that this was why Dr Nash had wanted to take me there. To prepare me for my return.

All I can do is wait for Claire to call me back.

Another gap. Is that what’s happening now? Will Ben try to take me back to Waring House? I look over to the bathroom door. I will not let him.

There is one final entry, written later that same day.

Monday, 26 November, 6.55 p.m.

Claire called me after less than half an hour. And now my mind oscillates. It swings from one thing to the other, then back again. I know

what to do. I don’t know what to do. I know what to do. But there’s a third thought. I shudder as I realize the truth: I am in danger.

I turn to the front of this journal, intending to write Don’t trust Ben, but I find those words are already there.

I don’t remember writing them. But then I don’t remember anything.

A gap, and then it continues.

She sounded hesitant on the phone.

‘Chrissy,’ she said. ‘Listen.’

Her tone frightened me. I sat down. ‘What?’

‘I called Ben. At school.’

I had the overwhelming sensation of being on an uncontrollable journey, of being in unnavigable waters. ‘What did he say?’

‘I didn’t speak to him. I just wanted to make sure he worked there.’

‘Why?’ I said. ‘Don’t you trust him?’

‘He’s lied about other things.’

I had to agree. ‘But why did you think he’d tell me he worked somewhere if he didn’t?’ I said.

‘I was just surprised he was working in a school. You know he trained to be an architect? The last time I spoke to him he was looking

into setting up his own practice. I just thought it was a bit odd he should be working in a school.’

‘What did they say?’

‘They said they couldn’t disturb him. He was busy, in a class.’ I felt relief. He hadn’t lied about that, at least.

‘He must have changed his mind,’ I said. ‘About his career.’

‘Chrissy? I told them I wanted to send him some documents. A letter. I asked for his official title.’

‘And?’ I said.

‘He’s not head of chemistry. Or science. Or anything else. They said he was a lab assistant.’

I felt my body jerk. I may have gasped; I don’t remember.

‘Are you sure?’ I said. My mind raced to think of a reason for this new lie. Was it possible he was embarrassed? Worried about what I

would think if I knew he had gone from being a successful architect to a lab assistant in a local school? Did he really think I was so shallow

that I would love him any more or less based on what he did for a living?

Everything made sense.

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘It’s my fault!’

‘No!’ she said. ‘It’s not your fault!’

‘It is!’ I said. ‘It’s the strain of having to look after me. Of having to deal with me, day in and day out. He must be having a breakdown.

Maybe he doesn’t even know himself what’s true and what’s not.’ I began to cry. ‘It must be unbearable,’ I said. ‘He even has to go through all

that grief on his own, every day.’

The line was silent, and then Claire said, ‘Grief? What grief?’

‘Adam,’ I said. I felt pain at having to say his name.

‘What about Adam?’

It came to me. Wild. Unbidden. Oh God, I thought. She doesn’t know. Ben hasn’t told her.

‘He’s dead,’ I said.

She gasped. ‘Dead? When? How?’

‘I don’t know when, exactly,’ I said. ‘I think Ben told me it was last year. He was killed in the war.’

‘War? What war?’

‘Afghanistan.’

And then she said it. ‘Chrissy, what would he be doing in Afghanistan?’ Her voice was strange. She almost sounded pleased.

‘He was in the army,’ I said, but even as I spoke I was starting to doubt what I was saying. It was as if I was finally facing something I

had known all along.

I heard Claire snort, almost as if she was finding something amusing. ‘Chrissy,’ she said. ‘Chrissy darling. Adam hasn’t been in the

army. He’s never been to Afghanistan. He’s living in Birmingham, with someone called Helen. He works with computers. He hasn’t forgiven

me, but I still ring him occasionally. He’d probably rather I didn’t, but I am his godmother, remember?’ It took me a moment to work out why

she was still using the present tense, and even as I did so she said it.

‘I rang him after we met last week,’ she said. She was almost laughing, now. ‘He wasn’t there, but I spoke to Helen. She said she’d ask

him to ring me back. Adam is alive.’

I stop reading. I feel light. Empty. I feel I might fall backwards, or else float away. Dare I believe it? Do I want to? I steady myself against the dresser and

read on, only dimly aware that no longer do I hear the sound of Ben’s shower.

I must have stumbled, grabbed hold of the chair. ‘He’s alive?’ My stomach rolled, I remember vomit rising in my throat and having to

swallow it down. ‘He’s really alive?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes!’

‘But—’ I began. ‘But – I saw a newspaper. A clipping. It said he’d been killed.’

‘It can’t have been real, Chrissy,’ she said. ‘It can’t have been. He’s alive.’

I began to speak, but then everything hit me at once, every emotion bound up in every other. Joy. I remember joy. The sheer pleasure

of knowing that Adam is alive fizzed on my tongue, but mixed into it was the bitter, acid tang of fear. I thought of my bruises, of the force with

which Ben must have struck me to cause them. Perhaps his abuse is not only physical, perhaps some days he takes delight in telling me that

my son is dead so that he can see the pain that thought inflicts. Was it really possible that on other days, in which I remember the fact of my

pregnancy, or giving birth to my baby, he simply tells me that Adam has moved away, is working abroad, living on the other side of town?

And if so, why did I never write down any of those alternative truths that he fed me?