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, November 14
This morning, I asked Ben if he’d ever grown a mustache. I was still feeling confused, unsure of what was true and what was not. I had woken early and, unlike previous days, had not thought that 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 mustache?”
“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 in front of him. I felt awkward. Unsure how much to say.
“I just—” I began. “I had a memory. I think.”
Silence. “A memory?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think so.” My mind flashed on the things I had written about the other day—his mustache, his naked body, his erection—and those I had remembered yesterday. The two of us in bed. Kissing. Briefly, they were illuminated, before sinking back into the depths. Suddenly I felt afraid. “I just seem to remember you with a mustache.”
He laughed, and I heard him put down his drink. I felt solid ground begin to slip away. Maybe everything I had written was a lie. I am a novelist, after all, I thought. Or I used to be.
The futility of my logic hit me. I used to write fiction, therefore my assertion that I had been a novelist might be one of those fictions. In which case, I had not written fiction. My head spun.
It had felt true, though. I told myself that. Plus I could touch-type. Or I had written that I could, at least…
“Did you?” I asked, desperate. “It’s just… it’s important…”
“Let’s think,” he said. I imagined him closing his eyes, biting his bottom lip in a parody of concentration. “I suppose I might have done, once,” he said. “Very briefly. It was years ago. I forget…” A pause, then, “Yes. Actually, yes. I think I probably did. For a week or so. A long time ago.”
“Thank you,” I said, relieved. The ground on which I stood felt a little more secure.
“You okay?” he asked, and I said that I was.
Dr. Nash picked me up at midday. He’d told me to have some lunch first, but I wasn’t hungry. Nervous, I suppose. “We’re meeting a colleague of mine,” he said in the car. “Dr. Paxton.” I said nothing. “He’s an expert in the field of functional imaging of patients with problems like yours. We’ve been working together.”
“Okay,” I said, and now we sat in his car, stationary in stuck traffic. “Did I call you yesterday?” I asked. He said that I had.
“You read your journal?”
“Most of it. I skipped bits. It’s already quite long.”
He seemed interested. “What sections did you skip?”
I thought for a moment. “There are parts that seem familiar to me. I suppose they feel as if they’re just reminding me of things I already know. Already remember…”
“That’s good.” He glanced at me. “Very good.”
I felt a glow of pleasure. “So what did I call about? Yesterday?”
“You wanted to know if you’d really written a novel,” he said.
“And had I?” I said. “Have I?”
He turned back to me. He was smiling. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, you have.”
The traffic moved again and we pulled away. I felt relief. I knew what I had written was true. I relaxed into the journey.
Dr. Paxton was older than I expected. He was wearing a tweed jacket, and white hair sprouted unchecked from his ears and nose. He looked as though he ought to have retired.
“Welcome to the Vincent Hall Imaging Center,” he said once Dr. Nash had introduced us, and then, without taking his eyes off mine, he winked and shook my hand. “Don’t worry,” he added. “It’s not as grand as it sounds. Here, come in. Let me show you around.”
We made our way into the building. “We’re attached to both the hospital and the university, here,” he said as we went through the main entrance. “Which can be both a blessing and a curse.” I did not know what he meant and waited for him to elaborate, but he said nothing. I smiled.
“Really?” I said. He was trying to help me. I wanted to be polite.
“Everyone wants us to do everything.” He laughed. “No one wants to pay us for any of it.”
We walked into a waiting room. It was dotted with empty chairs, copies of the same magazines Ben had left for me at home—Radio Times, Hello!, now joined by Country Life and Marie Claire—and discarded plastic cups. It looked like there had recently been a party that everyone had left in a hurry. Dr. Paxton paused at another door. “Would you like to see the control room?”