bathroom and flush the used condom down the toilet. I think it is over, but then I hear him come back to the bed, take the belt from his discarded trousers, and I understand that it is going to be one of those nights. I lie perfectly still, facedown, exactly how he left me, used and discarded. He starts to hit me with the belt, in the places he knows that nobody else will see. My husband has always insisted on reading my scripts, not because he cares, but because with each new role I play, he wants to know which pieces of me the world will get to see, and which parts of me will stay only his. He hits me again and I try not to give him the satisfaction of crying, no matter how much it hurts.
Twenty-six
London, 2017
I’m woken by a sound I can’t translate.
I sit up in the bed, coated in my own sweat. I’m panting and shaking and crying because I know that what I have just experienced was a dream of a memory, rather than a memory of a dream. I remember how badly Ben hurt me the last time I saw him. I remember how he followed me back from the restaurant after I said I wanted a divorce, kicked the bedroom door open, and did what he did.
I didn’t even ask him to stop.
I think on some level, I thought I deserved it.
We marry our own reflections; someone who is the opposite of ourselves, but who we see as the same. If he is a monster, then what does that make me?
It wasn’t the first time, but I promised myself that night that it would be the last, and that I would never let him hurt me like that again. I always keep my promises, especially the ones I make to myself.
What if I did do something to him that I can’t remember?
I didn’t. I’m sure of it. Almost completely.
An uncharted corner of my consciousness uncurls like a treasure map, and I start to think there might be buried memories inside my head after all. Maybe when you’ve seen men do things they shouldn’t as a child, it can be harder as an adult to fully comprehend how wrong those things are. We are all conditioned and fine-tuned to our own unique brand of normal; we wear it like a fingerprint. We’re taught to fit in with others and learn what is expected of us from the moment we are born. Everything we ever do is an act.
I was foolish to marry someone so quickly, without really knowing who he was. I thought I knew, but I was wrong. I was seduced by our whirlwind romance, and I thought I might lose him if I said no. I thought we were the same. I thought he was my mirror, until I looked properly and realized too late that I needed to run from what I saw. I spent month after month dipping into my savings of happier memories, until the account was empty. I thought I could change him. If we had had a child, I think things might have been different, but he wouldn’t give me what I wanted, so in revenge I took away what he desired most: me. I withheld my affection, my love, my body, thinking he would change his mind. I didn’t realize he was the sort of man who would take what he wanted anyway, regardless of whether it was given to him.
I hear something again, footsteps in the distance, the sound pulling me back into the present. I try to sit up, but the pain in my head disables me. I open my eyes a fraction, just enough to establish where and when I am, but the light is too bright, so I close them again.
I do not feel good.
I remember being in the bar at Pinewood with Jack. I remember Alicia White joining us. I vaguely remember a third bottle of wine and then my memory of the evening stops.
Where am I?
I force my eyes to open and relax a little when I see the familiar sight of my own bedroom. So, I made it home, that’s something at least. My throat hurts and I notice the foul taste inside my mouth; I’ve been sick. I’m such an idiot, I know I can’t drink that much on an empty stomach. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I wasn’t. I hope I