before I go to sleep06(文稿)

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‘There’s a garden out the back,’ he says and I look through the glass door that leads off the kitchen. 

It is just beginning to get light, the night sky starting to turn an inky blue, and I can make out the silhouette of a large tree, and a shed sitting at the far end of the small garden, but little else. 

I realize I don’t even know what part of the world we are in. ‘Where are we?’ I say.

He stands behind me. I can see us both, reflected in the glass. Me. My husband. Middle-aged.

‘North London,’ he replies. ‘Crouch End.’
I step back. Panic begins to rise. ‘Jesus,’ I say. ‘I don’t even know where I bloody live…’

He takes my hand. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.’ I turn round to face him, to wait for him to tell me how, how I will be fine, but he does not. 

‘Shall I make you your coffee?’ For a moment I resent him, but then say, ‘Yes. Yes, please.’ He fills a kettle. 

‘Black, please,’ I say. ‘No sugar.’
‘I know,’ he says, smiling at me. ‘Want some toast?’ I say yes. 

He must know so much about me, yet still this feels like the morning after a one-night stand: breakfast with a stranger in his house, plotting how soon it would be acceptable to make an escape, to go back home.

But that’s the difference. Apparently this is my home. ‘I think I need to sit down,’ I say.

He looks up at me. ‘Go and sit yourself down in the living room,’ he says. ‘I’ll bring this through in a minute.’ I leave the kitchen.

A few moments later Ben follows me in. He gives me a book. ‘This is a scrapbook,’ he says. ‘It might help.’ 

I take it from him. It is bound in plastic that is supposed to look like worn leather but does not, and has a red ribbon tied around it in an untidy bow. 

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he says, and leaves the room. I sit on the sofa.

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