before I go to sleep17(文稿)

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I was in the bedroom when he arrived and watched him park his car and lock it, saw him rearrange his hair, smooth his jacket, pick up his briefcase. 

Not him, I thought as he nodded to the workmen who were unloading tools from a van, but then he walked up the path to our house. 

He looked young- too young to be a doctor- and, though I don’t know what I had been expecting him to be wearing, it was not the sports jacket and grey corduroy trousers that he had on.

‘There’s a park at the end of the street,’ he says. ‘I think it has a café. We could go there?’

We walk together. The cold is biting and I pull my scarf tight around my neck. 

I am glad I have in my bag the mobile phone that Ben has given me. Glad too that Dr Nash has not insisted we drive somewhere. 

There is some part of me that trusts this man, but another, larger part tells me he could be anyone. A stranger.

I am an adult, but a damaged one. It would be easy for this man to take me somewhere, though I don’t know what he would want to do. I am as vulnerable as a child.

We reach the main road that separates the end of the street from the park opposite, and wait to cross. The silence between us feels oppressive. 

I had intended to wait until we were sitting down before asking him, but find myself speaking. ‘What sort of doctor are you?’ I am saying. ‘What do you do? How did you find me?’

He looks over at me. ‘I’m a neuropsychologist,’ he says. He is smiling. I wonder if I ask him the same question every time we meet. 

‘I specialize in patients with brain disorders, with an interest in some of the newer functional neuroimaging techniques. 

‘For a long time I’ve been particularly interested in researching memory process and function. 

‘I heard about you through the literature on the subject, and tracked you down. It wasn’t too difficult.’

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