Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

I lowered my head into my hands.

‘My God, you’ve been devious, Robert,’ I said. ‘And cruel too. Don’t you see that?’

‘I do now,’ he said. ‘I am so desperately sorry, Marion. But you are my wife whether the law says so or not. I’ve been such a fool. I just hope you can believe I’ve been guilty only of loving you too much. From the start.’

I heard him begin to sob.

I looked up. The tears were rolling down his cheeks and his shoulders were heaving.

It was hard even to see in him any part of the man I had believed him to be.

The past flashed before me. It was all beginning to fall into place. I remembered how I had never met anyone at all from Robert’s earlier life and how he always avoided getting close to outsiders and liked to stay at home, indeed hidden away at home, I now realized, as much as possible. Our years together had seemed to be so idyllic that I’d never questioned him about any of that. Now I could only think how stupid I had been.

‘You bastard, Robert,’ I stormed. ‘You utter bastard. I thought at least I still had you after losing Robbie. And in such a terrible way. Now I know I don’t. In fact, I never really had you at all, did I?’

‘You did, of course you did,’ he mumbled ineffectively through his tears.

‘No, I didn’t. And neither did our son. Do you think that’s why he killed himself? Do you think he’d found out about you and couldn’t live with it? Do you think you’re to blame for Robbie’s death on top of everything else?’

His sobbing became more pronounced.

‘No, no,’ he wailed.

‘Well, I think you might well be to blame; in fact, I’m damned sure of it,’ I said.

‘No, no,’ he wailed again.

Once or twice earlier while Robert had been talking I’d been afraid I might myself break down and cry. But now the icy calm had descended over me again.

‘And where were you today?’ I asked coldly. ‘What was so important that you left me alone on the day after our son’s death? What was it, Robert? What were you doing?’

He was still sobbing, and again could only mumble through his tears.

‘I just wanted to be on my own, I just needed to be on my own.’

I was sure he was still lying to me. I had nothing more to say to him. I stood up, swung round, and strode out of the kitchen, slamming the door shut behind me.

I couldn’t stay in the same room with Robert. I certainly couldn’t sleep in the same bed. I made my way upstairs and stopped off at our bedroom to gather up my night clothes, my dressing gown and the bottle of paracetamol I kept in the drawer of my bedside table.

We had two guest bedrooms at Highrise, even though we so rarely entertained guests, but I chose to go up to the top of the house to Robbie’s room. I wanted to feel close to my son, even though I knew how painful it would be.

I pulled back the navy-blue-covered duvet on his bed and climbed in, without bothering to take off my clothes. The walls of Robbie’s room were painted bright white and dotted with posters of his favourite musicians of the moment — Arctic Monkeys, Bombay Bicycle Club and Kasabian. A life-size blow-up of Adele, his long-time idol, took pride of place directly opposite the foot of the bed. There were also some photographs of him at swimming competitions, and one of him and me hugging each other and laughing hugely in the heavy snow of the previous winter. I had to look away from that one. Several rows of shelves at the far end carried his books, mostly reference. Robbie wasn’t a great reader of novels, though I had at times tried to encourage him with gifts of my favourite authors. They were a catholic selection: Ruth Rendell, Steinbeck, Laurie Lee, Orwell, Sebastian Faulks. I wasn’t sure if he’d even opened most of them. Indeed, the only disappointment in my life that Robbie had ever been responsible for was his lack of interest in literature. He was an academic, but he was a practical boy. He just didn’t get fiction.

I lay in his bed looking all around the room which I knew had been so special to Robbie. His books stood in tidy rows propped up by swimming trophies which he was inclined to use as bookends. A pair of jeans and a tracksuit jacket had been folded neatly over the dark-red chair in the corner by the window.

A couple of businesslike speakers, linked to his computer, were mounted on the wall above his desk so that he could play his music at impressive volume. Even though his room was at the top of the house, the thud of the bass had echoed throughout Highrise, causing predictable outbursts of grumbling from his old-fogey parents.

How I longed to be able to hear the sound of Robbie playing his music now, I thought, as I snuggled down into his bed, burying my face in the pillows. I could smell him. Or I thought I could anyway. I was torturing myself.

I had lost my son for ever. And now it felt as if I had lost my husband too, certainly the husband I’d believed him to be.

I tossed and turned in Robbie’s bed, then I sat bolt upright. What on earth did I think I was doing? I checked my watch. It was not yet nine o’clock. I felt totally exhausted and drained. All I wanted was the relief, the oblivion of sleep, but I was hardly likely to find it so early and on such a day, lying fully clothed in my dead son’s bed. Not without assistance anyway.

I got up, undressed, put on my pyjamas then went into Robbie’s bathroom, carrying my bottle of paracetamol. I filled the tooth mug with tap water and emptied it in one swallow. I was thirsty but not hungry. Even though I had eaten only two slices of toast all day, I had no desire whatsoever for food of any kind.

I filled the tooth mug with water again and washed down four paracetamol capsules. I was going to need all the help I could get for sleep to come that night. I paused for a moment, holding the paracetamol bottle in one hand and its cap in the other. It was possible that I held in my hand a means to the only ultimate escape from my misery.

I remembered, then, something I had read in a magazine interview with a famous actress who had spoken with rare common sense, I’d thought at the time, for a member of her profession. If ever you contemplate suicide, she’d said, you should wait until the next day before doing anything about it.

I knew she was right. I didn’t feel that my life would ever be worth living again, but the man I had married in good faith and had loved so much was still there, downstairs in the kitchen of our fine home, proclaiming his everlasting love for me. I felt unbearably betrayed. Yet perhaps I would feel differently in the morning. Or perhaps I was clutching at straws. I didn’t know.

In any case I’d also read somewhere that it takes considerably more than the contents of an average-size bottle of paracetamol to kill a human being, and that death comes neither quickly nor in sleep, but is ultimately caused in most cases by acute liver failure, agonizingly, and only after several days.

I replaced the cap on the paracetamol bottle and left it in Robbie’s bathroom.

Then I crawled back into his bed and pulled his duvet over my head.

I began to cry. I couldn’t stop. Eventually, aided no doubt by my mild drug overdose, I cried myself to sleep. When I woke, rather to my surprise, dawn was already breaking. I checked my watch. It was 7 a.m. I realized I must have slept for almost ten hours. My gran would have said it was my body looking after itself. Giving me the rest I desperately needed to find the strength to cope with all that had happened.

I felt hot and sweaty. My forehead clammy to the touch. I badly needed to urinate. Indeed, without the pressure of my bladder I suspected I may have slept even longer.

I climbed out of bed and made my way into Robbie’s bathroom again. His electric razor, a birthday present from his father, stood on the shelf above the washbasin. He’d taken to using it most mornings, I believed, even though he hadn’t really needed to.