Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

I climbed out of the car and flipped open the rear door for her. She seemed none the worse for her close encounter with the dog guard and was merely in the throes of her usual paroxysm of excitement at the sight and smell of sand and sea.

I crossed the road and sat on the low sea wall opposite my car. It was cold but there was only a light breeze blowing in across the estuary from the Atlantic Ocean. Once I’d wrapped my scarf tightly round my neck and pulled on my gloves and hat I was not uncomfortable. Florrie ran happily onto the dunes in front of me and began sniffing and snuffling around. She also had a roll. As usual. Normally I would already be grumbling to myself about the job of brushing the sand out of her coat later. That was something else I couldn’t have cared less about that day.

I just sat there gazing blankly out to sea. But after just a few minutes I heard the sound of a vehicle approaching and drawing to a halt. I turned around just in time to watch Bella open her car door and climb out.

She looked rather grim. I hadn’t really noticed before the deep lines which ran down her cheeks and curved around her eyes. Her bobbed reddish-brown hair displayed prominent grey roots. I was reminded that her life had almost certainly been far harder than mine. Until now that is.

She spotted me, and smiled. It was that already familiar wide, warm smile.

‘I’m glad you came,’ she called, zipping up her blue anorak and slipping the hood over her head.

‘I nearly didn’t,’ I replied. ‘I nearly couldn’t...’

She crossed the road, Flash bounding away from her and straight past me to join Florrie on the dunes.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I mean, I did wonder. I wouldn’t have minded. But I’m glad.’

The tears pricked again. This woman had a way of hitting the spot. She seemed to really know me, to really understand me.

‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘Let’s get on the beach and give those dogs a good run. You don’t have to talk unless you want to.’

I nodded and swung my legs over the little wall. She clambered over it alongside me. We shuffled across the loose sand of the dunes and through a gap in the breakwater onto the beach proper. Two miles of golden sand. That was Exmouth’s tourist commercial. And pure joy to any self-respecting canine.

Florrie and Flash duly took off at full speed, scattering seagulls and crows.

We watched them in companionable silence for a while, as we strolled vaguely in the direction of the town, past the Octagon, the eight-sided building on the Esplanade which houses a snack bar and a shop, and on along the sand towards the marina.

A white wintery sun darted in and out of fast-moving clouds. The breeze seemed to be getting up a bit. Bella thrust her hands deep into her anorak pockets.

‘Should have brought my gloves,’ she muttered. ‘Didn’t realize it was this cold.’

It was an inconsequential remark, but it somehow prompted me to say something I felt needed to be said.

‘I’m so sorry Robert was rude to you the other night,’ I told her.

‘Oh no, you don’t need to apologize,’ she responded with what seemed to be her customary kindness. ‘He’d just had the most terrible news, after all.’

‘Yes, but there was no call for...’

I let the sentence trail off lamely.

We did not talk a lot at all. I told her, as I had my father, how we were waiting for Robbie’s body to be released by the police, and that I would let her know when we had set a date for the funeral.

‘I would really like you to come, and I know Robbie would have done too,’ I said, trying not to break down as I spoke his name.

She said nothing. I glanced at her. In spite of my distress I realized that she didn’t look too keen.

‘But, I mean, I’d understand if you don’t wish—’

‘It’s not that,’ she interrupted. ‘I just hate funerals, that’s all, particularly when it’s someone so young. But of course I’ll come. Robbie was a fine lad. I’d like to be there for him. And for you.’

I touched her arm, fleetingly. Had I been a different sort of person I would have given her a hug.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Just thank you, for everything.’

She shrugged.

‘It’s been nothing. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose your child so young. And in such an awful way. I mean, if there’s anything else I can do. You only have to ask.’

I nodded and mumbled more thanks. My feet, although I’d worn extra thick socks over my bandages, were starting to pain me, and Bella noticed that I was limping a bit. We turned back towards our cars and made our way up to the Esplanade where the walking was easier. I quickly attached Florrie’s lead to her collar, and when I saw Bella struggle to do the same with Flash offered to help and, in fact, managed the snap clip quite easily.

‘Numb fingers,’ said Bella, by way of explanation, as we continued walking. ‘Really could have done with those gloves.’

I managed a small smile. I was not used to disclosing my innermost thoughts to anyone except Robert. But I suppose I just needed someone right then to share certain things with.

‘Bella, you know, you’ll probably think I’m mad, but I’m not sure about the way Robbie died,’ I blurted out suddenly. ‘I don’t entirely believe he killed himself.’

She half stopped in her tracks and turned to me, asking me why not.

‘I mean, do the police have any doubts?’

I shook my head. Then I explained about the desk and the marks on the floor, and the conclusion they had led me to.

‘That was clever of you,’ she said, giving me what seemed to be an appraising sort of look. ‘Have you told the police?’

‘Yes. But they’re not really interested. I can’t believe it. They just seem to have made up their minds.’

‘Ummm.’ She looked and sounded thoughtful. ‘What about Robert? What does he think?’

‘I don’t know what he thinks.’ I realized I’d rather spat the words out and sounded quite bitter.

She shot me another appraising look.

‘Nothing wrong between you two, is there?’ she asked. ‘I mean, you’re going to really need each other to get through this.’

I paused before replying. A big part of me wanted to tell her all about the events of the last two days, to share with another human being the whole barrel load of shocks I had received. To tell her that the man I so loved, the husband with whom I had shared everything, had in fact deceived me throughout our marriage.

I wanted to tell her that I no longer felt I could trust Robert, and how that had devastated me. I wanted to tell her how I did not know whether I could stay with him or not. But that I was afraid to leave him.

I didn’t, though. I didn’t tell her any of that. I just couldn’t.

The rest of the weekend passed in a fog of unreality. Robert and I coexisted on tenterhooks. I couldn’t trust myself to have anything more to do with him than I had to, in case I just exploded, and he seemed afraid even to speak to me.

I knew I could not face another night in Robbie’s room. I would drive myself quite mad with grief. But neither could I countenance sleeping with Robert. I moved into the guest room at the back of the house. Robert accepted my decision regarding sleeping arrangements without question. He did offer to be the one who took the guest room, but I declined. I didn’t want to sleep in the room we had so happily shared for so long, even if he wasn’t there.

On Monday morning the Western Morning News carried a front-page report of Robbie’s death. There were quotes from an anonymous school friend, and a photograph of him in his school uniform which looked as if it might have been lifted from a group picture, possibly also obtained from the school friend. Certainly I had not supplied a photo to anyone, Robbie had been far too private a boy to be on Facebook, and as far as I knew there were no pictures of him on the Net.