Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

‘You won’t want to drive, though, you really won’t feel able,’ she’d said. ‘Trust me, luvvie.’

I’d thought she’d been showing her bossy side again. But, of course, she’d turned out to be absolutely right. As our sad little threesome left Highrise on that terrible day, the day when Robbie was to be buried and reality could no longer be denied even for a second, I didn’t feel as if I could have unlocked a car door and started its engine, let alone actually driven the thing.

Gladys was also right about the turnout.

The church was packed.

Dad, Robert and I walked in behind Robbie’s flower-strewn wicker coffin. It had been made not far away by craftsmen on the Somerset Levels, the undertaker had told me.

I’d thought Robbie might have liked that, and that it would seem less grim than a wooden box. But I couldn’t even look at his coffin. I knew if I did I would break down.

To me, the congregation was just a sea of faces upon which I could not properly focus, but I did become aware that there were a lot of young people in the church. Robbie’s schoolmates and fellow swimmers, I assumed. Although it was obvious, I had not even thought of them being present.

Gladys had told me that there would be someone taking down names and I would be given a list of mourners so that I would know who’d attended.

‘You’ll not be able to take it in on the day,’ she’d said.

At the time I hadn’t given a damn. Now, even before the service began, I found that I really wanted to know who had bothered to come out on this dreadful wet and windy November day to mourn my beautiful boy.

I began to think about him, which I had tried not to do all morning. The tears welled up behind my eyes. I felt myself stumble.

A strong arm grasped mine and gave me support. It was Robert. I turned and looked up at him. There was such anguish etched on his face.

‘I loved him so much,’ Robert whispered. ‘And you, Marion. Whatever else you doubt, never ever doubt that.’

He grasped my arm a little tighter. For the first time since I had learned about his double identity I did not pull away. He was my man and Robbie’s father. Whatever might come next, I told myself, on this day of all days, that was all that mattered. If I needed to cling to anyone, then it would be to Robert that I would cling. There was, after all, no one else.

The funeral itself was a blur. I was only vaguely aware of the hymns being sung. I didn’t really listen at all to Gerald Ponsonby Smythe’s address. After all, that man had nothing to do with my Robbie. He’d never even met him as far as I knew. But people told me later that the vicar had done Robbie proud, whatever that meant.

When we gathered at the graveside I could hold myself together no longer. The tears began to flow. I was aware that Dad was crying too, and that made me worse. When Robbie’s body, in its quite flimsy-looking wicker casket, was lowered into the ground I broke down totally. I would have collapsed onto the mud and wet grass surrounding the newly dug grave had Robert not held on to me.

‘Come on, girl, we’ll get through this together,’ he whispered in my ear. Just the way he’d always done whenever we’d had any kind of problem. But, of course, we’d never really had any bad problems before. This wasn’t a problem. This was Armageddon.

I found myself holding on to Robert, my tears staining the strip of white shirt exposed where the raincoat he’d slipped on as we’d walked through the churchyard had fallen open. He seemed strong again, grateful, I supposed, to be allowed to look after me. Just as he had always done before, or at least as I’d thought he’d always done before.

We both threw clods of earth onto Robbie’s coffin, me half carried by Robert to the edge of the grave. The rain still poured from a leaden sky, swirling around the churchyard, and a good strong gust of Dartmoor wind hit me full in the face as we moved forward. My hat was blown from my head and would probably have landed in Robbie’s grave had not a young man I vaguely registered to be one of the village lads leapt forward like a limited-overs cricketer and taken a smart catch.

Robert took the hat from the boy and helped me replace it, then he led me away to the far end of the graveyard, dabbed at my eyes with his hanky, told me again how much he loved me, and asked me if I was sure I wanted to go to the ‘do’ at the pub.

‘It’s your choice. If you want us to go straight home that’s fine with me,’ he said.

I thought about how determined I’d been that Robbie should have a good send-off and be laid to rest in the right place. I had Gladys Ponsonby Smythe to thank for making that happen, and even at that moment my innate good manners kicked in and I felt I shouldn’t let her down. Nor the ‘load of people’ she’d promised, who had indeed turned up. They’d come to pay their respects to Robbie. Now I had to show my respect for them. He would have wanted that. He’d been a polite boy. We’d brought him up that way.

I blew my nose loudly.

‘I want to go,’ I said. ‘I can’t explain, really, but I do.’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘We’ll go then. And I shall be by your side, right through it, and ready to take you away just when you want.’

I nodded. It felt good, even on this day, or maybe particularly on this day, to lean on Robert again, to let him take over.

The funeral car took us to the Lamb and Flag. Robert held my hand as we drove through the village, and I didn’t stop him from doing so. Just this day at least, I told myself, just this day it had to be right that we, Robbie’s parents, were together, were united. Outside the shop a farmer, or perhaps a farm worker, I didn’t even know by sight, was climbing down from a tractor connected to a trailer full of ewes. He removed his cloth cap as we passed and bowed his head. I was touched. He was just a young man. But Blackstone was that sort of place, as were its people: old-fashioned and steeped in the traditions and ways of some bygone age.

The pub was full of people I didn’t know, or knew only vaguely, coming up to me and offering their condolences. I peered around me, remembering suddenly that I hadn’t seen Bella at the church. I switched on my phone. There was a text from her waiting for me: So sorry, Marion. Daughter fallen off bike. Concussion and prob broken arm. Taking 2 hospital. Sorry not to be with u. Send love and thoughts. X .

I found that I was curiously disappointed and was about to tell Robert, but he was talking to the landlord about whether or not extra food should be provided as even more people than Gladys had expected had turned up. In any case he wouldn’t have been interested.

He was certainly attentive to me, though. Throughout the afternoon, just as he’d promised, Robert barely left my side. And Gladys continued to be a tower of strength, right from the moment she’d greeted us at the pub door to say she’d reserved a little corner table so that we had somewhere to sit where we hopefully wouldn’t be too overwhelmed by the gathered throng.

I introduced her to Dad, then remembered she and Robert didn’t know each other either and introduced them too.

‘Oh, so this is your husband,’ she responded quickly. ‘We have met, of course.’

I glanced at Robert. Had he turned even paler than usual again, or was that my imagination?

‘Perhaps, but just in passing,’ he said.

I studied Gladys. Was she looking puzzled? Or was that my imagination too?

I was considering questioning her when a young woman, who looked as if she had only recently stopped crying, approached us.

‘I just wanted to introduce myself,’ she said. ‘I’m Sue Shaw... Robbie and I, uh...’ She hesitated. ‘I... we swam together.’