Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

A life that had seemed so idyllic now appeared not to have been real at all. Robbie was dead. And I could see no future. Thinking of my son and how he would have loved to be up there with me on such a day, I climbed to the very top of Yes Tor, and stood trembling on its famous angular granite summit.

It seemed a very long time ago that I had stood in Robbie’s bathroom contemplating a bottle of paracetamol while telling myself that it really was true that potential suicide cases should always wait until tomorrow. For me, there was no point any more in waiting till tomorrow. Every day was the same. Filled with total despair.

Florrie took off after a rabbit, winding, whirling and leaping her way through the heather and bracken at a speed that belied her age. I didn’t call her back. I did not want her under my feet. I stepped forward to the edge of the top-most granite slab on the steepest side of the tor and prepared to jump. I could feel the sun and the wind burning my face with an unexpected intensity. It was as if all my senses and every nerve ending were more acutely tuned than they had ever been before in the whole of my life. And just as I was planning to end it.

A lone crow circled overhead, its grating caw caw quite deafening to me. The sun seemed blindingly bright. I shut my eyes against its glare and tried to force my body forward over the edge of the tor. But I couldn’t get my legs to move. I wanted one more look at the world I was leaving behind. I opened my eyes again and, staring straight ahead over the purple peaks of this place I so loved, made myself begin to shuffle towards the permanent oblivion I so sought.

It was then that I heard the voice. Clear as the day itself.

‘No, Mum, no. Don’t do it.’

It was Robbie’s voice.

I threw my upper body back to safety just as gravity threatened to pull me irrevocably forward and down. I collapsed in a crumpled heap on the ground, and sobbed for England. I was a wreck. But I was still alive and I knew with absolute certainty at that moment that I intended to remain so.

I am not a fanciful woman. I do not believe in God or the devil. I do not believe in life after death or the supernatural. I knew even then that Robbie’s voice was inside my own head. And only inside my head. It could be nowhere else.

None the less, his voice had been absolutely real to me. As was the message it had given.

No. Don’t do it.

As far as I was concerned Robbie had spoken to me just as certainly as if he had been alive and standing by my side. I didn’t fully understand it, but I knew I had experienced a road to Damascus moment from which there was no turning back.

Florrie bounded back towards me, panting, excited. She began to lick my hands and my face.

I pulled myself upright, called her to follow, and began the descent.

After a bit I turned and looked back up at Yes Tor. There is, on the side where I had positioned myself intending to leap, a short sheer drop from the very top, but by and large tors are not designed for suicide. I studied the terrain with a kind of detached interest. It would, I feared, have been far more likely that I would have just broken bits of me instead of killing myself. Suddenly the absurdity of it hit me. Along, I suppose, with the enormity of what I had so nearly done.

I began to laugh hysterically. Florrie trotted at my heels, looking at me curiously. An approaching couple walking a yellow Labrador, the only other people I had seen on the moor that morning, took a sharp turn onto another path. In order to avoid a woman who must appear to be quite mad, I suspected.

By the time I reached the car I had stopped laughing and felt more like crying again. But I still believed that something monumental had happened, and that I was going to be able to cope again soon. None the less, I had to return to a home I could barely stand being in.

Around mid-afternoon I forced myself to eat something. I tried to read and to watch TV. Both proved more or less beyond me. I remained determined that I would never again contemplate suicide, but the brief flash of optimism I had experienced in the car had been just that.

By bedtime I was preparing for another predominantly sleepless night. However, ironically, considering my purpose in going there, the sharp Dartmoor air seemed to have done me good. Or maybe I was just totally exhausted. But mercifully I fell into a deep sleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillows.

I was still using the guest room. Somehow I remained unable to return to the room Robert and I had shared. Florrie was in her bed in the kitchen. My gran had always taken her beloved Jack Russell to bed with her, but Florrie slept in the kitchen because Robert didn’t believe in dogs being allowed in bedrooms and had convinced me I didn’t either. After all, she did moult everywhere. Robbie and I had kept to the rule, whether Robert was away or not, without thinking about it, and it hadn’t occurred to me to change the dog’s sleeping arrangements. I had other things on my mind. In any case, that night I was out for the count.

It was perhaps because I had been deeply asleep at last that I woke so suddenly and with such a start. Something was wrong. I sat up in bed, shaking my head to try to clear the fog which filled it.

I’d been woken by something, and I didn’t know what. Had it been Florrie barking? She wasn’t barking now. Had there been some other noise?

I listened hard.

At first there was only silence and I began to wonder if I’d just been having a dream. I’d been taking sleeping pills after all.

Then I heard a scraping noise, like a chair being dragged across a floor. Still no sound from Florrie. My first instinct was that Robert had returned, and I very nearly called out his name. But then I stopped myself. If someone other than Robert had entered my house in the dead of night, I could put myself in danger by attracting attention.

Yet if there was an unknown intruder downstairs, I would have expected Florrie to bark. Or would I? She was such a soft, friendly creature, all over strangers usually. Any dog-savvy burglar who had brought her a meaty treat would probably have her rubbing lovingly against his legs in no time.

I switched on my bedside light, then wondered if that were such a good idea and switched it off again.

I climbed out of bed as quietly as possible, made my way out onto the landing and stood at the top of the stairs listening. There are always noises in an old house. Robert said Highrise was like a ship.

There was silence for so long I almost began to doubt myself.

Then I heard the distinctive creak caused by a footstep on the bottom stair. Then on the second stair.

I panicked, ran back into the bedroom, forgetting all about trying to be quiet, slammed the door behind me, and dialled 999 on my mobile.

The operator asked me if there was a lock on my bedroom door, which there wasn’t. She then instructed me to stay as quiet as possible and wait for assistance. Whatever happened, I should not attempt to leave the room.

I sat on the edge of the bed with my ears pricked. I heard no further creaks on the stairs. Did that mean the intruder had retreated, perhaps even left the house while I was on the phone to the emergency services? Or had he or she climbed the rest of the stairs while I was distracted? Could someone be lurking outside my bedroom door right then?

I stood up and padded softly to the door, pressing my ear against it. Total silence. Upstairs and downstairs as far as I could make out. I thought about calling Florrie, but supposed that would not be very wise either. Fleetingly, I wondered if she was all right. You hear about burglars dispatching dogs that might cause them trouble. I decided not to dwell on that. In any case Florrie hadn’t caused a human being any trouble in the whole of her life.