Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

‘What do you mean, deserved it?’

‘She never told me there was Huntington’s in her family. Even when we found out what was wrong with Laura, she carried on lying to me. She said she hadn’t known—’

‘So lying is something else that runs in the family,’ I interrupted sharply. I knew it was small of me, particularly in view of the story he was finally sharing with me, but I couldn’t help myself.

Robert winced.

‘Didn’t you ever meet Brenda’s parents, or any other relatives?’ I asked.

He shook his head.

‘She always told me that she never even knew who her father was. Her mother brought her up on her own. But she died when Brenda was thirteen and Brenda was put into foster care. She was still with her foster parents when I met her. She was just sixteen and I was nineteen. She was about to start training as a nurse, but all she really wanted to do was get married and have a family. I sort of got carried along with it. She fell pregnant damned near the first time we slept together and that was that really. Before I knew it we were wed.’ He paused.

‘I seem to have the knack of getting women pregnant straight away,’ he said.

‘And your son was the same apparently,’ I blurted out. ‘His girlfriend was pregnant, even though she claims they only had unprotected sex once. He’d only found out the day he... he died. I thought at first that was why... why he did what he did.’

‘B-but we didn’t even know he had a girlfriend,’ Robert stumbled.

He was looking deep into my eyes. For a fleeting moment I even longed for the old closeness. But that was long gone.

‘At the funeral, remember? Sue Shaw. I knew that he’d written about her in his diary, but I still thought it was probably innocent. How wrong can you be? Both the men in my life were keeping big secrets from me, it seems.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Robert.

‘Save it,’ I replied. ‘I just want to hear the rest of the story.’

Robert sighed.

‘When I met you it really was the way I told you before, Marion,’ he said. ‘And the bit about the lottery win was true too. The terrible news about my daughter and winning all that money came more or less together. It was enough to drive any man half mad, surely?’

He looked at me pleadingly. I did not respond. He sighed again.

‘That day in Exeter, I was just walking around, thinking, trying to work out what to do,’ he said. ‘What I wanted was to give all the money to Brenda and then just leave. But I don’t think I’d ever have been able to bring myself to carry that through. Then along you came. Suddenly I saw this way of having the life I wanted, with you, and still looking after Brenda and Laura. Because Laura had developed the disease so young we knew it was going to be particularly severe, and we also knew that she would end up in care eventually, although Brenda and I decided straight away to keep her at home as long as we could. Well, Brenda did really. She was the one who had to do the caring. I admired her for that if for nothing else... she would have made a good nurse, Brenda. She seemed to have a natural talent for it...’

Yes, I thought. Didn’t she though? I’d experienced that the night of Robbie’s death, when, rather chillingly I now thought, Brenda had provided such proficient help and support. Or so it had seemed. I’d believed she actually had been a nurse. And I’d really believed she was my friend. That was why I’d wanted to see her after I was released from jail. Thinking about it made me feel physically sick.

‘And where is Laura now?’ I asked. ‘I mean, is she still alive? It sounds as if she is from the newspaper report.’ I gestured at the Express & Echo on the table.

Robert nodded. ‘Just about, that’s all you can say. She’s in a specialist care home, the other side of Exeter. She went there when she was sixteen. And, well, we always felt guilty, felt it was because we put her there that she deteriorated fast, even faster than we’d expected.’

‘Do you see her?’ I asked.

‘I used to. Not any more. She can barely function, and she doesn’t know us at all now. I just can’t.’

He paused.

‘Brenda does, though.’ Another pause. ‘I mean, did.’

‘But you had a second child, for God’s sake.’ I tapped the newspaper again. ‘You and your wife...’ I put emphasis on the ‘w’ word. ‘... conceived another child even though you both knew she was a Huntington’s carrier. And even though you claim that I was the love of your life, you were patently still having sex with the woman who was really your wife. And, knowing you, rather a lot of it.’

Robert winced again. ‘It just seemed to happen,’ he said. ‘But it wasn’t the way it was with you. I mean, how could it be? Sex with you has always been so special. But with Brenda, well, it was kind of automatic really, what we’d always done—’

‘Spare me,’ I interrupted more forcefully. ‘I really don’t want to hear the gruesome details of your sex life with another woman.’

He nodded apologetically again.

‘But never mind that, and never mind the wicked double life you were leading, wicked to both of us. What about the risks? You and Brenda conceived another child even though you knew he or she would probably develop this awful disease. That’s really thoughtless and cruel. I can’t believe it.’

This time Robert shook his head.

‘I thought Brenda had been sterilized. After we found out about Laura we agreed that’s what she’d do. And she told me she’d had the op one time while I was away working.’ He glanced at me. I decided not to interrupt again, not to point out that he may have been working, or he may, of course, have been with his other wife. With me.

‘But she hadn’t had it. She’d been taking the pill. Apart from anything else nobody could possibly have coped with a second child with poor Laura at home the way she was. However, as soon as we accepted that Laura had to go into professional care Brenda stopped taking the pill. I never really understood why. She said she just wanted another child who was normal. But there was little chance of that. When she told me she was pregnant I was horrified. Not only because of what she had done, and the kind of life we might be bringing into the world, but because of you too, of course, and our life.’

‘It’s not definite, though, is it?’ I asked. ‘It’s not a hundred per cent that the disease is inherited, surely. Mightn’t your other daughter be OK?’

‘That’s what Brenda said. She said there was a fifty per cent chance that Janey would be OK. And it was a chance she’d just had to take.’

‘Well, presumably that’s still the case. Where is she now, by the way? This eleven-year-old child you never bothered to mention to me.’

‘She’s with a neighbour. And no, it’s not the case actually. Janey will get Huntington’s. It’s just a matter of when. It might not be until she’s into her forties — that’s the most common time — or she might get the juvenile variety like her sister. But one thing is certain, she will get it.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

He wiped a hand across his eyes, wearily.

‘When Janey was born I made Brenda have all the tests. She didn’t when we’d found out about Laura. In any case predictive tests for Huntington’s were pretty new then — they were only developed in 1993 — and Brenda said she wasn’t convinced of their accuracy. That we could end up being worried sick for nothing. But after Janey I insisted. She didn’t want to, not even then. She said there was no point. That we knew the risks. But I made her, and this time I went to the hospital with her, for the tests and the results. I just had to know exactly what we were facing. The disease is caused by the mutation of the gene called Huntington’s. Everyone has two copies. So more often than not a child has a fifty per cent chance of inheriting it. Just like Brenda told me. The only thing is, it turned out that both Brenda’s Huntington genes were mutated. That made it a hundred per cent certain that any child she had would develop the disease.’