Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

‘I can, madam. In fact, our investigation into the young man’s death has now been closed.’

Within just over an hour the coroner announced her verdict on the ending of fifteen years of bright and promising life.

‘Under the complex circumstances of this case, and because there is insufficient evidence to come to any other conclusion, I am delivering an open verdict,’ said Dr Hunt.

I had been ready for that, of course. DS Jarvis had already indicated that there could really be no other ruling, and both he and my solicitor, Marti Smith, had explained the legal situation to me.

The coroner then went on to offer her sympathy to Robbie’s family.

‘I can only imagine what this fine young man’s parents have been through following his tragic death,’ she said. ‘This really is the kind of case I would like never to come my way again.’

She did not mention further that one half of Robbie’s parentage was in prison. As I left the court, my arm through Dad’s, I did feel hurt that in the annals of law the circumstances of my son’s death would never be fully explained nor recorded.

None the less, I also, finally, felt a sense of closure.

The sale of Highrise was completed in mid-June, just over six weeks after my accepting the buyer’s offer. Everything went extremely smoothly. But I suppose it does when you’re damned near giving a house away.

I didn’t care. In fact, I didn’t give a damn. I just wanted to leave the place and never see it again. And I would still have enough money to begin to rebuild my life. I didn’t know how long it might take me, or even if ultimately I would find the will to do so, but I was going to give it a good try.

During that six-week period I called in a clearance firm and accepted another doubtless derisory sum to clear Highrise of most of its remaining furniture and decorative pieces, all of Robert and Robbie’s clothes which were still there, and indeed most of my own clothes and personal possessions.

Then I spent a sizeable chunk of the proceeds on a new hairdo. I wanted to change everything about myself, and my full head of curly brown hair was probably my most distinctive feature. It was a big thing for me to do. My hair had been much the same since my teens, except for the grey roots. I determined to do it in style, so I took the train to London and splashed out on the full works at Vidal Sassoon’s Mayfair salon. I wanted a totally different look. I had my hair straightened and went for a very short geometric cut, typical Sassoon, and a full white-blonde peroxide dip. I then took a cab to John Lewis in Oxford Street and bought myself a black leather jacket, black leggings and a couple of those cotton print dresses everyone seemed to be wearing that you put on over leggings. I had a long way to go before adopting Marti Smith’s unique sharpness of style, but I had to admit to myself that my clothes shopping was somewhat influenced by my solicitor. More than anything, I wanted to look modern. After all, I was finally about to leave behind what had been, even in the very good days, a kind of time-warp existence, and project myself into the modern world.

I discarded the dated nearly black trouser suit that I’d worn in order to travel to London and left John Lewis wearing the leather jacket I’d purchased over one of the print dresses and the leggings. I couldn’t help looking at myself in every mirror I passed, if only to check that the woman in the reflection really was me. I seemed to be well on the way to at least looking like a different person, and it was only by more or less becoming a different person that I thought I would ever have a chance of moving on from the enormity of all that I had lost.

I thought I was getting there, although the day that would have been Robbie’s sixteenth birthday, the 28th of May, was predictably black. But I coped. Just about.

I even threw a little farewell party for the people who had been so kind to me: Gladys and the Reverend Gerald, the Farleys, the Jamesons and Marti Smith. I’d also invited Pam Cotton, but she’d been in Truro prosecuting a crooked Cornish county councillor. At least, Pam said he was crooked. Seriously so.

The rest of us drank all that remained of Robert’s wine and got quite squiffy. Well, I did, anyway. And Gladys too. She wobbled on her feet a bit and looked rather weepy as she enveloped me in a great big hug and said: ‘You will come and visit, won’t you, Marion? We’re going to miss you, you know.’

I promised that I would, but had no intention of doing so.

When I left Highrise Farm a couple of days later I needed only a couple of medium-sized suitcases to carry what was left of my personal possessions. On one of the wettest and windiest days of the worst June on record I loaded the cases onto the back seat of the Lexus, my only legacy, really, of all those years with Robert. Then I loaded Florrie into the rear compartment behind her doggie guard, started the engine, and drove dry-eyed and without a backward glance up the lane away from the place I had so loved, from the place that had once been my wonderful dream home, and from a life I had also thought to be wonderful.

I suppose I surprised myself a little. But I had, of course, already wept so many tears that there were probably none left. Highrise represented only misery now. It reminded me only of great tragedy and great loss.

Suddenly I found that I couldn’t wait to put it behind me once and for all.

I hoped eventually that I might be able to return to teaching as a career, albeit after some retraining, perhaps in a place where I was not known. Meanwhile I thought I might travel for a bit, visiting places I had never been to, which held no memories for me of my other lost life.

But first I had arranged to visit my father for a couple of weeks. It was a long time since I’d actually stayed in the old cottage attached to the little garage he still ran part-time on the outskirts of Hartland. And even longer since I’d been inside the garage where I knew I would find him once I’d realized he wasn’t in the house.

He was down in the inspection pit working on an old MGB roadster. He’d seen me a couple of times since I’d acquired my peroxide-blonde geometric hairdo, so he’d already got over the shock. Well, got over it enough to no longer mention it, anyway. He came to the edge of the pit and peered up at me.

‘Don’t suppose you can give me a hand, maid?’ he asked. ‘Young Jim Hickson, you know, lives with his mam up by the church, needs to get to Bude tomorrow ’bout a new job. Bleddy young fool’s never learned how to look after an MG exhaust. Drives everywhere fast as he can whatever the state of the road and he’s really scuppered it this time.’

I bent down so that I could clearly see the end of the B’s exhaust pipe hanging at a terminal angle.

‘Needs a whole new system, of course, but I’m damned if I can get the parts in time,’ Dad went on. ‘Two or three days, they say, so I’m just going to have to patch ’er up...’

He was a lovely man, my dad, kind, trustworthy, always trying to help people. It was just like him to be putting himself out for a neighbour, a young man I knew he had seen grow up. If only I could have married a man like him, I thought to myself, not for the first time.

I straightened up and smiled down at him.

‘So it’s the old bean-can trick is it?’

‘It sure is,’ he said. ‘Fiddly bleddy job, too, and ’twould be a damn sight easier with two pairs of hands.’

‘I’m not sure I’d be much help,’ I remarked casually.

‘Oh yes, you would.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I persisted.

‘Come on, maid.’ It was Dad’s turn to persist. ‘When you worked with me as a slip of a girl you were a better mechanic than any boy. You should have carried on with it, you know. You were a natural. You won’t have forgotten, I’m sure of it.’