Billy’s mouth tasted like washing-up liquid as I struggled to get a firm pinch on his nose and give him back the life I’d allowed to slip away. I felt sick with adrenaline and fear as his first rib broke in my heavy-handed desperation.
You were wrong, I heard my inner voice tell me. You could treat him like your own. A second rib snapped. It will take small steps, but you could spend more time with him; buy him a bigger and better boat; teach him how to ride a bike like you did with the others; watch him from the sidelines as he scores the winning goal for his football team . . . Yes, you could do all of that if you were given a second chance. But you won’t be.
In the time it took me to watch him die, I had mapped out our next sixteen years together as father and son. My son. Not biologically, but my son nonetheless.
Even when the ambulance men appeared from nowhere, I refused to admit failure. But inside I knew it was too late. Billy was dead and I had let it happen.
I’d stroked Catherine’s hair as she lay deep in the floor sobbing her heart out, her baby by her side. Her world had been shattered and she was reduced to rubble and ruin. The hurt she had caused me was nothing compared to what I had done to her.
20 March
For weeks Catherine did little but blame herself, my decision condemning her to an intolerable purgatory. And my inability to reveal the man she loved had been responsible for her son’s death cast a shadow over all our lives.
Each time she chose sleep over reality, I’d put on my running shoes and sprint as fast as I could until my legs folded beneath me. I deliberately chose hard surfaces so I could feel every jolt of concrete jar my knees and spine, because the physical pain eased the mental one.
Each time I hurt myself, I’d hope it would take some of hers away, but there was nothing I could possibly have done for that to happen.
12 May
To the outside world, I was the portrait of a consummate husband. But inside, I was in bedlam. I dragged myself through the motions to keep the family engine running. I became an expert in forging smiles and convincing the concerned that everything would be all right in the end, given a little time.
I made myself responsible for all the children’s needs while Catherine was too empty to cope. I was the face that friends saw when they turned up on our doorstep to see how we were.
I took a leave of absence from the business to take charge of the everyday tasks like shopping, housework and gardening. I cooked all our meals, made sure the children had clean school uniforms and kept them occupied when their mum needed to be alone.
We spent hours together pretending to fish in the stream near the cottage. Sometimes I’d stare into the water, convinced I could see Dougie’s blood caught in a whirlpool and unable to dissolve. We took drawn-out walks through the fields searching for snaggle-waggles or spent time in the garden playing board games. At a time I should have been close to them, I’d never been so far away.
I juggled so many balls at once and only I knew what the repercussions of dropping them would be. I saw the consequences of my actions in my wife every day. And it helped me to understand that it wasn’t just remorse over Billy’s death I was feeling, but towards the death of our marriage. Opportunity had presented me with a chance for revenge I’d never considered. Yet once my mission was complete, I felt nothing. It hadn’t healed me like I’d hoped it might; we were broken, with or without him.
I’d been weak when I’d tried to bring him back to life. Filling his lungs with a stranger’s air would not have helped me long-term. Even with his blood on my hands, I still felt the same kind of rawness as when I’d discovered Catherine’s affair. All I’d done was force four people to feel as worthless as myself. And my misery didn’t love company.
I frequently had to remind myself it was her duplicity that provoked my reaction. She had brought this on us. I watched in silence as she floated without aim through the house, unable to associate herself with the world. Now she knew how I’d felt when I found out about her and Dougie.
The pressure on me to keep up my facade was immense, as I had nobody to confide in. So I took to sitting in the woodland near to the man buried below the blue rope. It was the only place where things made sense.
I’d talk to Dougie like I did when we were innocents. He understood me and I believed that wherever he was, he knew what he’d done to me was wrong. I became envious of how easy it was for him to accept it and how uncomplicated things were for him now he was resting beneath a carpet of dirt.
It would be so much simpler if I, too, were six feet under.
22 October
For nine long months, Catherine remained in darkness. Then, gradually, the sun began to reveal itself and she rose from the bottom of the hill and navigated her way back up it.
We were sitting watching The Two Ronnies when she unexpectedly laughed at a sketch. We all turned sharply to look at her, as it was a sound we’d not heard for so long.
‘What?’ she asked, surprised by our attention.
‘Nothing,’ I replied, and I knew my time was coming.
As she slowly healed, my disintegration was close to completion. My wife was on her way home, but in doing so, she was leaving me behind. She had learned to live with what she thought she’d done. But I couldn’t live with what she’d done to me.
Christmas and New Year passed, and as winter merged into spring and then summer, my trips to the woodland copse grew more frequent. I’d pick up the rope from the ground and feel my way around it, tugging it between both hands until it was taut. Then I’d face the canopy to search for the strongest, sturdiest-looking tree branch. Several times I thought I was ready to kill myself, then I’d make an excuse as to why it didn’t feel like the right day to complete my mission. Each time I’d walk back home, cursing myself for not having the strength to go that extra mile.
Tomorrow, I’d tell myself. I’ll be able to do it tomorrow.
And eventually tomorrow came.
Northampton, today
8.20 p.m.
She shook her head vigorously. She was adamant that the horror story he’d told her about Billy wasn’t true.
‘No, your Alzheimer’s is making you confused,’ she began faintly. ‘Let me call Edward. He can come back from the golf club and help you.’
To this point, making anyone else aware of his secret existence had been the last thing she wanted to do. But now her need to prove that his confession was actually confusion became a much higher priority for her. Edward could examine him, test him. Allow her to dismiss the abomination he’d just admitted to committing.
But Simon fixed a watery gaze upon her and slowly shook his head. Her stomach began the first of many somersaults.
‘I was there, don’t you remember?’ she continued, gently coaxing him. ‘I left Billy alone, not you. I was the one who found him and shouted for help. It wasn’t your fault: it was mine, wasn’t it? Remember?’