Ben walks towards the cliff-edge, where bone-white chalk falls away to the blackened hollow. He stands, gazing out.
‘See, the sunset? Glorious, isn’t it?’
‘Ben…’
My voice tails off. I’m thinking of that September evening when I asked him to meet me here, and I ended the affair – or I thought I had. Reluctantly, painfully, I recall his desperation, his talk of suicide pacts. Wild talk. Melodramatic. He apologised afterwards, but what is said cannot be unsaid.
Seeing him standing on the edge of the precipice, I fear for him more than I fear for myself. I say his name again, but he doesn’t seem to hear. I move to stand next to him, linking my arm with his. He looks at me in surprise, as if he’d forgotten I was there.
‘Ben, I’m sorry if I’ve not made it clear how I feel, although deep down I think you know. There’s no point in continuing this. Come on, let’s go home. It’s time.’ I smile, as I might smile at a child I’m trying to cajole.
I tug gently on his arm to get us away from the edge. He holds firm, his muscles tensing to hardness.
‘No! I won’t let you do this again, Fran. I won’t let you walk away. That is not how it works.’ His eyes bore into mine, glittering with intensity. ‘I say what happens, not you.’
My stomach quakes. I pull away from him, move a few feet away and turn sideways, but when an irresistible magnetism draws my gaze back, Ben’s steely outline is furred with a kind of defeat, his arms hang loosely by his sides.
‘Come on, let’s go.’ I hold out my hand to him. It will be all right. I could walk away now and chance he won’t follow me. But I can’t leave him, not like this.
‘It’s always the same,’ Ben says, in a voice so quiet I hardly hear. ‘Love me. Leave me. You never learn. You’re all the bloody same.’
All? My mind swings to Maria, a lead-weight, landing the truth at my feet.
‘Were you here with Maria, when she…?’ I have to know, whatever the outcome, however dangerous the conversation.
‘Maria? What do you know about her?’ His voice is scathing, but somehow I’m no longer afraid.
‘Maria Capelli. You had an affair with her, before me.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Never mind who told me. It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘So what if it is?’
‘So nothing. It doesn’t matter, it’s all in the past.’
I have Ben’s full attention now, and as I’m speaking, I’m moving slowly backwards across the grass, away from the point of potential danger. To my relief, Ben moves with me.
We’re among the gorse bushes now, almost at the bench, and I feel able to continue this enquiry. I think of Giada leaving her lonely bunch of flowers in this very spot, and my heart puckers. I need to know the truth, and it has to come from Ben himself.
‘I asked if you were up here with Maria, the night she committed suicide. Tell me, Ben. Tell me what happened.’
Silence.
The sun has sunk below the distant hills. Inky darkness heralds the birth of night. A sudden breeze rustles the scrub of bushes. A minute passes, the longest minute, and still Ben doesn’t speak. And in that silence, I begin to understand.
Maria came to High Heaven to end her affair with Ben, just as I did, not to plead with him to be with her. She’d followed him to Oakheart, as Giada said, and Ben, unable to resist, took up with her again. Then everything changed, Maria realised how hopeless the situation was, and decided to end the affair once and for all. Perhaps Tessa had a hand in things, perhaps she didn’t. But Maria took the only course of action possible; she did the sensible thing and told Ben it was over.
Only he couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t let her go. Ben has to be in complete control. Everything on his terms.
Giada didn’t trust the suicide verdict. She was the person who knew Maria better than anyone. Maria may have found it hard to end the affair, but surely that wouldn’t have driven her to kill herself.
I scan Ben’s face forensically for clues, clues I desperately need. I can almost see the cogs of his mind working away behind his eyes.
My hands are clenched, the nails spiking into my palms. My voice comes as hardly more than a whisper. ‘Maria didn’t commit suicide, did she? That isn’t how she died.’
Ben springs back to life. ‘Of course it was suicide! Don’t ask me why she did that, it was nothing to do with me. Fran, I don’t know why you think I was here with her at the time. I wasn’t. I was nowhere near. If I had been, don’t you think I’d have stopped her?’
My turn for silence. He’s wrong-footed me, made me doubt the version of the story my mind has put together using the available evidence, some of which is, admittedly, dubious. But still…
‘If you’re really that interested,’ Ben continues, ‘we did meet here, Maria and me. She told me it was over, and she walked away. But that was well before she did what she did.’ A belligerence had crept into his tone, softened before he spoke again. ‘I don’t know what you’re accusing me of here, Fran. Maria’s death was nothing to do with me. Look, we haven’t come here to talk about her. I want to talk about us, where we go from here. Let’s not waste any more time, eh?’ He smiles.
I’m so confused now, I don’t know what to believe any more. Have I got this so wrong? Is Ben as innocent as he’s making out?
I take a long breath, releasing it slowly to calm myself. ‘I’m sorry, Ben, but I don’t want to talk about us. There is no us. Go home now. Go home to Tessa.’
Ben opens his mouth as if to speak but no sound comes out. His shoulders are rigid; his eyes as he stares at me are hard, cold, and I need to be out of here. Now.
But before I can move, he whirls round on the spot, round and back. And before I can duck out of his way, he grabs me by my upper arms, and my legs are forced to move away from the relative safety of the shrubs, towards the edge of the cliff.
Thirty-Seven
TESSA
Hector plumps into the passenger seat of my car and slams the door shut. The downstairs window of his house frame three anxious faces.
‘They’ll be okay,’ Hector says. ‘I called Grace to come and sit with them. She’ll be here shortly. What’s going on, Tessa?’
I repeat what I’d said on the phone, a rapid account, no details, giving him just enough to form the impression that his wife may be in danger. I’m taking a risk here; if I’m completely wrong and there’s no sign of either Ben or Fran at High Heaven, Hector will think I’ve lost the plot. But since Fran has definitely gone out somewhere and lied about it – which Hector knows as he’s already spoken to Grace – it’s a very small risk.
Hector shakes his head in denial. ‘This can’t be right. Fran wouldn’t be at High Heaven at this time of night, it’s not safe. She wouldn’t put herself at risk.’
‘Not knowingly, she wouldn’t.’
‘Why is she with Ben?’ Hector says, as we fly through Lower Hovington. ‘What’s he got to do with Fran? I don’t get it.’
I cast him a look and watch his face change. Inside me, a tiny fist punches the air.
‘You’re telling me that Fran and Ben… He was the one she was seeing?’
‘Yes, that is what I’m saying. Sorry, Hector.’
‘I knew it was somebody, at the time.’ Hector looks stricken.
‘You knew?’
‘It didn’t take a genius. I had no idea it was Ben, though. My God…’ Hector slaps his forehead. ‘Of course it was Ben. It all makes sense now. But surely he wouldn’t let Fran come to harm? Anyway, it was over between them, long ago. The whole thing only lasted a matter of weeks, as far as I could judge.’ He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘Tessa, are you telling me they’re still seeing each other?’
I don’t reply. I just let Hector process the scant information he has, making goodness-knows-what of it. I just need to get him there. The rest will follow.
We hurtle up the track.
‘Fran’s car.’ Hector says quietly, as if to confirm
it to himself. ‘And that’s Ben’s, right?’
‘Yes.’ I’d half-expected to find them together in one of the cars, which would have speeded things up nicely, but no. Both are empty. I feel a twinge of unaccountable panic.
I stop my car, spewing up cinders, and we pile out. Hector gets a head-start on me, racing up the hill on light, fast feet. I catch up, and I realise with a jolt that my suggestion of impending danger was actually close to the truth.
It’s almost dark. The sky is heavy with cloud, no moon, no stars. Ben and Fran are silhouettes on the cliff edge. They appear to be locked together, but their embrace is not of the amorous kind. At the sound of our voices, their heads turn towards us.
Fran shrieks, an unnerving spurt of sound which reverberates around the chasm below. Ben stares at Hector and me before he faces Fran again.
We’re within ten feet of them, and for once I have no idea how to act, how to deal with this. Fran’s voice reaches us as she addresses Ben. The words are lost but the pleading tone is unmistakable. Indicating to me to stay back, Hector inches forwards.
Hector the hero. I said he might yet surprise me, didn’t I?
‘Ben, let her go. Let her come to me.’ Hector holds out his arms.
I move alongside Hector and call out, keeping my voice even. ‘Ben, come on. You know you don’t want to do this.’
‘Don’t I? Don’t I?’ Ben’s voice splits the night air. ‘There’s nothing left!’
In that nanosecond I know for certain what is really happening here, and I think, Why not? It’s his life, he has the right to end it if he chooses. Then instinct kicks in and I rush forwards, stopping a few feet from him.
Hector is with me, and at the same time, Fran breaks from Ben and throws herself into Hector’s arms. My eyes are fixed on Ben, but I sense Hector leading Fran away from the precipice.
‘Ben?’ I step carefully towards my husband. He’s facing outwards, into the blackness of the sky. We’re so close to the edge; the chalk beneath our feet could crumble and give way at any moment.
Hector is back, urging me to come away. His voice is all breath and hardly any sound. My heart leaps and bangs against my chest wall like an animal trying to escape from a cage. I take no notice of Hector.
‘Ben?’ He turns to look at me and I see the gleam of tears on his cheeks. I stretch out my hand. ‘It’s all right, it’s going to be all right. Just come away from there, please.’ With a silent gesture, I instruct Hector to move back and leave us. ‘Ben, it’s me, Tessa. Only me. Come on, love.’
Another long pause before, eventually, Ben takes my hand and lets me lead him down from the crest of the cliff and across the grass. Hector and Fran materialise out of the darkness, Fran a few steps behind her husband. I nod to Hector, giving him the message that I am all right, that the danger is past.
I hear the soft sound of an engine, maybe more than one, and we all turn to see headlights approaching as the police vehicles move slowly up the track. Ben wrenches himself from my grasp, half runs, half staggers, to the cliff edge.
Seconds later, he’s gone from sight.
Thirty-Eight
FRAN
Tessa’s mouth forms an ‘O’ shape, but no sound emerges. I run to her, putting my arm around her shoulders, but she shakes me off. For a second I think she’s going to follow Ben, and then her legs buckle, and she subsides onto the grass. I drop down beside her, and now she lets me hold her while her body rocks with silent sobs.
I’m aware of Hector talking to the police. I hadn’t realised he’d already called them, but of course he would have. Tessa and I are left alone for a while, then Hector comes over to us with two police officers. I scramble to my feet, not wanting any help, not wanting to be touched, and tell them when they ask that I’m all right and it’s Tessa they need to focus on.
For several endless minutes I was sure Ben was going to push me off the top of High Heaven, the same as he did Maria. The dismissive way he spoke about her, his obvious annoyance that I brought her up in the first place, fuelled my conviction that Ben killed her. I don’t know why I ever doubted it.
As he forced me to the edge, he began talking very fast, the words tripping over themselves in their hurry to be released. None of it made any sense. I remember begging him not to kill me, over and over, but I couldn’t stem the flow of his speech, which grew more intense and garbled as it continued. And then he fell quiet, while he still had hold of me, while we still had hold of each other. I didn’t dare move. I didn’t dare speak, in case I said the wrong thing, the thing that would trigger disaster.
After a while, he looked up to the sky, murmuring words I couldn’t make out, as if sending up a prayer. When he looked back at me, it was as if he couldn’t see me.
His next words were clear enough: ‘It has to stop, all of it. I can’t do this any more.’
I realised he no longer held me in a firm grip. His hands were on my forearms but loosely and I knew I could break away at any time, but I didn’t let go of him. I began talking to him, quietly, calmly – I don’t remember my actual words. I was so focussed on trying to prevent him from leaping to his death that I swept aside any danger to myself. I wasn’t being heroic, nor especially brave. My brain could only deal with one crisis at a time.
When Hector and Tessa arrived, I panicked, pleading with Ben to stay with me, while at the same time I could have prostrated myself with gratitude and relief at the sight of them. I might have screamed, but I can’t be sure. It felt like hours before I felt able to let go of Ben and go to Hector, but it could only have been a matter of minutes. Had I held onto him, refused to leave his side, he might be here now. But I had no fight left in me, and Tessa was there.
We failed, the three of us. We failed to save Ben; me, mostly. In retrospect, there seemed to be an inevitability about the way it ended, as if Ben’s fate was sealed from the moment he set foot on High Heaven tonight.
Sirens now, piercing the night air: police, ambulance, on the road below. A helicopter circling over the valley, lights pulsating. The thought of Ben’s crushed body lying among the trees in the desolate chalk pit has me fighting back waves of nausea. The police activity around us seems to have increased. Tessa is sitting in the back of a police car, a female officer at her side. Her face is a moon-pale mask of shock. She is beyond tears. I find myself being led to a second car.
I turn to see where Hector is. He’s standing by, watching, as if he’s afraid to come near me. And then he does. And as we reach the police car, he gathers me into his arms and presses his lips to the top of my head.
‘I thought I’d lost you.’ His voice breaks. ‘I thought you were going to be taken from me.’
I look up at him, and I know he isn’t only talking about tonight.
Thirty-Nine
One month later
FRAN
It wasn’t until we had given statements and answered all the questions the police had for us – a process which took place over several days following that catastrophic night – that Hector and I talked properly. Grace, by then being fully aware of what had been going on, sat with the girls one evening while Hector and I drove out of Oakheart and had a quiet drink at a familiar country pub. There, by unspoken mutual assent, we began the slow process of reconnection through general chat.
The days leading up to that had been chilly and difficult; I had no right to expect anything different. We acted our parts in front of the girls, but in private we used averted gazes and studious politeness as barriers. I longed to reach out to Hector but knew I must not deprive him of the virtual distance he needed.
I knew something else, too. I’d been incredibly stupid to believe that my unfaithfulness had gone undetected. There must have been moments when I’d looked a certain way, used a particular tone of voice, over-compensated to cover my guilt… tiny nuances that only the person closest to me, in every sense, would notice. After all, Tessa had known about Ben, which did not mean he’d been less than meticulous in covering his trac
ks.
I wonder why I’m not grieving for Ben; it would be natural to do so, in spite of what he did – what he was. Perhaps that feeling will arrive one day, come crashing in when I least expect it. For the moment, he is out of sight, a blind spot on my retina.
Hector was angry. Still is, I’m sure. Discovering it was Ben I’d been seeing must have invoked a paler version of his original reaction. There have been moments when I’ve caught him looking at me with something close to disgust, and at those times, when my heart turned inside out, I believed this was the end of us, and nothing I could do or say would change that.
After we left the pub, we sat in the car at the entrance to a shadow-swept field of wheat and carefully opened the metaphorical box containing our deepest thoughts and feelings.
It’s not a conversation I want to revisit. Suffice to say we talked for a long time, afraid we might forget or leave something out which might in time reappear and fester. Ben’s name came into it, of course. Hector banged the steering wheel with both hands as he said it.
‘Ben, of all people! Somebody that close to us!’
It transpired that Hector had been thinking more along the lines of a man I’d met at work – a locum vet, perhaps.
‘I’m not a saint, Fran,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t easy to hold it together once it hit me that you were seeing somebody. I did it for the girls’ sake. Whatever you’d been doing, I wasn’t prepared to disrupt their lives to that extent. And because I love you, and I hoped that if I waited, you would come back to me. Which you did, in the end. I couldn’t have gone on much longer, though. If it hadn’t ended when it did – I sensed that, too, from the way you were – it might have been different.’
I told him how sorry I was, of course I did. But my apology sounded woefully inadequate and pathetic to my ears, and Hector stopped me with a nod and a squeeze of my hand. Yes, he is hurt, and will carry some of that with him for as long as it takes. For my part, I am beginning to see a time when I might be able to forgive myself. It is, as they say, a work in progress.
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