Christmas came and went, and I might not have noticed it were it not for my little band of supporters. Gladys brought me a special box of Christmas goodies: chocolates, nuts, a pudding, some mince pies, clotted cream, and an oven-ready pheasant.
‘Even a turkey crown’s too big for one,’ she’d said in her businesslike way.
She’d begged me to join the Reverend Gerald and her for lunch at the vicarage, promising: ‘You needn’t worry, luvvie, it won’t be a religious affair. Once the morning service is over Gerry and I just get stuck in to eating and drinking far too much like everyone else. And if you feel like you want to contribute something, I did hear that husband of yours kept rather a good wine cellar...’
I managed a smile for, I thought, the first time since Robert’s arrest. But I declined the invitation none the less.
‘I’m just no kind of company,’ I said. ‘And I’d honestly rather be alone, Christmas Day or not, until this is all over.’
I sent her on her way clutching a couple of bottles of Robert’s finest claret as a seasonal gift, which I hoped would make me seem slightly less ungracious.
Tom Farley stopped by with a tiny beautifully iced Christmas cake, made by his wife, he said, and he too invited me to Christmas dinner.
‘The missus says you’d be ever so welcome and to tell you all men are bastards,’ he recited deadpan.
I managed my second smile in a long time. But I turned him down as gently as I could, gave him some wine too, and sent my love and thanks to his wife.
‘Tell her she’s dead right,’ I said. ‘And when all this is over and I feel more up to it I’ll pop round one day for a cup of tea and we can discuss the matter further.’
He went off chuckling. At least I’d managed not to offend him.
Dad, of course, also invited me for Christmas.
‘Or I could come to you, maid,’ he said.
But this time I think he really did understand my reasons for wanting to be alone. Or maybe at heart he didn’t really want to have to cope with me. Either way, he made little protest when I declined.
He called me on Christmas morning before setting off to spend the day with one of his dart-player pals from the pub. I’d known he wouldn’t have to be alone. Dad was far too popular in his village for that.
We wished each other Happy Christmas, like you do, which seemed rather surreal under the circumstances. In my case, anyway.
Then I set about obediently roasting the pheasant Gladys had given me, along with accompanying roast potatoes and Brussels sprouts for which I’d foraged in the sorry remains of our vegetable garden. I made gravy and even bread sauce. I found an unopened — and unbroken — jar of redcurrant jelly at the back of a cupboard and ladled some into a silver dish. I put the pudding on to steam and scooped the cream into another silver dish. I selected a bottle of the St Emilion Grand Cru 2000, which I knew had been a favourite of Robert’s, and opened it early to let it breathe. I laid the kitchen table with our best cutlery and one silver goblet. Then I cut the pheasant in half with my poultry shears, placing one half on an anonymous new white plate, and surrounding it with vegetables. I poured gravy over it and added a generous dollop of bread sauce.
I set my plate on the table, poured some of the wine, and stepped back to admire my handiwork. It looked great. I knew the pheasant was moist and tender from the way it had sliced open; the roast potatoes were golden and crunchy-looking; the sprouts just right, still firm and crisp. I liked my food. Well, once upon a time I’d liked my food. I stepped forward to take my single place, almost eagerly at first.
And then it hit me. My single place. The previous Christmas my entire little family had been happy and together for the celebration, it being Robert’s turn for Christmas leave. Or so he’d told me. We’d set the table in the formal dining room as we always did on special occasions, with the best cutlery, of course, but also the crystal glasses and the wonderful old dinner service now smashed to bits by his mad first wife.
We’d begun the festive day as usual, with coffee and croissants followed by a glass of champagne. Robert had been in fine humour and had thoroughly embarrassed Robbie with an energetic rendition of Tom Jones’s ‘Sex Bomb’, directed at me. He’d had to appease our son with a glass of Buck’s Fizz. Then, in front of a blazing fire in the sitting room, we’d opened our presents, which had been stacked beneath the tall Christmas tree in the bay window.
As usual in the good old days I’d roasted a goose, which I’d served the traditional English way: with apple sauce and sage and onion stuffing. Robert carved the goose at the table. We all agreed it was much more interesting than turkey, tucked in accordingly, and when we’d finished marvelled at just how much of it we’d managed to put away, accompanied, of course, by copious quantities of carefully chosen claret.
Last year I’d made the pudding myself a couple of months in advance, and we’d all stirred it for luck. We’d had brandy butter as well as clotted cream and finished off the champagne. Then we’d pretty much dozed away the rest of the day in front of the fire in the sitting room, with the TV switched on but its content only fleetingly entering our sated consciousnesses.
I could see it all so clearly inside my head, almost as if it were yesterday rather than a whole year ago. There I was, so secure in the company of my family, cosseted, I thought, by the love of a wonderful husband, excited by all that the future might hold for a clever, attractive son.
That woman, without a real worry in the world, no longer appeared to have been me at all. Last Christmas now seemed almost like some wicked practical joke. Indeed, my whole life with my husband and my poor dead son seemed like a wicked practical joke.
The tears I’d tried so hard to keep away were pricking again. The big house, which I had always thought to be the most wonderful home in the world, filled with warmth and love, felt cold and empty. I felt cold and empty. These were feelings that had begun the day Robbie died and I feared they would never leave me.
I picked up the plate of food I had so carefully prepared and emptied the lot into the bin. Then I threw the horrid white dish, somehow such a stark reminder of all that I had lost, human and mineral, into the sink with such force that it broke in half. Another wanton piece of destruction in a life already ruined.
I felt sick. I just couldn’t eat a thing. I drank the St Emilion, though. And then I opened a second bottle, desperately seeking oblivion again, my only hope of any rest.
Twenty-one
The trial began on Monday the 26th of March 2012. Nearly four months after Robert’s arrest, and almost exactly two months before Robbie would have celebrated his sixteenth birthday. I had been asked to give evidence against Robert. Because I was not his legal wife I could have been compelled to do so. I needed no such compulsion. I wanted him brought to justice.
The prosecution called me as their first witness.
‘To set the scene, as it were,’ the Crown Prosecution Service barrister, Pam Cotton, had said a little obliquely. But I thought I understood pretty much what she meant and although I’d only met her once before, earlier that day in the court’s witness support room, she’d briefed me well enough on what was required.
Thirty-something Pam Cotton was very black and very beautiful. In fact almost disconcertingly so, because at a glance she resembled a Hollywood actress playing the part of a barrister rather more than a working brief. She was a rare Marlene Dietrich-like creature who wore suits so severely tailored that they were quite masculine in cut, and yet somehow contrived to make her appear all the more feminine.
I’d walked with her across the main lobby of the court after our earlier meeting and had noticed heads turning. It was obvious that men could not take their eyes off her. I wondered whether this was an advantage or a disadvantage in her profession. Probably a bit of both, I thought.