Five Roundabouts to Heaven by John Bingham Page A

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    “But, dammit, she is flesh and blood, and filled with her hopes for the future. I am part of those hopes.”
    Now he imagined the constable looking at him in surprise and heard him say:
    “Don’t think me rude, sir, but aren’t you being a bit conceited? There are other men in the world, sir. She sounds a very attractive young lady. Anyway, there’s no reason to kill her, sir, none at all. That’s murder, that is.”
    “You think she would get on all right without me?”
    “I think she would be very hurt, sir. Especially in her vanity. Women are great ones for vanity, sir.”
    “But she would get on all right in the end?” he heard himself insisting.
    “I’ve no doubt she would get over it, sir. Anyway, she would rather take her chance, sir, if you were to be so bold as to put it to her.”
    By the time he had reached the traffic lights at Holland Road he had made up his mind. He saw now that he had been overdramatizing things. He had been neurotic and hypersensitive and ridiculous, and had very nearly put his neck, literally, into a noose.
    It was perfectly simple, after all.
    He would leave Beatrice and go and live in digs again, near Lorna. He would do just that. He would give Beatrice a handsome share of his income. Five hundred a year, that’s what he would give her. Tax-free, too. A good income that, even in these days.
    She would be all right on that. If he earned more money, he would give her a share of that, too. He’d be generous all right. She never would be able to reproach him on that score. Then she would divorce him, and he would be able to start afresh with Lorna. Just the two of them, together, for always.
    Beatrice was a strong character really; she just had moments of weakness; but Lorna needed him and he needed Lorna. Beatrice would be hurt, which was a pity, but she wouldn’t live in a wilderness of loneliness as Lorna would without him. Lorna wasn’t as strong as Beatrice.
    Beatrice would go out into the world again and, with her indomitable courage, carve out a new life for herself, probably a far better life than she had led with him. He felt queasy as he thought how, through a total misjudgement of the situation, he had so nearly placed himself within reach of the law. After all, however clever you were, there was always a chance that you would be caught.
    “There’s always the risk,” he murmured, “there’s always the risk.”
    By the time he had driven up to the door of his block of flats, he knew that what he had decided to do must be done quickly. He knew himself, at least to some extent.
    In two days he was going up north again. In Manchester he would write Beatrice a letter explaining things. He would praise her to the skies, and the praise would not be unmerited. He would take all the blame upon himself, blacken himself, castigate his own weakness.
    There would be no criticisms, no reference to previous quarrels, no harking back to grievances and past disappointments, no suggestion at all that since she had married with her head rather than her heart she was at least partly to blame.
    Then he would simply not come back.
    Knowing himself, he knew that he might weaken if he came back, and if she cried and implored him to give the marriage another chance. He wouldn’t risk it.
    As it was late, he left the car in front of the house and went upstairs to the flat. He let himself in quietly, and switched on the light in the hall, and glanced casually at the letters on the hall table.
    There was a Final Demand from the gas company, a document from the authorities telling him that unless he appealed he would be summoned for jury duty, and a bill from the local garage: a fairly representative selection of letters, in fact. He stuffed them in his overcoat pocket. Before he left, he would clear up all outstanding bills; he would leave her clear, able to make a clean start.
    He made his way to the kitchen and cut himself a thick slice of bread and cheese, and ate margarine