The Decision: Lizzie's Story by Lucy Hay Page A

was quite old in comparison, perhaps forty, and he looked every inch of it: creases were deep in his face as surely as rail lines. It was said by village gossip Mr. Hutchinson had been some kind of big entrepreneur up in London and this certainly appeared to have weight: Hollyhocks was a huge manor, with eight bedrooms, a paddock, two horses and a well stocked garden, with its own gardener. The Hutchinsons were the couple who had everything. So it was all the more shocking when the villagers woke up to the news that Mr. Hutchinson had put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It transpired that Mr. Hutchinson did have a fortune, but it had been wiped out overnight by the stock exchange, though few us really had a concept of what that meant. Feeling unable to tell his young wife, Mr. Hutchinson had decided suicide was his only option, apparently forgetting the act left his large life insurance policy invalid. Mrs. Hutchinson was left with nothing. She was forced to pick up the pieces and sell the house to pay some of Mr. Hutchinson’s debts, moving back in with her own mother back in Birmingham, away from privilege and rural idyll she had been sure she would raise Lawrence in. Perhaps she was still there, all these years later. Hollyhocks had since been bought by a developer and turned into the very holiday chalets my mother cleaned. Needless to say, the holiday company never advertised its bloody history. Mum always complained of a chill to chalet number twenty six, which was on thevery spot the stable blocks had been, where Mr. Hutchinson had apparently blown his brains out.
    And of course, there was Mrs. Darby. For all her posturing about “family” and “community”, Mrs Darby was all alone; there was no Mr. Darby and hadn’t been for over thirty years. One day, out of the blue, Mr. Darby just upped and left… According to Phyllis at the post office, anyway. Something inside me then felt sorry for Mrs. Darby then, even if she was an interfering old bag. But then, Phyllis had had no luck either: apparently she’d met her husband when she was just fourteen, younger than I was now, and they’d enjoyed fifty blissful years together and raised two children. Then, on the brink of retirement and a promised round the world trip together, Phyllis’ husband had abruptly died of a heart attack. There had been no warning signs and he had previously been a healthy man of normal weight, even running the London Marathon twice for charity. Now, like the others, Phyllis was alone in the world and facing her twilight years with no one to share them. Her two grown up children had families of their own and like so many from our country backwater, had long since moved away in search of work. There was little room for Phyllis in their busy lives and being a non-driver with access only to the poorest of rural public transport, Phyllis was lucky if she saw her grandchildren once or twice a year during the summer holidays or at Christmas.
    So if “I will never leave you” was untrue – and being a cynic, I totally believed it was – then “we need to talk” actually meant, “I have something to tell you and you’re not going to like it”. Upon uttering the fateful words, I cursed my choice. I could feel the change in Mike’s demeanour, even down the phone; sudden guardedness with an air of panic, as he felt sure of what I was about to say:
    “You breaking up with me?” He said, attempting to hide the tremor in his voice.
    “No.” I said hastily, “Nothing like that. I just… I just really need to see you.”
    “Then come over.” Mike said again, but I knew I couldn’t. If I went in Francis’ house, my voice would fail me and I’d end up going through the motions of sex with Mike, as he would seek to reassure himself everything was okay between us. Perhaps I would even try and buy into that idea, too. Afterwards he would probably put a DVD on – a gangster film no doubt, those were his favourites – and he