Free For Death Comes Softly by Hilary Bonner Page A

been intended merely as very temporary accommodation when I had moved in more than six months previously. I was still there and the room was now buried in clutter and junk. It also seriously needed fumigating. But you couldn’t get past the clutter to clean it, even if I had had any inclination to do so, which I didn’t.
    I had yet to allow Simon near my own personal tip and I had no wish for him to see the way I was living. Whatever his emotional state, I knew that Simon would always be surrounded by order. That’s the way he was. In fact in the good old days he had been inclined to joke that he had obviously made a mistake and should have married Julia, who of course, also always lived in total order. At least I think he had been joking.
    â€˜Uh, couldn’t we meet for a drink somewhere,’ I suggested desperately.
    â€˜Rose,’ he replied, in the kind of voice you might use to a tiresome child. ‘We need to make the final arrangements for the sale of our home. That’s not something you do in a bar.’
    â€˜Oh,’ I said. And I supposed he was right, really.
    â€˜Look,’ he still sounded like someone exasperated struggling to remain patient, ‘if you don’t want me to come to you, why don’t you pop round here. It won’t take long.’
    I should have said no to that as well. The ‘round here’ he referred to was the idiosyncratic 1920s bungalow on the outskirts of town which had been our home throughout our marriage, and where, by and large, and I hated admitting it to myself now, we had both been happy for so long. Well, I had anyway. Sometimes now I doubted if I had ever made Simon really happy.
    I arrived just after 8 p.m., straight from work. Simon was alone. That at least was a relief. I had heard that he had a new girlfriend. I didn’t know whether she was living with him or not, but I did know that I didn’t want to meet her.
    He opened the front door to me with barely a word of greeting and out of habit I walked straight into the kitchen. A pot of soup was simmering on the stove. Typical. Simon was a great cook who always liked to have something delicious and nourishing on the go.
    â€˜That smells good,’ I said, sniffing the air, and trying, I suppose, to make small talk.
    Another of my mistakes, apparently.
    â€˜Pity you didn’t show some appreciation when you had the chance,’ he sneered.
    I was exasperated, and saddened yet again.
    â€˜Oh Simon, can’t we at least be civil,’ I heard myself plead.
    â€˜It’s a bit late for you to start observing the niceties of life, don’t you think?’ he countered.
    I felt myself flinch. Extraordinary that he could still do that to me.
    â€˜Let’s just get the paper work sorted, shall we?’ he continued.
    I nodded tiredly. Meticulous as ever he explained the mathematics to me, and showed me where to sign. I knew he would never cheat me nor anyone else for that matter. It wasn’t in his nature. Our home and our finances had been divided precisely down the middle.
    â€˜Now are you sure you understand and are happy with everything?’ he asked. God, why was it that every man I encountered seemed determined to patronise me?
    â€˜I don’t want there to be any comebacks,’ he went on, with just a hint of veiled menace, just in case, I supposed, I should be daft enough to misinterpret the reasons behind his concern.
    â€˜It’s all fine, Simon,’ I told him, without a lot of interest. He had a point actually, because he knew I was barely sitting up and taking notice. I was past caring, as it happened. I had after all already concluded that dividing up two lives which had been entwined as one for so long was about the most deeply depressing exercise in the world, and dividing a home was the final step.
    If I’d realised how much going back to the bungalow, for the first time since we had finally parted irrevocably eight