This moment of impulsivity came at a cost, for when she returned to the table the saturated colours of the tableaux had coarsened from Rembrandt to Hockney.
“We were talking about Trump!” she recommenced with a renewed zestfulness, returning her serviette to her lap and recharging both wine glasses. “I might rather know what happens to the git. In fact, I’d like to get to the last chapter of all manner of stories. Will the coronavirus peak and subside like any old bog-standard outbreak, or is civilization as we know it finished? Will the European migration crisis resume? Will the UK’s potentially ruinous commitment to ‘carbon neutrality’ by 2050 make the slightest difference to climate change? Will the climate change after all, but quite differently than we imagine? And what is it that will surely happen in the next twenty years—doubtless something terrible—which no one today has even thought about?”
Cyril regarded her with a new wariness. This every-day making-conversation was surely disconcerting. It was getting late. Sombre summary pronouncements about two lives well lived and a long, loving marriage would have seemed more suitable than cant about climate change.
“Shall we clear up?” Kay proposed.
“Why on earth?”
“We always clear up.”
“Tonight is the end of always.”
She arose and carried the leftover bangers to the counter beside the fridge. “It wouldn’t do to let this food spoil.”
“Why not? Who’s going to eat it?”
“Well, maybe one of the children—”
“One of the children is going to discover both parents overdosed on Seconal and then scavenge the fridge for potatoes?”
“Probably not Hayley, she’s too theatrical,” Kay conceded. “But Simon is very practical—even if he’s become a bit snobbish for leftovers—and Roy is always hungry.”
“You’re forgetting about two large pieces of meat which are bound to go off,” Cyril said brutally, “and spoil any visitor’s appetite.”
“Yes, I was wondering about that,” Kay said, sealing cling film over the cabbage. “How long do you think it will take for anyone to notice we’re not out and about? Especially with all this ‘social distancing’ and ‘shielding’? Because I took on a design job once where an old man had died, and they’d only found him after a neighbour complained to the council about the reek. The smell lingered interminably, and halved the property’s market value.”
“So? We barely own this house any more. It’s mortgaged to the hilt.”
“But I do worry about giving one of the children a fright. It seems inconsiderate. Hayley would claim to have PTSD for the rest of her life. So I wonder if we might pop to the post box across the road and drop an advisory note to the police.”
“After privatization, Royal Mail’s got so rubbish, not to mention the Met after all those Tory cuts. When Hayley and Simon can’t rouse us on the phone, one of them will drop by, or contact the authorities themselves. I doubt a note would work any faster than leaving it to chance.”
“Oh, you’re probably right.” Kay collected the plates and slotted them into the dishwasher. “I know it seems silly to tidy up. But I like order, and I like our regular ritual, and I don’t want to spend my last night on earth surrounded by grot.”
This was an explanation Cyril seemed to accept. He put away the mustard and, as he’d always done, wiped down the counters.
“Port and crumble?” she proposed once the kitchen was spotless. As Cyril fetched the bottle, she glanced at the clock. It was already ten fifty-five p.m.—the literal eleventh hour—and she had a feeling that her husband would be a stickler about the exact conclusion of her eightieth birthday. Even arguing for an extra hour after having been cheated by the clocks’ changing wouldn’t likely wash; it would introduce the same possibility of infinite delay as last year’s pushing back of the EU withdrawal date.
When they retired to the sitting room, Kay’s mood sank. She might have prepared the meal that afternoon in a meditative swoon, but she’d been inattentive. The crumble topping was slightly burnt, the apples were overcooked, and she really should have forced herself to whisk up the custard from scratch. This poor showing was destined to be her last pudding ever? And granted, their daughter lived conveniently nearby in Borough. But Hayley did sometimes make a fashionable gesture of independence from the screen, Kay recalled morosely, and turned off her phone for days.
Kay’s printed-out directions for their memorial service were arrayed on the coffee table, along with a flash drive with the digital files for the family’s convenience. But so much for liking order; the papers looked neat, but their contents were a shambles. She’d listed well too many musical selections, and before dinner had even scribbled “Dock of the Bay” onto the hard copy, as if twenty-three songs needed a twenty-fourth. When she’d tried to trim her farewell address, she kept thinking of indispensable additions, and the document had grown only more bloated. In kind, when she’d tried to soften the chiding self-righteousness of the essay to accompany the order of service, she merely managed to sound condescending (we’re responsible, but it’s too much to ask for you to be responsible). Besides, when Cyril had finally got round to writing his own farewell, he refused to be “sentimental” and instead pontificated about the same costs to the NHS, the looming “economically unsustainable support ratio,” and the “burden on younger taxpayers” that she’d cited in her own essay, so the compositions were redundant. Worst of all, during the coronavirus lockdown, which could prospectively last for months, funerals
