“But if I did . . . Would you ring nine-nine-nine?”
She considered, washing the champagne glasses, which didn’t go into the dishwasher or they’d etch. “Probably, yes. And then there’d be the possibility of not coming out the other side in tip-top shape.”
“Were you ever going to go through with it?” he asked mournfully, still slumped in his chair.
That pulled her up short. “I’m not entirely sure. Some days, probably. This morning, almost. And I’ve loved the holidays, spending all our money. I’ve quite fancied the proposition that I’ll never have to face getting any older than I am today. I’ve fancied the denial. Why not? Worrying about getting old doesn’t make it easier.” She leant into his ear as she cleared off the potatoes. “Tonight, you may even have given me a gift, whether or not you meant to. I’m happy to be alive. As I should be.” She kissed his forehead. “It’s my birthday.”
But it was only when Cyril finally pulled himself up and began to wipe down the counters that Kay exhaled with relief. She put away the food. There was just about enough left over of every dish for tomorrow night’s dinner.
* * *
The next morning at breakfast, Kay was still relishing the rare sensation of sitting in the marital driver’s seat—not to mention the sensation of sitting anywhere at all. She’d had to run out for provisions, because before a certain change of plans she’d had no reason to stock up; to the contrary, she’d made a concerted effort to systematically run down the larder to a cup or two of sugar, an impulse-buy tin of red bean paste from the Asian supermarket near Elephant, and a bag of dried red lentils (which so disappointingly lost their colour when cooked). But thanks to the morning’s hasty excursion to the M&S Metro, whose shelves weren’t yet entirely emptied by hoarders, these crumpets were extra fresh.
“Now, I’m not saying we have to toss the tablets in the toilet,” Kay said, waiting for the butter to melt into the perforations. “We could still face some medical calamity and require a resort. They can stay where they are. I’m accustomed to that box, and I find it a useful reminder to try to enjoy the day.”
Cyril had seemed sheepish since they got up. Having begged her for a few extra minutes of embrace in bed, he didn’t seem to wish he were dead any more than she did. “Dear me, I just remembered,” he said. “Whilst you were in the loo last night, I slipped out the front to pop a note to the Met in the post box. It told them where to find us and that we’d be—you know.”
“Why alert the police? The smell? Or to spare the children?”
“To spare the house. I informed the police that the Samsons have a key. You picked out such a corker of a new front door, with all those fiddly diamonds of leaded glass. I couldn’t bear the peelers smashing those panes with a battering ram.”
She was touched. Cyril might have been resistant to her second career at first, but in time he’d grown proud of her good eye. “Does that mean they’ll be letting themselves in at any moment? As I picture the scene, it’s awkward.”
“That post box is collected on weekday mornings at eleven o’clock,” Cyril said. “I don’t imagine the police will get my note until tomorrow or the day after at the earliest. Gives us time to head them off, or at least to figure out what to say. ‘Sorry, we’re scaredy cats’? And then we’re on the public record as a danger to ourselves. That won’t look good if Roy ever gets a mind to section us in some hellhole against our will and sell the house.”
“Yes, it would certainly be Roy,” Kay said with a sigh. “But it’s still only ten forty-five. Why don’t I try and intercept the postman—or postperson? She’s always seemed sweet, and I might talk her into giving the letter back.”
Kay positioned herself by the red pillar-box a few minutes before eleven. Sure enough, the pretty young Somali who’d delivered their post for the last year showed up with her mail cart and key right on time. She was wearing blue Latex surgical gloves and a paper mask on her chin.
Kay wasn’t about to divulge the real story, so came up with an elaborate tale about having become convinced that the couple had been victims of fraud (which happened so often these days; the number of pensioners cleaned out by unscrupulous scammers was a scandal). But husband and wife simply hadn’t been communicating, and the charge Cyril had put on their credit card—for her birthday, which was yesterday, and yes, thanks so much for your good wishes—well, it was perfectly valid after all . . .
The story didn’t make much sense. Obviously, you didn’t write to the police about fraudulent card charges but contacted Visa directly. Happily, a young person would readily assume that the decrepit were procedurally clueless. Besides, the girl wasn’t really listening, another advantage, in this case, of the petitioner’s advanced years, and she seemed eager to get away from an old woman, because the elderly had already acquired an ominous air of contagion.
Kay pointed. “There! That’s it. The light
