As for Kay, there was nothing for it. She had made her choice. Perhaps a prudent choice as well; her DNA was indeed riddled with dementia, whereas his own father, the old bastard, remained of sound mind to ninety-nine. He hadn’t forced her. She had poured her own water and extended her hand for the tablets, which she’d swallowed of her own accord. This was nothing like a homicide, but a mere forking in the road of once-mutual intent.
That said, it was a great relief to Cyril that his wife would never know he changed his mind.
The ability to think methodically at such a juncture was nothing short of shocking, but he had already found out something about himself this evening that he hadn’t known before. This capacity for calculation was simply one more door opening in a character whose floor plan turned out to include many more rooms than he’d imagined. He would need to notify the authorities in due course, though surely the tearful call could wait for daybreak. In the meantime, best arrange matters in such a way as to allay any suspicion of foul play. He could already hear himself bewailing to an abashed, mutely respectful officer, “It’s true, for the last few weeks she’s seemed depressed, but I’d no idea her spirits had sunk this low . . . She must have come downstairs late last night, as she sometimes does when she can’t sleep, usually to read without disturbing me—though I’ve always assured her that I’m not bothered in the slightest if she keeps her bedside light on . . . And then I found her on the sofa this morning!” It wouldn’t be a strain to appear upset, because he was.
Cyril rescued the remaining tablets from the coffee table and pipped them in the bottle, which he restored to the black box. The box he fitted back in its ritual location, the far upper left corner of the fridge—who knows, he might still require an exit strategy at a later date—then occluded the box with Kay’s 2018 thick-cut Seville marmalade (a vintage batch) and a darkening jar of mint sauce. He slid his clean tumbler back in the cupboard. He sponged the last sticky remnants of the spilled port from the table and scrubbed a few spots from the carpet. He slipped the flash drive with Kay’s memorial documents into an upstairs mug of pens and pencils where it would never attract attention. He flipped through the printouts and removed his own farewell address, as well as Kay’s essay on why they had resolved to slough off their mortal coils in tandem. These papers he set afire in their log burner, then shovelled out the black flakes and stirred them into the ash pail. He kept the order of service and her memorial farewell, which unambiguously established her dire intentions. The spatter of port on the printout’s edges added a convincing touch of emotional disarray.
Yet he could not allow his beautiful wife to be pawed over by paramedics or policemen, perhaps photographed as well, whilst her becoming white frock was stained with ruby port. Lovingly, he unfastened the buttons at the back and worked the frock down her hips. Kissing her neck in apology for the impertinence—she was still warm—he removed her undergarments as well, taking a moment to gaze mournfully at the woman still comely in old age whose every square inch he knew as intimately as his own skin. Upstairs in her bureau, he located a pretty but modest nightdress—an old Christmas present from her mother, which in truth she never wore, because she and Cyril had always slept in each other’s arms naked. From a hook on the back of the bedroom door, he also took a dramatic robe he’d found her on eBay that she adored: a black satin number with a crimson sash and bold 1940s shoulders that would have suited Joan Crawford. Getting the gear on her body was awkward, and however he arranged it the robe still looked askew, but she looked ever so much more presentable—and more as if she’d left him behind in bed to read downstairs.
Lastly, he washed up their crumble dishes and put the remainder of the pudding in the fridge, along with the open carton of Sainsbury’s custard.
* * *
“You’re the one who’s a fanatic. So why aren’t you dead?”
It had struck Cyril as ominous that after all the other guests who participated in the Zoom memorial service had sorrowfully logged off (the ban on gatherings being still in force), Hayley had remained online. Ever since receiving the terrible news, his daughter had seemed not only furious, but bulging with some undisclosed knowledge, like a cat who’d eaten the canary and the cage to boot.
“I realize this loss has been very difficult for you, Hayley,” he said, as ever careful to keep from reclining onto the side of the sofa where he had arranged Kay in her robe. “But you should take heart that your mother led a full and wonderful life. It’s just that she had started, you know, to forget things . . . After dementia ravaged both Grandpa and Nanna Poskitt, I can only assume she wanted to spare us—”
Hayley didn’t seem interested in the pat explanation he had generated for the memorial’s other virtual guests. “Her rambling ‘so long, it’s been nice to know you’ thing that Simon read out on Zoom. Am I the only one who found it freaking weird that Mum remembered to say goodbye to her fourth-best friend, but not to her own husband?”
“Well, she’d have regarded things between us as private.”
“Besides,” Hayley continued, “Mum wasn’t losing it. She was totally on the ball.”
“She was
