“To the contrary, I looked it up,” Hayley said, pulling a Post-it note from her bag with the satisfaction of out-nitpicking a nitpicker. “One of the four legitimate reasons to leave the house is ‘to attend to a medical need or provide care for the vulnerable.’ Stopping two vulnerable people with mental health problems from topping themselves certainly qualifies as a ‘medical need.’”
“We’re terribly grateful for your concern,” Cyril said. “Still, what your mother and I decide to do or not do is up to us. Thank you kindly for your offer of support, but we’re of sound mind, and we don’t require your assistance, or even your advice.”
“Actually, I’ve been reluctant to say anything,” Hayley said. “But Mum has become, you know, pretty forgetful.”
“In what way?” Kay asked in astonishment.
“Just the other day,” Hayley said. “You couldn’t remember that author—”
“What, L.P. Hartley? That was a perfectly normal tip-of-the-tongue—”
“But it was the author of, you know, what’s-it, one of your favourite books—”
“See?” Kay said. “You can’t remember the title The Go-Between yourself—”
“It’s not one of my favourite books!”
“I live with your mother,” Cyril said, “and if she were becoming demented I would have noticed.”
“Not if you were demented as well,” Roy said. “You’d forget she was demented.”
“It’s impossible to prove a negative, so we can never conclusively demonstrate that we’re not insane,” Cyril said through his teeth. “Nonetheless, not only do I remember what year it is and who’s prime minister, but I can recite every PM, in order, since 1945. Winston Churchill! Clement Atlee! Winston Churchill—!”
“You already said Winston Churchill,” Hayley said with an eyeroll.
“Bloody hell, Dad, even I can remember Winston Churchill,” Roy said. “Make it a bit harder on yourself.”
“Anthony Eden! Harold McMillan! Alec Douglas-Home!”
“You’ve made your point, dear,” Kay said, patting his knee.
She was right, this recitation was undignified, and Cyril pulled up short.
“I think we should cut to the chase,” Simon said heavily. “We’ve decided it’s in everyone’s interest, especially yours, that you . . . get help. And we’re not presenting that as a choice.”
“What does that mean?” Cyril snapped.
Simon wouldn’t look his father in the eye. “We’re having you sectioned. For your own good.”
“What?” the spouses said in unison.
“Under Section Three of the Mental Health Act,” Hayley said officiously, “you can be detained if you ‘pose a threat to yourselves or others,’ even against your will. We all think it’s the only answer.”
“Hey, you haven’t heard the best bit!” Roy said. “Then you qualify for this, whatever—”
“Section one-seventeen aftercare services,” Hayley filled in.
“It’s not means-tested!” Roy said cheerfully. “The state pays all your care-home fees and you get to keep the house! Fucking hell, you get to keep everything! Most of the time Hayley’s bat-shit crazy, but this time she’s come up with a corker.”
“You have no evidence that would stand up in court,” Cyril said.
“We have evidence up to the eyeballs,” Hayley countered. “Mum’s text. Your bottle of poison. Not to mention that lunatic memorial service. Mum’s tearjerker farewell, which is longer than your average doctoral thesis. Two separate essays extolling the merits of self-euthanasia.”
“And then there’s the spending,” Simon said with a sigh. “I’ve gone through your bank records, and your expenditures are almost manic. You’d paid off the original mortgage years ago. Why refinance? What happened to all the money? This degree of fiscal irresponsibility isn’t going to look good to an AMHP.”
The fact that these kids were already au courant with the abbreviation for the Approved Mental Health Professional who could put them away for eternity was not a good sign. Worse, Cyril remembered with a thud that their buffoon of a prime minister had revised the Mental Health Act earlier this very month to require one physician, not three, to sign off on sectioning. A backhander to a single quack, and your inconvenient parents could be disappeared.
“For one thing, not that it’s your business, son,” Cyril said, “we spent a great deal on keeping your Nanna Poskitt and Grandpa Norman comfortable and cared for.”
“But you also made huge contributions to the People’s Vote campaign. Look how constructive that turned out.” Simon was a Tory Brexiteer and didn’t even have the good sense to be ashamed of himself. It was a miracle that he and his father were still on speaking terms.
“At the risk of the self-evident, we earned our money,” Cyril said. “So it’s up to us how we spend it. Furthermore”—he was winging it, but starting to panic, and they needed every scrap of ammunition that lay to hand—“locking up a qualified GP during a national health crisis would be criminally wasteful. The NHS has already appealed to retired physicians to return to active duty and help keep the service from being overwhelmed—”
“Dad,” Hayley said. “Please. You’re eighty-one. Exactly the demographic most endangered by this disease. On the front line, you’d only be a liability. Wanting to put yourself in the way of a killer virus is just one more sign that you need protection from your own destructive impulses.”
“But never mind that our money belongs to us,” Cyril said, returning to first principles. “Our lives belong to us, whether or not we’re your mum and dad, and it’s up to us how we choose to end them. We may decide, in our wisdom, to stick around until a hundred and ten. Equally, we’d be within our rights to jump off Blackfriars Bridge tomorrow.”
“That’s not how the law sees it,” Simon said, pained.
“And that’s not how we see it,” Hayley said triumphantly. “We promise to come and visit.”
* * *
The council van in which they were bundled out of Lambeth had no windows—it was effectively a paddy wagon—which meant that Kay and Cyril had no idea where in the country they were driven to, giving this nominal adventure a Kafkaesque texture from the start. On their arrival at Close of Day Cottages, there wasn’t a cottage in sight; the facility looked more like an Amazon warehouse or a
