“Well, now, what have we here?” The plump, fifty-ish woman behind the desk crisply stacked papers that didn’t appear to need straightening, smiling with her mouth but not her eyes. She sported a bold statement necklace reminiscent of Theresa May. Her tight checked suit was a brand of ugly that only high-end designers can conjure, and she exuded a malicious cheer. “Kate and Cyrus! I’m Close of Day’s director, Dr Mimi Mewshaw—though I don’t stand on ceremony, and you can call me Dr Mimi.”
“Kay and Cyril Wilkinson, thank you,” Cyril corrected. “And are you a medical doctor?”
“I’m fully accredited, if that’s what you’re worried about, poopsie.”
“I take that as a no,” Cyril said. “I am a medical doctor.”
“Sure you are, treasure,” Dr Mimi said smoothly. “We have all kinds of super-important residents at Close of Day. Napoleon, Batman, and Jesus, to name a few. Now, I take it you two are sweethearts?”
“We’re not ‘sweethearts,’” Kay said. “We’ve been married for nearly sixty years.”
“It’s just that we don’t have any double suites available at the minute, so I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with singles.”
“You mean we can’t even sleep in the same bed?” Cyril asked, eyes popping.
“No, sweetie, afraid not. And you’re one-seventeen council charges, meaning the compensation is quite inadequate—below cost, to be honest—so if a double does become available, we have to prioritize private self-paying guests. Beggars can’t be choosers! But at your age, treasure, really. What does it matter? We find our clients sleep more soundly in separate beds anyway. Less chance of getting agitated.” Dr Mimi turned to her computer screen and clicked away. She had one of those monster terminals that could have been twenty years old, which didn’t speak well for the rest of the facilities. “I see here you’re classified as in danger of self-harm? That’s a special regime, but don’t you worry. Safety first! Lance, could you search Kate and Cyrus’s bags, please?”
The tall black orderly who’d been lurking by the door took Cyril’s bag and splayed it open on a nearby table. The carefully folded button-downs and trousers with their creases lined up all got pitched willy-nilly in a rumpled pile.
“What is this, airport security?” Cyril asked incredulously.
“Medication,” Lance announced, holding up one of the only bottles left in Lambeth once Hayley was through protecting her parents from themselves; the laxatives had been tucked away in Cyril’s travel toiletry kit.
“That’s only over-the-counter senna,” Cyril objected. “Surely I can be trusted to manage my own bowels.”
“We control all your medication,” Dr Mimi said. “If you overdosed on that, think what a mess you’d make for our staff. Speaking of which, Cyrus—”
“I think I’d prefer ‘Dr Wilkinson,’ if you don’t mind.”
“Why, funnily enough, I do mind,” Dr Mimi said, clapping her hands in delight. “All our stakeholders are on a first-name basis, and I’m sure you’ll be with us long enough to get used to the friendly atmosphere! But like I was saying, treasure: when was your last poo?”
“I can’t see why that’s any of your concern,” Cyril said coldly.
“I’ll put you down for an enema, then,” Dr Mimi said sweetly. So when she asked “Katie” the same question, Kay was quick enough to say, “This morning.”
“Sharps,” Lance said robotically. He’d found the Swiss Army knife, metal nail file, fingernail clippers, and corkscrew that Cyril had checked into airline holds for decades. The razor and razor blades got pitched on the director’s desk, too. Yet the confiscations became less logical: felt-tip pens, a blank spiral notebook, his laptop, the iPad from Simon, a copy of the most recent New Statesman, and his hardback of Thomas Piketty’s Capital, which being chained in Dante’s nine circles of hell should at last have provided him the leisure to plough all the way through.
“I would like to request the return of my reading material, please,” Cyril said, and this sadistically jolly glorified lollipop lady couldn’t have appreciated the degree of self-control required to remain civil.
“We find militant political magazines and big, boring books about how terrible the world is, well,” Dr Mimi said. “They’re a wee bit dark for a self-harmer. The material might also get into the hands of other stakeholders, who could find it upsetting.”
“So what are we supposed to read?” Kay asked with alarm, doubtless anxious about her copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, which was definitely “dark.”
“I’m sure you’ll find our community activities so exciting, princess, that you’ll be too knackered to read any old books. Katie, my poppet, I see here from your GP that you’ve been diagnosed with high blood pressure?”
Cyril shot Kay a look of surprise.
“Because that means we have to put you on a no-salt diet.”
“I’m sorry,” Kay said in a panic; she was very fond of olives and pecorino. “But according to more than one massive study, low-salt diets have significantly worse outcomes for coronary disease and stroke than diets with moderate sodium levels, and a no-salt diet would probably kill you.”
That smile finally mirrored by a sparkle in her eyes, the director seemed pleased that fatally
