“But none of the angry young people ransacking the last of the West End theatres can say any of these things. They’ve experienced nothing but hardship and decline. They have no future, and they know it. The fundamentals of the Western world entered a fatal disequilibrium well before the rabble-rousing of Extinction! tearaways. Maybe those hooligans are just trying to get the inevitable demolition over with as fast as possible—”
“Sh-sh,” Kay said.
“Where you go?” came a female voice from the floor below.
“Got to get the plate from the oldies,” said the man who’d brought the mush. “We running low, ’cause they keep breaking. And got to empty they fucking bucket. Whoo-ee! Nothing that smell like oldie poo-poo.”
“Why you keep bothering with them shrivelly white folks?” the woman demanded. “We need the mealy-meal for the children. They stink, and they never stop running they mouths. Mumba-mumba-mumba come from the ceiling all day long.”
“Kokie, me soft lad, the queen’s spot on,” said a booming male voice in a strong Scouse accent. “Don’t make no sense, know what I’m saying? Scran’s proper tight, like. Might as well feed a boss tea to a pair of mangy dogs.”
“But they elders!” the minder protested. “They due respect!”
“Leave that guff back in the old country, mate,” the big male voice said. “Practical times call for practical measures.”
The catch on the hatch moved, and the loft ladder unfolded with a violent clatter. Kay clutched Cyril’s arm and their eyes met.
“What you gonna do, Dicky?” their minder pleaded from below. “What you gonna do?”
The man who emerged from the hatch was a massive, heavily muscled white fellow of about twenty-five they’d never seen before. He was carrying a machete. Had she downed that Seconal in 2020, it was one more image Kay would have spared herself. But at least the vision of her husband’s decapitated body didn’t burn on her retinas for more than a second or two.
11
Love Doesn’t Freeze
“There is a whole movement that advocates ‘ageing in place,’” Cyril noted.
“I’m all for it,” Kay said emphatically. “I like it here. I’ve put in loads of work on this house. The conservatory is exquisite. I’m thrilled with the trailing orchid wallpaper in the sitting room. I want us to keep our garden. I want to pour myself a second glass of red wine without having some officious matron whisk it away because it isn’t good for me.”
“There’s still the danger that I whisk it away,” Cyril said.
“Just try.”
In the end, they never put down that stonking deposit for Journey’s End. Giving the ritzy safe haven a miss was a gamble, but, as Kay observed, every decision we make in this life is a gamble, isn’t it?
Yet in the exuberant years of celebration, rejuvenation, and rebirth that followed the conclusion of the coronavirus crisis, Kay and Cyril felt abruptly at odds with the buoyant social mood. The inevitable economic slump in the immediate aftermath was later classified as creative destruction. Soon new restaurants opened and new businesses blossomed. The FTSE traced not a mere V-shape, but a J—soaring stratospherically and fattening everyone’s pension plans. The Wilkinsons felt as if they’d not been invited to the party. Oh, their own private pensions were bursting, but what good was money that they wouldn’t live to spend? First Cyril was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and on top of the disease’s universally poor prognosis the NHS diagnosed it on the late side. On the heels of this crushing news, Kay learnt that the persistent pain and weakness in her shoulder, along with muscle cramps, increasing difficulty walking, and a sudden inability to open her own marmalade jars, had been an early sign of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis—or ALS.
“I’m rusty after having left St Thomas’ so many years ago,” Kay said limply at the kitchen table. “So I had to look it up. I might live another four years, but I’ll progress quickly towards paralysis. My favourite symptom: ‘inappropriate laughing or crying.’ In time, I’ll not be able to eat, or talk, or breathe without a ventilator. Maybe it’s time to source that Seconal again.”
“I have another idea,” Cyril said. Though scheduled for chemo, he hadn’t yet committed to a gruelling treatment that for a man of his advanced age would undoubtedly fail. “They’ve made massive leaps in cryogenics the last few years. None of this sticking-you-in-preservative-fluid-like-a-pickle business, but proper suspended animation. You remember that package we saw on Channel Four. They kept a hamster perfectly inert for eighteen months and then woke it up again, to run happily round its cage. What’ve we got to lose? If it turns out that at some later date we can’t be revived after all, we’re goners anyway—and set to die in the most dreadful manners imaginable. There’d still be a sliver of a chance that it works, and by the time we’re revived, pancreatic cancer and ALS are curable.”
“Sure, why not?” Kay said carelessly. So far, a death sentence had inclined her to be flip, even giddy—perhaps as a forerunner of all that inappropriate laughing or crying to come. She leant to seal their agreement with a peck. “My very own Rip Van Wilkinson.”
* * *
The fact that the outer office of Sleeping Beauties Ltd was decorated with Disney paraphernalia didn’t encourage confidence. Rather, cartoons of bunny rabbits and dwarves increased the sense that this dubious endeavour was having a laugh at the clients’ expense. Most of the exhaustive paperwork was to absolve the company of any legal liability. At least the extortionate fees didn’t make either spouse blink. Facing oblivion, these lifetime tightwads had finally registered that money had no value in and of itself, but was only a means to an end, and was therefore only valuable when you spent it. Barring the success of this kooky experiment, both a
