“I think we owe it to all those great- and great-great grandchildren to gather the troops,” Kay suggested.
“Yes,” Cyril said. “I keep picturing a bed. Us in our bed upstairs with lots of pillows, holding court.”
“That’s the cliché,” Kay said. “But I don’t want to loll about having my cheek kissed, smelling of camphor and having to listen over and over to what a bloody marvellous example I’ve set. It sounds terribly staid and like something out of Tolstoy.”
“That may be why I keep picturing the scene in sepia tones.”
“I think we should hold our own wake. None of this lazing-abed business. A proper knees-up, in the Irish tradition, when everyone gets stewed.”
Naturally, none of their family, friends, and disciples took the nature of the invitation seriously. It was assumed that the Wilkinsons were being droll—as if such roundly revered luminaries needed an excuse for a party. This wink-wink “wake” was widely regarded as the highlight of London’s social calendar for 2050, and regrets were not merely few; they were non-existent.
By late afternoon, the house in Lambeth was overflowing. Having failed to register the sincerity of the purported occasion, most guests arrived with presents, which toppled in mountains by the door. It was midsummer, and the weather was warm and fair—as Kay had somehow intuited it would be. Murmuring tenderly to all she met, the hostess sipped champagne that never went to her head. She’d reluctantly acceded to having the do professionally catered, after Cyril called her attention to the length of the guest list; she shouldn’t spend this of all days filling trays in the kitchen. Mischievously, they’d agreed to serve all the creamy, carnivorous fare they’d spurned for decades, and when Kay sampled a passing almond tart the shock of sugar was subversively thrilling. They’d also compiled a playlist, so the property-wide sound system cycled through favourites from the era in which they wed: Shirley Bassey, the Everly Brothers, Tommy Bruce and the Bruisers.
Kay wore a long flowing dress in white rayon that she hadn’t donned in eons, whereas Cyril, who wanted more than anything simply to feel comfortable, wore his usual ivory button-down and roomy trousers with a break in the leg, keeping his navy cardigan with wooden buttons and a roll collar at the ready for later in the evening when it was bound to get cool. In context, he was conspicuously underdressed, for their guests had gone all out. Kay was especially touched that Hayley (now seventy-eight, but also benefiting from her parents’ enchanted genes) must have spent hours swirling her hair up with chopsticks, the better to match the gifted birds of paradise kimono.
There were testimonials, and in truth they grew a tad trying; it was funny how weary you could grow of listening to what a wonderful person you were. After one of the great-great granddaughters finished reciting a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, the couple gently urged their admirers to wrap it up.
It was light until well after ten. As the sun faded reluctantly from the long-shadowed garden, Kay and Cyril slipped out back with recharged glasses (in this white dress, she might have declined to switch to red wine, but given the reason for this party a drop or two on the rayon would hardly matter). The garden, too, was full of revellers. Yet as the fairy lights came on, the hosts located a deserted copse with two weathered teak chairs and a table for their drinks. On this private patch of lawn, Kay and Cyril slow-danced to a Van Morrison rendition of “I Wanna Go Home” and the Drifters’ “Save the Last Dance for Me.” But it was only once “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” came on that Cyril announced, “They’re playing our song.”
They sat. Kay sampled the cabernet (which she never called a “cab”). Her table manners faultless to the last, the white dress remained immaculate.
“So you feel it, too?” she asked.
“Of course I do. I feel as if we’ve been in the process of convergence since 1963, and finally we’re in perfect sync. I wouldn’t say we’ve become the same person. It’s more as if we make up the same person.” He inquired in sudden concern, “Not in any pain, are you, bab?”
“No, no, not at all,” she assured him. “It’s only that feeling of resolution again, but much more intense.”
To emphasize the heady sensation, she inhaled a lungful of the cabernet’s concentrated fruit. There had always been a touch of the immoderate about Kay’s passion for red wine, and now no purpose would be served in its restraint. Yet despite the implicit permission of the moment, she wanted to face this mysterious frontier in a state of clarity. Her single blissful sip was chaste.
“I must say, we chose the red splendidly, my dear,” she added, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. “Robust, and balanced. Just like you and me.”
They held hands and kissed deeply, the way they used to kiss for hours when they were courting, and withdrew from each other’s lips at last with the same reluctance they remembered from those days as well, when they had to get back to their medical studies. That kiss sent a tingling shimmer through the entirety of their lives together, as if their
