Never a Cross Word
Poison, perhaps.
Quick-acting, if you choose the right sort. No mess. Simple to administer.
The problem with a poisoning is that science has progressed so far that you can’t expect to get away with it any more. The police bring in people who make a whole career out of finding symptoms and traces.
Poison is not practical any more.
“I’m putting on the cocoa, blossom,” Rose calls from the kitchen. “Did you switch on the blanket?”
“Twenty minutes ago, my love,” answers Albert, easing his old body out of the armchair.
“And I thought you were day-dreaming. I ought to know better. My faithful Albert wouldn’t forget after all these years. Is my kettle filled?”
He puts his head around the door. “Yes, dear.”
“And the hottie — is it emptied from last night?”
“Emptied, yes, and waiting by the bed.”
“You’re a treasure, Albert.”
“I do my best, sweetpea.”
“I sometimes wonder how I ever got through the night before we bought the electric blanket. I’ve always felt the cold, you know. It isn’t just old age.”
“We had ways of keeping warm,” says Albert.
“You’ve always had a marvellous circulation,” says Rose for the millionth time. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”
Perhaps suffocation is the way. The pillow held firmly over the face. No traces of poison then. How do they know it isn’t a heart attack? Mental note: visit the library tomorrow and find out more about suffocation.
“Nearly ready, honeybunch,” says Rose, in the kitchen stirring the milk in the saucepan. “We’re a comical pair, when you think about it: I make the cocoa to send us to sleep. You make the tea that wakes us up.”
And wash up your sodding saucepan. And the spoon that you always leave by the gas-ring, coated in cocoa. And wipe the surface clean.
“I couldn’t bear to get out of bed as early as you do,” says Rose. “My dear old Mum used to say...” Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool. “...six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman and eight for a fool. I don’t know how true it is. Sometimes I feel as if I could stay in bed forever.”
“It’s coming to the boil, love.”
“So it is, my pet. Where are the mugs?”
Albert fetches them from the cupboard and Rose spoons in some cocoa, pours in the steaming milk and stirs. She gives Albert a sweet smile. “And now it’s up the stairs to Bedfordshire.”
“I’ll check everything first,” he says.
“Lights?”
“Yes.”
“Doors?”
“Of course, my darling.”
“See you presently, then.”
“Careful how you go with those mugs, then.”
A fall downstairs? Probably fatal at this age. Maybe that’s the answer — the loose stair-rod near the top. Not entirely reliable, more’s the pity.
In bed, sipping her cocoa, Rose says, “Nice and cosy. Pity it can’t stay on all night.”
“The electric blanket? Dangerous,” says Albert. “They don’t recommend it.”
“Never mind. I’ve got my hottie and my kettle ready.”
“That’s right.”
The hot-water bottle and the electric kettle are on Rose’s bedside table ready for the moment, about two in the morning, when her feet get cold. She will then switch on the light above her head, flick the switch on the kettle and wait for it to heat up. Some nights Albert doesn’t notice the light and the kettle being switched on, but he unfailingly hears the slow crescendo of the kettle coming to the boil. Then Rose will fill the hot-water bottle and say, “Have I disturbed you, dear? It’s only me filling my hottie.”
Depressed, Albert stares at the wrinkled skin on the surface of his cocoa. Separate bedrooms might have been the answer, but he’s never suggested it. Rose regards the sharing of the bed as the proof of a successful marriage. “We’ve never spent a single night apart, except for the time I was in hospital. Not a single night. I look at other couples and I know, I just know, that they don’t sleep in the same bed any more.” So the guest bedroom is only ever used by guests — her sister from Somerset once a year when the Chelsea Flower Show is on and, once, his friend Harry from army days.
Rose says, “Did you notice the Barnetts this afternoon? Am I mistaken, or were they being just a bit crotchety with each other?”
A night in the guest room would be bliss. Uninterrupted sleep. Just to be spared the inevitable “Have I disturbed you, dear?” at two in the morning.
“Albert, dear.”
“Mm?”
“I don’t think you were listening. I was asking if you noticed anything about John and Marcia this afternoon.”
“John and Marcia?”
“The Barnetts. At bridge.”
“Something wrong with their game?”
“No. I’m talking about the way they behaved towards each other. It may have been just my imagination, but I thought Marcia was more prickly with him than usual — as if they’d had words before we arrived. Didn’t you notice it?”
“Not that I can recall,” says Albert.
“When he had to re-deal because of the card that turned face up?”
“Really?”
“And when he reached for the chocolate biscuit. She was really sharp with him then, lecturing him about his calories. He looked so silly with his hand stuck in the air over the plate of biscuits. You must remember that.”
“The chocolate biscuit. I do.”
“Unnecessary, I thought.”
“True.”
“Humiliating the poor man.”
“Yes.”
“I mean, it isn’t as if John is grossly enormous. He’s got a bit of a paunch, but he’s over seventy, for pity’s sake. You expect a man to have a paunch by then.”
“Goes without saying,” says Albert, who actually has no paunch at all.
Rose drains the last of her cocoa. “You know what would do those two a power of good?”
“What’s that?”
“If they spent some time apart from each other. Since he’s retired, she sees him all day long. They’re not adjusted to it.”
“What would he do on his own?”
“I don’t know. What do men do with themselves? Golf, or bowls. Fishing.”
“When I go fishing, you always come with me and sit on the riverbank talking.”
“That’s different, isn’t it? We’re inseparable. We don’t need to get away from each other. We haven’t the slightest desire to be alone.”
There is an interval of silence.
Rose resumes. “They won’t catch you and me saying unkind things to each other in public, will they?”
“Or in private,” says Albert.
She turns and smiles. “You’re right, my love. Never a cross word in forty-seven years.”
“Forty-eight.”
Rose frowns. “No dear, forty-seven. This is 1995. We were married in 1948. The difference is forty-seven.”
“Yes, but we met in 1947.”
“I wasn’t counting that,” Rose says.
“It’s another year.”
“Of course, looked at like that...”
“No arguments when we were courting. Lovers’ tiffs, they would have been.”
“But there weren’t any. Ah, well.” She puts her mug on the bedside table and switches out the light on her side. “It’s far too late for mental arithmetic. Time to get my beauty sleep. Nighty-night, darling.” She turns for the goodnight kiss. They’ve never gone to sleep without the goodnight kiss, in forty-seven years, or is it forty-eight?
Their lips meet briefly.
“Sweet dreams.”
Albert gets rid of his mug and reaches for the light switch. He yawns, wriggles down and turns away from her, wondering what time the library opens.