"In the chest?"
"Yes, but it seemed like indigestion. He'd eaten a curry and I thought that must have upset him. He was going to the bathroom a lot. I tried to do what I could for him, fetching water, and so on. His legs went at one point and then he was getting breathless."
"Because of the pain," said Dr. Perkins more to himself than to Rachel.
"And he seemed to lose control of his speech. Well, you saw him. By the time you arrived, he couldn't speak at all."
"Classic heart attack. You acted promptly" he said. "Nothing else you could have done."
"The other day you said it was just angina and he could live to eighty or something."
He adjusted his spectacles and peered at her in surprise. "On balance, that looked the probable diagnosis. No point in alarming the patient until something more serious shows up in the tests."
"So he was at risk."
"Sadly, events have proved it so." The elderly doctor was fidgeting with his fingers, clearly uncomfortable with the cross-examination. It was known at the health centre that he got things muddled occasionally, even if his bedside manner couldn't be faulted.
Still Rachel pressed him. "There's no question that it was anything else but a heart attack?"
He was firm in response: "That's what's going on the certificate as cause of death, my dear. I'm sorry. He was quite a young man, and unlucky, but there's no telling how long any of us will survive." He said he would leave her some tablets to help her sleep that night, and a prescription for more.
She experienced the strangeness of being cocooned by shock. Tears wouldn't come. She heard things without really listening. Drank the tea without tasting it. Was distantly aware of men in dark suits coming to take Gary's body out of the cottage to an unmarked van.
Cynthia arrived and still Dr. Perkins lingered. There were details he needed for the certificate, he said. "When did I see him last?"
"Don't you remember? Tuesday, wasn't it? About the angina."
"The angina?" he said uneasily. "Well, with hindsight, it must have been more serious than angina."
She and Cynthia exchanged a glance while Dr. Perkins hastily finished the paperwork. He folded it, and sealed it in a brown envelope. "You'll need that for the registrar. I'm also leaving a form with some details about all that. And now I must be going. I can't tell you how sorry I am."
She thanked him for coming out.
His departure was the cue for a fresh pot of tea. She would be awash.
Dear old Cynthia was more than equal to the task of saying enough for both of them, wittering on about the harvest supper and what people had been wearing and what they'd said and how much had been raised for church funds as if no other thing had happened in the past three hours.
"What time is it?" Rachel asked suddenly.
"Gone midnight."
"You'd better go now."
"I'm not leaving you, poppet," said Cynthia. "If I leave, you come with me. There's a spare bed at my place."
Rachel said she would rather remain in her own place.
"As you wish," said Cynthia. "I'll make up a bed for you here. You won't want to be upstairs on the bed where he … It's a wonderfully comfortable sofa, yours."
She was persuaded to take one of the sleeping pills. From under her quilt on the sofa she was vaguely conscious of Cynthia unfolding one of the loungers from the sunroom. She knew nothing more until a fresh mug of tea was put into her hand next morning.
Cynthia was a staunch friend. Rachel was to discover in the coming days that people she thought she could rely on for support were somehow unable to bring themselves to speak to a bereaved woman, even crossing the street to avoid her. Not Cynthia. She insisted on clearing up the room where Gary had died, and the bathroom, scrubbing and polishing and tidying, eliminating every trace of the tragedy. She loaded the bedding into the washing machine.and hung it out to dry and did the ironing. And she reminded Rachel of things she should do.
"Does he have parents or brothers and sisters?"
"A stepsister who lives in France. They didn't have much to do with each other."
"We'd better contact her, just the same. Any close friends?"
"His jazz cronies, I suppose."
"You'll need to inform them, but I think the first thing you have to do is fix the funeral. There's no point in calling these people twice. You want to tell them he's gone and give them the date of the funeral all in one."
"All right."
"We'll do it together. Did he want a Christian funeral?"
"I suppose so. He wasn't a churchgoer, but I think he would."
"He didn't leave a will?"
"I'm sure he didn't. He'd have mentioned it."
"You need to speak to Otis. He's coming, anyway. I phoned him first thing this morning. We agreed on ten-thirty."
Rachel felt a stab of annoyance that this had been fixed without any reference to her. A meeting with the rector was a necessary part of the process, she knew, but she ought to have been consulted.
She thanked Cynthia for all she had done, and said she would value some time to herself now.
"You mean you don't want me here when Otis comes to comfort you? No problem. I'm not short of things to do."
Rachel hadn't the strength to smooth ruffled feathers.
Precisely on time, in his dark suit and with his face creased in sympathy, he stepped across the threshold with hands held wide and open. "What an ordeal. My poor Rachel."
She backed off, turning from him to close the cottage door. It would have been easy to step towards him for the embrace he was offering. This wasn't the moment. She didn't want sympathy from Otis. She wanted passion, and it would have to wait. So she received him formally, showed him into the front room and said, "Why don't you sit there-" (with her back to the sofa and indicating an armchair) "-and I'll make some coffee."
"Can I help?"
"No thanks, I need to be occupied."
He didn't sit. She left the door to the kitchen open and he stood in the living room and talked. "I believe Dr. Perkins was with you when it happened?"
"Yes, I called him specially."
"Is he your GP?"
"No. He was already treating Gary."
"For his heart?"
"Angina, he first thought, but it was more serious, obviously."
She spooned some instant coffee into two mugs and poured on the hot water.
From the other room, he said, "This will be the medical certificate, in the envelope on the wall unit."
"I suppose it is."
"You'll need it for the registrar."
"That's right."
"Have you seen what he put as the cause of death?"
"It's not going to make any difference now," she said without giving a straight answer. "Gary's gone, and that's it."
"You have a right to know, Rachel. Old Perkins could have put anything down. He's a touch absent-minded."
"I think it's sealed."
"But only just. Would you like me to open it and see what he put?"
"I don't know if we should."
"Nobody said we shouldn't."
"All right, but be careful," she called from the kitchen, not wanting him to know she had looked inside the envelope already, and sealed it again.
She brought in the coffee.
"Coronary occlusion," he told her. "An occlusion is blockage of a coronary artery. A heart attack, in other words."
"You're well up on the jargon."
"It goes with the job. I'm often called when someone is not long for this world. Or just after. The good news is that he hasn't initialled the form on the back."
"What would that mean?"
"Whenever there's anything iffy about the cause of death, the doctor says so on the certificate and initials the back, to show he's reported it to the coroner. This one couldn't be more straightforward. You take it to the registrar and get the death certificate. We can fix the funeral as early as you like. That's if Gary would have wanted a Christian service."