and Jamie were buried side by side on the slope overlooking the whole town and, beyond that, the estuary. It was a lovely spot. Felix had paid for the original double plot close to the oak tree many years ago, but when Jamie died they had buried him here, and Felix had negotiated to purchase a third plot alongside the other two. The would-be occupant of that plot had recognized that behind Felix’s odd request was a man in want, while he himself was only a man in grudging need, and so had made an absolute killing on the deal, but Felix didn’t mind. He had enough money and little left to spend it on.
Now he took comfort in knowing that when he died he would take his place once more beside his wife and son.
He stood at the foot of the graves while a blackbird showed off in the nearby hedge.
‘Hello, Margaret,’ he murmured.
The blackbird answered him with a long, happy lungful, but Margaret’s headstone only said:
Loving wife and mother
Felix wished he’d chosen a different inscription. He’d seen this one in countless obituaries, and so – at a time of flux – it had felt safe to him. But increasingly he thought it made it sound as though a wife and mother was all Margaret had been, and that was very far from the truth – although it was only since her death that Felix had truly understood that she had been the sun, and he and Jamie just two little planets in her orbit, held in place by her gravity, lit by her light, and basking in her warmth.
Everybody had loved Margaret. They’d loved her kindness, and her wisdom, and her humour, and they’d deigned to like him too, just for being with her.
But when she’d started to leave him, her friends had left as well, until Felix had been entirely alone with Margaret. And then entirely alone without her, and by the time she had died, he’d been so exhausted that he could barely think. Her slow demise had been like a steamroller trying to run him down while he staggered from kerb to kerb, trying to dodge the inevitable. Often it felt almost as if he had died too, because all that was left now was a pale shadow of himself, hanging like limp lace at an airless window.
Without you I am nothing. That’s what he should have had set in stone.
At least they’d done right by Jamie . . .
TAKEN TOO SOON FROM THOSE
WHO LOVED HIM DEARLY
Dearly had been Margaret’s decision. Felix had never seen dearly on a headstone before and felt that it was rather showy. They’d argued about it. Rowed, actually. Now he thought of it, it had been the only proper row he and Margaret had ever had. The only time she’d got really angry about anything. But, of course, every time he looked down at the words now, he knew she’d been right, and that dearly was not only essential but was, in fact, the most important thing on the stone – and that he’d been unbearably stupid to think or say otherwise.
Margaret had been right about everything. He was still learning that every day. Whenever he was stuck or confused, Felix would ask himself, What would Margaret do? And the answer would come to him as if she was right there, whispering in his ear. Young and sensible Margaret, of course. Not old, sad Margaret, whose reason had deserted her and whose memory had gone and who would clutch his arm and say, Promise me! Promise me you’ll look after Jamie!
And he could only say I promise because she didn’t know that their son was already dead.
Felix emptied last week’s carnations into the hedge, then washed and refilled the plastic vase with water he’d brought in a bottle, and arranged the new tulips. He folded the wrapping into a square and placed it under a stone so it wouldn’t blow away. He’d take it home with him. Recycle it. Two different boxes, of course. Both inconveniently big, both made of plastic. And then a lorry belching diesel fumes would come along and do its bit to save the planet . . .
He unfolded the folding chair and sat down.
The cemetery was filled with new life. The trees sang their rustling songs, and little animals and birds scurried in the verge, while every sparrow and tit seemed to be carrying wisps of grass or a downy feather. A bumblebee droned by heavily, as if it were in the wrong gear, and the blackbird hopped out of the hedge again to show Felix a strand of orange baler twine.
Felix smiled and closed his eyes. This place soothed and restored him. Gave him the strength to carry on. One day he hoped it might give him the strength to give up.
Seagulls called overhead. Immediately he thought of fishing with Jamie. Watching his son curl a strip of mackerel on to a hook, so scared he would pierce his tender little fingers . . . I can DO it! Let me DO it! Felix chuckled under his breath. They’d caught nothing, of course. How could they? Jamie had been so excited that he’d reeled in every ten minutes to check the bait. It would have defeated the most suicidal of fish.
His smile faded. It was hard not to slide from those memories into much harder ones: from the boy to the young man whose slow death had sunk the fragile raft of faith they had all clung to for two miserable years, adrift on a sea of false hopes and platitudes from doctors whose best was never going to be good enough. They’d all known it, but never spoken of it. Instead they’d chatted and played canasta on Jamie’s hospital bed, or sat silently while he slept, growing smaller with every exhalation, until he barely raised a bump in the blanket.
In his room they’d always been bright with optimism.
They’d saved the cracks for the car park . . .
Nobody ever spoke of the relentless parking that was demanded by a relative in hospital with a prolonged illness. Twice a day, every day, in the dystopian concrete multi-storey that smelled of urine and smog. The constant change for the ticket machine. The long queue at the barrier. The forgetting where the car was. Was it this row? This level? This car park ? The only time Margaret had broken down during that whole long nightmare was once when they couldn’t find the car. She had finally bent over and wept on somebody else’s bonnet while he’d stood beside her, uselessly rubbing her back and clutching the keys to nothing.
At the funeral, Felix had ached to punch the vicar.
God didn’t care for them. Only they cared for each other. He and Margaret had cared for Jamie, and then he had cared for Margaret when she could no longer care for herself, and now he didn’t have anyone to care for except Mabel.
And nobody cared for him.
The First-timer
The new Exiteer called herself Amanda.
She was sat outside a little café on the square in Bideford, close to where Felix got off the bus. There was a nip in the air, but it was bright and breezy. Perfect weather for the beige zip-up jacket, in fact. Felix introduced himself and Amanda shook his hand. She had only just started a glass of hot chocolate, and so he ordered a pot of tea.
She was startlingly young and he wondered how they’d found her. He himself had been recruited by an elderly woman who worked at the funeral parlour where Margaret had been laid out. Elspeth, her little black name badge had read. White hair. Blue eyes. Kind mouth.
I’m sorry she suffered so, she’d said, and Felix had nodded at the withered corpse of his wife and said, Death was a relief to both of us.
He couldn’t quite remember how the conversation had turned from Margaret’s death to the Exiteers, only that when it had, he had not recoiled. Elspeth had alluded to a group who supported the right to die and said
