Dead at First Sight

62 Tuesday 9 October

Wooky, lying on the floor, looked balefully up at her mistress. Then the miniature Schnauzer gave a little whine.

When that didn’t work, she pawed at her jeans.

Fixated on her computer screen, Lynda Merrill reached down and scratched her fingers absently along her head. ‘In a few minutes, darling, OK? We’ll go for walkies. But Mummy’s busy, OK?’

The internet was running dementingly slow tonight. A reply had come in from Richie but the text was taking an age to upload.

Finally it was there on her screen!

Excitedly, Lynda Merrill picked up the bottle of Sainsbury’s Riesling from the floor beside her and up-ended it into her empty wine glass on her desk, next to her keyboard.

Only a few drops trickled out.

‘Oooh dear, naughty girl, you’ve drunk the whole bottle!’ she chided herself, aware she was feeling decidedly tipsy. Blotto.

Yes, that was the word dear Larry used to use whenever he — or both of them — were a bit smashed. ‘Darling, I think I’m a tad blotto.’

Or, often as not, ‘Darling, I think we’re both a bit blotto.’ They had fun getting blotto together on the fine wines he loved. She felt guilty about drinking this supermarket bargain. Larry would never have approved. He had such class, such good taste in wine. ‘Some people live above their income — me, I just drink above it!’ he used to say.

God, life had been hard in these years since he had died. She still missed him so much, thought about him constantly. Dreamed often that he was still alive. She remembered on their honeymoon in Capri, all those years ago, he’d leaned across the table with a glass of some very classy wine and clinked hers. ‘My angel, if you live to be ninety-nine, I’d like to live to ninety-nine minus one day, so I never have to live without you.’

Her eyes moistened at the memory. Larry was staring at her now from a framed photograph on her desk. The archetypal gentleman, who had reminded her of Sean Connery when they had first met. He was always so perfectly dressed, as he was in this photograph, in which he was wearing a crisp white shirt, golf club cravat, dark hair immaculately groomed. Was it her imagination or was he looking at her disapprovingly?

Over her new romance?

The photograph was, suddenly, unnerving her. She moved it out of sight behind her computer screen.

Guilt?

She didn’t need to feel guilt, she knew. Larry had told her repeatedly before he’d died that she was still a young woman and she shouldn’t spend the rest of her life mourning him. That one day she would find someone else, that she should marry again and be happy again.

Maybe. She typed a reply, but the booze was playing havoc with the coordination of her arthritic fingers. It took several goes before the message was ready.

She read it through, having to concentrate hard to focus, realizing she was very definitely more than just a little tipsy.

She peered at the empty bottle again. ‘Oh dear. Naughty me!’ She looked down at the grey-and-white dog. ‘Mummy’s drunk a little bit too much tonight, hasn’t she?’

The dog looked back at her, pricking her ears up. ‘Shall we go for a little walkies?’

At the sound, Wooky went bonkers, tearing several times around the room, and then tried to jump on her lap.

‘Down! Down!’

She stared at the screen, waiting for a reply. But nothing came.

She stood up and wobbled. ‘Oh dear, Wooky, Mummy is blotto!’ Somehow, holding the banister rail tightly, she made it down the stairs without stumbling or tripping over the animal, then went out into the back garden with her. She waited, patiently. When the dog had finished she headed back into the house, sobered a fraction by the breezy, salty night air, closed the door and locked it. Then, with the sound of Wooky lapping at her water bowl in the kitchen, she climbed the stairs and went back into her den. She sat down and hit the return key to bring the computer screen back to life.

No reply from Richie. Hmmm.

You don’t know what you’re missing, do you? You don’t know what’s in store, my hunky one!

Logging off, she crossed the landing into her bedroom and walked through into the en suite to prepare for bed. She stared into the mirror as she removed her make-up. The face of her thirty-seven-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, stared back for an instant before her own replaced it.

Not too many wrinkles.

Why did Elizabeth think it was disgusting that at just fifty-nine she was still interested in men? That, God forbid, her mother might have sex with a man. What was that about? Hadn’t the actress, Helen Mirren, revealed rather a lot of her body in a recent photoshoot? And mine is as fabulous!

Girl, you are still a looker! You truly ain’t bad!

And in truth she wasn’t. Thanks to good genes from both her parents, a little help from a local plastic surgeon and regular botox treatments since she had ‘met’ Richie, plus workouts with her trainer at the gym, four days a week, she had retained her figure.

Sixty is the new forty!

She checked the laughter lines in her face.

Richie Griffiths, you are in for the surprise of your life!