Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose [Stories]

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.

He’s in an aircraft about to take off for Australia. Off for a long holiday, time to adjust, to get over the grief, he has been telling everyone. The engines of the Jumbo are roaring, louder by the second, building to the immense power needed for take-off.

A voice says, “Have I disturbed you, dear?”

“What?”

“It’s only me filling my hottie.”

He emerges from the dream and looks at the clock. Five past two.

“I couldn’t survive without my hottie,” Rose says. “I don’t know how you manage, really I don’t.”

“Marvellous circulation,” Albert says silently, moving his lips unseen.

Rose says, “It must be your marvellous circulation. Well, there it is: a nice hot bottle for my poor cold feet. Now I’ll be off to sleep again in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

Forty minutes later, Albert is still awake, thinking about ways of faking a suicide.

He is up as usual on the dot of six, groping for his slippers. He feels as if he could sleep three more hours, given the opportunity, but the habit of rising at six is too deeply rooted ever to change. He knows he’ll feel better after the first cup of tea.

He edges around the bed to her side and unplugs the electric kettle.

Picking it up, he shuffles towards the bathroom.

Down in the kitchen, he cleans the saucepan and the spoon from the night before and wipes the surface clean. The kettle boils.

The tea is a life-saver.

In the library, while Rose is looking at the Romance section, Albert covertly inspects a volume entitled Essentials of Forensic Medicine. The chapter on Suffocation and Asphyxia runs to several pages. The list of post-mortem appearances, external and internal, is so daunting that he abandons the whole idea. But another chapter, Electrocution, catches his eye and captures his imagination.

“Do you want to borrow it?”

He snaps the book shut and looks to his right. Rose is at his side. He pushes it back into the first space he can see and says, “No, I was just browsing really.”

“This is the medical section, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I was only whiling away the time, checking up on my rheumatism. Have you picked yours, my love?”

“I’m going to borrow three, just in case I find I’ve read one of them before.”

“Good thinking.”

That afternoon, when Rose is deep in her romantic novel, Albert tries to slip away unnoticed to the bedroom.

“Where are you off to, honeybunch?”

“I think some air must have got into one of the radiators. I’d like to check.”

Rose says admiringly, “My handyman.”

“I shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”

“I think I may have read this. I’m not sure.”

“If you have, you could always try one of the others.”

He goes upstairs, straight to the bed and lifts up the undersheet on Rose’s side. The electric blanket lies there, the single size, only on her side — because his marvellous circulation keeps him warm without artificial help. This blanket been doing its job for at least ten years and has lost most of its original colour. The fabric at the edges is getting frayed, and where her feet go, it has worn thin. He stares at it thoughtfully. He looks at the flex leading to the twin point where it is kept plugged in.

“Will it take long, dear?” Rose calls up. She must be standing at the foot of the stairs.

Hastily, Albert tugs the undersheet over the electric blanket again. “Not long, my dear,” he answers, adding in a whisper, “It should be very quick.”

“Shall I put the kettle on? I wouldn’t mind a cup.”

“Good idea.”

A few precious minutes. He folds the sheet back again, takes a penknife from his pocket, opens it, and begins scraping at the thin covering where her feet go. Cutting would be too obvious. It must look as if it has worn away naturally. He scrapes at several places and finally the threads begin to part and the copper element beneath is laid bare. He continues to work, exposing more of it, until he gets the call that the tea is ready downstairs. He scoops the loose threads into his hand, pockets the penknife and straightens the undersheet and tucks it in.

“Is that job done, my love?” Rose calls up.

“I hope so, my dear,” answers Albert, planning the next part of the operation. It can wait until the evening.

“Have some tea, then. You deserve it.”

About nine-thirty, after watching the news on television, he gets up as usual to take the kettle upstairs and switch on the electric blanket. Rose remains in her chair, knitting. Albert has done this so many times that he doesn’t even have to tell her where he is going.

He collects the kettle, fills it with water in the kitchen, and carries it upstairs, placing it on Rose’s bedside table. He switches on the electric blanket.

The hot water bottle is in the bathroom as usual, and has to be emptied. He unscrews it and stands it upside down in the wash basin to drain. Then he gets to work on the stopper. He pulls the rubber washer away from the base. This should ensure that the bottle leaks. To be quite certain, he makes a test, half-filling it, screwing in the stopper and holding it upside down. Sure enough, it drips steadily.

The preparations completed, he goes downstairs and joins Rose for the last hour before retiring.

When the milk is simmering in the saucepan, Rose asks, “Did you remember to switch on the blanket, Albert darling?”

“An hour ago, my love.”

“So thoughtful.”

“I think the milk—”

“Quick! The mugs.”

Rose lifts the saucepan from the hob. Albert places the mugs beside the cocoa tin and Rose does the rest.

Everything is in place, as the politicians like to say. There is little else for Albert to do. At two in the morning, he will be wakened as usual while Rose fills the hot water bottle. She will push it down by her cold feet. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, as she will tell him, she will be asleep. For the next hour it will seep, seep over the undersheet, slowly saturating the electric blanket. While it remains warm, she won’t notice. And when he judges the moment right, Albert will get out of bed, move around in the dark and switch on the blanket.

An unfortunate accident, they will decide at the inquest. Faulty equipment.

“Is it up the stairs to Bedfordshire?” says Rose.

“I think it is, dear.”

“Will you lock the doors and turn out the lights?”

“Depend upon it,” says Albert.

In bed, they drink their last cup of cocoa together, sitting up.

“People are so stupid,” says Rose.

“What do you mean, dear?” says Albert.

“When you hear about so many marriages breaking up. So much unhappiness. If they’d only have a little more consideration for each other.”

“True,” says Albert.

You bloody old hypocrite, thinks Rose. Driving me to the brink of insanity with your sanctimonious smile and your “Yes, my darling,” while you pursue your own selfish ways, waking me every blasted morning at six. Heaving yourself up with a groan and a yawn, to put on your slippers, regardless that it all causes a minor earthquake in the bed. Groping around the edge of the mattress to collect the damned kettle. Switching on the bathroom light. Flushing the toilet. Clumping downstairs and turning on the radio. Forty- seven years of it, I’ve endured. His farting, his fishing and his football on television.

And never a cross word between us. I wouldn’t give you that satisfaction. I’ve held out all this time.

“Oh, dear.”

“What’s the matter, love?” says Albert.

“I’ve forgotten to go to the bathroom — and just when I was getting nice and cosy.” She sighs. “I suppose I shall have to get out.”

“That’s one thing I can’t do for you,” says Albert.

“Snuggle down, dear. I shan’t be long.”

From the bathroom Rose collects a chair and takes it to the landing, stands on it and removes the bulb from the landing light. She returns the chair to the bathroom and collects the length of Albert’s fishing twine she has earlier concealed under the mat. She takes it to the top of the stairs and attaches it firmly to a nail in the skirting board.

Then she ties the other end to one of the banisters to form a tripwire over the top stair. In the dark at six in the morning he will never see it.

Rose returns to bed and gets in.

“Nighty-night, my darling.”

“Sleep well, sweetpea.”

They exchange the goodnight kiss and turn out their lights.