I finished the verse, and my sentence was complete. Twenty years of gingham and ten boring books. I closed the volume and laid it on the bed next to her. Already her face had drained of color, and her mouth was partly open. I was alerted by a quiet sniffle next to me. I had never seen my father cry before, but even now large tears rolled silently down his cheeks. He thanked me and departed, leaving me alone with the woman in the bed, the nurse discreetly waiting at the door. I felt sad in that I had lost a valued companion, but no great sense of grief. After all, I was still very much alive. I had learned from my own father’s death many years ago that the end of one’s life and dying are two very different things indeed, and took solace in that.

“Are you okay?” asked Landen when I got back to the car. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost!”

“Several,” I replied. “I think I just saw my whole life pass in front of my eyes.”

“Do I feature?”

“Quite a lot, Land.”

“I had my life flash in front of me once,” he said. “Trouble is, I blinked and missed all the good bits.”

“It will need more than a blink,” I told him, nuzzling his ear. “How’s the little man?”

“Tired after a lot of pointing.”

I looked into the backseat. Friday was spark out and snoring.

Landen started the car and pulled out of the parking space.

“Who was the old woman, by the way?” he asked as we turned into the main road. “You never did tell me.”

I thought for a moment. “Someone who knew me really well and turned up when it mattered.”

“I have someone like that,” said Landen, “and if she’s feeling up to it, I’d like to take her out for dinner. Where do you fancy?”

I thought of the old woman in the bed, dressed in gingham, hanging on for the last verse, and all the people who had come to see her off. Life, I decided, would be good and, more than that, unusual.

“If I’m with you,” I told him tenderly, “SmileyBurger is the Ritz.”

Credits

My great thanks to Maggy and Stewart Roberts for the illustrations in this book.
My thanks to Mari Roberts for huge quantities of research on everything from
the Danes to Hamlet to conflict resolution and the piano gag, and for
companionship, and love.
Mr. Shgakespeafe’s quotes and Hamlet kindly supplied by Shakespeare (William), Inc.
Lorem Ipsum usage suggested by Swaim & Rogan.
For the purposes of this narrative, it should be noted that Zeffirelli’s excellent version
of Hamlet starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close was made in 1987, not 1991 as
previously thought.