Less Venom, More Sorrow

Chapter 1

Lucy startled. She hadn't heard Ralph's approach across the lawn, but there he was, holding out an envelope towards her. There had been too many shadows, too many ghosts, this past week. "What do you expect me to do with that?" she barked. "Can you see I've got my hands full?"

"It looked important." It was infuriating, the way her husband - already dressed in his black suit - refused to take the bait.

She narrowed her eyes. "What kind of important?" He was right, by the way, to think that black drew too much attention to his eyebrows, which remained defiantly dark, long after his hair had turned white.

"An official seal. But I can take it back inside if you prefer..."

She tucked the secateurs into her gardening belt. "Oh, give it here!" She thrust one ungracious hand towards him.

He took a few steps, then said with a half-turn. "Don't forget. We need to leave for Dom's funeral at ten forty-five." Lucy had done her best to forget about the time. "That's leave the house, not when you should come inside and start getting ready."

The thought of the coffin's misshapen oblong sent a shudder through her. "Miserable so-and-so. I always hated the bastard." The false thought snagged in Lucy's throat. Inside she was wailing; cursing the God she didn't believe in. Angry at Dominic for leaving her. Guilty at the relief she felt now that he was gone.

"I hope you don't say the same about me once I'm safely out of the way."

She heard a harsh breath leaving her mouth. Huh! "You were never miserable!"

"Well, you might find it in your heart to hate Dominic a little less -"

"What? Now he's no longer around to piss me off?" Her pooled eyes spilled over at the sound of the words she'd chosen. No, at the implication of the words. Dominic's absence was knife-like. And here she was, taking it out on the one person who didn't deserve the sharp end of her tongue. The person most likely to let her get away with it.

"Poor sod stuck around as long as he could."

By the time Lucy recovered her poise, Ralph had almost reached the patio. He moved carefully, as if thinking where to place his feet. Safe to clasp one cold hand over her mouth. To grasp at a memory so intent on freeing itself. A snapshot. Dominic's mouth opening; head thrown back; laughter.

Not as he was when she'd last seen him, prostate on a narrow cot, sucking something pureed through a plastic straw. It was impossible to feign cheer enough to ask, "How are you feeling?" when the answer was there, etched on his face. She'd placed her handbag on top of the letter he'd abandoned on the wheeled table that slotted over his bed, pretending not to have read the words. Outlook bleak - as if it was the weather he was forecasting. Her eyes came to rest on his watch strap. Solid metal links hanging loose, a precise measure of how much of him they'd already lost. Unbearable. Dominic, who'd lived life more fully than anyone she'd ever met, who never just walked into a room but arrived, coat-tails flying. Reduced to eating baby food. As Lucy told Ralph repeatedly over those last few weeks, she was not good at hospitals.

"It's just the same old Dom." He'd steered her along corridors of magnolia, past flowered curtains and occasional chairs upholstered in wipe-clean PVC. "You don't need to put on a performance. Not everything you say has to be meaningful."

But Ralph was another man. He and Dominic could mull over the cricket for a good half-hour. Besides, there was not and there never had been just Dom. Not for her and certainly not for Ralph.

On the final occasion, Lucy had visited Dominic - by then he was in St Jude's - Ralph wasn't there to act as a shield.

There had been one small satisfaction. "You're wearing the pyjamas I bought you." She smoothed a silken sleeve. Ridiculously expensive, they had been her quiet rebellion. Lucy hadn't wanted him to buy cheap just because he might not get that much wear out of them.