Bleak Expectations (31 page)

She sounded jauntier and less disapproving than I had ever heard her, and as if to prove the wonderfulness she felt, she danced a jig on the spot, then grabbed Harry and whirled him round the room in energetic pirouettes of joy.

But she was not the only joyous one: on this evidence, the pablets worked. If they could do this to Miss Hardthrasher, they would surely cure my Flora! The doctor clearly thought the same, because he now moved towards her bed, pablets in hand.

‘Oh, this is marvellous!’ shouted Miss Hardthrasher, as she danced on. But then she abruptly stopped, put Harry down, set a hand to her head and said, ‘Actually, no, hang on, I think I’m going to die.’

She collapsed where she stood, and the doctor stooped to examine her. ‘She wasn’t lying. She is dead.’

Joy turned to anguish. The cure had turned out to be no such thing, indeed the very opposite of a cure, and would only kill my beloved even quicker than the disease.

‘Flora shall not have the pablets!’ I declared, my heart filled with despair.

‘It might not have been their fault,’ protested the doctor. ‘It might have been coincidence. She might have been about to die anyway.’

‘Or maybe a snake bit her,’ suggested Harry. ‘Or a poisonous mouse.’

‘No, I am decided, she will not have them!’

But then there came a heartrendingly weak voice from the bed: ‘Please, dearest Pippy-wippy-ping-pong-poo . . . Let me take them. They will make me better, I am sure . . .’

I rushed to my gorgeous wife’s side. ‘No, dearest, no. It is not wise.’

‘But I am not wise. I am pretty.’

She had a point. For she was pretty – so, so pretty!

‘They may have a very different effect on me from Miss Hardthrasher. For I am much better-looking than she was, and God takes the ugly people first because He feels sorry for them.’ She had a point, albeit a theologically tenuous one. ‘The pablets are my only chance. Please, Pip, for me.’

Maybe it was the pleading tone of her voice; maybe it was because I knew she was dying anyway; or maybe it was because for once she hadn’t called me by one of her frankly irritatingly twee nicknames, but I yielded to her wish. ‘If you insist, dearest heart.’

I nodded to the doctor, and he administered the pablets, Flora washing them down with a glass of medical gin.

And we waited.

And waited.

And wai—

All of a sudden, with a glorious burst of energy, my beloved Flora sat up in bed, something she had been too weak to do for a long time. Was the cure working?

‘Oh, I feel much stronger now . . .’

‘That is good, my darling.’ I held her hand encouragingly, all too aware that Miss Hardthrasher had suffered a similar pre-death energetic surge.

And, alas, it seemed as if my fears were to be fulfilled as poor Flora turned frantic and yelled, ‘Help! I cannot see!’

‘No! She is blind!’

But blindness was just the start, and things rapidly got worse.

‘And I cannot hear!’

‘No! She is deaf!’

And worse.

‘And I cannot speak!’

‘No! She cannot— Hang on, no, that can’t be right,’ I said, for I had distinctly heard her saying, ‘I cannot speak,’ which indicated that she could.

‘Or maybe I can still speak but cannot hear it because I cannot hear.’

That would explain it.

‘Wait! I can see again! And hear! And speak!’ Her words filled me with hope, but it was sadly temporary as she then slumped and muttered, ‘Though I am feeling weak once more . . . so weak . . .’

She slid down into the bed again, and now it was as if she began physically to shrink, my wonderful wife growing smaller and smaller, melting away before my very eyes.

‘Oh, I am weaker than ever,’ she gasped. ‘I have not the strength to lift a flower, even a light flower . . . or some flour, which is even lighter in small quantities.’

‘Mr Bin, I fear the weakness is taking her . . .’ the doctor whispered to me.

‘No! She will be strong again! She will live!’ But my words were filled with false optimism, for deep in my mind, where the worst whispers of truth lie, I knew she was dying.

‘I fear I shall never be strong again, darling husband . . . for I think I can see Heaven above me.’ I looked upwards to where she pointed with a single, weak finger, but could see only ceiling; she was looking beyond, to the infinite afterlife, and I was losing her. ‘Oh, and Heaven is filled with angels and lovely friendly spaniels with waggy tails – and chocolate, so much chocolate! And, oh, it looks such a fun, happy place!’

Her body was racked by a spasm of coughing, and I knew the end was near; as did gorgeous Flora, for she turned to me, a resigned sadness in her eyes. ‘I fear I must now leave you, dear Pip. Goodbye, lovely husband. Farewell.
Auf wiedersehen
.
Dosvidaniya
.
Arrivederci
. . .’ She was rambling foreignly now. ‘
Adios
,
sayonara
,
au revoir
, whatever the Welsh for goodbye is and . . .’ Struggling for breath, she reached out and touched my face, then, with a final ‘Toodle-oo,’ collapsed backwards into her pillows, and was gone.

My beloved wife was dead.

Or so I thought.

For suddenly she sat bolt upright and said cheerily, ‘Actually, I feel fantastic! Anyone fancy an arm-wrestle?’

‘Dearest, you live yet!’

She turned to me with a rueful smile. ‘Sorry, false alarm, I’m afraid. Really dying this time. Eeeurggh!’

She collapsed backwards once more, and was gone, this time for good.

Or so I thought.

And, sadly, this time I was right.

I slumped on to the bed and held my poor, deceased wife, who even in death was beautiful, so beautiful. I kissed her over and over again, and it was as if she seemed to be crying from beyond our mortal realm, because each kiss had the salty tang of tears to it; and then I realized that they were my tears, splashing down on her in a woeful drizzle of melancholy.

I felt Harry place a supportive hand on my shoulder, and could feel true friendship coursing into me from him, but it did little to assuage my misery and nothing to fill the aching gap that had opened in my heart and would remain there eternally, for my wife was gone, my beloved Flora was dead, my adored soul-mate was with the angels, and that triplicate sum of grief now sat like a huge dark cloud in my soul.

¹
Nineteenth-century version of the popular 1970s phrase ‘super-duper-Henry-Cooper’. James Fenimore Cooper’s
The Last of the Mohicans
was the most popular American novel in Britain at the time, though the sequel
The First of the Mullets
sold less well.

²
Its companion drug, the ‘till’, never found a medical use, being far too big to swallow, but did find a role in shops as something to put money in.

The hole in my heart left by Flora’s death soon filled with a shard of purest, darkest grief that pierced my very soul, then infected the wound with woe and caused a great festering boil of misery to grow inside me, throbbing and pulsing with the agony of bereavement.

On the day of her funeral, I paid for it not only to rain over the entirety of London, but for that great city to be silent, apart from the sounds of lamentation. A million souls wept with me, but it comforted me not, partly because I’d paid them to do so, but mostly because Flora was still dead.

There was no catharsis for me in the ritual of her burial at the church of St Late-Hotties;
¹
I found no solace in the vicar’s hollow address of spiritual condolence; and the buffet afterwards was dreadful, all cheap sausages, warm white wine and the muttered commiserations of people who could not possibly understand the depth of my agony.

For truly no one had ever suffered as I was doing now.

I burned to the ground the rich West End house Flora and I had shared, not wanting to have memories of our brief time together thrust into my mind at every turn, and I purchased a new, sparse, dead-wife-reminder-free property.

Then I decided that actually I missed those memories, began to regret my house-burning decision and had the original house reconstructed to the finest detail.

It did not help.

Despair gnawed at me, like a discouraging rat. Colour drained from my life, and all became black. I had my house painted black, my clothes dyed black and my face coloured black – though that verged on the dodgy, heading towards the full-blown racist, so I quickly abandoned that particular strand of woe. I ate only black, being served food such as charcoal pie, coal soup and really, really old bananas. I had a pair of spectacles manufactured with black-tinted lenses so that I might see literally how I already saw metaphorically; in doing so I inadvertently invented sunglasses and made myself an even greater fortune, but I now cared not for money and spent the profits on a gigantic statue in memory of Flora, a five-hundred-foot-high model of her in all her gorgeous beauty, which some years later the government was forced to tear down because it was so winsome that it was attracting perverts from all over the world to come and be unsavoury within its vicinity.
²

In short, I was sad; and I remained that way for a considerable time.

¹
A church where they only allowed especially beautiful people to be buried.

²
Built on Highgate Hill, it was known as ‘the fit lady of the north’.

A month later, and I was still sad.

Two months later, and I was still definitely despondent.

Three months later, and I hadn’t cheered up one little bit, remaining forlorn, desolate and bigly broken-hearted.

Four months on from Flora’s death, and I felt the tiniest shoots of potential happiness forcing their way up through the soil of misery, but it turned out it was just wind, and after a large burp I was wretchedly woeful once more.

Then, one day, as I sat in a black mood in my black chair in a black room in my black house, there came a knock at my black door.

It was a visitor.

Though not an expected or welcome one.

For it was Mr Gently Benevolent.

‘Ah, Pip Bin, I heard that your wife would rather die than live with you.’

At this I felt a spasm of theoretical anger, but in my depressed state I could not act on it, instead simply staring at the floor and responding flatly by saying, ‘You have come to mock my anguish?’

‘No, no. For though I find your pain nourishing, like a hearty broth of woe, I come to impart news.’

‘What news?’

‘That I have been forced to shut down my latest business venture, Benevolent Pharmaceuticals.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Oh, but you will.’ A predatory grin twitched at the corners of his mouth. ‘The business failed because its new medicine never succeeded. Unfortunately, it killed rather than cured. A pity, I had such high hopes for pablets.’

Now my mind stirred from its depressed torpor. ‘Pablets? Your company manufactured pablets?’

‘Yes. I’m surprised you didn’t know. After all, I did hand-deliver them to you . . .’

I thought back to the figure I had seen leaving my house on that fateful night; the features hidden by the cloak; the smile I had interpreted as supportive but which now took on a whole new meaning. ‘That was you? You are responsible for my wife’s death?’

‘Well, the weakness would probably have taken her anyway. I just . . . made sure.’

Now my torpor was swept away by a mighty wind of rage surging through my soul, and I stood angrily to confront this most hideous of men; though after months of stationary mourning, my muscles had wasted to virtually nothing, and I only succeeded in falling helplessly to the floor like a drunk toddler.
¹

‘Oh dear, is the weakness taking you as well, Pip Bin?’

He stepped closer to me to gloat, and I desperately lashed out from my prone position, trying to strike him. ‘You monster! You killed her! You killed my Flora!’

‘No use crying over spilt milk or dead wives.’
²
My pathetic blows came nowhere near hitting him and I slumped pathetically, tears flooding my eyes. ‘Oh, and before I forget, I have brought you this.’ He threw a fat envelope down in front of me.

‘What is it?’

‘A court summons. You are being sued over your invention of the Bin.’

‘I don’t understand . . .’

‘By an American gentleman who thinks you stole the idea from him. His name is Mr Harlan J. Trashcan.’

‘But that’s a lie!’

‘Is it? I reckon the courts might think differently.’ He leaned down and spoke quietly and maliciously. ‘You’re going to be ruined, Pip Bin. And when you’re no more than a penniless widower begging on the streets and dying of poverty, the last thing you shall see will be me wedding your sister and ruining her life via the sanctity of marriage.’

‘No!’

‘Oh, very much yes. Perhaps I’ll be in court to see the start of your humiliation. Maybe I’ll bring your mad mother so that she can witness your destruction. But until then, farebadly, Pip Bin.’ He strode to the door and left, but then popped his head back in. ‘Oops, nearly forgot. Here’s the new laugh I’ve been working on.’ He cleared his throat and now emitted the most vile, depraved sound I had ever heard. ‘Nee-yah, ha, ha, ha!’

I had conquered my fear of his old one, but this was harsher, crueller, more demonic, and I could not help but cower before it. He had obviously been practising, and it had been worth it as, syllable for syllable, it was the most unnerving thing I had ever heard, even more unsettling than the phrase ‘Just pop your underpants off and we’ll take a quick look at the problem.’