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  Felix Pink’s days of buying clothes were over. He had bought his last three-pack of Y-fronts a year ago, and the socks he had now would see him out. It was a strange feeling – that he would be outlived by his socks.

  Although it had already happened with other things, of course.

  The last house.

  The last car.

  Felix wondered how finely he might judge it. How low he could go. The last can of shaving foam? The last jar of jam? He sometimes wondered whether his dying thought would be of a half-pint of milk going to waste in his fridge.

  He had three suits – tweed, navy pinstripe and black – and five shirts: four white and one in a muted country-check. For outdoor pursuits, supposedly, although he only ever wore it in the garden. Two pairs of slacks, one grey, one brown, three ties and three pairs of shoes – to whit: brown brogues, shiny black funereals, and some misguided loafers, which he never wore because loafers of any type were anathema to him.

  He hung the navy mac on the rail, next to a short beige zip-up jacket.

  Felix was at peace with most of his wardrobe, but the beige zip-up jacket still bothered him. Margaret had bought it from Marks & Spencer years ago, and he’d been secretly appalled. Felix was no adventurer, but he had never dreamed that he would wear such a staid thing. Such an old man thing. He’d seen old men in that very jacket for decades. Often with matching flat cap and walking stick. He had a hazy recollection of his father in the same jacket, and quite possibly his grandfather. The fact that Margaret had apparently felt the jacket was suitable attire for him at the age of sixty-four had come as something of a blow.

  The trouble was, he now wore it all the time! It was warm but not hot. It machine-washed, and dried in a jiffy, looking like new, and it went with everything else in his wardrobe, somehow making the smart look casual and the casual look smarter. On principle, Felix had spent ten years looking for something more suitable to replace it with when it finally wore out, but it never did wear out, and he was far too much a man of his generation to dream of discarding something when it was still entirely serviceable, even if he had an existential crisis every time he wore it.

  He closed the wardrobe door, went downstairs and watched the recording of that afternoon’s Countdown.

  Mabel barked to let him know that she needed help getting on to the sofa.

  Margaret had never allowed Mabel on the sofa, but once she was gone Felix had thought, Why not? He creaked to his feet to lift the dog on to the neighbouring cushion, but before he could even bend down, she jumped up, scurried behind him and plopped herself down on his warm patch.

  ‘Off there, Mabel,’ he said sternly, but she ignored him.

  ‘Oi,’ he said, and poked her. ‘On your own seat.’

  Mabel feigned death in every respect but a rolling eye, and Felix sighed. This was why not. Just one more thing Margaret had been right about. Mabel was a very determined dog and never gave up this particular battle. The only thing that prevented her winning it every time was his physical ability to pick her up and move her. Felix suspected that if Mabel had possessed the same power, he would at this very moment be watching Countdown from the garden, with his nose pressed against the living-room window.

  He left her where she was and instead went into the kitchen and sat down to finish the jigsaw.

  He’d always fancied himself a solver of puzzles, so had plumped for a very challenging two-thousand-piece snowscape featuring reindeer, called Frozen Waste. And what a waste it had become . . . The reindeer were not a problem. They were virtually complete. The snow, however, was a problem. Felix had four corners and most of the edges, and several random patches of white snow or blue sky that had fallen into place more by luck than by judgement, but most of the snow and tufty yellow grass remained in the box in a tantalizing tundra. Felix had been building the jigsaw for coming up to six months now, and rarely found homes for more than a couple of pieces a day. He had completely overreached himself, but he hated to give up.

  He picked up a tuft. It looked like a hundred other tufts but he knew it was the same tuft that had haunted him for weeks. He had examined every possible option for it minutely, leaning over the picture on the box with a magnifying glass so that he might match every tiny detail – the scrappy brown grass, the smooth white snow at the base – and yet this tuft seemed to belong to another puzzle altogether. Nonetheless Felix spent fifteen minutes brooding over it before putting it aside for tomorrow and picking up some sky from the sky pile. Pale blue, featureless, with three ins and an out. He didn’t know what the proper names for the ins and outs were, or even if they had proper names, but that’s what he called them. Ins and outs. Not that it mattered: they were all in the wrong place, or were the wrong subtle shade of blue.

  The box said AGE 8+. Felix snorted.

  The phone rang and he tutted and frowned at the clock. It was after nine, so it could only be Geoffrey. Even before nine he rarely got calls from anyone except telemarketers, and they were mostly robots now. Felix almost missed the good old days of hanging up on real people.

  ‘Rob?’ said Geoffrey. ‘Chris is giving up!’

  ‘So he told me,’ said Felix.

  ‘It’s too bad,’ said Geoffrey. ‘We can’t afford to lose people. We’ve got so much work to do.’

  ‘Have we?’ said Felix, rather surprised.

  ‘Of course. We’re inundated.’

  ‘Inundated?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Geoffrey. ‘We get twenty calls a week.’

  Felix was surprised by the low number that Geoffrey considered inundation – especially as he knew not all of those would be deemed suitable clients. The Exiteers existed to support people with terminal illnesses and for whom pain meant their lives were no longer bearable. Geoffrey had told him long ago that they were not in the business of enabling anyone who was ‘just a bit fed up’.

  Felix was disappointed that there was so little demand for their services, but then they were hardly advertising in the Yellow Pages. Theirs was a hush-hush operation accessed only by cautious word of mouth. It ran on instinct, trust and secrecy, and the fact that there were only twenty calls a week must mean there was a far wider need.

  So he tempered his disappointment and asked, ‘And how many Exiteers are there?’

  ‘Seven,’ said Geoffrey. ‘Six now.’

  Now Felix was truly surprised. He’d had no idea there were so few of them. He’d never dwelt on a number, but if he’d been pressed he’d have guessed at a hundred like-minded people dotted all around the country. But obviously he’d have been very wrong. Somehow he had always imagined himself to be a small part of a much bigger network. A cog in a reasonably sized machine. Not a battleship or a jet fighter, of course, but a steam traction engine, perhaps, or a church clock. It was rather disappointing to realize that he was more of a spring in a pop-up toaster.

  Plus he felt a little miffed at being called Rob, if Geoffrey had the names of only seven precious front-liners to remember.

  Six now.

  But then he realized that even if Geoffrey did remember his name, it would be John, which wasn’t even the right name, so he took offence and forgave it all in the same moment. Felix was good at that. He’d had such big things to be upset by in life that it had become much easier to forgive the little ones.

  Geoffrey sighed. ‘You’d be surprised how hard it is to find new volunteers. Many, many people support what we do, but very few actually want to do it. And many of those who do want to do it are just not . . . suitable.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ said Felix.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Geoffrey. ‘You just can’t be too careful with this sort of thing.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Felix. ‘So with whom will I work now?’

  Exiteers always worked in pairs. Geoffrey said it was for emotional support, but Felix – ever the accountant – imagined it was so that nobody st
ole anything. Nearly all of his work had been done with Chris. Only on his first case had he been paired with a sprightly middle-aged woman called Wendy, who’d apparently died herself shortly thereafter. Geoffrey had told him she’d choked on a sweet during a yoga class, which Felix felt was so bizarre that it must be true.

  ‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Geoffrey, ‘and let you know.’

  ‘Thank you, Geoffrey.’

  ‘Night, John.’

  Felix put the phone down and then called through to the lounge, ‘Garden, Mabel!’

  The Loving Wife and Mother

  Felix always wore his best suit to visit his wife and son. The navy pinstripe, with a white shirt and the blue-and-green Argyll tie Margaret had bought for him the last time she’d remembered Christmas.

  Best bib and tucker. That’s what she’d call it. You didn’t hear that any more – or any of the old sayings. And the new ones were just f-words.

  It was a perfect April morning. Sunny, but not too hot, and with a gentle breeze. Felix had bought flowers from the corner shop. They were yellow tulips and nice enough, but wrapped in layers of plastic and brown paper when all they really needed was a good old bit of garden twine to hold them together.

  He opened the boot, took out his thermos flask and the fold-up camping chair and trudged up the hill.

  Margaret and Jamie were buried side by side on the slope overlooking the whole town and, beyond that, the estuary. It was a lovely spot. Felix had paid for the original double plot close to the oak tree many years ago, but when Jamie died they had buried him here, and Felix had negotiated to purchase a third plot alongside the other two. The would-be occupant of that plot had recognized that behind Felix’s odd request was a man in want, while he himself was only a man in grudging need, and so had made an absolute killing on the deal, but Felix didn’t mind. He had enough money and little left to spend it on.

  Now he took comfort in knowing that when he died he would take his place once more beside his wife and son.

  He stood at the foot of the graves while a blackbird showed off in the nearby hedge.

  ‘Hello, Margaret,’ he murmured.

  The blackbird answered him with a long, happy lungful, but Margaret’s headstone only said:

  Loving wife and mother

  Felix wished he’d chosen a different inscription. He’d seen this one in countless obituaries, and so – at a time of flux – it had felt safe to him. But increasingly he thought it made it sound as though a wife and mother was all Margaret had been, and that was very far from the truth – although it was only since her death that Felix had truly understood that she had been the sun, and he and Jamie just two little planets in her orbit, held in place by her gravity, lit by her light, and basking in her warmth.

  Everybody had loved Margaret. They’d loved her kindness, and her wisdom, and her humour, and they’d deigned to like him too, just for being with her.

  But when she’d started to leave him, her friends had left as well, until Felix had been entirely alone with Margaret. And then entirely alone without her, and by the time she had died, he’d been so exhausted that he could barely think. Her slow demise had been like a steamroller trying to run him down while he staggered from kerb to kerb, trying to dodge the inevitable. Often it felt almost as if he had died too, because all that was left now was a pale shadow of himself, hanging like limp lace at an airless window.

  Without you I am nothing. That’s what he should have had set in stone.

  At least they’d done right by Jamie . . .

  TAKEN TOO SOON FROM THOSE

  WHO LOVED HIM DEARLY

  Dearly had been Margaret’s decision. Felix had never seen dearly on a headstone before and felt that it was rather showy. They’d argued about it. Rowed, actually. Now he thought of it, it had been the only proper row he and Margaret had ever had. The only time she’d got really angry about anything. But, of course, every time he looked down at the words now, he knew she’d been right, and that dearly was not only essential but was, in fact, the most important thing on the stone – and that he’d been unbearably stupid to think or say otherwise.

  Margaret had been right about everything. He was still learning that every day. Whenever he was stuck or confused, Felix would ask himself, What would Margaret do? And the answer would come to him as if she was right there, whispering in his ear. Young and sensible Margaret, of course. Not old, sad Margaret, whose reason had deserted her and whose memory had gone and who would clutch his arm and say, Promise me! Promise me you’ll look after Jamie!

  And he could only say I promise because she didn’t know that their son was already dead.

  Felix emptied last week’s carnations into the hedge, then washed and refilled the plastic vase with water he’d brought in a bottle, and arranged the new tulips. He folded the wrapping into a square and placed it under a stone so it wouldn’t blow away. He’d take it home with him. Recycle it. Two different boxes, of course. Both inconveniently big, both made of plastic. And then a lorry belching diesel fumes would come along and do its bit to save the planet . . .

  He unfolded the folding chair and sat down.

  The cemetery was filled with new life. The trees sang their rustling songs, and little animals and birds scurried in the verge, while every sparrow and tit seemed to be carrying wisps of grass or a downy feather. A bumblebee droned by heavily, as if it were in the wrong gear, and the blackbird hopped out of the hedge again to show Felix a strand of orange baler twine.

  Felix smiled and closed his eyes. This place soothed and restored him. Gave him the strength to carry on. One day he hoped it might give him the strength to give up.

  Seagulls called overhead. Immediately he thought of fishing with Jamie. Watching his son curl a strip of mackerel on to a hook, so scared he would pierce his tender little fingers . . . I can DO it! Let me DO it! Felix chuckled under his breath. They’d caught nothing, of course. How could they? Jamie had been so excited that he’d reeled in every ten minutes to check the bait. It would have defeated the most suicidal of fish.

  His smile faded. It was hard not to slide from those memories into much harder ones: from the boy to the young man whose slow death had sunk the fragile raft of faith they had all clung to for two miserable years, adrift on a sea of false hopes and platitudes from doctors whose best was never going to be good enough. They’d all known it, but never spoken of it. Instead they’d chatted and played canasta on Jamie’s hospital bed, or sat silently while he slept, growing smaller with every exhalation, until he barely raised a bump in the blanket.

  In his room they’d always been bright with optimism.

  They’d saved the cracks for the car park . . .

  Nobody ever spoke of the relentless parking that was demanded by a relative in hospital with a prolonged illness. Twice a day, every day, in the dystopian concrete multi-storey that smelled of urine and smog. The constant change for the ticket machine. The long queue at the barrier. The forgetting where the car was. Was it this row? This level? This car park ? The only time Margaret had broken down during that whole long nightmare was once when they couldn’t find the car. She had finally bent over and wept on somebody else’s bonnet while he’d stood beside her, uselessly rubbing her back and clutching the keys to nothing.

  At the funeral, Felix had ached to punch the vicar.

  God didn’t care for them. Only they cared for each other. He and Margaret had cared for Jamie, and then he had cared for Margaret when she could no longer care for herself, and now he didn’t have anyone to care for except Mabel.

  And nobody cared for him.

  The First-timer

  The new Exiteer called herself Amanda.

  She was sat outside a little café on the square in Bideford, close to where Felix got off the bus. There was a nip in the air, but it was bright and breezy. Perfect weather for the beige zip-up jacket, in fact. Felix introduced hi
mself and Amanda shook his hand. She had only just started a glass of hot chocolate, and so he ordered a pot of tea.

  She was startlingly young and he wondered how they’d found her. He himself had been recruited by an elderly woman who worked at the funeral parlour where Margaret had been laid out. Elspeth, her little black name badge had read. White hair. Blue eyes. Kind mouth.

  I’m sorry she suffered so, she’d said, and Felix had nodded at the withered corpse of his wife and said, Death was a relief to both of us.

  He couldn’t quite remember how the conversation had turned from Margaret’s death to the Exiteers, only that when it had, he had not recoiled. Elspeth had alluded to a group who supported the right to die and said she’d ‘leave that thought’ with him – along with her card.

  Felix had thought about it for six whole months, because he was not the kind of man to leap before he’d looked, and then looked again – and then possibly commissioned some sort of risk-assessment report. Caution was as much a part of him as Margaret or Jamie or a jam sandwich.

  But finally he had called Elspeth. I’d like to be an Exiteer, he’d said, feeling as if he were applying to be Batman. But Elspeth hadn’t laughed. She’d told him where to meet her, and by the end of a civilized tea in Banbury’s he’d been approved. By what formal psychological standard, he had never been sure. He suspected it was none. But Elspeth seemed to be a very intelligent woman, and he’d had confidence in her good judgement.

  Felix hoped that somebody like Elspeth had checked Amanda out properly, but, really, somebody should have warned him that she was quite so young.

  ‘Have you done this before?’ he said as soon as the waitress walked away.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Have you?’

  He nodded. ‘Many times.’

  ‘How many?’ she said. ‘Times. I mean, how many times?’

  She was nervous. He’d been nervous too, before his first time.

  ‘Twenty-seven.’

  She widened her eyes at him. ‘That’s a lot.’