Page 23 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests

Melvin makes his way slowly back to the table.

He looks down at his hands, bewildered by what they’ve just done.

Where did that come from? Despite his size, he’s never been a fighter.

He’s always been the one breaking up fights, defusing situations.

And to grab a woman like that, to threaten her?

What was he thinking? At his age, you’d think he’d know himself, but lately Melvin is surprised to find himself doing things he’d never imagined.

His hands are a good example. Fresh from a manicure, he doesn’t recognize them.

When Christian had commented on his “tradesman hands,” Melvin just laughed.

Hands were for doing practical things with: driving, eating, fixing things, and so on.

Mary had always admired how good he was with his hands.

He’d never thought of them as decorative, something that should look nice.

But Christian kept dropping hints about male grooming and in the end went ahead and booked Melvin at a trendy salon and asked for “the works.” Stepping back onto the street afterward, Melvin felt pleased with his new shorter haircut, his all-over wax, and “mani-pedi” (a term that—despite having the word man in it—was possibly the least manly thing he’d heard in his life) but also hoped he wouldn’t bump into one of his colleagues, particularly one of the “old-school” coppers.

What he said to Vivienne earlier wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

Christian was his colleague and had given him a makeover.

Mary had been poorly again. But that wasn’t the whole story.

After Stella’s funeral, Melvin had every intention of telling Mary the truth.

He rustled up his speciality lasagna, which controversially includes sliced boiled eggs and bacon, and got in some decent red wine (Argentinian—he’d remembered Janet’s comment at the dinner party).

Banoffee pie was chilling in the fridge.

Once they polished that off, he planned to explain his feelings to Mary in the gentlest terms possible.

But halfway through the lasagna, Mary pushed her plate away, insisting she was full.

For the first time in a while, Melvin looked closely at his wife and noticed the purple crescents under her eyes, how pale she was.

“Do you feel OK?” he asked, a wave of dread creeping through him.

“Not really Melvin,” she admitted. “I haven’t felt right for a while now, so I went to see Dr. Kershaw last week. She did some tests, and it seems the cancer is back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I always come to your appointments with you,” he cried, reaching across the table to hold her tiny hand.

“I didn’t want to worry you if it was just a cold or something,” she sighed, flicking away the hair that had just recently grown back.

“What did Dr. Kershaw say?”

As Mary told him about the chemo, which was to start as soon as possible, followed by radiotherapy, Melvin’s mind wandered to Christian.

He would be waiting for the call to say Melvin had come clean to Mary and to make plans for their first date.

Then Melvin looked at Mary, listened to her clear voice explaining the treatment that would cause her more pain, more anxiety, more uncertainty.

He knew that he couldn’t do it to her. He couldn’t leave her when she needed him most.

“I knew you wouldn’t go through with it,” Christian snapped when Melvin phoned him late that night after Mary had gone to bed.

“I’m so sorry, Christian. Once she recovers, I’ll speak to her.

I promise,” Melvin babbled, but Christian was too angry to listen, accused him of being a coward before hanging up.

And that’s where it should have ended. Melvin resolved to speak to the station boss the following day, request a transfer to another department, and focus entirely on looking after his poor wife.

But that’s not how it turned out. Christian was waiting for him outside the station when he got to work the next morning, asking to talk.

After work, they went to the Dog he knows he is not the son he would have wanted.

Not ready to go back to the table, Melvin washes his hands again, turns them over under the tap, and wonders what they are capable of: more than just cheating.

Last night, as he’d been adjusting the pillows around Mary’s sleeping head, an insidious thought crept up on him.

If she didn’t survive cancer’s latest onslaught, then Melvin would finally be free to love Christian openly and without guilt.

Watching his wife’s peaceful face, he looked down and realized he was holding a pillow between his hands, his fingers digging into its soft belly.

He could end it for her now, end her suffering once and for all…

and thus end his own feelings of guilt and frustration.

He crept closer to her. She was so still, her incredibly thin body so fragile under the covers, her chest barely moving, almost like she was dead already.

He lifted the pillow toward her face, and then she suddenly let out a low moan, tilted her head to one side.

As if waking from a dream, Melvin jumped backward, dropped the pillow on the floor before picking it up and carefully setting it back down on the bed.

Of course he would never do such a thing. Never.

With one last look in the mirror, he pulls off his bow tie, stuffs it in his pocket, and then takes off the jacket.

As he walks back to the table, he glances over to see Matthew’s boss having an animated conversation with Robyn, who seems to have shaken off her heartbreak rather quickly.

She knocks back some champagne and rests a hand on his pin-striped shoulder, which is actually lower than her own.

It creates the odd image of an adult praising a child.

He beams up at her, a proud son with five o’clock shadow.

Melvin shakes his head and wonders once again how Matthew could have done this.

At least at fifty-four, Melvin’s dad had lived some life, but you could hardly say that about dying at twenty-nine.

And then his mind drifts inevitably to Mary, who is fighting with everything she has to stay alive.

Walking back to the table, Melvin finds Vivienne and Tristan in a deep discussion, their two fair heads almost touching, opposite elbows on the table, like a mirror image.

“So, Vivienne, are you pleased with yourself?” Melvin asks. “Janet was quite upset when I put her in the taxi.” He pours himself another glass of champagne. “One more for the road.”

“No expense has been spared on the catering front,” Vivienne murmurs as another two waiters appear from the kitchen, laden with trays of more smoked salmon blini and delicate vol-au-vents.

“Only the best for Matthew,” says Tristan, helping himself to a flaky hors d’oeuvre. The table goes quiet as the three disappear into their own thoughts.

“You know, before all of this, I never believed in destiny or ‘writings on the wall.’ I have always believed that we are in control of our lives,” says Vivienne.

“I don’t know, Vivienne,” sighs Melvin, suddenly aware of how loud the room has become. “Sometimes I feel that my life will continue on a certain track no matter what I do.”

“I can’t help but wonder about my envelope. I’m so cross with myself for losing it! Sometimes I imagine it’s my age now; sometimes it’s five or even ten years away,” Vivienne says. “My death age wasn’t something I’d ever thought about before, but lately it’s on my mind all the time.”

“I’m sure it will turn up, and then you’ll have to decide whether you actually want to open it,” he tells her. “I bet Matthew wished he hadn’t.”

Then his phone beeps with a message.

Mary:

Are you on your way? The meeting’s at 6. x

“That’s my cue,” Melvin says, standing up and throwing his jacket back on. His bow tie falls out of his pocket onto the floor, but he just steps over it and heads for the door.