Page 31 of Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests

“No, she’s actually doing really well,” he admits, picturing her cheeks filling out again, turning pink when she laughs, which has been often lately.

Those early months of Mary’s treatment seem like a long-ago dream.

Melvin looks back on his double life of comforting husband to Mary and inexperienced lover to Christian with a sort of nostalgia.

He felt wanted and needed by them both. It was exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure.

And then something remarkable happened: Mary’s cancer responded to the treatment, “like magic,” her consultant had said, setting Melvin’s teeth on edge.

The treatment had removed all trace of the cancer so that she didn’t need to have more radiotherapy.

The news was a tonic to Mary. She blossomed from that stooped, achingly thin person to a vision of life and vitality.

She persuaded him to take up line-dancing at the town hall and was talking about booking a three-month around-the-world cruise after Melvin’s retirement.

Mary was constantly making plans, dinners, holidays, new hobbies, new ideas.

He started to avoid going home for a whole new set of reasons.

And Mary’s recovery led to Christian constantly asking, when would he tell her the truth?

Christian had started to make changes to his flat in preparation for Melvin’s moving in.

If he wasn’t dealing with Mary’s incessant plans, he was batting away Christian’s endless questions.

His brain feels constantly under attack.

All he wants is some quiet, some peace to process it all. But his life has other ideas.

“So what is it?” Vivienne asks now.

“It’s me. I’ve been…seeing someone else, and it’s got out of control, but I just don’t know how to untangle it all.”

“It’s Christian, isn’t it?”

“How did you know?” Melvin is shocked.

“The makeover, the nights out, the way you smile when you talk about him,” she says.

And Melvin sees how stupid he has been. He thought he’d been so discreet, believing that his years as a police officer had taught him to hide his emotions, but they had found a way out.

Had Mary seen it too? Is she just pretending to befriend Christian while biding her time until she exposes the betrayal?

“I was going to tell her after Matthew’s memorial, had it all planned out—but that night, she told me the cancer had come back, so I couldn’t do it to her,” he explains, suddenly desperate for Vivienne to see he wasn’t such a bad person.

“Well, good for you, Melvin.” Vivienne smiles. “But now she’s over the worst, perhaps it’s time to come clean. She might take it better than you imagine. After all, you’ve been married all these years; she knows you better than you think.”

“The worst of it is, these last few months, Mary and Christian have become friends,” he admits.

The “we” Christian was referring to in his message was actually himself and Mary.

Melvin can hardly believe the situation he’s gotten himself into.

It’s like a plot from some far-fetched American rom-com that Mary used to watch.

His wife and his lover have become friends.

Really good friends. In fact, Melvin sometimes wonders if they prefer each other to Melvin himself.

He waits for Vivienne’s shocked response. But instead, he feels the bench start to shake. Puzzled, he opens his eyes and finds that tears are streaking down Vivienne’s cheeks. She’s laughing—she’s actually laughing at his pathetic life.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Melvin. I shouldn’t laugh,” she chuckles. “It’s not you—it’s just life. Someone somewhere has a hell of a sense of humor.”

And with that, Melvin finds his despair is replaced with hysteria, and he’s laughing too.

Other customers look over at this large man and tiny woman roaring with laughter.

Their shoulders are pressed together, supporting each other as their bodies become weak with humor. It is funny, tragically funny.

As part of Mary’s new hobbies and reenergized social life, she’d suddenly decided they should have Christian over for dinner.

“I want to meet this colleague you keep talking about,” she said, and Melvin searched her face for any signs she suspected something.

But there had been nothing, just his wife’s lovely, innocent smile.

So Mary prepared salmon with new potatoes, followed by apple crumble (“I know how you policemen can eat”), and Christian turned up at exactly 7:30 p.m., dressed in a pale denim shirt and smelling divine, armed with a bottle of his favorite red wine.

Melvin had never sweat as much as he did during that meal.

He was surprised that neither Mary nor Christian had noticed him dabbing his brow every few minutes, squeezing his arms close to his sides to hide the damp patches.

But no, they were having too good a time to spot Melvin’s agony.

Christian attentively kept Mary’s glass topped up; Mary grilled Christian on the ballet training he’d done as a boy (“You didn’t tell me your partner was a fellow dancer!

”). By the end of the evening, they were hopping around the lounge as The Nutcracker boomed out of their ancient stereo while Melvin gloomily sipped his beer.

Just after midnight, Mary kissed Christian goodbye and practically swooned into Melvin’s arms, “If I was twenty years younger, you’d be in trouble,” she giggled.

Actually giggled. Melvin hoped that, with the introduction out of the way, there would be no reason to meet up again, but to his astonishment, Mary and Christian had swapped numbers when he wasn’t looking and agreed to go to the ballet together the following month.

“What are you thinking?” he fumed to Christian, but he didn’t share Melvin’s concerns.

“She’s a lovely lady, Melvin,” he said. “And now she won’t mind when you tell her you’re meeting me for a drink or whatever. It’s just one trip to the ballet, anyway.”

But it hadn’t just been one trip to the ballet.

There was a dance exhibition at the V&A, followed by lunch, wine tasting at Borough Market, and regular Sunday lunches at their house.

Sometimes they didn’t even consult Melvin on their plans—like today, for instance.

He thought he was meeting Christian, not both of them.

Lately, he noticed them whispering together, then stopping abruptly when he appeared, and he overheard Mary talking to Christian on her mobile the other day, saying, “Who shall we invite from the station?” With a dull ache of dread in his stomach, it dawned on Melvin that they must be planning a surprise birthday bash for his sixtieth next month.

“It’s never too late for the truth, Melvin,” Vivienne says. But Melvin knows it is too late. It is years and years too late.

“I mean, where does she think you are on these nights?” Vivienne asks.

“Work parties or training days.”

“If your number’s coming, if we can’t stop this person in time, you don’t want to leave so much hurt behind. What Tristan says is true: Sometimes not acting can cause the most harm,” she says.

“Is he OK? Tristan, I mean. He seemed pretty unhappy today,” Melvin asks.

“He’s going through his own things,” she says, folding her arms across her chest. “It’s why I haven’t told him about this seven deadly sins theory. Plus, he’d think I’d well and truly lost the plot.”

Melvin sighs. “Maybe we all have.”

“Why don’t you open your envelope with me right now?” Vivienne suddenly suggests.

Melvin looks over at her, vivid blue eyes staring intently into his. He shrugs and pulls the envelope from his pocket.

“Looks like Gordon had a little look before handing it over,” he says. The envelope seal had clearly been pulled back and resealed.

“No surprises there,” says Vivienne.

“You do it,” Melvin tells her.

Vivienne takes it from him. She turns it over and starts to peel open the envelope.

“Ready?”

He nods.

You will die aged sixty-one.

“I’m nearly sixty,” he says.

Melvin stares at the number: sixty-one. Two years away, maximum, and actually, right now, the thought of two more years on this planet seems like two years too long. Melvin can’t see how he can continue like this but also can’t see a way out.

“Do you mind if I keep this?” Vivienne asks, holding up the envelope.

“A clue?”

“Perhaps,” she says, pushing the envelope into her bag.

Vivienne excuses herself to “use the facilities,” so Melvin takes the opportunity to switch his phone back on. He has two more missed calls from Christian, a message from Mary listing out the options for starters at the restaurant. And there’s a message from an unsaved number:

Last night was fun. Let’s do it again soon N x

Melvin draws in a quick breath and pictures hefty, freckled shoulders, an endearing beer belly.

N? Was it Nathan, or maybe Noel? What Melvin hasn’t told Vivienne is that he wasn’t with Christian last night.

Christian was working late and Mary was visiting friends, so Melvin headed out into the night on his own.

At one of the more low-key gay bars, he got to chatting with Nathan-or-Noel about rugby (not something that interests Christian).

From beers, they moved to J?germeister and Red Bull and ended up at a lock-in at an Irish pub where his new friend knew the landlord, who passed out some cocaine.

Before Melvin knew it, he was waking up the next morning in a strange house somewhere near Finchley, shame seeping from every pore.

Leaving the man sleeping, Melvin gathered his clothes and flagged down a taxi to take him straight to Janet’s wake.

As he sees Vivienne make her way back to the table, he deletes the new message.

Maybe he should be giving his number more thought.

But right now, the tangled mess of his personal life is more than enough for Melvin to worry about.

“Another wine, Vivienne?” he asks.