IX
"If someone could give you a pill"
By the time Wendy came home my batteries were thoroughly recharged and we headed straight upstairs for the usual mindblowing fuck. Later on, when she finally made it to the front room, she looked dismayed at the horrible mark on the carpet. (I had tried to do something about it before she came back, but with only limited success.) I told her I had spilt something.
"What on earth was it?" she asked.
I decided to try the power of FUCK once more. "Don't worry about it," I said casually.
"OK," she smiled contentedly, and cheerfully headed to the kitchen to cook and clean. Part of me missed the old forthright and obstinate Wendy, but I had to admit the new version had advantages. And there seemed no doubt which Wendy was happier, a point I put to the test over dinner. I reminded her of our conversation on Friday night, the one about how her outlook had changed.
"How would you feel," I asked, "if someone could give you a pill that would make you go back to the way you were before?"
"Ugh," she shuddered. "I'd throw it in his face. I was so bloody
miserable
then."
The following day, Monday, was Albert's funeral. I expected it to be a grim affair and so it was. It revealed the sad but perhaps unsurprising truth that Albert had indeed been a man without friends. Mr Lucas the solicitor put in an appearance but apart from him I was the only mourner unconnected with Albert's employer. Even my precious Wendy let me down. She had booked the day off but on Friday one of her colleagues had kindly gone sick and left her with some emergency to cope with (she worked at the head office of a big retailer). So I was left to make small talk with a smattering of Albert's scientific colleagues and a couple of management types.
We kept the formalities brief. Someone from the company made a short speech about Albert's brilliance and unwavering dedication to scientific truth; then I followed with some suitably lapidary remarks recalling his disdain for wealth and fame and praising his single-minded commitment to his goal in life (fortunately no one asked me to specify what this might have been). The whole ceremony was uncompromisingly secular. Albert had never said anything about religion, but somehow we all knew he would have wanted God kept out of it.