Chapter 1
When Eudora Honeysett hears the flip-clunk of the letterbox on this particular Tuesday morning, her heart skips before she pulls it back down to earth like a rapidly descending hot-air balloon. It will be junk mail as usual. Unsolicited junk. As she struggles to a standing position, retrieves her stick, and anchors herself to gravity, Eudora marvels, not for the first time, at humanity’s ability to fill the world with unwanted junk. The oceans are stuffed with plastic, the landfills with broken three-year-old fridges, and her doormat with an endless littering of pizza leaflets, advertisements for retirement homes, and flyers from individuals offering to repave a driveway she doesn’t have. Occasionally, she casts a critical eye over the expensively produced retirement-home brochures filled with photographs of smiling elderly couples toasting their successful move to the old person’s equivalent of a Premier Inn. Eudora can’t imagine anything worse. She was born in this house and intends to die in this house, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Death is an inevitable preoccupation for a woman of Eudora’s years, but she can’t recall a time when it wasn’t lurking in the background. It’s partly due to growing up during a world war, she supposes. She doesn’t fear it though. She is wryly amused by the world’s innate ability to deny death but wholly unsurprised too. People are too busy staring at their telephones, endlessly searching for some truth that will never come, idly sniggering at infantile video clips of goodness knows what, never stopping to notice the universe around them or the people in it. They certainly never notice her. Eudora Honeysett is invisible, and she doesn’t care one jot. She has lived her life as best she can. She is ready for the next step, the final destination, or whatever half-baked euphemism people insist on using these days.
Death. The end. She’s rather looking forward to it. It may be a black hole or, if she’s lucky, she’ll be reunited with all the people she’s ever loved. This is a short list but then why do people insist on having hundreds of friends? She heard a discussion on the radio the other day about “toxic friendships” and how you need to rid yourself of these kinds of people. Eudora’s advice would be to avoid them in the first place. Keep yourself to yourself. Mind your own beeswax, as her mother was fond of saying.
She retrieves the post from the mat with a certain amount of difficulty and is pleasantly surprised to find an A4-sized envelope with a Swiss postmark addressed to her among the rubbish. Eudora experiences that skip of anticipation again, this time well-founded. She’s been expecting this, looking forward to it even. She carries the envelope with the other items balanced on top to the kitchen, holding it out like a holy artifact, worthy of respect and awe. She sifts through the other post. There’s another letter addressed to her—one more wholly unnecessary hospital appointment. Eudora understands that it’s the NHS’s duty to preserve life, but sometimes she wishes they’d leave her alone. Sometimes she wishes there was an opt-out clause, a way of making it all stop. Eudora throws the letter to one side and grasps the A4 envelope in her faltering grip. Glancing at the clock, she reluctantly places the precious item to the side. She will save it for later so that she can give it her full attention.
Eudora gathers her belongings in preparation for leaving the house. She welcomes this daily routine. She may be world-weary, but she refuses to stay indoors all day, slumped in a chair like many of her peers. Her body is winding down like an old clock, but she is damned if she’s going to accelerate the process. Eudora gets up every morning at eight and leaves the house by ten. There are far too many slovens in the world. Eudora does not intend to join their ranks.
She picks up the bag containing her swimming things and leaves the house. The bright sunlight is rather dazzling, and it takes a few moments for her glasses to adjust, bringing shade and comfort. Eudora notices that the estate agent’s “for sale” sign in front of the house next door has been changed to “sold.” She shivers with dread at the prospect of new neighbors. Hopefully they will keep themselves to themselves like the last lot. She notices the postman to-ing and fro-ing from house to house and avoids his gaze. They’ve been on bad terms since she scolded him for taking a shortcut in front of her house, tramping a path through her daylilies so that they failed to bloom last year. He used to stop and chat occasionally but now he looks the other way. She doesn’t care. He was being inconsiderate and needed to be told.
Eudora makes slow progress but remains doggedly determined. She soon falls into a steady tap, step, step, tap, step, step rhythm using her walking stick, or “third leg” as the smiling social worker called it. Her name was Ruth and she was enthusiastically positive. Eudora didn’t share her cheer but didn’t mind it either. Ruth was kind, and in Eudora’s world, this commodity was in short supply. It was wise to embrace it whenever possible.
Ruth had appeared as if by magic one day last year after Eudora’s fall. One minute, Eudora was walking along the pavement, and the next, she was kissing it. Unfortunately, a man with two irritatingly yappy dogs witnessed the incident and insisted on calling an ambulance. Eudora had tried to assert that she would be fine if he could simply direct her back to her house. She was then overwhelmed with sudden panic as she tried and failed to recall her address. In a flash it came to her.
“Quay Cottage, Cliff Road, Waldringfield, Suffolk.”
The man frowned. “Suffolk?”
“Yes,” insisted Eudora.
His expression was kindly. “I don’t think so, my love. This is south-east London. Not Suffolk. I’ll call that ambulance. You might have a concussion.”
And so the process began with a hair-raising ambulance trip leading to a lengthy wait in the Accident and Emergency department. It was during this time that Eudora experienced something of an epiphany. She’d never considered the terrifyingly closed atmosphere of a packed A&E waiting room to be a conduit for enlightenment, but Eudora had lived long enough to know that life never ceases to surprise.
It was the woman with barely any teeth and the hairy mole on her cheek who set the fires of Eudora’s mind ablaze. She looked like a witch from a children’s fairy tale, except there was kindness that shone from her rheumy eyes as she talked, which she did incessantly as soon as Eudora made the questionable decision to sit beside her.
“Not long now for you and me,” she wheezed, glancing up at Eudora.
“One can only hope,” replied Eudora with a polite smile. “Although it’s very crowded. I fear we may be here some time.”
The woman shook her head. “Not in here, you silly goose. I mean we’ve not got long to live.”
Normally, Eudora would have been offended, but she could see that this strange little woman was something of a kindred spirit. “Well, that too,” she admitted. “But unfortunately, we don’t have much control over these things.”
“I thought about killing myself,” said the woman as if she were discussing what she might have for lunch.
“Good heavens above!”
The woman eyed her with amusement. “Don’t pretend you haven’t. Everyone our age thinks about it.”
A horror from the past elbowed its way into Eudora’s memory. “Certainly not,” she said, sitting up straighter in her chair.