The Losing Game (10 page)

Lois reached out her hand, then withdrew it. “It’s not like you wouldn’t see us. Kit will be back here for work, and I’ll visit.”

Fifty years ago this house above the shop had been full to the rafters with the Okoro clan. Now Dante was facing the prospect of living alone. He’d known the day would come, but nothing could have prepared him. It was as if someone had pulled the plug on his vitality, and he was emptying, draining away like water down a plughole.

“It won’t be until January,” Lois said. “Maybe later.”

In the beginning, when they were eight and nine, Kit and Lois had consumed every one of Dante’s spare minutes. There had been times, numerous times, he’d asked himself what he’d let himself in for. What he could have been doing instead of taking it upon himself to raise two previously neglected, frightened children. He didn’t know the first thing about children. Especially girls.

There had been nightmares, wet beds, broken crockery, and hoarded food.
Good grief.
He’d forgotten about the food stashed under the bed collecting mold and a smell that could have peeled varnish. Despite the months in foster care, prior to living with Dante, the poor waifs had been hungry too many times to truly believe they didn’t need to save some back, just in case.

Dante pushed his bowl of muesli away. “Take your time. Find somewhere nice, and let me see the contract before you sign anything?”

Lois was more than capable of negotiating on their behalf, and Kit would never settle for any old thing. They’d be fine. He didn’t need to worry.

“Of course.” Lois got up from her chair, rounded the table, put her arms around Dante’s shoulders, and held him tight.

He pulled her onto his lap and kissed the side of her head. Kit slapped him on the shoulder and left. There was half an hour before opening, but today she was starting the day unpacking stock.

“It’s come around so soon,” Dante said. “Though I don’t suppose I was ever going be ready for you to leave.”

Lois pulled away, genuinely surprised. “I’m not going far, and I’ll be back here all the time. I’m not like Kit. You understand that, don’t you? There probably isn’t going to be anyone for me, not like she has Sharps. Chances are, it won’t be long before Kit wants to move in with someone, and I’ll be asking you if I can come back home.”

Dante had often wondered what Lois had seen, when she was very little, that made her believe she couldn’t have an intimate relationship with another person. She’d explained to Dante it wasn’t like that. She simply didn’t get those kind of feelings of attraction—to anyone. And it was okay. She was okay about it.

“Your room will always be yours. You don’t ever have to ask.”

She hugged him again, saying, “I love you, Dad,” before she left to get dressed.

Their accountant had been yapping about January deadlines. Dante threw away the cemented remains of his muesli and made his way downstairs to the office, to begin sorting through the spreadsheets and files he needed to submit.

Tax returns. What a splendid way to spend a Tuesday morning.

The sun hadn’t exactly risen—more poured itself languidly over the night, washing the darkness into a milky shade of gray. Moisture hung in the air outside the window, pressing droplets into the corners of the panes. The air in the office felt oppressive.

Dante contemplated a drive or a walk, but the office phone rang. No one but personal clients used the landline these days and never before nine o’clock.

“Hello. Dante Okoro’s office.”

“Mr. Okoro,” the male voice on the end of the line said seriously. “My name is Otto Vance. I’m calling on behalf of the EEP. The Elective Euthanasia Program.”

Bloody sales people. How the hell did they get this number?
Preying on people just before Christmas with their insidious sales talk. Extolling the benefits of choosing to step off this mortal coil early. Transferable pensions, reduced death duty, no lengthy illnesses, or incapacitation. Just a full life well lived.

Dante said tightly, “I’m not interested,” and was about to hang up—

“No, you misunderstand, Mr. Okoro. I’m calling on behalf of one of our clients.”

The words seeped in as slow as the creeping moisture in the air, bringing with it a realization as cold and miserable as the dawn.

Dante didn’t need to be told which client Mr. Vance referred to. “Avery Lister?”

“She told you?” Vance sounded surprised.

“No. I guessed. There’s no one else.” Dante went to the window and searched the leaden sky. Dreaded words clouded his vision. When he spoke, his voice sounded far away. “She didn’t tell me she was ill.”

“Miss Lister chose to keep her affairs private until after her termination.”

After her termination.

“She’s already dead?” Gone. Without so much as a by-your-leave?

“I’m afraid so. She had a list of persons with whom we were instructed to contact post-termination with her arrangements.” Mr. Vance waited a moment and added, “Is there someone there with you, Mr. Okoro? I understand this must be a terrible shock.”

Post-termination.
Dante hated the euphemisms. He hated the man on the end of the phone, in whom Avery had trusted her final wishes. She had to go and do something like this, didn’t she? She couldn’t bear to depend on anyone for anything. Dante knew he ought to have been grateful, but he felt only anger.

Avery was dead. How did they do it at the EEP? A nice drug cocktail to put her to sleep? And on her own? No one to wait with her in her final hours and minutes?

Dante wasn’t sentimental, but she shouldn’t have been alone. He gripped the telephone so tightly his hand began to cramp. He thought of his father. They’d had their differences and too many arguments to count, but Dante had been there for him at the end, and it had meant the world to the old man.

“Mr. Okoro? Are you still there? Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” He cast his mind back to five nights ago, when he’d watched Lucas calling in to Avery’s flat. Lucas and Avery had emerged minutes later, Avery dolled up to the nines. Was that her last night out? Had she chosen to spend her last night on the town with Lucas Green?

Did Lucas know?

“Mr. Vance, do you have a man by the name of Lucas Green on your list?”

Mr. Vance cleared his throat. Dante imagined him impatiently looking at his watch, working out how many more people he had to call after Dante and whether he was going to get through his list before his morning tea break.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the list.”

“No. Of course not.”
Of course not.
“It’s just that they were close.
Please.
”

Silence followed. Otto Vance cleared his throat again and, almost in a whisper, he said, “If Mr. Green is a friend of yours, might I suggest you make yourself available later this morning.”

After that, Dante listened in stunned silence as Otto Vance summarized the arrangements for Avery’s “departure.” He informed him that the details would be forwarded electronically, but they did like to speak to the recipients personally before imparting the sad news.

Avery had died as she had lived, on her own terms. She’d been signed up for the Elective Euthanasia Program since its inception twelve years previously. She hadn’t told a soul.

Dante wasn’t surprised at her choice, only at the news itself. She’d been seventy years old. However, according to Vance, that wasn’t such a surprising age to develop dementia. The frontal lobe variety that Avery had would have robbed her of her independence in a matter of months.

Of course she didn’t want to live. Not without her mind.

Otto Vance started to talk about visitor protocols and parking arrangements. Dante didn’t take half of the information in, as if the fog from outside had infiltrated his brain, dulling his ability to listen. To process.

“Mr. Okoro? Do I have the correct e-mail address?”

“Yes. Yes. Thank you.”

Dante hung up the phone and stared in disbelief at his hands. They were shaking. He gave himself time to breathe, steady in and out, and took his handset from the back pocket of his trousers. He’d programmed in Lucas’s number after Lucas had his night out with Avery, with every intention of arranging to meet him. But not like this.

Not like this.

The ringing went on so long Dante considered with dread that he might have to leave a message he hadn’t thought to rehearse.

Lucas picked up before the call went to voice mail. “Hello?”

“Lucas?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Dante Okoro. We met—”

“I remember.”

He likely couldn’t have forgotten if he’d tried.

“Are you at home?”

“No.” He sounded wary. “I’m at work.”

Dante did his best soften the blow, conveying the news to Lucas before the EEP got to him, with their sterile efficiency and veneered charm.

Lucas’s voice caught as he said, “I should have guessed she had something like this planned. She wasn’t right the last time I saw her.” He drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, God, if I’d known. There are drugs trials. And I read something recently about gene therapy. She didn’t have to do this.”

“It was her choice. It was what she wanted.”

Dante ran his finger through the puddle of moisture in the corner of the windowpane and swallowed down the lump in his throat for the second (or was it the third?) time this morning. What a morning. What a piss-awful fucking morning.

Lucas sniffed and sobbed.

“Lucas? Perhaps you should go home.”

Dante already knew there was no one there to take care of him. He knew Lucas didn’t have a car. He almost made the mistake of offering to come and get him. Of offering to take care of him himself.

“No. I can’t leave. There’s a tribunal today. I have to be there. When did you say the service was?”

“No service. The crematorium—the one in Gale, I think—have set aside a room for friends and relatives to pay their respects on Thursday morning. You’ll get e-mail confirmation after you’ve spoken to the EEP.”

“Are you going?”

“Yes.”

First Lucas’s sister. Now Avery. How many losses could a man take in the same year? Dante didn’t hesitate. “We could go together if you like. I’ll pick you up on my way.”

Gale Crematorium was on the mainland, about five miles east along the coast on the northern outskirts of Gale. Dante heard Lucas breathing, maybe trying to steady his voice before he spoke.

“I appreciate the offer. But if it’s awkward—”

“It’s not awkward. I’ll be at your house at eleven.”

“Do you have a pen? I’ll give you my address.”

“No need. I have it from the information you gave me, on the memory stick.”

“You looked at it?”

“Every last word.” Dante took a pause, then a leap. “I know now’s not the time, but we can talk about that too, when I see you. If you want to.”

He shouldn’t have wanted Lucas to say yes. What kind of a man would want that? In any case, Lucas didn’t commit to an answer.

He said, “Thank you. I’ll see you on Thursday. At eleven.”

“Thursday,” Dante said and hung up.

Looking out of the window, to the heavens, he wondered if Avery was looking down on him now. Brow furrowed, lips pursed. Shaking her head.

LUCAS GENTLY
lowered his handset, not allowing the glass and plastic to make a sound as he placed it facedown on the desk. Still, the movement was enough to reawaken the memory of last Thursday night. The way Avery had dressed up and paid for everything. The way she’d kissed him. Kissed him good-bye. The prepaid credit card she’d given him for an unknown sum that wouldn’t activate until the third of December. Today.

Lucas put his head in his hands.

Avery’s dead.

He almost hadn’t answered the call. He’d been about to leave… to go upstairs. To the tribunal, due to start at nine o’clock. Lucas walked the corridor and the stairs to the fifth floor. He took a seat alongside… what was his name? It didn’t matter. Lucas was only there to make up the numbers. For the sake of appearances.

Seated to his left, Nadia said, “Are you all right?”

“I’ve had some bad news. But it’s okay. I’m okay.”

Lucas had become so used to saying he was okay, whether he was or he wasn’t, that the words had come out as easily as if Nadia had pressed a button on his chest. Sometimes he wondered if he said he was okay enough times, it might actually begin to be true.

Did other people believe it was true? Was his manager, Nadia, convinced?

She clutched Lucas’s upper arm. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m okay,” he repeated like an automaton. “But I wouldn’t mind a glass of water.”

“You look like someone died,” someone joked from across the table.

“They did.”

An atmosphere might have descended over the room, in addition to the one already building. Lucas didn’t notice. He insisted he stay for the tribunal. He was, after all, “Okay, fine, hunky-dory.”

Once the cool water slipped down his throat, Lucas did feel better. He even managed to speak on behalf of… the man’s name was Nash. He worked in the postal room. Used to.

The meeting finished in time for lunch. Nadia pulled Lucas to one side in the corridor. “Lucas? Who died?”

“A friend. A good friend. I got the call just before the tribunal.”

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know how you held it together in there.”

Lucas felt like saying, held what together? He was shaking apart right in front of her eyes. Couldn’t she
see
?
But Nadia’s eyes seem to be focused on a spot on the wall over Lucas’s shoulder.

“Why don’t you go home?”

“I’d rather stay. The funeral’s on Thursday. I’ll need the day off then.”

“Put the meeting sign across your door, and I’ll have Tracey redirect your calls. If you’re up to it, maybe you could take a look at some of those corporate workshops that Oast-house sent us.”

“I will. Thanks.”

Even though he wasn’t hungry, Lucas decided to buy lunch first. He found Lily at her desk, and they went down to Ashley’s in the downstairs courtyard, where Lucas ordered a bowl of tomato soup and a cheese sandwich.