She mixed the egg yolks and caster sugar, added the Mascarpone, fresh cream, and brandy mixing the contents so they blended smoothly. He loved her homemade Tiramisu, a floral scented coffee based desert it was his favourite. She had picked a variety of leaves from her flower and herbaceous border, a few leaves of lavender, dianthus and a few others, soaked them for an hour or so and then ground up the leaves that she now folded into the base cream of the Tiramisu. The final touch was the layering of the espresso soaked sponge fingers covered with layers of the cream mixture, finally a dusting of cocoa powder and the desert was ready, pop it into the fridge for a few hours, job done.
Her next job was to pick up his new prescription from the GP Surgery and take it to the chemist round the corner. His mild heart failure was being effectively treated by a combination of Digoxin to control his heart rate and a diuretic to clear his lungs of fluid. He needed a new prescription as he had seemingly mislaid his tablets on their recent trip to Italy. ‘I ask you,’ she thought, ‘a bloody Italian cooking holiday, what was he thinking?’
She had always hated these so-called ‘social holidays’; she hated mixing with other people, they were always so loud, always asking what you did, how many children you had, ‘I mean why?’ she always asked herself. All she wanted to do was lead a quiet sheltered life, no social interaction, be just like her mother: be a housewife, listen to the radio, knit, garden, and do crosswords. She had no desire for this so-called equality of the sexes, not for her a profession, it was solely the man’s role to go out to work, just like her father had done. Holidays were to be spent either camping or in a caravan, not flaunting yourself on a beach or going to some foreign country, you could watch TV for that. No a quiet life was all she wanted.
She had done a college secretarial course and had gone on to become a secretary in the firm where she’d met her husband, they married, she had children, and she’d settled into a quiet comfortable existence. He’d progressed in the firm, travelled on behalf of the company, gone to lot’s of far off places; of course she never accompanied him, always staying home for the children even after they’d grown up and moved away. Company outings, parties and get-togethers were a definite no-no.
Now he’d retired and wanted to do things together, ‘I don’t think so,’ she thought.
The Italian cooking holiday had been purgatory for her: loud people, too much to drink, and anyway she knew how to cook, well stuff she was happy to cook and he had never complained. But now he was retired he wanted Italian food, pasta, salads, stuff called focaccia, and olives, what was that all about? Italian food was Spag Bol and pizzas wasn’t it? Sure she knew how to make Tiramisu, but wasn’t that an English dish with a foreign name? Just like Black Forest Gateau or that toasted cheese and ham sandwich everybody called ‘Croque Monsieur’, or even lamb curry, that was just lamb hotpot with a bit of spice. Now he wanted to do a cooking holiday in Spain, learn how to make tapas and paella, why? Well she wasn’t going to go, not in a million years; she’ll have to put a stop to all this nonsense.
It was his own stupid fault that he’d mislaid his tablets, but she picked the new ones up anyway, and laid them out on the sideboard ready for him to take when he got home.
Dinner was Spag Bol followed by the Tiramisu,
‘there you are, a fucking Italian meal,’ she thought; and as always they ate in
silence. He had two large helpings of Tiramisu, said ‘thanks,’ and went off to
his den to watch the late night football.
Later that night she went in to say goodnight but he was unresponsive, no reply, she tried to feel for a pulse but couldn’t find one.
The paramedics tried to console her as they took his body away to the mortuary at the local hospital, ‘Sorry my love,’ said the more senior paramedic. ‘Mus have been a sudden heart attack, could have happened at any time.’
The post mortem and the subsequent inquest agreed that the likely cause of death was what was called ventricular fibrillation, an irregularity of the heartbeat in a patient with a pre-existing heart condition.
Some days later consoling herself with some gardening, she pulled up the Foxgloves growing in her floral and herbaceous border, and burnt them in the fire she had lit in the garden brazier, she also threw into the fire the packet of Digoxin her husband had seemingly mislaid in Italy.
As they burnt safely she went into the house made herself a cup of tea and finished reading the copy of the Agatha Christie novel she had so enjoyed. Poisoning by Foxglove, indeed!
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