The life-changing accident happened, as they often do, quite unexpectedly.
They were to head out for the morning. When Mrs Dixit came to collect her husband, he was straightening the only picture in their living room. It was a framed print of the long-windedly named The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias) by Claude Monet, but which they both called the one with the flowers. Mrs Dixit knew them to be dahlias – she’d worked in a florist shop after all – but her husband didn’t, so ‘flowers’ they were. If she’d ever referred to the picture as the one with the dahlias, even clarifying it as in the living room, he would have looked at her in puzzlement, and possibly mild disapproval.
‘It was crooked,’ Mr Dixit explained. ‘Off slightly.’
She shrugged in acquiescence, knowing this not to be true. What he meant was, the picture was cluttering up his nice clean wall, and had done for years. This, they would never agree upon: rooms needed pictures, one at the very least – which had always been her compromise. As payback, Mr Dixit was in constant battle with their correct hanging angle, regularly taking them off their hooks to see if they had discoloured his pristine walls.
Mrs Dixit stood back as her husband continued to tip the painting side to side, ever decreasingly.
‘What do you think?’
‘To the left,’ she answered him. ‘The right. Left. Right. Bit more left.’ Each adjustment was so tiny it was practically negligible, and Mrs Dixit had to suppress a smile. She enjoyed teasing him like this, secretly. It cultivated fondness.
Mr Dixit ran a finger along the top of the picture’s frame, and all affection for her husband dissolved.
‘Huh,’ he said, as if surprised about the lack of dust, although he shouldn’t be; Mrs Dixit’s cleaning hours each week were legion.
‘Are you ready to go?’ she asked, brushing away the imaginary dust from his finger with hers.
‘After this,’ he replied and kissed her hand.
The Dixits travelled to Stratford on the Central line, because Mr Dixit didn’t like to drive in his own time. The couple sat quietly on the train carriage, covering their ears in sync whenever the scraping noise of the rails became too much for them, which was often. Mrs Dixit read a book about walking in nature, although they rarely walked in nature anymore, and Mr Dixit occasionally toyed on his phone. He was bidding on a set of six vintage polychrome model trains from a Midwest collector, and wanted to make sure he was still on top. He must have been, because he never grunted or sighed, his usual tell for a competing bid. Mrs Dixit, still reading, moved a hand to his left arm for moral support, and he squeezed her fingers with his bicep in reply.
When they arrived at their station, it was pleasingly empty. Eight a.m. on a brisk Saturday morning was never going to be busy, except perhaps at Christmas, and the Dixits would rarely venture into a shop post-October. It was now 20 February, the festive sales long over. They had come to look at a new washing machine in John Lewis, and the department store wouldn’t be open for another hour. Being so early, to have the place all to themselves, very much satisfied them both. Once they’d entered the shopping mall, they walked along the empty main avenue, watching the assistants in the closed stores, unpacking boxes or squinting at cash registers. Some were dusting or hoovering, especially in the fancier stores.
‘Must get a lot of street dust,’ Mr Dixit noted, and his wife, lost in her own thoughts for a moment, and not understanding what he meant, nodded anyway.
They travelled up the escalators to the food hall and considered their options. Mrs Dixit was hungry, she’d gone to bed on a light dinner, but she let Mr Dixit make the final decision. Of the three places open, he chose the more upscale establishment, and bought two cappuccinos and two cheddar melt toasties, with a chocolate brownie to share. There was a lot of noise coming from the coffee machine: the barista thumping the stainless steel portafilter to loosen the spent granules, the loud frothing required to steam the milk – it made them both wince in unison.
Afterwards, they sat at a table in the unoccupied main dining area, still in their coats. If Mrs Dixit had known this would be the last meal she’d share with her husband that month, she