No Reason To Die by Hilary Bonner Page A

His woman was dying. How did he think she was doing, for fuck’s sake. He glanced away, blinking rapidly.
    ‘Oh, not so bad,’ said Moira.
    ‘Yes, we thought you were a little better today, Mum, didn’t we?’ interjected Paula.
    ‘You know, I do believe I was,’ continued Moira. ‘I’ve not had a bad day at all, not at all.’
    ‘You ate nearly all of that chicken broth I made you this evening, didn’t you, Mum?’
    ‘I did, dear. And, do you know, I really enjoyed it.’
    Kelly felt his shoulders tensing. He wasn’t sure how much of this he could listen to. It was the same every time. The imminence of Moira’s death was never mentioned, and to Kelly the scene around her bed all too often resembled a cross between a Brian Rix farce and something out of Alan Bennett. If it weren’t so fucking tragic, it really would be funny, he thought.
    It was as if they all had parts in a play and were acting out their specific roles. Only Kelly wasn’t very good at his. He sometimes thought he might do better if he were allowed to talk properly to Moira about her illness, about the death which was not far away and about how she felt, knowing that she would not be around for much longer. That was what he wanted to do, deep inside, but Moira had made it quite clear that was not her way. And in any case, if she suddenlydid start to talk to him in that manner, he suspected he wouldn’t be able to cope with that either. After all, Kelly was just as much of an ostrich as all of them. Worse really, he supposed. He did not even want to be in the same room as poor sick Moira, let alone make inconsequential small talk.
    Moira squeezed his hand.
    ‘So, come on, John, tell us how the book’s going. What sort of day have you had?’
    Kelly looked at her blankly. Once again, the truth did not seem quite the reply to make. What sort of day had he had? As seemed to be his habit, he had failed to write a single word. He had then gone to a pub, even though he dared not even have a beer, ostensibly to think, and more likely in a deliberate subconscious ploy both to avoid attempting to write and to evade seeing Moira. In the pub, he had met a frightened young man who had told him that he feared for his life. The young man had, however, been very drunk. None the less, a little later Kelly had watched his dead body being loaded into an ambulance, and his veteran reporter’s brain had promptly begun to jerk into gear to such an extent that he had been able to shift his promised visit to Moira from the back of his mind straight out of his head altogether.
    That was the sort of day he’d had.
    ‘Pretty good, really,’ he said. ‘Another couple of thousand words done and dusted.’

Four
    The next morning Kelly felt absolutely terrible. The alarm clock woke him at six and he managed to force himself out of bed within half an hour of being disturbed by its insistent shrill bleeping, which was pretty good for Kelly, who was not a man who had ever enjoyed mornings.
    Whenever he had writing of any kind to do, he found that making an early start, before his brain became clogged up with other things, was the best and most efficient way to undertake the task. But lately, his enforced early rising had been a waste of energy and the pain inflicted had led absolutely nowhere, because Kelly seemed incapable of putting words onto paper whatever time he hauled himself out of bed, and early starts just made him feel tired and irritable throughout the day, more often than not.
    Resolutely, he made his way downstairs to the kitchen and brewed himself a strong pot of English Breakfast tea. The steaming, hot, dark brown liquid, into which he ladled his customary three spoonfuls of sugar, hit the back of his throat like a blast of pure adrenaline. By God, sweet tea was the best reviver invented by mankind, he thought. Although, of course, it would never again taste quite so good to Kelly as it had during the many years when he had relied on it to cope with his