The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach

local authority, like a drug addict or one of the homeless. She was homeless. She was to be shunted away out of sight. How quickly, after Hugh’s death, had she become surplus to requirements!
    “You can’t go to one of those places,” said Beverley the next week. “Not somebody like you.” Beverley understood.
    “Anyway, I’m not old enough.” When reminded of it, Evelyn’s age surprised her. Seventy-three wasn’t her; it floated nearby, as irrelevant as a sum on a blackboard. She didn’t connect it to herself. “I’m not ill enough, either. You have to have something wrong with you, for one of those places.”
    “I’ve been having a nose round.” Beverley produced a copy of The Lady . “I nicked it from one of my clients—don’t touch, your nails are wet.” She opened it and, squinting through the smoke, pointed to one of the advertisements. “How about this place?”
    Evelyn peered through her spectacles. “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. My uncle Edward lived in a house called Marigolds. It was just outside Pontefract.”
    “Well, this one’s in India.”
    T he idea was preposterous, of course. India . It was a big enough kerfuffle just to get herself to Chichester. Evelyn had grown more fearful in her old age. The newspapers carried such alarming stories—biological attacks, rapes and muggings. That very week, according to the Sussex Mercury , somebody had set fire to a litter bin in the Cathedral precinct.
    Beverley, however, thought the idea a hoot and sent off for the brochure. The next week she sat down in Evelyn’s room and opened it.
    “Look at that house—you could be in England. Except it’s sunny.” Outside, rain lashed the window. It had been the wettest August on record—gales, thunderstorms. The management had had to switch on the central heating. “What’s the point of moldering away in this bloody country? How long’ve you lived in Sussex?”
    “All my life,” said Evelyn.
    “That’s so not adventurous. Isn’t it time for a change? After all, what’s to keep you here?”
    How did Beverley guess? Evelyn hadn’t talked much about her children and her grandchildren; it was too painful. Besides, she could never get a word in edgewise.
    “It’d do you the world of good, petal,” said Beverley. “It’s never too late, and you’re in terrific nick now your hip’s better. If you don’t like it you can always come home.”
    All my life . Put like that, it did sound tame. But they had been fulfilled and happy years, Evelyn was sure of it, despite Theresa’s bemusing version of events. With the passing of time, however, and the departure of its main characters, the mixture felt denuded and flavorless; she had thought about it too much, it was like meat with the goodness boiled out of it.
    “I used to make an excellent stew,” she said.
    “Pardon?”
    “Though I say it myself. The secret was pouring Hugh’s wine into it.” Evelyn paused. “He never knew. I used his beer for killing slugs, too. You pour some into a dish and leave it in the garden, overnight. They climb into it and drown. Such a happy death. The best sort one could imagine, really.” She relapsed into silence.
    “Here, stop babbling and try some of this.” Beverley squirted her with perfume. “It’s Arpège.” She always had some free samples with her. They tried them out together.
    Evelyn roused herself from her reverie. No, the idea was mad. She gave back the brochure. “I couldn’t die in a foreign field.”
    “Indians don’t die.”
    “Yes they do, dear. All over the place.”
    “What I mean is, death’s not important.” Beverley had learned this from her friend Maureen, who knew more about yoga than she did. “When you die you come back as something else. A woodpecker or something.”
    “Why a woodpecker?” asked Evelyn.
    “Search me.”
    Until recently Evelyn had believed in heaven. Now that she was drawing nearer to it she wasn’t so sure; it was like someone shoving a