Elsie was in the pantry tidying up the jars and tins and checking that all was neat and in order and everything was correctly labelled. A lack of labelling wasn’t a problem for them – well, so far – with both of them knowing, for instance, that the icing sugar and not the cornflour occupied the bulbous shaped old coffee jar and the cornflour the taller, squarer and more slender glass jar, despite their contents appearing identical through the clear glass. But they didn’t want to cause more of a kerfuffle for daughters Janine and Corinne after their demise – on their own terms, if all went to plan – than was inevitable. Thus, they were in an organising and sorting frenzy, performing whatever was the opposite of nesting. Purging, Elsie thought it might be termed. That probably wasn’t quite right either, was it? Hmm. She frowned before letting it go. Anyway, this was one of the items on her and Howard’s to-do list, that they were gradually making their way through. They both loved being orderly and getting things done and out of the way. And there wasn’t a whole lot else to do at their age of seventy-eight, in between the medical appointments – just general maintenance; they had no health issues – and attending the funerals of their peers, which was happening far too regularly.

Elsie was enjoying being deep in the pantry: it meant less of the disconcerting occurrences where she thought the movements out of the corner of her eye grabbing her attention were their dear old dog Maisie, who had succumbed to age a month ago. Maisie had never been into the pantry – the space was a bit too tight for a human and a large German shepherd and the dog had remained cautious to the end.

Elsie still felt guilty for not being there with her and Howard at the final moment and also at the thought that she was glad she hadn’t been. The best thing about Maisie’s passing – though, god, she missed her more than she could probably put into words – was that they hadn’t had to make the decision to have her put to sleep after all. They’d spent ages fretting over it, questioning each other over and over about how they’d know when the time was right. The dear old dog had kept them on their toes and on tenter-hooks for the last few months of her life. One day she’d seem to be reasonably energetic and bright, the next she’d be spread out on the floor looking like her demise was imminent. They’d had a great vet, a kind, gentle, patient and reassuring woman. But she wasn’t living with the dog and didn’t do house calls. Lucky that, Elsie had often thought, otherwise they probably would have spent a sizeable chunk of their remaining superannuation having her popping in to check on the dog. As it was, several times they had rushed poor Maisie in to see her – thankfully the dear old dog didn’t mind the vet surgery and loved being in the car – only to have the dog brighten up completely and be sent home again after a quick check-over. That roller-coaster had been hard and a strain on their nerves. But the last time, Howard had been at home alone with her, Elsie having, finally, after all the Covid palaver, felt safe enough from the dreadful disease to meet a friend, Judith, for coffee and to go to a movie…

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