The black Lincoln drifted down the tree-lined avenue, chrome wheel trims reflecting the low evening sun. Across from me in the back Cindy, my wife of 27 years, sobbed and sniffed. Shafts of dusty sunshine swept across our faces in neat golden oblongs.
I leant over to try to catch her black gloved hand, to comfort her, but she moved it sharply away, preferring the damp ball of tissue on her lap. I leant forward and turned to her, trying to catch her eye from under the veil, but she was too quick and turned away to the window. Her teardrop pearl earring shook. Was it the movement of the car or her shaking? It was probably a bit of both.
Funerals, I hate funerals, particularly my own. I had been to dozens in this lifespan and it seems my own is the worst of the lot. I sighed as I sank back into the tan-coloured seat, cupping me like a baseball glove. I let out a weary sigh and the seat hugged me tighter, letting out a breath of cool, scented air to soothe me. It was good I went for the emotionally intelligent seating.
I stole a glance in the chauffeur’s rear view mirror and saw Cindy staring straight out of her window. In some ways I was flattered, but it also seemed overly dramatic. It was just one lifespan and I had more than fulfilled my 25-year marriage contract, throwing in more than a decade of extra years purely out of goodwill. Her complaints had no logical or legal grounds whatsoever.
It was proving to be a tense end to an otherwise enjoyable lifespan. My biological age was 65, but a few judicious physical upgrades meant I kept the physique and appearance of a 25-year-old in prime condition. And Cindy could pass for 28, despite having a biological age of 83. It was only her enormous bank of subconscious worldly wisdom that gave the game away about her age. We joked about me being her “toyboy”. We’d learned that word on the couch 30 years ago watching TV shows from the 1980s, when death and ageing were still a thing.
There was still something endlessly fascinating about looking back on the days before universal immortality. Life was so raw back then. It was so binary, you were alive or dead, no middle ground. This rawness seemed to mean that people cared more, about life and for one another. Now people tend to just drift along, not caring so much about each other as they seemed to in the old TV films. Lifespan these days was mostly about finding something to do.
It was 397 years ago now, but everyone alive now had also been around at Year Zero, the start of mandatory gene-renewal. We were no spring chickens at the time. I was 65 and Cindy 83. Can you imagine our relief? It is a shame we could not live with that feeling of thankfulness imprinted on us, so we could enjoy every moment of every lifespan. But that is not the way it worked. The only way to stay fresh is to have our minds wiped at the end of each lifespan. Lifespans had to be kept distinct from one another or chronic fatigue was likely to set in. We are just not able to stay interested forever.
So in each lifespan we dropped into, in whatever role we were given, we began as a whole separate new person, with a completely new narrative. It was like being an actor cast in a completely different Netflix series but with absolutely no conscious memory of our previous roles. We were stuck with what we were given. The only thing we can do, other than play along, is call time and schedule an end to our lifespan as I had done.
Cindy was sniffing again. If I had known she was going to take my dying as badly as this I would have been more careful about telling her. It was so, well, “immature”, if I can say that of someone who is 479, if you add her biological age to the age since Year Zero.
There was simply no need for this kind of melodrama. Why get sentimental about any one particular lifespan, especially when it is not your own? It makes no sense. Controlling your lifespan length is a personal choice. That is the way I rationalised Kevin, our grown up son, deciding abruptly to end lifespan three years ago. It was a bitter blow to our self-confidence as parents, but we had to respect his decision. Kevin had a biological age of 52 at Year Zero and he had been through as many lifespans as anyone. So I guessed he had developed lifespan fatigue.
Cindy never really accepted it. And, to be truthful, I never felt as fully connected to this lifespan after. It is as if being made nominally responsible for someone else made me value my own lifespan more. Once that responsibility ended, my own lifespan seemed to lack something. Meaning, I guess.
When a romantic partner chooses to throw in the towel you could marry someone else, or enjoy being single for as long as you want, or you could call it quits yourself. But, reading around told me it was common for people to become very emotional about partners dying. Sometimes they were sad and shocked, sometimes a bit relieved. Maybe this is a flaw in humans even scientific progress will not let us escape?
With people living for as long as they want, funerals are often an alternative to divorce. Rather than go through the aggravation of breaking up with a contracted lifespan-partner people will simply pull the plug on their whole lifespan instead. That way they avoid the awkwardness of being around bumping into an ex partner for years. It is a neat solution all round. This is not the case here. I just needed a change of lifespan scenario, not a way to escape Cindy. In an ideal world she could come with me to the next lifespan, but that is not the way it works.
For my part I had done my best to make the whole announcement of my death as light and breezy as possible. People can tell when someone’s given their notice. There is a different energy around them. And I never believed in letting an issue like this become an elephant in the room. She was bound to notice I was acting differently. If something threatens to become an awkward, unspoken issue, just get it out right away, that’s what I say.
There was no better way to do this, in my experience, than to slip the information into conversation while doing something else. It was a method I had used on several occasions already. I had announced to my business partner that I had bankrupted our company while we were on a rollercoaster. He had shouted and punched me a few times, but that was all.
And I told Cindy that our son Kevin had registered himself dead while I was crouched under the kitchen counter unblocking the sink. She had gone to stand in the garden for a few hours and did not speak to anyone for a few weeks. I dread to think what would have happened if I had not broken the news so well. Tennis, I had thought. I would tell her I was booked in to expire while we were playing tennis. We first met at the tennis club, so it had a certain symmetry.
So, a fortnight ago, me and Cindy were at the tennis club about to play our weekly game. They had invented far better games now, but we did it for the deep retro. Maybe we both liked tennis before Year Zero? Deep retro was also the reason I was in my traditional collared white tennis shirt, shorter-than-necessary shorts and headband. Cindy had on her kitschy pink crop-top and tennis skirt and yellow plastic sun visor.
“I will miss those body parts,” I thought.
“Hey, Cindy, let’s play a game,” I said with all the casual good nature I am known for. I walked back to the service line. I bounced the ball three times and served her a high-kicking one to her forehand. She was not quite ready and sliced it into the net.
“15-love,” I said, then went back and bounced the ball. There was no time like the present, “I’m going to a funeral in a couple of weeks. It should be fun.”.
“Really?” Cindy said.
I served and Cindy sprinted to retrieve it, taking it on the rise at shoulder height while running full speed, producing a topspin drive down the line.
“Fifteen-all.”
“Whose funeral? Not Ernie?”
“Ernie?… No, no!” I shouted, serving another.
She scramble to retrieve the ball as it landed close inside the baseline, as it spat viscously forward low and fast. She struck it long to the backhand. I sensed her pink outline ready bobbing at the net to take a volley, so I looped a lob.
“No, it’s not Ernie.”
“Whose then?” she said, while dashing back and making a sliced backhand landing mid-court. It lacked serious power and spin, giving me options. I drew my racket back as if to drive, then chipped a drop shot over the net with heavy backspin.
“It’s mine!” I shouted triumphantly as the ball dropped over the net. She did not move an inch. The ball bounced twice and rolled off. I started walking back to the service line. When I turned round she was standing staring, her mouth wide open.
“30-15,” I said.
She stopped where she was, silent for maybe a minute. Then she let out a roar and started bashing her racket against the court, before throwing it over the perimeter fence, where it landed on top of a bush and stayed there. She started walking off. This is the kind of closure you get when you refuse to allow an elephant into a room.
“What?” I shouted after her. “What’s wrong, Cindy? Cindy? For God’s sake, Cindy!”
Clearly she could have taken the news better. And her mood did not improve in the weeks after either. None of my many attempts to lighten her spirits had worked. In fact they seemed to have the opposite effect.
This was not what I had in mind. I had pictured a real up-beat send off, with lots of parties, funny speeches telling people how great it was to know me, lots of booze and, in an ideal world, marathon farewell sex with Cindy. But, no, none of that materialised.
She barely stopped crying all week and was generally morbid and resentful. Most of the time, like now, she would not even look me in the eye, let alone anything else. A scowl would be a step forward.
With all this weeping going on I began to get morbid too and eventually reconciled myself to having a thoroughly miserable farewell. Why do people have to take it so personally? My wish to move on to another life was about me and my feelings about this life and no judgement on anyone else, least of all Cindy. Truthfully she was one thing which made me want to carry on. I told her so.
“I was happy with carrying on,” she said, scowling.
“Everyone wants a change at some point. It’s natural.”
“Not me. Not at this point.”
“You just hadn’t reached that point yet. I’m sorry for that, but that’s just the way it goes.”
I told her how I had begun thinking I might have “multiple lifespan fatigue”, like they wrote about in the news. The idea is that having one lifespan after another with the same brain is no good for people. Eventually we start getting fed up with it despite every attempt to wipe our minds. I felt a weariness right from the start of the lifespan, I said.
“Bollocks,” Cindy said.
The fact I had kept up my enthusiasm for most of this 30-year stint was nothing short of a miracle I would say
I was just thinking this when I heard Cindy leaning forward and talking to the driver.
“Pull over here on the right, Charlie.”
.We were outside the tennis club and before it stopped Cindy had the door open ready to get out.
“You can’t go like this on the way to my funeral.”
She pulled back her veil, looking me in they eye.
“Yes, I can, John. What you have never seemed to realise is that I’ve got lifespan to live too and that, somehow, it was connected to yours,” she patted the roof, slamming the door shut.
“I…,” I said.
I guess that was all there was to say. It was not ideal to have your wife bail on your funeral, but at least she would not bring down the mood.
I saw Cindy go through the gate of the tennis club and out of sight. I turned and sat back in my seat, which tightened around me, soothing me with a cooling waft of air. I glanced at my watch. In less than hour this lifespan would be wiped. The engine picked up and the oblongs of golden sunlight drifted across the cabin. ■