Free Where There's Smoke by Black Inc.

from John she hears of an affair that has been going on for years with a businessman from Lyon who takes her away for weekends. Who knows, perhaps on her weekends away she blossoms.
    It is not particularly seemly to speculate on the sex lives of one’s children. Nevertheless she cannot believe that someone who devotes her life to art, be it only the sale of paintings, can be without fire of her own.
    What she had expected was a combined assault: Helen and John sitting her down and putting to her the scheme they had worked out for her salvation. But no, their first evening together passes perfectly pleasantly. The subject is only broached the next day, in Helen’s car, as the two of them drive north into the Basses-Alpes en route to a luncheon spot Helen has chosen, leaving John behind to work on his paper for the conference.
    â€˜How would you like to live here, Mother?’ says Helen, out of the blue.
    â€˜You mean in the mountains?’
    â€˜No, in France. In Nice. There is an apartment in my building that falls vacant in October. You could buy it, or we could buy it together. On the ground floor.’
    â€˜You want us to live together, you and I? This is very sudden, my dear. Are you sure you mean it?’
    â€˜We would not be living together. You would be perfectly independent. But in an emergency you would have someone to call on.’
    â€˜Thank you, dear, but we have perfectly good people in Melbourne trained to deal with old folk and their little emergencies.’
    â€˜Please, Mother, let us not play games. You are seventy-two. You have had problems with your heart. You are not always going to be able to look after yourself. If you – ‘
    â€˜Say no more, my dear. I am sure you find the euphemisms as distasteful as I do. I could break a hip, I could become gaga; I could linger on, bedridden, for years: that is the sort of thing we are talking about. Granted such possibilities, the question for me is: Why should I impose on my daughter the burden of caring for me? And the question for you, I presume, is: Will you be able to live with yourself if you do not at least once, in all sincerity, offer me care and protection? Do I put it fairly, our problem, our joint problem?’
    â€˜Yes. My proposal is sincere. It is also practicable. I have discussed it with John.’
    â€˜Then let us not spoil this beautiful day by getting into a wrangle. You have made your proposal, I have heard it and I promise to think about it. Let us leave it at that. It is very unlikely that I will accept, as you must have guessed. My thoughts are running in quite another direction. There is one thing the old are better at than the young, and that is dying. It behoves the old (what a quaint word!) to die well, to show those who follow what a good death can be. That is the direction of my thinking. I would like to concentrate on making a good death.’
    â€˜You could make just as good a death in Nice as in Melbourne.’
    â€˜But that is not true, Helen. Think it through and you will see it is not true. Ask me what I mean by a good death.’
    â€˜What do you mean by a good death, Mother.’
    â€˜A good death is one that takes place far away, where the mortal residue is disposed of by strangers, by people in the death business. A good death is one that you learn of by telegram: I regret to inform you , et cetera. What a pity telegrams have gone out of fashion.’
    Helen gives an exasperated snort. They drive on in silence. Nice is far behind: down an empty road they swoop into a long valley. Though it is nominally summer the air is cold, as if the sun never touched these depths. She shivers, winds up the window. Like driving into an allegory!
    â€˜It is not right to die alone,’ says Helen at last, ‘with no one to hold your hand. It is antisocial. It is inhuman. It is unloving. Excuse the words, but I mean them. I am offering to hold your hand. To be with you.’
    Of the