Free Death on Demand by Paul Thomas Page B

Joyce could be truly happy in that arrangement but, as I’m sure you know, Sergeant, lots of able and energetic women are. Bright, healthy kids, a good provider, a nice home, security – plenty of women have been content with that package. As the kids got older she did some relief teaching, and threw herself into supporting their extracurricular stuff – coaching Sandy’s netball teams, scoring for Matthew’s cricket teams, sewing outfits for their stage productions, chauffeuring them all over the show.
    â€œI was quite content with my lot too. I might’ve played up once or twice when I was away on business but that was
just the old male ego, proving to yourself that you’ve still got it. Afterwards you feel bloody ashamed, and go and buy the wife something expensive. The plan was basically to retire at sixty having made more than enough money, get a decent-sized boat, play a lot of golf, and watch the grandkids grow up – all, of course, predicated on the assumption of a long twilight.
    â€œThen in 1999 a couple of things happened. Sandy left home so we were empty nesters, and I got in the financial shit. The old story – taking your eye off the ball, trusting people because they’re members of Royal Middlemore, delegating too much because work keeps getting in the way of a good time. Joyce was entitled to say ‘I told you so’ because she had. She’d always taken an interest in my various projects. I’d ignored her, of course. ‘Don’t worry your little head about it, darling, I’ll come out smelling of roses as I always do.’ But she didn’t say ‘I told you so.’ She must’ve thought it – she would’ve had to be a saint not to – but that wasn’t Joyce. Well, not yet anyway.
    â€œOne night, when I was on my third or fourth nightcap and blaming everyone except myself, Joyce announced that she was going to start cleaning houses – other people’s houses. Well, I went fucking ballistic. No wife of mine was going to be a charlady, I’d rather live under a bloody bridge, my parents would be spinning in their graves, the whole nine yards. And, you know, it was really the first time in our marriage that she just dug her toes in and basically said go ahead, squawk till you’re blue in the face, it won’t make a scrap of difference.
    â€œThe way she looked at it, we simply had to generate some income. With the kids gone she had time on her hands, and there was a demand out there. People were always complaining that they either couldn’t find anyone to clean for them, or the cleaners they had were useless. That set me
off again: bad enough that she was going to clean houses, but doing it for people we knew and socialized with! She wouldn’t budge on that either. ‘Our doctor and lawyer are friends of ours,’ she said. ‘What’s the difference? They don’t work for mate’s rates and neither will I.’ I should’ve realized I was bashing my head against a brick wall, but I was so used to having my own way. I yapped away till she hit me with a question I couldn’t answer, or maybe I didn’t want to: why was I far less troubled by what people thought of me going bust than of her being a cleaner?
    â€œShe had it all worked out. After three months she’d hire someone to give her a hand, and someone else three months after that, and so on. After a year she’d quit doing cleaning work and focus on building the client base and managing her staff. She’d hire recent immigrants because they’d work their arses off and wouldn’t have hang-ups about doing menial work. I said, ‘You really think it’ll be that easy?’ You know what she said? ‘If you haven’t got anything constructive to say, I’d prefer you didn’t say anything at all.’ As it turned out, her business plan erred on the side of caution: after six