Ronald Sidebottome is allowed up in the afternoons but is not expected to last another winter.
Janet Sidebottome died of a stroke following an increase in blood pressure, at the age of seventy-seven.
Mrs. Anthony, now widowed, had a legacy from Charmian, and has gone to live at a seaside town, near her married son. Sometimes, when she hears of old people receiving anonymous telephone calls, she declares it is a good thing, judging by what she has seen, that she herself is hard of hearing.
Chief Inspector Mortimer died suddenly of heart-failure at the age of seventy-three, while boarding his yacht, The Dragonfly. Mrs. Mortimer spends most of her time looking after her numerous grandchildren.
Eric is getting through the Colston money which came to him on the death of his father.
Alec Warner had a paralytic stroke following a cerebral haemorrhage. For a time he was paralysed on one side and his speech was incoherent. In time he regained the use of his limbs, his speech improved. He went to live permanently in a nursing home and frequently searched through his mind, as through a card index, for the case-histories of his friends, both dead and dying.
What were they sick, what did they die of?
Lettie Colston, he recited to himself, comminuted fractures of the skull; Godfrey Colston, hypostatic pneumonia; Charmian Colston, uraemia; Jean Taylor, myocardial degeneration; Tempest Sidebottome, carcinoma of the cervix; Ronald Sidebottome, carcinoma of the bronchus; Guy Leet, arterio-sclerosis; Henry Mortimer, coronary thrombosis….
Miss Valvona went to her rest. Many of the grannies followed her. Jean Taylor lingered for a time, employing her pain to magnify the Lord, and meditating sometimes confidingly upon Death, the first of the Four Last Things to be ever remembered.
Muriel Spark, Memento Mori
(Series: # )
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends