I AM still waiting to celebrate V-Day. I thought I was getting there, but then Brenda gave me the old snort and head-toss and told me that V-Day actually stands for Vojvodina Day in memory of a region of Northern Serbia that was roughly stripped of its autonomous status after a particularly nasty bout of ethnic unrest.
Phrases like ”roughly stripped” have always had a queer effect on me, and I was unable to stop myself from moving swiftly on Brenda and wrestling her to the floor. When the paramedics left, she brought me a little warm soup and smiled as if to say she was sorry.
The moment she left the room I poured the soup into a pot plant. The African Violet turned yellow and slumped audibly. It was my turn to smile. She is going to have to try a lot harder than that to get rid of me, I said to the domesticated flora quietly gasping its last. There is very little one can do for a dying plant. For a start, they have no orifices to blow into. All you can do is give it more water and say: ”Drink, you bastard.”
These days very few couples attempt to poison one another. It’s simply too slow. Incremental doses have to be secretly administered. One cannot simply shovel tablespoons full of rat poison into his gaping, snoring cakehole. The convulsions alone are bound to create the impression that a violent struggle has taken place. Nobody, not even our top detectives, will go for the ”sob ? we were talking and laughing and then he stopped breathing” explanation. Not when the lamps on both sides of the capsiszed bed lie shattered in different parts of the room and the bedroom door is tilting drunkenly off one pair of hinges.
Because it has to be done slowly, the recipient will get progressively sicker. To avoid suspicion, the administrator will have to tend to her beloved. This could go on for months. And as he lingers, his cries for soft sponge baths, back scratches and more cold beer grow louder. Only later, much later, do they become fainter. And so do you. Lying awake listening to him moaning for another pelvic massage to ease the pain, you consider taking the arsenic trioxide yourself.
Most of the folk I know would go for your basic blunt instrument. Pick handles are hard to trace. Hardware shops sell them by the clutch. You can go into your neighbourhood Mica and pick up 172 pick handles with no questions being asked. But if you feel drained after loading the Cortina, you have to ask yourself if you are up to the job at hand. Bludgeoning can leave you feeling listless and blue. Some men find it exhausting to swing a pick handle. Most men, actually. But white men, especially. I make no judgement when I say we live in a country where the only time a Caucasian reaches for the pick is when dinner is late.
Hell, that’s just one of many precision tools freely available to men and women alike. Look around. The entire hardware shop is stuffed to the gills with blunt and sharp instruments. Every department has a wide range of equipment capable of choking, impaling, decapitating, electrocuting or smothering your soulmate. If you prefer not to invest in more hardware, you could easily up-end a middle of the range Weber on his chest as he floats past the weir on your purple Lilo grunting like a wounded hippo. That should stop his heart. If it doesn’t, the Weber will keep him pinned to the bottom for long enough. To avoid detection, remove the Weber from the pool and light a fresh fire in it. Slap a chop or two on the grid, if you like. Then call the cops. Nobody would ever suspect the Weber of being the murder weapon. Wash the dishes and you are home clean.
If you are something of a purist, you may want to consider the hosepipes in aisle three. When the colour-coded assistant asks how much you need, be careful not to openly size up his throat and say: ”A metre should do it.” And never ask how far it is from the exhaust to the rear passenger window on a 1997 Hyundai. ”R75? And if you take it over the roof, instead of around the side?”
The good old days of nipping in to the corner cafÃ