“You always get louder when you drink,” Cyril said.
“Oh, everyone gets louder when they drink,” Kay said, irritable at the interruption.
“It’s just, the Samsons—”
“FUCK FUCK FUCK!” Kay shouted at the window. “Is this the last night of our lives, or isn’t it?”
“I thought that’s what’s under discussion. And on every other night of our lives, we’ve tried to be considerate of our neighbours, so we should also be considerate on the last one.”
“I was trying to say,” Kay said, at an elaborate if condescendingly reduced volume. “Our lives are our artworks. Sure, we can do a deal with the devil. We can accept decrepitude in trade for remaining technically alive—as a travesty of what we used to be, a walking—or not walking—self-humiliation. But that’s like vandalizing our own creations. It’s like destroying what we love in order to keep it. You and I, we can still talk, and make sense. We can still enjoy each other’s company. Other people can still enjoy our company. You were a fine tenor. Let’s go out on a high note.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“I keep getting the impression that I’m more certain than you are.”
“But there was something suspiciously . . . lofty about that speech of yours, being our own ‘artworks.’ Suspiciously high-flown. As if you were talking yourself into something.”
“I’ll keep it simple, then. How much better are our lives going to get than they are right now? What are the chances that everything gets worse from here on out? Not only a bit worse. Loads worse?”
“One hundred percent,” Cyril said.
It was Kay who fetched the water, the tumblers, and the funny black soap-dish box, Kay who first raised her glass with a palmful of tablets and waited for her husband to do the same before giving a quick sharp nod, like the start of a pork-pie-eating contest or party game, and Kay who pulled Cyril to her good shoulder and placed a warm, consoling arm around his back. But it wouldn’t do to sink into the cushions of the sofa whilst letting so much of that good cabernet go to waste, so before closing her eyes and kissing the silky hairs on her husband’s forehead she downed the rest of the glass.
About the Author
LIONEL SHRIVER’s fiction includes The Motion of the Body Through Space; The Mandibles; Property; the National Book Award finalist So Much for That; the New York Times bestsellers The Post-Birthday World and We Need to Talk About Kevin, the international bestseller adapted for a 2010 film starring Tilda Swinton. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Harper’s Magazine, and many other publications. She’s a regular columnist for the Spectator in Britain. She lives in London and Brooklyn, New York.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Lionel Shriver
The Motion of the Body Through Space
Property
The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047
Big Brother
The New Republic
So Much for That
The Post-Birthday World
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Double Fault
A Perfectly Good Family
Game Control
Ordinary Decent Criminals
Checker and the Derailleurs
The Female of the Species
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GO. Copyright © 2021 by Lionel Shriver. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design by gray318
Cover photograph by Mark Read
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition JUNE 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-309426-0
Version 04202021
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-309424-6
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Should We Stay or Should We Go Page 27