Page 2 of When Lemons Give You Life

I remove the A4 notebook from my underpants drawer, running a hand over the smooth red leather cover. The Death Menu. It’s my bucket list. For most people that’s a list of things you want to do before you die; for me, it’s a selection of ways I could kick the bucket. Thinking about it would have sufficed, but years of culinary training mean I have to document everything, preferably with bullet points and garnish. I may not be able to choose what I eat or wear, but I sure as hell will be going out on my own terms. It’s the one thing I can still control.

As toxic as it is, “Allison’s Death Stare” still hasn’t killed me. I’ve already had a red-hot crack at “Bored to Death.” Turns out, simply existing in this rot-hole isn’t lethal. I’d seen “Death by Chocolate” on enough dessert menus to wonder if it was actually possible, but if last Easter taught me anything, it’s that eating an entire packet of chocolate eggs in one go will end with me on the toilet rather than in the grave.

I skim further down to Number 13, the most likely contender. For some time, I’ve been fake-swallowing my sleeping tablets—a trick perfected during my early childhood when I dreamed of becoming a magician, practicing the disappearing coin in the mirror, slipping it down my sleeve at precisely the right moment. I can swig the pills down with some top-shelf whisky, and it will be lights out for good.

I’ve given myself till the end of the day to decide. Tonight, the year 2024 and I will go out together with a bang . . . or a cacao overdose . . . or with no noise at all.

I flip to the last page and pull out a Polaroid photo, the edges curled from years of handling. My throat tightens as she beams up at me from the faded square, with her missing teeth, dark pigtail braids, and face full of blind trust. A reminder of a memory I don’t want to have, of a person I have no right to miss.

I often wish I had one of those AA handbooks that tells you exactly how to make amends with everyone you’d ever wronged. But I’m not sure there’s a step that could traverse a lie so vast, so irreversible, it would be pointless to even try.

So, now that I’ve finally caught up on the latest season of MasterChef, I have nothing left to live for, and I’ll be damned if I can stomach another of these godawful meals. Honestly, I’d rather eat the gingerbread latte–scented candle Gladys’s niece made for all the residents at Christmas, now stinking up my closet. At least it would have some flavor. I grab a pen and scrawl Number 35: “Eat Scented Candle.” It must be toxic, right?

A soft flutter from the hall breaks the silence.

I glance toward my open bedroom door as a scruffy sparrow lands on the threshold. Its tiny chest puffs in and out, breathless but defiant. It looks around, then hops a cautious step inside, eyeing the abandoned toast in the bin.

“You’re brave to come into this place, little mate,” I venture. “Hang on a tick. I can do you one better than that.” The words feel strange in my mouth—it’s the first I’ve spoken out loud in two weeks. I remove a packet of gourmet crackers I’d been saving from my wardrobe and crumble one onto the floor. “Come on then. It’s not much, but it beats that slop.”

The sparrow hops forward, head jerking side to side, then pecks at its meal.

“Gosh, you’re a beauty, aren’t you?” I say gently, sitting back down. “If I had it my way, I’d serve you slow-roasted millet on a bed of freshly diced Fuji apple.”

The bird pauses, crumbs clinging to its beak. Then, without fanfare, it flits onto the toe of my slipper and settles.

I stare at this grubby, battered creature choosing to rest here, of all places. A lump rises in my throat, the kind that comes when someone trusts you without asking for anything in return. “I don’t think birds are allowed in here,” I whisper. “But I won’t tell if you won’t.”

And for a few moments, I’m not alone.

Loud yelling travels down the hall. My feathered friend startles, vanishing into the corridor. The sound is coming from one of the dementia residents, poor thing. I wonder, for the millionth time, what it feels like to live inside a mind that is slowly misplacing itself. Are they better off than me? I’m surrounded by people losing their memories, while mine won’t leave me alone.

Most of those residents don’t have visitors anymore. Dementia is like the finest of cheesecloths, sieving out the true friends and family from the fake. My stomach twists—a reminder of the loyalty I no longer deserve.

Two residents shuffle past, frames rattling—poor Rob, his back curved like a boomerang, and Silvia, who constantly pleads for a ride home to Rome, unaware she’s lived in Australia for the past fifty years.

Guilt flushes through me, sudden and hot. They need to be here. My gaze snags on the mirror. The man staring back does not.

This Griff is sixty-four.

This Griff has all his faculties.

This Griff is faking dementia.

2

Lisa

“Hey, Siri!” I yell for the umpteenth time, sprinting through the house, hoping the woman inside my phone will make up for my total lack of short-term memory and tell me where she is. Yes, I could use Find My Phone on my iPad—if I knew where my iPad was.

The navy carpet, last seen sometime in the early 2020s, is buried beneath a patchwork quilt of clothes—my “floordrobe.” Shame warms my face. Or perhaps it’s perimenopause? Why do they call it perimenopause? Maybe because it’s spicy like the Portuguese chicken. That would explain the hot flushes. I’d rather a refreshing lemon-and-herb menopause, thank you very much.

Would Mum have left me her house if she’d known how messy I’d let it become? Probably. She always said my heart was in the right place, even if nothing else was.

I wrestle my jeans over my bloated belly—surely another lovely hormonal perk?

The empty packet of salted caramel Tim Tams judges me from the countertop.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I mutter to them, sculling my beetroot smoothie like it might erase the evidence. TikTok says it’s an antioxidant miracle that prevents kidney disease, so I’ve begun pinning all my hopes on its earthy sludge.