The car came to a smooth halt outside the arcade, gelid rain lashing its metallic form with sombre discontent. Frank eased himself out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear passenger door. He gently helped Betty out of the vehicle, her frailty at odds with his bear-like bulk. Careful not to cause her discomfort, Frank guided his charge to the wooden bench facing the sea front and set off towards the chip shop.

Betty opened her brolly and took refuge beneath its canopy, the rain peppering its taught skin with cold, rhythmical disregard for Betty’s well-being. She pulled her heavy winter coat around her neck, her arthritic hands struggling at first to gain purchase on the soft material offering limited warmth. At her age, the slightest breeze was felt within ancient joints and stiff limbs. Rain was especially unwelcome, yet her weekly visit to the bench was a ritual, preserving a life-affirming tradition both tender and painful in equal measure.

Betty and Mick had met on a similar bench occupying precisely the same site as that now bearing Betty’s shrunken form. If time allowed, they returned to that hallowed site once a week and had maintained the appointment for nearly fifty years. With Mick long since dead and buried, Betty anchored the past to the present by returning to the bench once a week, Frank dropping her off and collecting her an hour later with almost robotic efficiency.

Frank knew the significance of the bench and the precious ritual, and he ached to give Betty anything she desired. Betty had always had that effect on people, her soft blue eyes never pleading, but impossible to resist none the less. Now watery and no longer the bright alluring orbs they had once been, Betty’s glance still inspired an unquestioning desire to please her in the soul of anyone who knew her. Those same eyes had snared Mick’s heart and kept it chained to her desires for the duration of their long, harmonious marriage. In turn, she gave Mick all that he desired with unconditional loyalty.

She missed Mick with a visceral longing almost as pernicious as the advanced cancer slowly decimating her brain stem. The surgeon had given her less than a year to live. Comforting news, for soon she and Mick would be reunited on another more ethereal bench. The thought warmed her heart as the coat could not.

Frank handed two floury baps to Betty, careful not to drop any of the food onto her thick black coat. He checked his watch and headed back to the car. He’d wait there patiently until the hour was up and it was time to take Betty away. He’d long since learnt that Betty was a creature of habit, and the observation of her daily schedule was his highest calling. If anything, ever happened to Betty or caused her unhappiness, Frank would never forgive himself and neither would those who shared his devotion towards her.

Betty placed the two baps on the damp bench and waited for the bravest seagull to swoop in for the offering. The first to act was either the most fearless, or the most desperate. The two antithetical states were paradoxically the same, a lesson Betty learnt early on in her life with Mick. The seagulls shrieked above her, slicing through the damp air with dextrous elan. She admired their tenacity and focus. Most of all she respected their drive to survive, despite the competition they provided to each other. Noble creatures, much maligned and seldom shown affection.

Together, she and Mick had carved out a thriving business empire consisting of five pubs, four chip shops, three hotels and the arcade. She’d added two nightclubs and three takeaways to the portfolio since Mick’s passing, and completed upon the purchase of four B&B’s within the last eighteen months.

Mick and Betty had bought up nearly one third of the resort’s private dwellings, reaping the lucrative benefits of a domestic rental portfolio and funding their expansion into the cut-throat commercial rental market. Trusted personnel ran her entrepreneurial affairs, but Betty remained the matriarch directing their professional efforts towards her simple goals.

Money did not motivate Betty. She could have retired from business life decades ago. Everything she did was a monument to Mick and her adoration of him. He’d always wanted more, and Betty chose to honour his memory by continuing his ethos.

Betty removed a silk handkerchief from her Prada handbag and dabbed a hot tear away. The rain had begun to pool at her feet and the bread was rapidly turning to a soggy mulch. She smiled at the metaphor and knew she too was disintegrating according to nature’s laws.

Betty signalled to Frank who shot out of the car and joined her by the bench. She clearly wanted to end today’s memorial early. She had pressing business to attend to and the rain was beginning to seep into her brittle bones. She did not shiver, though her atrophied muscles begged her to do so. Unseemly. Betty never displayed weakness.

Once back in the warmth of the S-Class Mercedes, she tapped the privacy button with a manicured, knurled talon allowing two-way conversation between her and Frank. For such a big man, he was always so gentle with her. Hard to believe he could harm anyone, yet his eyes said otherwise.

“Is our latest adoptee with us my love?”, Betty let the question momentarily dangle in the air before meeting Frank’s eyes in the driver’s mirror. Frank cleared his throat and replied. “Trussed up like a turkey and snug in the boot. I had to give her a slap before I could inject her. After that she calmed down nicely.”

Betty ruminated on the information, turning the heat setting on her seat up to maximum. “Fine. Let’s settle her into her new lodgings with no fuss. You can begin her schooling tomorrow when she comes round. Remember dearest Frank, teach her discipline before you teach the rest”.

Betty’s adoptees were hooked on her care. She treated them, if not with a mother’s love, then a Grandmother’s doting attention. She spoilt them rotten, giving them what they craved even though doing so was never in their best interests. Cruelly, they never returned her affection, but they did value her gifts. She seldom visited them personally once they had joined her family, leaving such obligations to those more likely to inspire fidelity. She did however insist on welcoming them into its embrace personally. Best that they knew who they should thank for their salvation. Her eyes would do most of the talking and Frank would fill in the gaps.

Betty’s mind turned back to Mick. She’d soon be with him once again, but first she had business to attend to. Love is eternal and its pain, never ending, the thought comforting her as the car sped gracefully towards the dank warehouse.