The first thing he did when he woke each morning was reach for a cigarette -- then cough, cough,cough.

He’d been told by the doctor that he must give up smoking or face the consequences. And his wife Elizabeth – a tiny squirrel-like woman – had repeatedly begged him to listen to that advice.

‘Please, Henry,’ she implored. ‘Please try to stop. Or at least cut right down. You know it’s for your own good.’

‘And then what? Do I take up stamp collecting or weaving to help pass the time? Or maybe you’d like me to come shopping with you at the supermarket to keep my mind off cigarettes?’

She knew that the chances of that happening were virtually nil. Her husband had never been in a supermarket in his life. In fact they never went anywhere together these days. Not since the accident.

‘I’ve got precious few pleasures left to me now,’ he said pointedly. ‘I might as well enjoy the odd cigarette just now and again.’

Elizabeth was about to say that he could hardly call fifty cigarettes a day “just now and again”. But she knew it was pointless to argue with him. She just had to accept that he would never change. After thirty two years of marriage, endless bouts of drunkenness, and God knows how many other women in his life, Henry was beyond help and redemption.

Of course, she should have left him years ago. But there was always the chance, or rather the hope that he might change. She was a firm believer in hope. Had been from a small child. It was her upbringing that made her see the best in people. Her parents had been honest, God-fearing people; churchgoers. So it must have been something of a shock when they first met Henry Thompson.

She still remembered him walking into her parent’s house for the first time with a cigarette in his mouth and the smell of cigarette smoke seeping from his untidy clothes. Her mother had tried to hide her dislike of the man and his habits. But her father had refused to let Henry back into his home, even after the marriage.

‘He’s vulgar, rude, shabby. And I wouldn’t trust him one bit,’ her father had said. ‘What do you see in the man that makes him so attractive to you?’

Elizabeth had asked herself that same question many times since their marriage.

Maybe it was because Henry was so different from her parents that she’d found him fascinating at first. She had never smoked a cigarette or consumed alcohol or allowed any man to fondle her before she met Henry. So, in the beginning, there was something exciting about being with this man.

But the excitement had soon waned. After thirty-two years of domination, deceit and mental abuse; after pretending to herself that Henry had remained faithful to her, Elizabeth now realised the man was a spiteful, selfish bully.

Even after the car accident a year ago which left him paralysed and in a wheelchair, he still tried to pretend that the accident was not his fault; that she should have been driving, not him.

The police knew that he’d been drinking and was well over the limit . But in view of the tragic circumstances they had been lenient and had not charged him with drunken driving.

Elizabeth had hoped the tragedy would help to change the man; make him realise the importance of life. And for a short while he was subdued, penitent. But it didn’t last long.

He started to blame her for the accident. Blame her for the fact that he was now paralysed, unable to move, unable to get out and meet people; unable to flirt with other women; physically unable to make love.

He hated having to rely on his wife to wash him, dress him and wheel him from place to place.

‘Like a child,’ he said. ‘Can’t go anywhere without my keeper. A caged animal. With people staring at me all the time. And the people I used to know avoiding me as if I’d got the plague or committed a murder.’

He watched for a reaction but the tranquil look on her face never changed.

‘But that’s what I’m here for,’ she said calmly. ‘To take care of you. In sickness and in health. As we said in our marriage vows. Thirty-two years ago.’

‘God, is it really that long?’ he said. ‘ And I’ve probably got another thirty years of being smothered by you and your damned kindness. “Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t drink. Don’t smoke.”

‘But it’s for your own good, dear. You know what the doctor told you. Your heart’s been affected by the accident and by smoking. It can’t stand the strain any more. Every cigarette is another nail in your coffin.’

‘I thought you’d be pleased to hammer in the first nail,’ he said irritably.

But she refused to rise to his vindictive bait.

’Well, it’s up to you,’ she said. ‘If you want to die within the next couple of years, then there’s nothing more I can say.’

The idea, spoken aloud, made him hesitate. Despite his awful disability, he was still self-centered enough, greedy enough, to want to cling on to life.

‘Okay! Okay!’he said. ‘If it will stop you whining I’ll try those damned nicotine patches you bought. But if they don’t work then you can forget the whole idea and stop nagging me. All right?’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘But they don’t work immediately. You have to stick with them for at least a month…Will you do that?’

He shrugged and nodded his head. ‘One month,’ he agreed reluctantly.

He found it difficult to fix the patches on to his arms and back; his fingers were not flexible enough. So his wife had to help him.

Twice a week she removed the old ones and replaced them with new patches on different parts of his nerveless body.

He expected instant results and complained at the end of the first week that he still craved a cigarette.

‘It’s not working,’ he said sullenly. ‘All I feel is nauseous and a constant headache.’

‘That’s probably a good sign. All part of the withdrawal symptoms. You must keep it up for another three weeks like you promised.’ She paused. ‘Maybe I should put some extra patches on your arms and legs?’

As the days went by he became more lethargic and less willing to question the treatment or argue with his wife.

Elizabeth found this lack of aggression, this submission by her husband, strangely enjoyable. She would wheel him into the garden, sit quietly with him in the sunshine, listening to the birds singing in the trees and pointing out the various plants which she tended in the garden which had been a place of solace to her in the past.

‘Look there, Henry,’ she said, with childish excitement in her voice, ‘that’s a laburnum tree with pretty golden leaves, and over there I planted Aconitium Napellus which is commonly called Monkshood; and in the far corner is Conium Maculatum, or better known as hemlock. And do you know what they all have in common? No, probably not. You were never really interested in gardening or anything to do with the home, our home – were you?’

She looked into his glazed eyes for a reply. But he said nothing.

‘But my favourite of all, the one with I love the best, is Atropa Belladonna – Deadly Nightshade.

She watched him closely as she repeated the scientific name. ‘Belladonna. Such a pretty name. Like the child we once had. The child we called Bella because she was so beautiful. That is until her pretty little face got smashed beyond recognition when the car she was in crashed into a tree. The car you were driving after getting drunk in the pub before you collected my beautiful little angel from school.’

She paused, staring at him, while the tears ran down her cheeks.

‘Now all I have left to remember her by is the garden where she loved to play and the plants I have used to create the poison now circulating in your blood – Laburnum, Monkshood and Belladonna. They all blend well in the nicotine patches I’ve been sticking all over your body, and also in the bedtime drink you’ve been enjoying for the past few days. And you have to admit, that rasping cough seems to have disappeared since you stopped smoking. And you won’t have to worry about nicotine withdrawal symptoms any more. Will you?’