When she was a little girl, she had her likes and wants.
She had liked ice-cream, marzipan cake, and she had really liked family trips to the seaside. She wanted to be a doctor, like her mother. Three likes and a want. All perfectly natural. When she was a young woman she had liked spending quiet evenings with her friends in the bar at the tennis club, she had liked the medical student that would occasionally take her to the cinema, and she had liked studying at the university. She wanted to marry the student, have a family and practice medicine. Three likes and a want. All perfectly natural. When she was a mother of three she had liked being a mother and a doctor, had liked the family trips to Spain each year, and had liked the visits from her favourite uncle after his wife had passed away. She wanted to eventually retire from her practice and concentrate on gardening. Three likes and a want. All perfectly natural.
Then, when the children had all left home, she had liked spending time enjoying her own company, she had liked it when he went away on overseas medical conferences and seminars, and she had liked discussing her husband’s adulterous affairs with the private detective she had engaged. She wanted sufficient proof to be found to make the divorce quick and easy. Three likes and a want. All perfectly natural. When settlement had been made, she had liked the life-changing event of selling her house, she had liked moving in with her elderly uncle who had become gravely ill, to look after him, and she had liked the grand house with its lovely gardens. She wanted her uncle to die peacefully of old age and to leave her the lion’s share of his considerable fortune. Three likes and a want.
Now, she had liked nursing the old man and seeing that his final days were spent as comfortable as she could possibly make them, she had liked the simple funeral service and the appreciation she had received from those who had known him, and she liked spending six months each year in the sun. She wanted the Spanish hotel waiter to bring her another Blue Lagoon cocktail with an extra ounce of vodka.
Three likes and a want.
All perfectly natural.