I’m not saying there was anything funny about it; she was in her bed and it was her all right, but she just didn’t look anything like my wife, Enid.

‘Sometimes people like to say goodbye,’ the undertaker points out, leaning against the door. ‘So that option is available if needed.’

It was possible that her friends would want to say goodbye. I could take Betty and Mercia to see her. I’m not sure she’d like it. It would be personal, like watching her sleep.

I watch the undertakers drive away and I go back into the house.

It’s proper empty now.

On the table there’s a glossy business card that reads: House Clearance. Proprietor: Cato Hamilton.

I face life head on, always have. I go back upstairs to the bedroom and look at the empty space. Then I push my feelings aside and I think right, okay, let’s get on with it. Her bed can go, for a start. I could get rid of both the beds and buy a new double for myself to sprawl around in.

I open the wardrobe and swish my hand against her pleated skirts. Her clothes can go, too. I sigh because it feels as if I haven’t got enough air in my lungs to breathe; I have to keep gulping it in and letting it out.

Enid was always very particular about her clothes. She hung them up on silky padded coat hangers and she never wore slacks, always skirts and dresses. She thought of slacks on a woman as sloppy dressing. I was glad about that because I like the dresses. Trousers hold no novelty to me, but looking at her dresses was always a thrill.

I can wear any of her clothes now without her catching me or finding out. Looking in her wardrobe, though, they are still her clothes. There’s a difference between looking at them and claiming them. Everything that used to be Enid’s belongs to me now, but they’re still Enid’s really, even though she’s no longer got any use for them.

Without even thinking about it, I take off my shirt and put on one of her blouses, white with gold buttons and long ties to make a bow. It’s too small for me and I can’t fasten it, but I pose in it and look at myself in the cheval glass. I see an old white-haired man in a lady’s blouse, but I feel cool and elegant and it smells of her. I don’t know what the smell is, she wasn’t one for perfume, but it’s a smell I recognise as being her smell.

I feel a gust of longing for her that almost knocks me off my feet.