George’s anger fuels him all the way home, to the pantry for his beer and then to his armchair. When the cricket is over, and he’s finally managed to piss out the three bottles he’s drunk on a hungry stomach, he goes to the door of the spare room. It takes him a minute to open it – he’s all fingers and thumbs, and drunk enough to cling to the dream that Ellen might be in there somewhere. What was that fucking awful poem from the funeral? ‘Death is nothing at all. I am merely in the next room.’

Another of her lies. Ellen is not in the room, and neither are her possessions. Everything has gone. Every item of clothing, every pair of shoes. All the perfumes and powders and pots from the dressing-table. The hangers in the wardrobe. Her brown knitting bag and her parrot umbrella. The set of Basildon Bond writing paper that George now knows she bought to write to him and others from beyond the grave, playing them like chess pieces against one another. Her dressing-gown with the missing belt is missing. The faded blue slippers. Her hairbrush and rollers, that antique mirror with the brass handle that used to belong to her mother. The scarves she wore over her head on windy days and hairdresser days. Her record collection: Elvis Presley, Fats Domino and old swing classics. The china dogs, and the fake roses in a chipped vase that George stole from the hotel they stayed at on their first holiday together. The jar of buttons. Even the scented drawer liners had been taken, along with her socks and pants, and bras and stockings.

George tells himself he’s imagining things. Tells himself it’s the beer. Tells himself to go to bed, and in the morning everything will be normal again. He backs out of the room, staggers down the hall, then passes out on his bed with his shoes on. Poppy has to settle for sleeping on the floor, occasionally licking at the flaky patch of skin above his sock and below his trouser leg.

George sleeps for ten hours, and wakes confused and dehydrated. After a quick check that he hasn’t wet the bed (it happens), he sits up slowly and groans as the room tilts and spins. Poppy barks and his brain pulses. He’d be sick, if only he had something inside him. An image of scones pops into his head again, cherries glowing like rubies. George remembers the rest and sees red.