They kiss goodbye outside Brighton station, Dan trying not to look like he’s uncomfortable. On the way to Luke’s to get Fitz, he promises himself he’ll tell his cousin everything, but Luke is too full of Lizzie and the best sex he’s ever had in his life for Dan to get a word in.

‘Jesus, Mary and every single bloody saint, Dan. The way she—’

‘Aaand that’s enough.’

‘How about you, man, did you get any action this weekend?’

How can Dan describe what he’s seen? He felt like Armstrong stepping off the ladder onto the untouched surface of the moon. Like Columbus when he set sail. How could he put into words everything Atticus had shown him? ‘It was pretty busy.’

‘Good. Great. Lizzie told me we’ve been doing our training wrong. She says chocolate milk has the perfect amount of carbs.’

‘She’s wrong.’ Dan is indignant.

‘I doubt it, Dan. She knows everything. No more of your nasty whey protein. She said we should train barefoot too.’

‘Has she done an Ironman?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then, I rest my case.’

‘She’s swum across the English Channel, though.’

‘Oh.’

Dan feels out of sorts. He’s only been away for two days but everything has changed. He thought only he’d be different, not Luke as well – Lizzie-this and Lizzie-that Luke. Dan feels replaced and recyclable and he doesn’t like it.

George

(Where did you get that hat?)

GEORGE LIES IN BED and thinks about Betty. How she must have been clearing out the spare room all those times he was alone at the allotment. He thinks of her panting and puffing as she organized his wife into bags and boxes. Did she keep some bits for herself? He imagines her trying to cram her fat feet into Ellen’s narrow slippers, like some pensioner playing Cinderella. He also pictures the people at the charity shop going through the boxes Betty dropped off. The comments, the sizing, the deciding if her underwear was good enough to pass on. Bits of his wife bandied about the village.

George flings off the covers with purpose, and Poppy scrambles closer to him for warmth. He needs to go and get it all back. Find the missing pieces of his Ellen jigsaw. He needs to remain calm and rational. He’ll offer to buy back the stuff, if need be. Five pounds should do it. The main thing is to get it all back. He hopes it hasn’t been sold, hopes he can remember what her stuff looks like. In his mind her slippers and dressing-gown whizz along a conveyor belt, like on The Generation Game. He needs to win back her china dogs, and her hairbrush, and that hat she loved. While he’s very pleased Ellen never dressed like Betty, it would be easier to remember her clothes if she had.