George forces himself to take his pills after eating a stale bowl of cereal that’s supposed to make him shit. He washes in the bathroom and gets dressed in clean clothes he laundered himself last week. Fuck you, Betty. I don’t need you. They don’t smell like they do when Ellen does them. Did them. He couldn’t be bothered with the fabric softener or the clothes horse. He just hung them over the back of the chair in the kitchen, but they’ll do.

Poppy wants to come with him, and he says no. ‘Not today, dog. I’m going to have my hands full.’

George realizes what he’s just said and worries he won’t be able to get all the stuff back alone. He worries that he talks to the dog now. Then he wonders how Betty got it all out of the house. She must have had help. That scheming, planning, conniving bitch. What did she bribe them with? Did she bring that fucking Don round here? George decides he’ll demand the people at the charity shop bring it back. They’ve stolen it, after all. It’s up to them to return Ellen’s things.

Poppy isn’t talking to him, has turned her long body away from his goodbye. Betty’s not even attempted to come round with a pie or a cake or an apology, and his wife’s wardrobe is too bland to remember. Women, George thinks, as he sets off. Nothing but bloody trouble.

Dan

(Velveteen rabbit)

PARIS HAS BEEN AND gone, and Dan and Atticus are missing their holiday. To cheer them up, Atticus wants to take Dan dancing. ‘I want to romance you, Count Danula. I want to buy you shiny shoes and a bow tie I can undo at the end of the evening.’

What can Dan say to that? He’s only ever danced with Luke, at the front of noisy gigs in pubs with sticky floors. They didn’t dance as such either, just jostled alongside the crowd, and Dan always got a cheap thrill when he pushed up against a pair of broad shoulders. Once, in a mosh pit, he was lifted overhead across the crowd. Hands on his buttocks, fingers digging into his ribs. It was euphoric and erotic. Dan had thought it would be the most dangerous thing he’d ever do.

But now here’s Atticus, and he wants to hold Dan in his arms in a wine bar and croon into his ear. Then he wants to hold hands on the pier, on the fairground rides, scream to go faster. Dan wants to scream to go slower. Whenever Atticus touches him Dan blushes and Atticus laughs, and their intimacy is a whole other world in the sky.