They stay well into the summer evening, as the smell of hot dogs fills the air, making George feel young again. Although there is a moment, when the man next to him tells George how funny his wife is, that he starts to feel sick and wants to go home.

Betty will never be his wife. George had one of those and will never have another. Betty is something else. She is his friend. So, instead of losing his temper and storming off, he simply says, ‘Yes, she was, but that’s not her. That’s Betty. Shall I put in a good word for you?’ The man laughs and George’s cheeks go rosy pink with it all.

He feels slightly drunk by the time they wind their long way home. He’s never talked so much, not belly-laughed in as long as he can remember. When he realizes this, George feels guilty that he’s so full of life while his wife lies dead. That he has forgotten her for a moment and remembered to be happy. George thinks that grief is like a paper crown that slips over your eyes and gets pushed up over and over again. Sometimes it covers his eyes completely and he can’t see a thing, it’s lighter now, tissue thin and pale yellow, but still there, and wherever he goes he shall be wearing it. George, the King of Grief. He rather likes that.

Dan

(I’ll never forget you)

ALL THAT TIME DAN had spent worrying about coming out, while Atticus had been fading away. All those hints that Dan, the counsellor, had never picked up on. Why did you come to counselling, Atticus? Because I was lonely, I felt bereft, I don’t sleep. I’m tired of my work. I feel like Tracey Emin. Because everything ends. Those dark purple bruises he’d get under his eyes. I used to have a drinking problem. To remind me I could stop. I’m so glad I didn’t die before I met you. All along, Atticus had been trying to tell him he was drowning at sea, when Dan had thought he was waving.

He had always been so busy digging into other people’s weeds, he had forgotten to look for the seed in Atticus, things growing, pips of pain and deadly thoughts. Vines that crept and twisted and strangled.

After Atticus died, Dan spent a long time at home with his dog. He thought about how Fitz would eat, and wee, and poo and grow a summer coat that he would shed everywhere, and a winter coat that would do the same in spring, and how Atticus wouldn’t be there to see it. He was behind the glass, pinned like a butterfly. Beautifully fragile, and always was.