Luke and Smurf-girl have stopped walking, and Luke is fussing with her scarf. Wolfie does a long-legged lap, dangerously close to her legs. Beth is visiting with Christmas, an odd collection of dog parts, and has taken Maud out with them too, for old times’ sake. Maud is much slimmer now and has no trouble walking, but Christmas gets tired so Beth tucks her into a bag with her slightly bald nose poking out. Lenny isn’t there, but Maud can scent him on Beth’s coat. His happiness smells of washing powder and empty packets of cheese-and-onion crisps.

They are not a natural group of people to be together, not really. George and Betty, Dan and Tom, Luke and Smurf-girl and the woman who used to be called Lizzie, but dogs bring people together like this. They get people out in crazy weather, lifting an arm or tipping a hat to a fellow owner. Get people stamping their feet to keep warm so that the dogs can have one final loopy circuit together. When the dogs have shepherded their owners into a large, pen-sized cube, Betty lifts the lid off her Tupperware and the smell of banana bread rises sweetly.

‘It’s still warm, I’ve got napkins. Yes, Albert, you’ll get some crumbs too.’

Luke is first in the queue, running back to his blue-haired girl with a wedge of sunshine-coloured cake. Dan is next. He eats the cake, breaking off a corner to share with Tom, who blushes with pleasure. Beth doesn’t join the gang, but she and Luke take a moment that stretches between them, like taffy. Finally, Luke dips his chin at her, then lifts it back up, and Beth’s heart follows it, like a bird on a gust of wind. Forgiveness. The lightest, sweetest cake in the world. Tess’s letter to Beth, six months after she left, was tracing-paper thin, but hit her like an anchor dropping to the seabed: ‘I hope you are better now, Beth. I hope you are beginning to recover from the past and find yourself again. I don’t condone what you did but I do understand. Maud misses you.’

Dan watches Beth quietly, a fellow veteran of the war that is life. Fitz is by his side within seconds and pulls him back into the world with a wet nose in his palm.

‘What is it, boy?’ Dan asks, bending down to drop a kiss between Fitz’s big brown eyes. Insane with jealousy, Albert bounds over, growling at Dan’s trouser leg and, in seconds, all hell has broken loose as the dogs take off, zooming around the humans, crossing and uncrossing like maypole dancers.

‘Stop that! Come back! Bloody hell. Grab his collar!’