GEORGE DRESSES WITH CARE on Saturday. He wears a shirt with a collar, which Betty now irons for him (‘George, this iron is awful. It hisses! However did Ellen manage?’), and George wonders how he has let Betty wheedle herself so far into his life. He’s nursing a viper at his breast. He teams his pressed shirt with his best brown braces and his brown buckled shoes, the ones that had made Betty ask him if he’d had to wear callipers as a child. She knows nothing about fashion, and he told her so. She just laughed and smoothed down her purple silk shirt.

He’s not been out and about since the funeral and the trousers are tighter than he’d like. The doctor will be on at him about diabetes again. He’ll have to do some exercise. Ellen used to drag him round the shops with her each week. Sometimes she’d even convince him to go for a walk on the Beacon. He’d only go if she made a proper cricket tea, from scratch. Would lurk around the kitchen reminding her not to forget to pack the mustard, and had she added extra bacon to the quiche? (Always yes and yes again.)

Once they got there, George carrying the wicker basket, as a man should, she’d witter on about swallows and flowers, nests and nature. He’d roll his eyes, and when she’d finally decided on the perfect spot, he’d park the picnic, make a pillow out of his cardigan, turn up the radio, and moan about the dog shit. Only for Ellen would he do this.

Last summer, someone had started a campaign called CRAP – Community Ramblers Against Poo. A self-appointed man in a self-important hat and high-vis had circled dog shit with spray paint. George would wait till the man was bent as low to the poo as possible, then shout, ‘While you’re there, you might as well pick it up, you sad bastard.’

Ellen would tut at him and wave in apology. ‘Stop it, George, it’s got nothing to do with you. We don’t even have a dog.’ She had said this wistfully, George remembers. CRAP folded soon after – citing a lack of community support – and she had never mentioned a dog again.

He would never understand why Ellen had liked it so bloody much up there. It was boring and there was only one bench to sit on. It was always windy, and down on the far side, where the Beacon borders the home for blind veterans, there was a constant smell of beef stew. The smell annoyed George as, not being a blind veteran, he wasn’t entitled to any. ‘I did my bit,’ he used to tell Ellen. ‘I did my bloody bit.’