He allows himself to wallow in misery and guilt. He’d only left the house to get his pills and fix another woman’s table. He hadn’t even considered the dog. The dog has nothing to do with anything. Just because Ellen bought it to keep him fit doesn’t mean he intends to walk it. Now he feels bad for leaving Poppy at home. Shit. George rubs his balding head. Thin white hairs stick up like dandelion fluff. A pathetic sight, but George never looks in the mirror, so he will never know.

Betty’s house is small, tidy and covered with thank-you cards. There are no frills or cushions, and the whole place is much plainer and colder than he was expecting. The Formica counters smell of bleach. The kettle is white, and the toaster matches. There is a small packet of the fake sugar that George hates on a tray next to a fruit bowl that only has big pithy oranges in it that no one could like.

He spots a handsome-looking armchair in one corner of the living room, sporting a dent that would have taken years of carb-induced naps to achieve. George knows this because his own armchair has a similar imprint. Above an electric fire, a row of photos sits gleaming in gilt frames. George scans them as quickly and surreptitiously as he can.

‘My daughter, Ann, and her husband Andrew. They have two children, David and Lisa. That’s them in the second photo.’ Betty is suddenly right beside him. She can be stealthy for such a sturdy lass. George says nothing. ‘They moved to Australia four years ago. Andrew was offered a job too good to pass up. We Skype every week.’ George has no idea what Skype is, so just nods. ‘And that’s my son, Joseph.’ George flicks his eyes to a photo of a boy in woollen socks with scratched knees and a stick in his hand, then to the other photos, then back again, like windscreen wipers on the slow setting. The photo of the boy looks old. The boy looks pale.

‘He died when he was ten. Car accident.’ Betty reaches past George and strokes the photo with a knobbly, arthritic finger, just once, then snatches it back. George notices that she is still wearing her wedding ring, but there is no photo of her husband. ‘Such a beautiful boy, apple of my eye.’ Betty’s voice is tinged with sadness. ‘He’d have been fifty-six this September.’ He’s been dead forty-six years, thinks George. Does she picture him as he was, or does he grow each year in her mind? Has Betty given him a wife and a job and a beard? Are those dog-jumpers really for the ghosts of her grandchildren?