‘You don’t eat curry?’ Betty turns to look at George, cumin in one hand and coriander in the other.

‘The only way I’d eat a curry is if Sachin Tendulkar came to my house and cooked it himself.’

‘Ooh, is he the one off The Great British Bake Off?’ Betty shakes the spices, like mini maracas.

‘British bloody Bake Off? Jesus Christ! He’s the greatest batsman of all time. Well, him and Alastair Cook.’

‘Oh, cricket again. How interesting.’ She yawns, so George can see all her grey fillings. ‘Well, you could at least come and help me carry the tins.’ After a bit of effing and jeffing, George concedes that carrying heavy tins is a man’s job. The tins may also be required for his non-curry dinner.

‘Fine.’

‘And we’ll take the dogs?’ Poppy and Lucky look up at this and scramble to their feet on the shiny tiled floor.

‘Fine. So, we agreed, no curry?’ George needs to be clear on this.

‘No curry. I’ll make a proper steak-and-kidney pie instead. Come on, Lucky. Where’s your woolly pully?’

Lucky makes a sound like a groan and Poppy’s yap sounds like laughter.

‘Steak and kidney … That’ll help me lose weight,’ George says, downing his tea.

‘You don’t want one, then?’ Betty stops writing the list she’s started and looks up at him, pencil poised.

‘I never said that, did I?’

George won’t admit that he enjoys bickering with Betty. Neither will he admit that he’s started to lift Poppy up when he goes to bed so she can curl up next to him on his pillow, warm breath fanning his face. She wakes a few times in the night, to lick him on the nose in gratitude and wag happy farts into his ear. He doesn’t even mind.

They stop at the local grocer’s, which George thinks is a rip-off. ‘Two pounds for a cabbage. I could grow them for pennies.’

‘Why don’t you, then?’ Betty says, studying two heads of broccoli. ‘The church has an allotment that we barely have time to manage.’

‘I’ve told you. I’m not bloody religious.’

‘Neither are cabbages. It might be fun for you.’

‘Ooh, I know … Maybe I could walk there with a stick. Then it would be double the fun.’

‘Get knotted.’

‘Fun is sitting at home listening to the cricket without you bleating in my ear.’

‘You mean fun is sleeping,’ Betty says, rootling deeper into the crate of vegetables. ‘They might pay you.’

George’s ears prick up at this. ‘Oh, aye?’

‘I’ll ask.’ Betty finally commits to her broccoli and adds it to her wicker basket along with apples and potatoes, suet and flour. George insists on paying and pulls out a crisp fifty-pound note.

‘Look at Charlie Big Potatoes,’ Betty caws, when the cashier doesn’t have enough change and has to run to the bank.