George tells himself he couldn’t care less either way. He just wants to mend the bed and eat the chicken-and-leek pie Betty made this morning. Then he wants to go home, listen to the cricket and fall asleep in his chair. He thinks this, then says, ‘You don’t always have to give your time to other people. What have they ever done for you?’

George remembers the trite thank-you cards in Betty’s kitchen and wonders if they’re enough to make her feel all the knitting and gathering and cleaning and sorting is worth it. Money talks, as far as George is concerned. Cards can fuck off. He didn’t open any of the ones sent after Ellen died.

‘Everyone did a lot for me when Bill was sick.’ Betty wipes at some dust on the windowsill with the corner of her cardigan. ‘There was always someone coming or going. The doorbell never stopped buzzing.’

Betty sounds as wobbly as the bed. George needs to change the subject, because he can’t glue her back together. He means to ask her how the pie is doing but it comes out as ‘How long was he ill for?’

‘Three years. Starve the lizards, eh? For a while we thought he was going to get better, but he never did. He took to his bed one Sunday and never got out of it on the Monday, or ever again.’

George tries to imagine Ellen in their spare room, rotting away slowly over three years while the doorbell rang on repeat. All the people, the smells, the hopelessness. Doctors and nurses and tablets and blood. Bed sores and bruises from veins collapsing with overuse. The pity George refuses to acknowledge for Betty pokes him just under the ribcage.

They stand in a silence that other people might fill with a hug. Poppy realizes someone needs to do something, so goes and lies by Betty’s feet. Lucky, slow on the uptake, drags an ugly jumper from his basket and runs around half-heartedly with it in his mouth.

Over lunch Betty is quiet. Normally she prattles on about any old crap and talks to the dogs in a high-pitched voice.

‘Good pie,’ George says, to break the odd silence.

‘A compliment! Excuse me while I drop to the floor in shock!’

‘Funny. Did Bill used to like it?’ George’s voice no longer seems to belong to him.

‘Stone the crows. Aren’t you interested, all of a sudden?’ Betty is joking, but there is an edge to her voice, and it brings out the serrated knife that chafes inside George.

‘Couldn’t care less. Cook, don’t cook.’

He means to continue, to call her a pest, a blight on his peaceful life, a meddling lumpy old gasbag, but something about her face stops him. Her eyes are too shiny.