If she hadn’t bought Poppy, she might not have died. There is no logic in this, but there is a chance for blame, for absolution. George had been so cross with her when she brought the puppy home.

‘Take that dog back where it came from.’

‘No. Shan’t.’ Ellen’s chin had quivered with a stubbornness George had never seen before.

It was stalemate. He didn’t acknowledge the dinners she made him, or the cups of tea. He didn’t thank her, didn’t lock the door she kept opening and closing to praise the fucking dog every ten seconds.

The dog had taught her how to bark back. His afternoon tea was lacking a biscuit, but he found crumbs on the floor by the newspaper Poppy pissed on. It was as if George was the pet and Poppy the husband. He got fed three times a day, and Ellen opened the window to give him fresh air, but all her chatter, all her sunshine, had gone to the puppy.

She would pick it up and tell it how pretty and clever it was. She slept in the spare room with it. She got up during the night and stood in the garden in her nightgown and curlers while it sniffed round for the perfect place to shit. George would get up and watch them from the window, the moon for a torch, Ellen cradling a ball of fur and teeth, like it was a newborn, while the early-morning dew soaked her velvet slippers.

It was Ellen who finally broke the silence, as George had known she would. She had offered to slice the cheese. He’d been hacking at a block of Cheddar, having not received his pre-bedtime supper. She’d been cooking sausages for the dog to train her to come back. ‘What a fucking waste of sausages,’ George had muttered, under his breath. ‘Let me have them and the dog can bugger off.’

Ellen had turned to him then, before her face had gone as grey as her hair. ‘No, George. The dog stays.’ She hadn’t broken eye contact, hadn’t added ‘please’. Hadn’t ever looked as beautiful as she did in that moment, putting him in his place in her old blue dressing-gown. ‘Now then,’ she’d gone on to say, ‘would you like me to slice you some cheese, or do you just want to gnaw on the block?’

‘Slices,’ he’d said, ‘and an apple, too … please.’ In their marriage, ‘please’ often meant ‘sorry’.