At the park gates she stops for her child to catch up, so they can leave together and cross the road, holding hands, quickly and carefully always, looking both ways even though it’s a one-way street, not all the drivers know that.

Down their road, towards the shop at the end, to buy apples, watching, as they slowly progress, the first pumpkins being put out. A butternut squash dressed as a witch in a frayed black cape and hat, face drawn in black marker, twigs for arms, sitting on a doorstep; a pumpkin, not yet lit, in the window of an upstairs flat. A woman dressing the privet hedge rather generously with nylon cobweb – she turns and flashes a smile. Past their own flat – glittery bats in the window, cut from black sugar paper. How the shift of sunlight on glitter catches the eye. The rowan tree outside heavy with berries.

A man across the road comes out of his front door with two large pumpkins in his hands, places them on the sills and strikes a match. You can almost smell it.

A small, early group of trick-or-treaters passes by – preschoolers with painted faces and shiny costumes carrying little buckets or baskets, accompanied by a woman her own age, in civvies.

She peers at their faces, through the dress-up and paint. (Though how would an extra one slip itself into a group like that, counted and recounted every few yards?)

They cross at the lights. The greengrocer’s fruit and veg display juts out like an apron stage. Shiny apples – red ones, green ones, Snow White half-and-half ones – every fifth one wrapped in pale violet. She could write a message on the paper, or a spell – rewrap it with the message inwards, tissue sealed with wax. She fills brown bags with the hard fruit, heaps them into a wire basket and pays at the till with crisp notes. On the counter toffee apples glisten in cellophane – she hadn’t thought of those.

Laden with the bags she walks along the parade to the church and steps inside. It is dark and empty, lit by electric pillar lights and smelling of furniture polish. She makes some sort of vestigial, half-involuntary genuflection and crosses via one of the pews to where the votive candles blaze. An old man sits in the side chapel, coat and scarf on, hat in his hands. He raises his head and nods. He looks cold.

She selects a candle – white paraffin instead of creamy beeswax taper but it’ll have to do. Lights it from one of the others, letting her hand make the choice. The candles shiver in unison.

She passes the slip of paper and pencil to her child to scribble the dedication, then posts this blank in the box. She drops a pound coin into the coin box, shattering the silence.