‘A beautiful day to celebrate the life of your wife Gisele,’ he’s saying now, shaking Valentine’s hand.

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘Luckily you’ve been blessed by the weather, so we’ve found some extra chairs and put them on the grass.’

‘Excuse me?’ Valentine looks confused.

‘For those standing outside. I’m afraid inside we’re at full capacity.’

‘Sorry, Vicar, but I don’t know what you’re on about.’

The vicar frowns and, stepping aside, turns and opens his arms in welcome. ‘The whole village is here to pay their respects.’

And that’s when we see them. Crowds of people, gathered around the porticoed entrance to the church – so many they’re lining the flagstoned path and spilling out into the lane. For a few moments neither of us reacts. We stand and stare, taking it all in. My eyes flick over the faces, so many of them familiar. There’s the landlord from the Crooked Billet, with his family and his bar staff. The ladies who run the local cafe, smartly dressed and without their striped aprons. Sheila the postmistress and Gary the postman.

Oh, look, and there’s Evelyn and the Three Degrees, and several others that I recognize from the different pub-quiz teams. And Maya. She’s here too. Looking red-eyed and emotional, she’s standing apart from Ben, who nods respectfully towards Valentine, but avoids my gaze. I’ve texted him a few times to check how he and Stanley are doing, but while he always replies, it’s obvious that his feelings towards me have changed since that evening at the hotel.

My throat tightens, but I look away: at volunteers from the village hall, whom Valentine has been showing how to paint and decorate. The farmer and his wife. Local hikers that I’ve seen sitting outside the pub. Dog-walkers, whose faces are less familiar than those of their dogs, which are wagging their tales furiously at the sight of Harry. He responds just as excitedly, pulling at his lead, and I quickly take it from Valentine, who turns to me, his expression one of bewilderment.

‘They’re all here for Gisele?’ His voice wavers, and I squeeze his arm and smile.

‘They’re all here for Gisele.’

And yet while that may be true, it’s more than that. They’re here for Valentine. To support him. To show him he’s not alone. That he’s part of this community, ever since Harry forced Valentine to stop watching life from his window and become part of it again. And as he begins to walk falteringly down the path that leads into the small twelfth-century church, where he’s come to say a final goodbye to his wife of sixty years, he’s buttressed by the strength of the entire village.

I walk alongside him, my arm still linked through his. Losing someone you love is brutal. No well-meaning words or platitudes can ever change that, and yet the villagers’ presence is like a pair of arms hugging Valentine in an embrace. Smiles of affection and solidarity, nods of sympathy and respect, a reassuring hand on his shoulder, a look of understanding. A shared grief. And it doesn’t matter that Valentine might not know every single person here. What matters is that they showed up. They showed up because sometimes it’s only by lifting each other up we are able to bear life’s heavy load.