‘It’s for our local dog-rescue shelter.’

And now I feel guilty. I pause to dig in my pockets. Finding nothing, I look in my purse.

‘Do you have a dog?’

‘Um . . . no.’

Damn. I’ve only got a twenty.

‘Have you ever thought of getting one?’

‘No, not really.’ I shake my head, ‘I’m not really a dog person.’

‘I don’t believe that.’ She grins, wrinkling up her nose.

I feel conflicted. I’d like to make a donation – it’s for a good cause and she seems like a good kid, standing out here on a weekend in the cold – but I can’t really afford to give twenty pounds.

‘Well, if you ever change your mind, we’ve got lots of lovely dogs looking for a loving home.’

She offers me a leaflet. On it are printed various photographs of dogs, their sad faces looking at me beseechingly.

‘Here.’ I pull the twenty out of my purse.

‘Oh, wow!’ Her face lights up, before doubt appears and she frowns. ‘Sorry . . . I don’t have any change – it’s all in the collecting box.’

‘I don’t want any.’

‘That’s sick! No way,’ she exclaims, and then claps her frozen fingers to her mouth. ‘I mean, for real? Wow, thanks so much!’

‘Well, it’s for charity,’ I smile.

I begin moving off with my trolley before I can regret my generosity. It’s starting to sleet and I pull up my hood as I head across the car park.

‘Hey!’

A voice calls after me and I turn to see the girl with the pink hair and collection box waving at me.

‘See, I was right. You’re definitely a dog person!’

Valentine

By ’eck, he was jiggered.

Halfway up the hill he had to stop to catch his breath. Whoever said age was just a number must never have been seventy-nine. Putting out his hand, he leaned against a stone wall, feeling his chest rising and falling. It was quite a walk from the bus stop up the hill, and it seemed to get steeper every day. He couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. It’s like they’d shrunk, somehow. His legs weren’t what they used to be, either. In fact he might have to sit down for a minute.

Valentine eased himself onto the wall, lifting each buttock to free his overcoat and pulling at his hem to straighten it. It seemed like only yesterday that he used to cycle up streets as steep as these, doing his paper round. He used to fly up them, the wind in his coat-tails. Now they loomed ahead of him like bloody Mount Everest.

He banged his chest with the end of his fist. Shouldn’t have smoked all those years. Silly bugger, he was. Thinking he was the bee’s knees. Still, everyone did in those days. Even Gisele.

After a few minutes’ rest he resumed his walk up the hill. The wind had dropped a bit and soon the familiar red-brick building came into view. Clifton Court Residential Care Home. He still couldn’t get his head around it. He’d been making this daily pilgrimage for the past six months, yet each time felt like the first time. His sense of loss was still acute and, drawing closer, he felt a familiar wave of grief and disbelief. How had it come to this?