We stood watching the gravestone, the leaves on the ground. Sunlight, hot and bitey – the environment was coughing, our planet dying … Actually, the planet would persevere. It was just us and other life. We’d fucked ourselves. Rooted the flora. Creampied the creatures.

A greying couple approached the Elvis Presley Memorial in the near distance. Biddy’s show about Aidan was still a couple of months away. She sniffed, cleared her throat. ‘I still wear some of your clothes, Aidan. Your red shirt still smells like you, just about. I take it out of the drawer sometimes just to sniff it for a while, to feel close to you.’

‘Darling, that’s a bit … unusual,’ Nora said. She looked at Chris. ‘I think we threw out most of his things right away, didn’t we? There’s no point holding on to every last scrap when someone dies.’

I held Biddy’s hand. I was there for her, or almost there. There as often as I could be, while also being there for Sarah and Oliver and Sophie. And maybe, one day, being there for other lovers, just as Sarah was.

‘Other lovers?’ Biddy had said in bed as we were falling asleep. ‘You’re joking, right?’

‘Yeah, course,’ I’d said, faking a laugh.

But despite all of that, I could make Biddy happy, had so many ideas to –

Chris sighed, crossed his arms. ‘Yeah, most of it’s just rubbish.’

I nodded, smiled. My job was to appear attentive, in Chris and Nora’s peripheral vision or otherwise. But they could also just ask me straight – was I the Antichrist? And if they did that, if they asked me straight, I could be sincere: I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, why I was doing it or how any of it was supposed to work out.

‘I looked to Aidan for everything,’ Biddy said.

‘He was very protective of you,’ Nora said.

‘Oh, yes, he loved you,’ said Chris.

I rubbed Biddy’s back, said nothing, ignored my vibrating phone.

* * *

‘Coffee, Chris?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve already had one.’

I hadn’t. So what? Agnë dawdled away with her KeepCup.

It was Monday – the whole week still to go. I’d been teary on the ride to work and was happy to crack on with not reading my emails, not listening to my voice messages, not doing anything. I’d always been susceptible to other people’s sadness – including my mother’s when I was seven. I remembered her crying, pretending to make dinner, hugging our neighbour Edith in the hallway.

The funeral car. Potpourri. Hard white snot in my grandad’s nose, his wiry ear hair. My buckle-up shoes, navy corduroy pants. People I barely recognised shaking my hand, rubbing my head.

Curtains closing. A coffin in flames. My father’s hands reaching from the fire like autumn leaves.

Oh. A work-related email from Pegasus Publishing … No – spam. I scrolled, eyes glazing.