‘Yeah, well, once you were safe I had to let go. It was only right. Then I kept seeing you around the place, looking happy and beautiful, and I thought about it, especially after the promotion, but you’d been through so much.’

‘What changed?’ She was intrigued.

‘I got lonely.’ He couldn’t look her in the eye. She guessed it was hard for Fred to admit weakness – she could understand that – but she knew him as a man who valued honesty.

‘Me too,’ she admitted.

‘You, Mai?’ He seemed surprised.

She nodded. ‘I didn’t know how lonely I was.’ She turned to the window. He wrapped his arms around her stomach and chest and they lay there, spooning.

‘I worried I’d missed my chance. The way you looked at me yesterday when I asked you out …’

‘It was a shock.’

‘It wasn’t planned. It was the first day of a new year and there you were in a supermarket, and I thought, This is the day, Fred. Now or never.’

Maisie smiled and bit her lip. If he can be honest I can too. ‘It was one week after I came out of the coma,’ she said.

‘What was?’

‘The first time I thought about you like that. You walked into my hospital room and I thought, God, I wish he was mine.’ A stray tear trickled down her face.

He squeezed her around the middle gently. ‘I’d say you’d have settled for running away with a gypsy’s donkey back then.’

‘True.’

‘And now here we are, Mai.’ He kissed her neck.

‘I tell you, Fred, if this is a dream, I’ll be gutted.’

He laughed and pulled her closer.

And she thought, To hell with the world, and they made love again.

It was just after eight when she rang home.

Valerie answered the phone. ‘What?’

‘Don’t answer the phone like that.’ Maisie sighed.

‘Oh, pardon me, Ma. Hello, this is the Bean household. Can I be of bleedin’ service?’

‘Valerie, swear jar!’

‘I forgot, sorry.’

‘Put your brother on the phone.’

There was silence for the briefest moment. ‘He’s gone out again, Ma.’

‘You’re joking! Where?’

‘I didn’t ask him.’

‘What the hell’s got into him? Did he eat his dinner?’

‘Yeah, Ma. He said it was the nicest stew he ever ate,’ Valerie said sarcastically.

‘How’s your grammy?’

‘Mental.’

‘But she’s fine?’

‘Well, she’s alive. So are you coming home or what?’

‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’ Maisie hung up and turned to Fred. ‘Jeremy came home for his tea and decided to go AWOL again. I have to go.’

‘He’s sixteen, Maisie, just acting his age,’ he reassured her.

‘I know. I just wish he could have picked any day of the year I sit in on my own to do a disappearing act.’ She got out of bed and hunted about for her knickers.