“I thought you could stick them on parts of the country he isn’t visiting,” said Rex. “Like Norfolk, and South Wales. I am sure that would be OK.”

Rex put up nails in the kitchen for the map and they hung it above the table, so that Maureen could see where Harold was and fill in the rest of his journey. It was a little lopsided because he had difficulty with the drill, and the first Rawlplug was swallowed into the wall. But if she looked at the map with a slight tilt to her head, it was barely noticeable. Besides, as she told Rex, it didn’t matter about things not being perfect.

This, too, was a new departure for Maureen.

After the map present, they had taken an outing every day. She accompanied him to the crematorium with roses for Elizabeth, and afterwards they stopped for tea at Hope Cove. They visited Salcombe and took a boat trip across the estuary, and another afternoon he drove her to Brixham to buy crab. They walked the coastal road towards Bigbury and ate fresh shellfish at the Oyster Shack. He said it was good for him to get out, and that he hoped he wasn’t intruding, and she reassured him that it helped her too to stop thinking things over. They were sitting in front of the dunes at Bantham when she explained how she and Harold had first come to Kingsbridge forty-five years ago when they were newly married. They had so much hope in those days.

“We knew no one but it didn’t matter. We only needed each other. Harold had a difficult childhood. I think he loved his mother very much. And his father must have had some sort of breakdown after the war. I wanted to be everything he’d never had. I wanted to give him a home and a family. I learned to cook. I made curtains. I found wooden crates and hammered them together to make a coffee table. Harold dug me vegetable plots at the front of the house, and I grew everything. Potatoes, beans, carrots.” She laughed. “We were very happy.” It was such a pleasure to voice these things, she wished there were more words. “Very happy,” she said again.

The tide was out so far the sand looked glazed under the sun. There was a clear stretch between the shore and Burgh Island. People had brought multicoloured windbreaks and small pop-up tents. Dogs were scampering across the sand, in chase of sticks and balls; children were running up and down with buckets and spades; and far out the sea glittered. She thought of how much David had wanted a dog. Maureen fumbled for her handkerchief and asked Rex to ignore her. Maybe it was coming to Bantham again after all these years. So many times she had blamed Harold for the day that David almost drowned.