“That’s very kind but I’ve never been a party animal.” Some days she didn’t know which was madder: the world inside her head, or the one you read about in the papers and magazines. She thanked the girl for her generous offer. “I’m not sure that I need help, though. Unless, of course, you do ironing?”

When she told Rex he laughed. She remembered how the publicity girl hadn’t. They were drinking coffee in his front room because Maureen had run out of milk, and there appeared to be a small group of fans waiting outside the garden for news of Harold. They had brought gifts of Dundee cake and hand-knitted socks, but, as she had already explained to several fans, she had no forwarding address.

“One journalist called it the perfect love story,” she said quietly.

“Harold isn’t in love with Queenie Hennessy. That’s not what his walk is about.”

“The publicist asked if we had problems.”

“You have to have faith in him, Maureen, and in your marriage too. He will be back.”

Maureen studied the hem of her skirt. The stitching had come loose, and a section flapped free. “But it’s so hard to keep believing, Rex. It actually hurts. I don’t know if he still loves me. I don’t know if he loves Queenie. Some days I think it would be easier if he were dead. At least I’d know where I stood.” She glanced up at Rex, and paled. “That was an awful thing to say.”

He shrugged. “It’s all right.”

“I know how much you miss Elizabeth.”

“I miss her all the time. I know in my head that she has gone, but I still keep looking. The only difference is that I am getting used to the pain. It’s like discovering a great hole in the ground. To begin with, you forget it’s there and you keep falling in. After a while, it’s still there, but you learn to walk round it.”

Maureen bit her lip and nodded. After all, she had known her share of grief. It struck her again what tumult the human heart continues to feel. To a young person, passing Rex in the street, he would look like a helpless old man. Out of touch with reality, and all spent. Yet, beneath his waxen skin, and inside his portly frame, there was a heart that beat with the same passion as a teenager’s.

He said, “Do you know what I most regret about losing her?”

She shook her head.

“That I didn’t fight it.”

“But Elizabeth had a brain tumour, Rex. How could you have fought that?”