More than anything, she wanted to stare. It was years since she’d seen those blue eyes look so vibrant. He rubbed the curls of his giant beard between his forefinger and thumb so that they stuck out in peaks like royal icing. She wondered if the girl behind the counter realized she was Harold’s wife.

“What will you have?” she said. She wanted to add ‘darling’ but the word was too shy to come out.

He asked if he might have a slice of Mars Bar Tray Bake with a strawberry frappé. Maureen gave a shrill laugh that sounded as if she had just emptied it out of a packet.

“And I’ll have tea, please,” she told the girl behind the counter. “Milk, no sugar.”

Harold shone his benign smile in the direction of the girl, whose name was pinned on her black T-shirt just above her left bosom. To Maureen’s amazement, the young woman flushed from her neck upwards and grinned back.

“You’re that guy off the news,” she said. “The pilgrim. My mates think you’re awesome. Would you mind signing this?” She held out her arm and a felt-tip pen and Maureen was astonished a second time to witness Harold inscribing his name with indelible ink on the soft flesh above the girl’s wrist: Best wishes, Harold. He didn’t even flinch.

The girl cradled her arm and stared long and hard at it. Then she set the drinks and the Mars Bar cake on a tray, along with one extra scone. “Have this on me,” she said.

Maureen had never seen anything like it. She let Harold lead the way, and it was as if the room opened and hushed to make space for him. She noticed the other customers staring hard at Harold, and saying things behind cupped hands. At a table in the corner three ladies of her own age were drinking tea. She wondered where their husbands were: if they were playing golf, or dead maybe, or if they had walked out on their wives as well.

“Afternoon,” he said brightly, greeting complete strangers.

He chose a table beside the window so that he could keep an eye on the dog. It lay on the pavement outside, chewing on a stone, as if very interested in the business of waiting. She felt a swell of kinship with the animal.

Maureen and Harold sat opposite each other; not side by side. And even though she had drunk tea with him for forty-seven years, her hands shook as she poured. Harold’s cheeks hollowed as his frappé shot up through a straw and entered his mouth with a honk. She waited a polite moment for the drink to go down; only she waited too long, and she opened her mouth to speak at the exact moment he did.

“It’s nice to – ”

“Lovely to – ”

They gave a laugh as if they didn’t know one another terribly well.