Maureen didn’t know which was worse, the numbing shock that came with the first knowledge that Harold was walking to Queenie or the galvanizing fury that replaced it. She had received his postcards, one of Buckfast Abbey and another of the Dartmouth Railway (Hope you are well. H.), but neither of these offered any real comfort or explanation. He phoned her most evenings but he was so tired he made no sense. The money they had set aside for their retirement would be squandered in weeks. How dare he leave her, after she had put up with him for forty-seven years? How dare he humiliate her so painfully she could not even tell her son? A small number of household bills were arranged in a pile on the hall table, addressed to Mr H. Fry, and reminding her of his absence every time she rushed past.

She fetched out the hoover, searching out traces of Harold, a hair, a button, and sucking them into the nozzle. She shot his bedside table, his wardrobe, his bed, with disinfectant spray.

It wasn’t simply anger that preoccupied Maureen. There was also the problem of what to say to her neighbour. She was beginning to regret the lie about Harold being in bed with a swollen ankle. Almost every day Rex appeared at the front door, asking if Harold would like a visitor and bearing small gifts: a box of Milk Tray, a packet of playing cards, an article he had cut out of the local paper about lawn feed. It had come to the point where she dreaded looking up at the frosted glass of the front door for fear of discovering his stout silhouette. She wondered about saying her husband had been rushed to A&E overnight, but it would cause Rex such anxiety she couldn’t bear it. Besides, he would probably start offering her lifts to the hospital. She felt even more of a prisoner in her own home than she had done before Harold left.

Nearly a week after he had gone, Harold rang from a phone box to tell Maureen he was staying a second night in Exeter, and would head early the next morning towards Tiverton. He said, “Sometimes I think I’m doing this for David… Did you hear me, Maureen?”

She had heard. But she couldn’t speak.

He said, “I think of him a lot. And I remember things. About him being a boy. I think it might help.”

Maureen drew in a breath so cold that her teeth felt stripped. She said at last, “Are you telling me David wants you to walk to Queenie Hennessy?”

He said nothing and then he gave a sigh. “No.” It was a dull sound, like something dropping.

She went on. “Have you spoken to him?”

“No.”

“Seen him?”

Again, “No.”

“Well then.”