“We came to England so that he could get better work. We’d only been here a few months. Then one Saturday a woman turns up with two suitcases and a baby. He has a kid, she says.” Martina gripped harder and crushed his wedding ring against his fingers. “I didn’t know about the other woman. I didn’t know about the kid. He came back and I thought he was going to boot them out. I knew how much he loved me. But he didn’t. He picked up his baby and it was like seeing a man I didn’t know. I said I was going for a walk. When I got back, they had gone.” Martina’s skin was so pale he could see the veins on her eyelids. “He left all his things. His dog. His gardening tools. Even the new boots. He loves walking. Every day I wake up and I think, Today is the one he will come back. And every day, he doesn’t.”

For a while there was only the silence that carried her words. It struck Harold afresh how life could change in an instant. You could be doing something so everyday – walking your partner’s dog, putting on your shoes – and not knowing that everything you wanted you were about to lose.

“He might come back.”

“It was a year ago.”

“You never know.”

“I do.”

She gave a sniff as if she had a cold coming, although she wasn’t fooling either of them. “And yet here you are, walking to Berwick-upon-Tweed.” He was afraid she was going to point out again that he couldn’t make it, but she said, “If only I had a shred of your faith.”

“But you do.”

“No,” she said. “I’m waiting for something that will never happen.”

She sat, not moving, and he knew she was thinking of the past. He knew too that his faith, such as it was, was a fragile thing.

Harold cleared their plates, and took them to the kitchen, where he ran hot water into the sink and rinsed the dirty pans. He gave the leftover scraps to the dog and thought of Martina waiting for a man who would not return. He thought of his wife, scrubbing away at stains he could not see. He felt in a strange way that he understood better, and wished he could tell Maureen that.