‘I love the way you think he knows what you’re saying.’ Mario grabbed the ham sandwiches he’d made the night before from the fridge and put them in his red plastic lunch box, as he always did. It meant he didn’t have to leave the building site to grab lunch and could get more hours in each day. He worked hard, always with one eye on his monthly bonus.

‘Actually, he knows exactly what I’m saying! He talks to me properly when we’re on our own.’

‘Is that right? So what does he have to say?’ he asked, with the twitch of a smile about his mouth that she fixed on, knowing what he was thinking: This is more like it . . . the old Bess . . . the funny Bess . . . He clearly missed her; what he failed to grasp was that she missed her too.

Bess harnessed the moment and tried to recapture some of her old sass, tried to emulate the woman who remembered fun. The woman who was enough. ‘Well, just what you’d expect, really. What he likes and dislikes for his breakfast, how he doesn’t like the lady groomer who nipped his leg that time with the clippers, his views on Brexit – that kind of thing.’

‘Talking of breakfast, how about I make you something special before I go?’ Mario rubbed his hands together, keen and eager, as if he could take this upturn in the atmosphere and spin it into something bigger, something more – a net that might cover them and keep the sadness from their backs.

‘Like what?’ she smiled, touched at the thought.

He opened the cupboard over the fridge. ‘I know you always do pancakes for our birthdays, but I don’t know how to make batter. But I can do you a bowl of Crunchy Nut? Or sugar-free muesli? Or . . .’ He ran over to the bread bin and peered inside. ‘. . . half a toasted teacake?’

It wasn’t quite her definition of ‘special’. ‘Actually, Mario, think I’ll just stick to my toast and marmalade.’ Her day wasn’t right if not started with a slice of toast and a zingy dollop of bitter marmalade with bits of shredded peel dotted about the toast. ‘Just a coffee’d be lovely.’

She peeled the cellophane from her new plant and let her fingers tickle the delicate silken-headed, bell-shaped flowers that were so perfect and beautiful they looked like they might be fake. One dropped as she touched it. Catching it, Bess scrunched it into her palm and shoved it in her dressing-gown pocket.

‘How about we do a chippy run tonight for your birthday?’ Mario said, adding milk to the black coffee and passing her the mug.

‘Yes, it’ll be nice not to have to cook. Why don’t we do that?’ She sipped her drink, as Chutney scratched on the back door. Mario let him in.

‘Maybe the kids’ll come over?’ he asked.