When Merrily arrived, Minnie was seated on the edge of the sofa, pale and sweating and breathless. Yow mustn’t… go bothering about me, my duck, I’ve been through… worse than this. The TV guide lay next to her on a cushion. An iced sponge cake sat on a coffee table in front of the open fire. The fire was roaring with life. Two cups of tea had gone cold.

Merrily bit her lip, pushing her knuckles hard into the pockets of her coat — Jane’s old school duffel, snatched from the newel post as Merrily was rushing out of the house.

They now crossed the bus station towards Commercial Road, where shops were closing for the night and most of the sky was a deep, blackening rust. Gomer’s little round glasses were frantic with city light. He was urgently reminiscing, throwing up a wall of vivid memories against the encroaching dark — telling Merrily about the night he’d first courted Minnie while they were crunching through fields and woodland in his big JCB. Merrily wondered if he was fantasizing, because it was surely Minnie who’d forced Gomer’s retirement from the plant hire business; she hated those diggers.

‘… a few spare pounds on her, sure to be. Had the ole warning from the doc about that bloody collateral. But everybody gets that, ennit?’

Gomer shuffled, panting, to a stop at the zebra crossing in Commercial Road. Merrily smiled faintly. ‘Cholesterol. Yes, everybody gets that.’

Gomer snatched off his cap. His hair was standing up like a small white lavatory brush.

‘Her’s gonner die! Her’s gonner bloody well snuff it on me!’

‘Gomer, let’s just keep praying.’

How trite did that sound? Merrily closed her eyes for a second and prayed also for credible words of comfort.

In the window of a nearby electrical shop, all the lights went out.