‘Mondays are always bad.’ She made her voice light and brisk. ‘Especially Mondays in November when it’s starting to drizzle.’

‘I had to see you.’

She pulled him along the path. They had walked this route so many times before that their feet seemed to steer them. The light was fading. They passed the playground. She averted her eyes, as she always did nowadays, but it was empty except for a few pigeons pecking around the rubberized Tarmac. On to the main path and past the bandstand. Once, years ago, they had had a picnic there. She didn’t know why she remembered it so clearly. It had been spring and one of the first warm days of the year, and they had eaten pork pies and drunk warm beer from the bottle and watched children run around on the grass in front of them, tripping over their own shadows. She remembered lying on her back with her head in his lap and he’d stroked her hair from her face and told her she meant the world to him. He wasn’t a man of many words, so perhaps that was why she held such things in her memory.

They went over the brow of the hill towards the ponds. Occasionally they took bread for the ducks, although that was really something for little kids to do. Anyway, the ducks were being chased away by Canada geese that puffed their chests and stretched their necks and ran at you.

‘A dog,’ she said. ‘Perhaps we should get a dog.’

‘You’ve never said that before.’

‘A cocker spaniel. Not too big but not too small and yappy either. Do you want to talk about what you’re feeling?’

‘If you want a dog, let’s get one. How about as a Christmas present to each other?’ He was trying to work himself up into enthusiasm for it.