Long and echoey, the hallway is a tunnel of magnolia with a cold maroon-tiled floor. The walls’ once sharp corners have been softened by anaglypta and eras of repainting and re-glossing, until the woodwork resembles bracket fungi and the walls suggest the padded wallpaper rather than directly convey their repeated pattern.

On the wall over the light switch are coat hooks, and under it an occasional table that once held a land-line telephone, with a drawer for fuses, pens and spare change and fast-food menus. The bottom of the stairs faces the front door, carpeted in black, with the banisters painted lilac. A forgotten light-shade hangs from the ceiling, dusty and cobwebbed, and a cheap print of a tea clipper sails forlornly on one wall.

There is a cupboard under the stairs, and doors leading to the kitchen and the living room, which both stay wide open, their true purpose of keeping in heat long-gone and forgotten.

It is a limnal place. The hallway has never been a room of its own account. No-one has ever sat here drinking with friends, no arguments have been had, parties hosted or relationships started. It is merely a means of conveyance between one room and the next, or the outside world beyond.

Derek unlocks the front door and pushes in, dumping a sack of dog food and biscuits. The keys go on the occasional, his coat goes up on a hook, and then he trudges back to the car to fetch the new cow-hide dog bed. He re-enters the house nervously, as if the first time didn’t count, as if he’s just remembered what drove him away in the first place.

One, long dusty cobweb billows on the light shade. Madness and hope dance in every shadow, and in the silence, he does not know which to crave and which to fear. He holds the dog bed to his chest like a shield, while feeling ridiculous and unmanly.

‘Julia?’ he calls out, his voice cracking.

Sandy comes padding down the stairs, yellowing eyes showing that she still remembers being sworn at yesterday. Derek steps in, remembers the dog-bed, smiles.

It could have been a lot worse. Or better. He doesn’t know.

He plonks the dog-bed at the bottom of the stairs, leaving just enough room to get up them. ‘This is for you,’ he says to Sandy, though his voice is still cracking and he’s over-loud, in some forlorn hope that Julia will hear him.

Again, nothing. There’s a doubt that flags him down, but a hope that tells him to go faster. He kicks the door shut behind him, and kneels down as Sandy tries out her bed, turning twice before she gets comfortable.

‘Why aren’t you here?’ he croaks. Sandy looks at him - holding an expression that is entirely meaningless or so full of meaning as to be incomprehensible, and wags her tail. Derek laughs, but doesn’t mean it.

He gets up, grabs the dog food and take it into the kitchen, hides it under the sink. Puts on the kettle, butters some bread, opens a tin of beans. Sandy watches from the hallway, one ear cocked, a yawn on her lips, as if she can hear something somewhere else.

Julia comes from the kitchen, down the hallway, and runs up the stairs, feet echoing like children’s in her haste. Sandy wags her tail at her, but is unseen or unnoticed.

Julia walks from the bedroom, to the spare bedroom, to the bathroom, spraying perfume as she goes. For some reason, she doesn’t bother with the stairs on her way down. The hallway gets one long spray, the nozzle moved in an arc from front door to the kitchen, and then she’s gone, into the living room, the bottle already half-empty.

Sandy sneezes. And sneezes again.

Derek stumbles from the kitchen, the microwave buzzing behind him. He has a beer in his hand, unopened.

‘Julia?’ he says again, doubt stronger than before.

Sandy sneezes again, covers her nose with her paws, buries her face into the padded sides of the dog-bed. Derek puts the can down, kneels over her, scratches behind her years, strokes her wiry fur.

And smells perfume.