‘Sure,’ said Hamish. ‘You’ve got us to keep you safe. Anyway, if it’s too much you can make yourself come down with vitamin C. Eat some oranges.’

‘Really?’ said Stephen.

‘It’s quite gradual,’ said Cass. ‘It comes on fairly slowly, so you’re sort of used to it by the time you’re fully tripping.’

Hamish was still holding the paper in his upturned hand. Georgie leant forward and took a square, then Cass. Hamish held his arm out towards Stephen. After a moment’s hesitation he too took a piece.

They all waited for Hamish to go first and put it in his mouth. Then the tension of the moment somehow evaporated and they all leant back against the cobwebby pigeon boxes and giggled.

Cass told Hamish about his dad putting on an Australian accent to talk to Stephen. She imitated him and for an instant it was as if the spirit of Bruce had come among them: she just had him.

‘I didn’t know you could do impersonations,’ said Stephen.

‘I can’t really,’ she said.

‘Yes you can,’ said Georgie. ‘You’re brilliant.’

‘You are,’ said Hamish. It was the first nice thing Stephen had heard him say to her.

‘Who can you do?’ asked Stephen.

‘Oh, I’m not like Mike Yarwood, I can’t do politicians or people on telly. Just people I know, really.’

‘She can do you,’ said Georgie.

‘No I don’t! I don’t do you,’ Cass said.

Stephen felt his smile fix on his face. It felt almost sore, like when the dentist filled your mouth with that pinkish plaster to take an impression and you had to stay still.

‘I don’t do you, honestly,’ Cass told him. ‘All I did was impersonate a phrase you’d used because we all thought it was funny. I only did it once. It was when you said something was only an ant’s dick away.’

‘A bee’s dick,’ said Stephen. The relief made his eyes prick, as if he might cry. So she hadn’t been sending him up behind his back, mocking him.

There was a pause, which Georgie broke. ‘A woodlouse’s vagina,’ she said. ‘A ladybird’s groin.’

They all began to giggle.

‘A fly’s flies,’ said Cass.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Hamish.

‘Good one,’ said Georgie. ‘A beetle’s bollocks.’

‘A cockroach’s crotch,’ said Stephen.

‘A dung beetle’s arsehole,’ said Georgie.

They laughed and laughed and laughed.