White tee shirt. White trousers. And if she was kneading bread she wore a white apron as well. With pockets where her hands went sometimes for some kind of blue rag she used for dusting her fingers, and wiping droplets of perspiration from her brow.

Gussie was in such a fog of confusion about her that he’d sometimes telephone his mother from the street outside before he went in, and ask her odd questions about his diet as a child.

He could never make up his mind about which bread to buy. And he deliberated too long, so that the young girl became flushed and uneasy. But even that didn’t dissuade him. That probably encouraged him. And he’d take all the time he needed to make an impression on her. To demonstrate that he was a man of refined tastes, a man who appreciated her various breads, and her delicate pastries. And thus he stood, gawking, and pointing at things and wondering, while she dusted her little fingers and tried not to breathe. Or maybe she actually knew what he was at. Maybe she realized that the fool fancied he was engaging her with the seductive grace of a civilized gourmet. She was certainly embarrassed. But she may have also felt uneasy. Pinned to the wall while he shifted from foot to foot, prolonging the moment of intimacy with her, and perhaps drooling again as he listened to her breathe.

She found him repulsive. She despised him. Even as he made flirtatious advances. Or what he supposed were advances.

‘How’s my little Angel Cake today?’

‘What have you been cooking for me this week in your little oven?’

Eyeing her with an intense stare that might reveal to her all that craven passion which was building up inside him. Oh, the poor girl.

On the afternoon in question, she could see him coming up the street. She was looking out the window. Later she told it all to the priest. And the sight of him drew from her soul a sigh as mortal as if she was about to throw herself under the lorry passing outside the door. She withdrew to the bakery, behind the door of fogged glass, to recover her composure. Gussie entered. Kicked the slush off his walking shoes at the threshold. Removed his black woolly hat. Opened up with the usual joviality concocted in darkness and solitude. But the shop was empty. There was no one to undress, for the moment.

Then he saw them before his own eyes lying on the counter. A pair of mauve briefs in transparent plastic wrapping. Brand new. Obviously just purchased down the street on her lunch break and idly abandoned for a moment beside a farl of soda bread. His hand hovered. But she sprang suddenly from behind the fogged glass door, snapped up her little item gracelessly, and flung it in the drawer beneath the counter.

‘Can I get you anything?’ she snapped.

‘Bread,’ he said, with some disappointment.