He filled an electric jug and switched it on to boil, dug two chipped mugs out of the pile in the sink and washed them, found a jar of instant coffee, and sugar congealed in a blue pottery bowl without a lid. There was a small fridge in a corner, containing only a few cans of beer, chocolate yoghurt and a carton of dubious milk. He put everything neatly on a tray and carried it back outside.

‘You’re a real star! Not many people can make a good cuppa, but you’re certainly one of them!’ Angie said, sounding so warm and grateful that Seymour blushed, unused to praise of any description. ‘Don’t stand up to drink it, grab a cushion and sit down and make yourself at home. Talk to me. If there’s one thing I love, it’s having someone to chat to while I’m doing my nails. Though you’re not exactly chatty, are you? Never mind, you can just sit there and listen and I’ll do all the earbashing. I’m pretty good at it, they tell me.’

Seymour perched self-consciously on the lowest step leading up to the flat—if you could call it a proper flat. He sipped the coffee, trying not to think of the mess in the kitchen. You couldn’t be brought up by people like his mother and Thelma without being fastidious, but he was too polite to show reluctance at having to drink from a cup that had been in such a grotty sink. It was strange, really, because the girl herself was so immaculate, her hair sparkling like water in the sun.

He watched, fascinated, as she attended to her nails. They were long and perfectly shaped and she was obviously very proud of them, spreading her hands out like a temple dancer. She shaped each nail with a slim pearl-handled file, then began to apply the lacquer. Jet black. Seymour had never seen anyone wearing black nail varnish before. Her clothes were unusual, too. She was wearing a short satin skirt and a blouse like a singlet, only made rather startlingly from silver lace. She bent to pick up a dropped pair of manicure scissors and Seymour nearly dropped his coffee mug. There was a tattoo—a little blue horse with outspread wings, stencilled on one shoulder. He’d never known anyone with a tattoo before, specially not a girl.

‘Hey, how about I paint your nails for you?’ she teased, and he shook his head vehemently. ‘Go on, live dangerously. Think of the sensation you’d cause.’

‘No! I mean, no thanks. Thelma…the lady I stay with, she’d go bananas if I came home wearing black nail polish! Geeze, blokes don’t wear nail polish!’