Seymour looked back for one last glimpse of the splendid mansions in Gresham Avenue. There was no harm in dreaming. Maybe one day he’d live in the one with diamond windows and Angela would live at number seventeen and they’d wave to each other each morning. Perhaps she’d let him work in her florist shop when he was old enough, too. You’d have to buy flowers fresh from the market early each morning, and he could do that job. He’d have a smart little van with the shop’s name written on the side. It would be peaceful and undemanding, a job like that, the type of thing he could easily handle. He knew he wasn’t particularly bright at school and couldn’t expect much in the way of a career, but a job like that, just to start off with…

He even thought of asking Angie now to keep him in mind for it in a few years time, but when he turned to her, she was dozing. The nail file was slipping from her fingers. She was like a cat, he thought indulgently, suddenly yawning her head off like that and taking a little nap in public. Asleep in that manner, she didn’t look grown up at all, but vulnerable, almost like a small child slumbering in a pram in a department store. Her dress changed colour as the tram rocked from stop to stop, like shells altering colour under water, and her head nodded and finally slid down to rest on his shoulder. Her bag was in danger of tumbling to the floor. He grabbed it just in time and put the nail file back inside. And saw, nestled amongst the contents, the gold rose from the gift shop.

He sat very still, peering gravely at the metal rose, and thought, ‘Of course she paid for it, must have been while I was putting the soap back…Only—why was that assistant so snooty to her after she bought something as expensive as that? Of course she paid for it! Only—why didn’t they wrap it up for her? In posh shops like that, they always wrap things up, in any shop…’

The tram reached the city. Angela woke with a great start, rubbing at her eyes. She got out and stood uncertainly on the traffic safety zone, looking dazedly up at the town hall clock. Seymour handed back her bag in silence, not mentioning the rose.