‘Three o’clock!’ she said. ‘God, I never realised it was that late! Listen, Seymour, I just remembered I’ve got to see…I have an appointment and it’s not one I can break. I’m really sorry we’re going to miss out on lunch, you must be starving by now, but I’ll take you to McDonald’s some other time. You’ll be all right getting back to Victoria Road by yourself, won’t you? Just catch the number fourteen tram and hop off at the stop past that big pub on the corner. And you can’t miss the alley. That’s practically opposite the tram stop where you get out.’

The alleyway, he thought, harrowed. The dogs growling behind the fences, that gang of kids—I can’t…can’t walk down that place all by myself!

‘What’s the matter?’ Angela asked. ‘You’ve gone peculiar looking. You feeling crook or something?’

Seymour nodded, snatching at the excuse with relief, because there was no way he could explain about the alleyway and his fear of walking along it alone.

‘Oh hell! Look, I’ve got this appointment,’ Angie said impatiently. ‘I’ve got to be there at three-fifteen on the dot, and I’ve already broken the last one and they weren’t too rapt. I’ll get shot if I don’t show up today. Oh, come on, Seymour, there’s nothing to hopping on the number fourteen tram and getting off at Victoria Road. It’s not such a long trip, either, only about twenty minutes. You’re not going to throw up right now, are you? Can’t you last till you get home?’

‘Couldn’t I take a taxi instead of a tram?’ Seymour said desperately. ‘If you lend me the money, I’ll pay you back. My mum’s coming over on Friday and she’ll give me some pocket money.’

Taxis would deliver you right to your front door, or at least not to Thelma’s front door, for he couldn’t even get in that formidable entrance with no key and the latticed barricade. But a taxi could take him up the alley, right up to the back gate, and the driver would be like a stalwart shield between him and all those terrors.

‘Taxis? What do you reckon I am, a millionaire? God in heaven, as if I’ve got enough money for taxis! I already told you I was short of cash. It’s only twenty minutes by tram, if that, you little pest!’

People milled about them on the traffic zone. Angie was tugged away from him in the tide, and he clung forlornly by one hand to the railing, thinking that she’d crossed with the stream of people and just left him adrift there like the useless piece of jetsam he was. But she surfaced again on his other side and took his free hand.