‘Got to take a different bus this time, over to Merken,’ she said. ‘That’s where my folks live. It’s a bit boring, I should warn you, in case you’re expecting something like Gresham Avenue. Oh, I used to hate Merken, you can’t think how much!’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘Merken’s like…well, say one person gets ducted heating in their house, everyone else breaks their necks to do the same, not because they actually want ducted heating, but they can’t bear to lag behind. That wouldn’t do at all, the roof of the world might cave in. It’s not really posh, but mind you, they’re all working on it like grim death. Mortgageville, one of those subdivided places where they bunged up a whole lot of boring houses all alike so everything looks the same. I never really fitted in, you know. The only reason I go back is to see my family. Oh, I can hardly wait to have a good old natter with Lynne and David, I haven’t seen them in months! Or Mum…Seymour, are you really sure I look okay?’

‘Angie, you look just fine!’ Seymour said, exasperated, but as the bus carried them through various suburbs towards Merken, she kept getting out her mirror and tweaking at her hair. She removed the pineapple earrings, then changed her mind and put them back in, and her fussing made Seymour, already uneasy at the thought of visiting strangers, even more jittery.

She’d bought a birthday card and opened it now to write a message inside. Her handwriting, Seymour thought, was like a little kid’s, large and square and painstaking, and the tip of her tongue was even protruding like a kid trying to get top marks in an exam as she wrote: ‘To Mum, Happy Birthday, love from Angela, sorry I’m late with this card, but you know me—better late than never! Not like last year, heh?!! Lots of love and hugs and kisses.’

Merken was a gridwork of quiet streets lined with tidy, unexceptional houses, each set in a garden very much like the one next to it.

‘I should have bought some flowers,’ Angie said when they got off the bus. ‘Mum always likes getting flowers for her birthday, Lynne never ever forgets. Oh, I should have remembered! It was crummy enough I forgot the proper date and she got worried when I didn’t ring and Judy went and blabbed…but that’s a long story. Well, I know how I can get round this one—hang on a jiff, Seymour!’

She stopped, looked around, then quickly broke several large stalks from a flowering shrub in someone’s garden, assembling them with a rubber band from her handbag.

‘What if whoever owned that garden came out and sprung you?’ Seymour scolded. ‘You shouldn’t do things like that, Angie.’