‘I know, you can’t take me anywhere,’ Angie said, walking on demurely. ‘But I had an excuse all ready. I was going to say we were on the way to visit the cemetery and we didn’t have any money to buy flowers for our granny’s grave. You’d have to have a heart like a gargoyle to take flowers back off someone with a good excuse like that. Well, here’s Acacia Avenue. All the streets round here are named after native flowers, original, huh? This is our house and I bet that nosey old Mrs Duke next door is perving out through her Venetian blinds as usual. She’ll be round to Mum’s soon as we leave—“Oh, was that little Angela just called in? She hasn’t been around for ages, has she, and isn’t she putting on a lot of weight?”—Old cow. Seymour, you positive I look okay? Hey, you don’t reckon I’m putting on weight, do you, not so you’d notice?’

‘I only met you a couple of days ago.’

‘Yeah, but…’

Seymour, however, had anxieties of his own. ‘What do I call your mum?’ he asked nervously, and wasn’t reassured when Angie said, ‘Well, her first name’s Jeanette, but she’s not the sort of person you can call by her first name straight off. So you’d better just settle for Mrs Easterbrook and be grateful.’

Mrs Easterbrook made Seymour feel welcome, but he sensed a texture in the atmosphere, as though Angela and her mother weren’t quite comfortable with one another. Angie grew noticeably quieter and more decorous once inside the orderly house, as though attending some formal social event. Mrs Easterbrook seemed just as houseproud as Thelma, and even the cat bowl, he noticed, sat on a spotless white plastic mat instead of newspaper.

‘I brought you a birthday present as well as these flowers,’ Angie said. Mrs Easterbrook carefully undid the ribbon bow and smoothed and folded the gift wrapping before picking up the gold rose to look at it properly.

‘Thank you, dear, it’s lovely,’ she said. ‘It will look very nice in the china cabinet. I hope you didn’t spend too much money, this looks as though it could have been very expensive.’

Seymour found himself staring at the floor, unable to meet anyone’s eyes.

‘Well, I wanted to get you something really fabulous and outdo David and Lynne,’ Angie said. ‘Why don’t you put it up on the mantel? No one will be able to see it stuck away in the china cabinet. It would look great up on the mantel, Mum.’