‘Dust would only collect in the petals,’ Mrs Easterbrook said. She opened a corner cabinet and placed the rose carefully amongst a display of other pretty things and shut the door again. It was difficult to tell if she really liked her present or not. There were some beautiful ornaments in the cabinet, but they had the air of being locked away, not to be touched, and it seemed a pity that the rose, even if Angie—no, she must have paid for it—it seemed a pity that the elegant gold rose had to join them.

‘I’ll just make a salad dressing,’ Mrs Easterbrook said. ‘I’m afraid it’s just quiche and salad, because you didn’t give me much notice, Angie, otherwise I’d have planned something more elaborate. No thanks, dear, I don’t need any help. Why don’t you show Seymour where he can wash his hands before we eat?’

‘Don’t go thinking she means you’ve got germs,’ Angie whispered as she took him up the hall. ‘She thinks you might need the loo and you’re too shy to ask, which would be just about spot on, anyhow. Hey, have a look in here, this used to be my old room when I was a kid.’

Seymour gazed through a doorway into a room so meticulously neat that it seemed to have no connection at all with the Angie he knew. The walls glowed with pale silken paper, white curtains floated like clouds at the windows where pastel blinds were drawn halfway down to exact levels. The room looked fresh and unused, as though nobody had ever lived in it at all.

‘Mum’s had it redecorated since I left home,’ Angie said. ‘You should have seen it when I had it, wow! Once I painted a big mural all over that wall. It was my tenth birthday and they said I could choose anything I wanted as a present, so that’s what I asked for, to be allowed to paint a mural. And they couldn’t back out, seeing they’d already promised. A tropical scene, that’s what I did, palm trees and orchids and butterflies flitting about—geeze, I had a ball doing that!’ She ran a hand wistfully over the pristine wallpaper. ‘It’s still there under this lot, you know, my mural. Bit sad, isn’t it, all those poor butterflies locked away in the dark…Still, it’s Mum’s house, I guess she’s allowed to do anything she wants with it.’

Mrs Easterbrook called them for lunch at a round table by a pair of French windows.

‘Aren’t we going to wait for…’ Angie said and stopped, glancing down at the table. ‘Oh, there’s only three settings. What about Lynne and David? I’ll get some more knives and forks out…’

‘Lynne had a ballet class.’