‘I never let that old witch worry me,’ Angie said airily. ‘If you’re even five minutes late with the rent, she flaps about wringing her hands like someone out of an opera. I already fixed it, so don’t remind me about it on a beautiful day like this. I thought we came out to have some fun. That’s why I wore Carmen Miranda.’ Carmen Miranda was a short, tiered skirt of different colours, resembling three bright parasols placed one on top of another, and a red shirt tied in a knot at the waistline. ‘Though you wouldn’t know who Carmen Miranda was unless you watch old midday movies,’ Angie added. ‘She used to wear her hair all piled up with tropical fruit ornaments and danced the rumba. And her earrings—they were fabulous! Today I’m going to shout myself a new pair of earrings.’

‘Can you afford it?’ Seymour asked automatically, because his mother was fond of saying, ‘Need, not Greed. First work out if you really need something, and you’ll find out that ninety-nine per cent of the time you can get by without it.’

But Angie seemed merrily oblivious of sayings like ‘Need, not Greed’. After they’d called in at the North Road hospital and returned to the bus terminal, she went into a nearby shop and looked at cheap jewellery. Seymour found himself covertly watching, feeling diminished a little by his action, to make sure that she really did pay for the items she finally chose. She certainly seemed to have plenty of money in the little silver mesh purse she drew out of her handbag. It bulged with the weight of notes and coins. She bought a pair of earrings shaped like gaudy parrots and put them on in the shop. As well as the earrings, she bought two little china ballet slippers attached to each other with pink ribbon. Seymour privately thought they were pretty useless, but Angie seemed to adore them and asked for them to be gift wrapped with a shiny rosette to seal the parcel.

‘Now,’ she said, pulling him on to a bus just as it was about to move off. ‘Out we go to East Merken. We’re meeting someone there and I’m shouting you both to lunch. You can order anything you like and second helpings, too.’

Seymour immediately shrank away from the thought of meeting another person, a stranger, and having to make conversation. Angie wouldn’t tell him who it was and laughed at his reluctant face.

‘You look just like Morris Carpenter,’ she teased.

‘Who’s he?’