On display with other sparkling trinkets in the shop, the parrot earrings had seemed cheerfully zany, but now Seymour glanced at the neat little silver studs in Lynne’s ears and thought dubiously that perhaps Angela should have chosen something simpler. They were rather too big, rather too gaudy, bobbing about on either side of her face.

‘Well, they’re not something I would have bought, that’s all,’ Lynne said. ‘But I guess they go with your dress, the colours and everything.’

The food was served, but Lynne ate hardly anything at all. The ice in her lemon squash clinked gently as she stirred it with a plastic straw, and Seymour thought that if a sound could express someone’s personality, that would be the sound of Lynne’s, the neat, crisp chime of ice cubes against glass.

‘Well now,’ said Angie. ‘What did you learn in class today? Can you do the splits yet?’

‘Angie, we certainly don’t do the splits in ballet. People always ask that, but you should know better. That, and if it hurts to dance on the tips of your toes. It’s so predictable…and annoying.’

‘Well, I can’t remember the proper names of all those steps, even though I learned ballet once, too. Did you know, Seymour, that I learned dancing when I was little? Only for a couple of months, though. I wasn’t brilliant at it, like Lynne. She’s going to be a famous ballerina one of these days.’

‘Angie, shush,’ Lynne said, glancing at the nearby tables, but Angie prattled artlessly on, only marginally lowering her voice.

‘But you are, you needn’t be so modest. Now with me, I was dead hopeless right from the word go. Guess what I did at the first lesson—wet my pants, right there in front of all the other kids! The teacher was so tactful, Miss Bromley or something, did you ever have her, Lynne?’

‘No, I already told you before, she wasn’t there by the time…’

‘Anyhow, Miss Bromley just went on demonstrating stuff to the class as though nothing had happened, even with all these little kids staring goggle-eyed at this big puddle in the middle of the floor. Or if they didn’t see it in time, they danced right through it and got their little pink slippers soaked. I was so embarrassed, God, I wanted to die! But then a nice kind lady, one of the other kids’ mums, came over and mopped it up and took me out to the loo. I never wanted to go back to that class, but Dad made me because of the fees being paid in advance. I had to be in the end of term concert, too, on a proper stage. You should have seen it, talk about a laugh! Do you remember it, Lynne?’

‘Angie, how could I? I was only a few months old.’