‘Colin…I was hoping I might run into you!’ she cried.

‘Hello, what have you been up to then?’ The greeting was friendly enough, but the man continued to walk on as though he had no time to spare.

‘How about my old job back, Col?’ Angie said. ‘Go on, you could put in a word to the boss! I can start any time, tomorrow if you like…’

‘Sorry, love, there’s nothing going.’

‘Get away, you’re always short-staffed! I ran into Bo the other day in town, she’s left. I could have her job, and do it a lot better, too, You know how slack Bo was. Go on, Colin, be nice, have a word with the boss.’

‘Listen, Deb, you know as well as I do why you got the chop last time. He gave you every chance but you went and blew it, didn’t you? It’s your own fault.’

‘That’s history. I was living way over the other side of town then, and I didn’t have any reliable transport,’ Angie protested. ‘It wasn’t my fault I was late a couple of times. Well, all right then, a whole lot of times…But I worked bloody hard and you can’t say I didn’t! I could even live in this time if there’s room. And that other business, you know what I mean, what he found in the float…that was all a mistake, it had nothing to do with me, honest. I told you…’

‘No use telling me anything, princess. How about you ask the boss himself and leave me right out of it?’ the man said briskly and stepped around her and went on walking, not looking back.

Angie kicked at the fence and glared after him through her little net veil. ‘That old grump of a Colin, talk about a sexist pig! He’s the foreman at the place where I used to work and I thought there just might be a chance…Oh, I should have just spat right in his eye instead of wasting all that charm! I always knew he didn’t like girls working there, even though we did a better job than all those other no-hopers they had on! Just because I got sprung, just once for heaven’s sake…Oh, I’m too mad to bother about this next race, Seymour! It’s okay, I’ll cool off in a minute, but let’s go and get a drink. You hungry?’

Seymour, with all his new wealth, insisted on paying for lunch and felt grown-up and debonair as he carried it back to the table under the trees where Angie sat. He spread out the food, but she ate hardly anything.

‘You never eat properly, Angie,’ Seymour said. ‘You smoke too much, that’s why. When you have a baby, you’ll have to quit cigarettes altogether. I saw something about that on television one time.’