‘Well, you didn’t lose Juliet,’ Seymour said, looking at the doll with astonishment and wondering how she could be so attached to it. It had a melancholy white cloth face and wasn’t particularly attractive, with dingy, frayed clothes needing a good wash. It smelled, but when he tried to take it away, Angie slapped out at him and started to cry again.

‘Okay,’ he said hastily. ‘It’s just I wouldn’t hold it close up to your face like that. That doll kind of pongs, Angie.’

‘I don’t care! You don’t know what she means to me, been with me through…Dad used to tell me bedtime stories, see, when I was little and he’d make up ones about Juliet, what she did every night when the whole house was sleeping. She used to dance round the garden in the moonlight in her little shoes…I believed it. I thought she was real, and she started school the same day I did…Oh, hell, I can’t bear this! I’ve got some tablets somewhere to take, not that they help…’ She pushed herself up on one elbow and scrabbled about in the drawer of the bedside table. She found a little packet and shakily peeled away the foil backing, swallowing tablets with the cold dregs of the coffee.

‘All that many?’ Seymour demanded, alarmed. ‘What is it, aspirin? I don’t think you should be taking so many all at once. Thelma gets tension headaches from where she works, but she never takes more than…’

‘Oh, belt up, it’s only prescription stuff I got from this doctor in Upton Street. That might be a lot for some people but I’m used to them, been on them for ages. It’s funny, I thought I had more, a whole new packet…maybe I used them up last night. Oh, God, I feel so crook! I’m sorry, love, I was going to take you out some place today, wasn’t I? Going to take you to the races, you’ll like it there…Don’t go away. I’m scared…stay and keep me company, keep me comforty I feel so cold keep getting these cramps remember when I showed you the beautiful…’

She was suddenly asleep, drawn down into slumber like a pebble into deep water, not surfacing. Seymour had never seen anyone fall asleep so quickly, and suddenly feeling very frightened and alone, he lifted her eyelids, not even knowing what he was looking for. He recalled vaguely that you could tell if people had lapsed into unconsciousness by the state of their pupils. Angie’s were huge and dark, almost engulfing their rims of pale iris, and they stared at him, unmoving. He spread a blanket over her, tucked her cold hands under it and ran across the alley to Thelma’s house.