They step out of the station into bright sunshine. The street is busy. Busier even than the train. Not busy like the high street at home, but busy like the outside of a football ground, or a corridor in school on lesson changeover. Busy so you can’t cross the flow of people, who move fast, in bright, summery dresses, in light jackets and shorts, in sunglasses. All beautiful, all young.

They cross, and walk up towards Titch’s building.

Rose moves slowly, her head tilted up. The buildings are tall, the roads narrow. The shops are bright, glossy. Like the inside of a shopping centre, but outside. Not like a high street at home, with charity shops and newsagents, and Burger King and Marks & Spencer. The windows have sparse, elegant displays. A coffee shop has a queue out into the road.

Titch’s building has glass doors. A man and a woman behind a desk, then the lift. It’s not quite as impressive as Rose had hoped. She thought it might look more like one of the shops.

But Titch smiles at the people behind the desk, and they smile, and say, ‘Morning,’ and they walk up and Titch says, ‘This is Rose.’ And Rose wakes up.

They look at her. She blushes. She’d felt invisible, but now the thought that people will meet her and ask her name and she will have to talk to them changes everything.

‘Rose will be here for the next four days on work experience.’

She swallows, and the movement flutters on through her gut. In her stomach, a familiar, burning hunger stirs.

‘We’ll need to get her a pass.’

They smile. They nod. They give her a pass. She clips it to the neck of her T-shirt. With the pass she only feels more exposed. She’s wearing jeans, a T-shirt, trainers. Titch said the office wasn’t formal, but this place is formal. Titch is wearing a dress and heels. Rose feels too young.

Her arms cross in front of her stomach. Her long fingers touch the skin of her wrists. In the lift, she sees herself in the mirrored walls. She leans close to Titch.

‘I don’t think I’m dressed right,’ she says.

Something in her tone makes Titch look at Rose properly for the first time that day. She doesn’t look away or look down. The faintest touch of triumph creeps into her expression as she says,

‘You’re fine.’

After a slight pause, she adds, ‘You’re beautiful.’

With her face made up and her hair perfect, Titch is like someone from the telly. She looks like someone Rose’s mother would have wanted to be.

‘So are you,’ says Rose.

She can see the flush rise up Titch’s neck. Her eyes keep steady on Rose, though. At most they crinkle at the corners. Then her hand moves quickly, grasps Rose’s, and squeezes it.

‘You’ll be great.’