But she can’t help it. Rose can’t stop a smile spreading across her face, and she blushes and says, ‘I’m fine,’ and she smiles again, because suddenly, she feels warm and happy, and the astonishment of it takes her breath away.

Rachael laughs. ‘I thought something had happened!’

Rose can’t stop smiling. She hugs herself.

‘I’m going for a coffee,’ says Rachael. ‘Do you want to come?’

Rachael: tall, pretty, adult. Behind her the white stone buildings gleam.

‘Yes,’ Rose says.

Rachael knows all the words, and how to use them. When she orders her coffee, she does it in a way that implies an absolute certainty that she will be listened to. Her voice is loud. It’s quiet too, when she wants. She seems to go through a greater range of expression than anyone Rose has ever met. Her gestures match. Her hands move, and her arms move. When she laughs, she leans forward and her head bucks back elegantly or dips down shaking.

Rose sips her drink. It’s a chai latte. She’s never bought one before. At home she makes tea, sometimes, but she doesn’t know why you would buy one of these when you could buy a cake or a fizzy drink. Or an ice cream.

Rachael talks. About Titch, and work, and clothes. She asks Rose questions, but most of the questions come with their own answers.

‘Don’t you just love a chai latte?’

Rose nods.

After the café, they go to the shops. Rose wouldn’t have gone in on her own. The doors are high, the glass sparkles. But Rachael marches her in.

Rachael tries on clothes. She goes into the changing room and comes out with clothes that look great, or less great, and then she buys them. Rose tries nothing on. She just watches.

Rachael moves through this world like she owns it. She takes things that she wants, off racks and shelves, messily, carelessly, and buys them. Not things that she needs, like food, but things that she wants, for no reason other than that she wants them. Rose tries to imagine what that would be like.

That night, Rose dreams again. Her dreams are busy. People stream in and out, in bright wisps of wonder. She wakes, sweating, exhausted by the buzzing of her head. She drifts through conversations and escalators. She dreams of Rachael’s teeth, white and even. She dreams of food, plates and plates of food, cakes piled high and hot chocolate in a mug the size of her head. She dreams of Rachael biting down on her own arm.