In the morning, they eat breakfast. Rose’s fingers move on the edge of the table, tapping restlessly. Thin fingers, with small white nails marooned at the end. She used to bite her nails, years back. When she first went to Graeme’s, she bit her nails, but she stopped. She clips them whenever she can to stop herself from biting them.

Titch has long nails. Her hands, smooth, slightly swollen, end in clean, bright colour. Her fingers move with elaborate care to keep the click of the nails from interfering with their movement. On her phone they tap faintly.

‘Rachael said I could go to a premiere tonight,’ Rose says.

She nurses the excitement like a flame inside her. She remembers Rachael, her voice casual, but her face alert with curiosity. She remembers the moment they parted. Rachael gave her a hug. Rose had no idea it was going to happen. She stood there, shocked, while Rachael and Rachael’s perfume enveloped her. She could smell it for hours.

That smell was the smell of wonder, now. She held it in her nostrils as she thought of a premiere. A red carpet. Film stars. Swimming pools. Ice cream.

Titch barely registers this. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘That would be a lovely idea. She’ll go too, will she?’

Rose nodded.

‘Why don’t you take something from the office to wear? There must be something in the cupboard.’

There are three of them. Rachael, Jacqui from the reviews desk, and Rose.

The amazing thing about the crap pile is the way that when stuff is put there, it becomes crap. In a box, in a cupboard, a strappy sandal looks tacky and slight, a confection of tinsel and cardboard. Loose, it happens almost at once, but even wrapped, in packaging, in cellophane, a dullness falls. A dress comes in, new, is passed around, admired, then put away, and when you go to look again the sheen is gone. A faint film of dust dimming the sequins, a crease, the haphazard fall of clothes off the hanger. Then Rachael picks it, shakes it, holds it against Rose, and Jacqui from reviews nods, and Rose blushes, and she looks at the size of it and knows she can’t wear something like that but they squeal, and they shriek, and her face is hot, and she has to speak, even though she doesn’t like to.

‘I can’t,’ she says.

They won’t take no for an answer.

‘You’re so skinny! It’ll be perfect.’

They tell her to change.

‘Where?’

Here. They giggle. They look at her. And Rose knows nothing. She knows nothing about them. They are old, and they are adult, and they know the rules.

She wants to take it to the toilet. They tell her to change here.

‘Where?’ she asks again.

‘Here.’ In the cupboard. In the crap pile.