Rose thinks of that thatched cottage, the picture in Titch’s bathroom. The curl of smoke from its chimney like the lick of Archie’s hair.

She nods.

This is a dream.

On the last day of term, they do nothing. Nothing useful. They watch music videos. They talk about things vaguely related to media.

At the end, as they head out, Mr Bradman says, ‘Dillon? Have you got a moment?’

He stops.

Mr Bradman waits till the others have left. He sits on the edge of a table. The table creaks.

‘Looking forward to the holidays?’

The man’s face is kind, his voice gentle.

‘Have you got anything planned?’

Dillon says nothing.

‘I’ve been a little worried about you,’ says Mr Bradman.

Dillon’s flicker of reaction is instinctive.

‘Are things getting better, though?’

Dillon nods.

‘Good.’

Dillon’s face is flat. It’s an effort to keep it still.

‘If there was something you wanted to talk about …’ .

Dillon shakes his head. The line of his mouth changes. He’s holding his lips tight, but he can’t stop the tears coming to his eyes. He looks away, to the corner of the room.

Mr Bradman holds out a hand. Dillon makes no sound, but he can’t hold his expression anymore.

‘Mate,’ says Mr Bradman, drawing him in, one arm across his back, a half-hug, firm, kind.

A gulp, a sound like tearing paper comes from Dillon, and his shoulders heave.

The teacher holds him.

Dillon is shaking his head now, trying to shake away the sobs gripping him.

‘Come on, mate.’

At the door, Mrs Jackson pauses as she walks the corridor. She looks in at them, then walks on.

Rose opens a brown, card-backed envelope. She takes the photos out. She spreads them on the table. Aaron reaches for them, but his fingers hover just above the glossy surface. Graeme lifts his cup of tea out of the way.

‘Do you like them?’

Rose shrugs, but she’s smiling.

Later, she carefully clears a space in the middle of her wall of clippings and tacks the photos up. She looks at them, square and rich and thick amid the tatty paper, then she puts some of the other pictures back, overlapping her own images so they can become a part of the collage.

Her own eyes stare back at her, thick with mascara. She can’t look away.

She’s on the train again. This is her third time. Trees in thick green banks, houses in sharp, neat rows, the clouds in wide flat-bottomed heaps of cotton-white against the blue.

It seems sunnier than it ever used to be.

She slouches across her seat, her knees wedged against the seat in front. She watches the boy in the seat on the other side of the aisle. He is pretty, delicate featured. Her age. She watches through her hair.