Alisha cackles. ‘Why so sensitive?’

‘Just fuck off.’

‘Hi.’

They look up. Rose has stopped beside them. Alisha smiles.

‘Hi.’

Rose is wearing her old jeans, sandals, and a top slashed at the arms and the back that hangs loose over her lean chest. She looks like she’s been assembled out of two different people.

‘See you later,’ Alisha says, and winks at Dillon. He still has half a burger left.

Dillon and Rose stare after Alisha as she walks back up the path, for slightly longer than they need to. Then they turn back to each other. She doesn’t look like a model, Dillon thinks. She looks like Rose.

Dillon takes the biggest bite he can manage.

‘How’s your film?’

‘What film?’ he says, disconcerted.

‘The film you were making. About the seasons.’

Dillon flushes with shame. He can feel the dark and the quiet of the broken house. He wishes she would shut up. He wishes he could tell her to shut up.

‘Have you stopped?’ she says.

‘Sort of,’ he says, keeping his voice neutral and his face low. He takes another huge bite, then crams the rest of the burger in. He scrunches the paper up.

‘I met a director,’ she says.

His cheeks are bulging. His mouth is dry. He can’t swallow.

‘In London,’ Rose goes on. ‘I made an advert. I met the director. He gave me his number.’

Dillon is looking at her in astonishment, his mouth full of Big Mac.

‘You can finish your burger, you know.’

Dillon blushes. Looks down, chews. He can see her sandalled feet. They are large and knuckled with ridges of bone. Her big toe is massive. He can feel her eyes on him like an itch.

He swallows.

‘You could come down with me if you wanted.’

The smile has fallen from her face. He notices that her cheeks are blotchy, an uneven pattern of red.

‘We could go to London,’ she says. It’s so unguarded, and so needy. It can’t be real. Dillon feels a pull in his chest. It’s painful looking at her. He wishes she would shut up. He wishes he could tell her to shut up.

He laughs. ‘You’re all right,’ he says.

He hates his voice. He wishes she knew the rules. He doesn’t know them either, but he knows this is not in them.

He stands up. She doesn’t move. She’s close to him. He feels her overpowering loneliness. It’s frightening.

‘You going back in?’ he says.

They walk up the path. He wants to say yes, but she is too raw. You couldn’t know what else she might say or do. She might say she loved him. She might kiss him. He doesn’t want that. Not again.

Titch is having lunch with Archie. She’s using him for shoots regularly now.

‘Is she OK?’ Titch asks.

‘Rose? In what way?’

The low noise of quiet talk fills the restaurant.

‘I don’t know.’