We went inside and although I had no intention of buying a sliver of a fire-red dress to wear to Jerry’s gig, I let her persuade me to try it on.

In the changing room Mel whistled. She lifted the hair off my neck and studied the effect. ‘You’ve lost weight. It looks fabulous on you.’

‘Mel …’

‘Go on. Buy it. For my sake. Please.’

We were on holiday, almost. I bought the dress, which was expensive, and for some reason the memory of the blue-green smock that I had worn long ago to Daphne’s – Daphne, I couldn’t even remember her last name now – came back into my mind. I lifted my hand and sniffed at the veins of my inner wrist as if I were expecting to catch the ghost of perfume lingering there.

It was almost four o’clock when I got back to the Works. Andy and Leo were having their tea break, leaning against Andy’s bench with their heads together over a motorcycle magazine. Penny was winding the handle of the big press down on a stack of freshly glued Law Reports. Bars of sunshine came in from the window overlooking the canal, and showed up the dust on bundles of leather and the rack of hand tools beside my bench.

I showed my carrier bag to Penny. ‘Mel made me buy something to wear on Saturday night.’

She nodded and then caught the corner of her lip between her teeth. ‘I’m not looking forward to it very much.’

I tried to convince her that she would enjoy herself, but Penny only nodded. I tucked the dress bag underneath my desk and started work again. I was wondering how it would be at the Works and across the yard if Evelyn took Cassie away.

EIGHT

‘The party? Yeah, in the back there.’

The barman pointed towards the stairs at the rear of the pub and I eased my way through the crowd of Saturday night drinkers. At the door of the upstairs room a big man in a leather jacket grinned at me as he checked my invitation. ‘Hello, there. You have a good time tonight, all right?’

The room was packed with people. There were white girls in skimpy T-shirts that showed their belly-button rings, black men with dreadlocks in rasta bonnets, tattooed people, smoke, earrings and studs and pins, and a blast of solid, sweaty heat larded with noise. At the far end on a low platform surrounded by music stands and stacks of amplifiers and instrument cases, a skinny DJ was working the decks. The band hadn’t come on yet.