Flora peers into the mirrored bar behind him. Dabs at her eyes. It’s taken a long time to get this look right. She is not going to smudge it. Many components were involved! Heated eyelash curlers – they’re a bitch to use. Maybelline mascara. Cotton-wool balls from Woolworths to smooth foundation because her fingers make it too greasy. Dior blush from Frasers – that cost a bit more: fingernails just so, so red: carefully oval tipped with a sharp point, the new kind of varnish that they use to paint aeroplanes.

– My invite was hand-delivered in a brown envelope with two roses.

– Invitation to where?

Flora taps her nose.

– Do I look like I’m going to my own execution?

– Aye. Pretty glamorous execution though. You’ll be needing another drink fir that?

– Best not.

Flora is far more tanned than last time her ex saw her. Why her mother whitens her skin she has no idea. Well, she has plenty of ideas but she doesn’t agree with any of them. The more colour Flora has in her skin the better she looks, so she thinks anyway. Fuck anyone who doesn’t! One more twist and turn to admire herself. She loves this new dress. It’s silver. Fringed. It catches the light and dapples her face nicely.

– What perfume are you wearing, Flora, you smell amazing.

– Mitsouko, it’s new.

– So, the bear went home to Poland and got killed after such a huge journey!

– I waved the soldiers’ boat away from the docks, Poland was just newly independent. They were so happy to go back after the war! Baśka Murmańska was on the top deck. I stood watching until the boat was only a speck. When it was no longer a speck, I still stood watching. When the sun fell I pulled my auntie’s fur coat around me and lit a cigarette. When the darkness came I still just kept watching the horizon.

– What were you looking for?

– Evidence of the unbreakable bond of true love.

– You found it?

– No, not yet anyway.

The two of them laugh, the delicate relief of it loosens her spine.

– Go on, Flora, get yer guy, ay.

– Thanks fir listening…

– Any time, lady.

Flora leans over the bar and kisses the barman on the cheek.

Up onto the street.

She goes into the shop for two packs of cigarettes. Then down into the close. It is so familiar. Even just to step onto the damp cobbles hidden out the way down here. It makes her hard. Raises the knot in her shoulder. The first-floor landing is jammed by two young men pulling and pushing at a huge old piano.

– Can I squeeze by?

– Aye!

They tip it up and she flattens herself against the wall to slip past.

– I’m Archie, I’m moving into 5F5, sorry about the piano!

– Nae bother!