‘I have money,’ he said, with a certain pride.

‘It’s my party.’

She was off through the checkpoint, one of the soldiers whistling after her as she went.

The driver was writing something in a little black book. He didn’t look as if he were thinking of leaving immediately. Joe looked at the gnomes. There were four of them, each one playing a different musical instrument. There were flower pots and urns and a dry fountain, and a whole lot of sacks with writing on them that he couldn’t read. Someone had told him that this shop had been blown up more times than any other shop in the city. He wondered why. Some people who didn’t like gnomes perhaps? I’d like a fountain, he thought, a splashing towering one, with basin on top of basin, water bubbling in the air and falling, shining down from basin to basin. He smiled to think of the hens in the yard next door scratching and chooking to the sound of his fountain. A man came to the door of the prefab that stood where the garden shop used to be and looked at Joe looking at the fountain. He seemed to see what was in Joe’s mind and smiled and went back into the shop again.

‘Dreamtime,’ said Kathleen in his ear. He jumped.

‘Oh.’

Behind them the driver had stopped writing in his book and was revving the engine.

‘It might have gone without us,’ she said, almost severely, as they got on board.

‘Never.’

They went upstairs so that they could see over the walls and hedges and into people’s gardens.

‘I love the double-deckers.’

He settled himself down happily and rubbed the smeary mist off the inside of the window with the sleeve of his anorak. Kathleen put a cigarette into her mouth and lit it. She took a deep breath of poison.

‘Aaah.’

‘You’ll never learn.’

‘Too right.’

The bus backed slowly out of the bomb site and started up the hill. There were no other passengers on the top.

‘We’re off,’ said Kathleen.

At the top of the hill they could see the river bending away, curling along the broad valley towards the sea. A driving wind churned the water.

‘Do you like boats?’ she asked.

He shrugged.

‘I like looking at them. I’ve never … I wouldn’t want …’

Houses hid the river. The gardens they could see across the walls were winter-brown, biding their time.

Below, someone turned on a transistor and the music drifted up to them. It made everything rather gay.

‘Will I tell you a poem I wrote?’

‘That would be nice.’

She bent slightly towards him so that she could catch every word he spoke, as if it were important. He liked that. She had a good listening face. He spoke with confidence.

‘Gold is the sun

On a winter’s morning.

Cold is the air.

Still is the river

On a winter’s morning.

The hill beyond is black

Against the gold sun.’