“At least, I’d say,” said Jean. “Shall we have tea at Simpson’s? I’ve got a terrible thirst after all those toffees.”

She was rewarded with a broad smile.

The waiter showed them upstairs to the ladies’ dining room, to a table on the far side of the large, high-ceilinged room, at some distance from the concentration of other diners. Jean had a suspicion they were being put out of the way and was rather gratified when Margaret pointed toward a group of elegantly dressed women near the window and said in his hearing, “That was where we sat last time.”

It was some years since Jean had eaten anywhere smart and she had to hide her surprise at the prices—five shillings for a slice of strudel!

She ordered a pot of tea with scones and jam and Margaret chose a strawberry millefeuille from a trolley of pastries, with a glass of milk. The sight of the strawberries reminded her of her mother and she wondered how she was coping in the village hall. Her stomach gave a squeeze of anxiety at the prospect of the recriminations that might follow an unsuccessful afternoon.

The scone when it arrived was warm, crumbly and scented with rose water. It came with a dish of strawberry jam and some double cream whipped almost to butter. I could easily make these at home, Jean thought, but I never do. She would always rather be in the garden than in the kitchen in the summer. Margaret was deconstructing her millefeuille, eating it from the top down, one layer at a time.

“You could just attack it with a fork,” Jean suggested, observing her struggles.

“But all the insides will squish out,” said Margaret. “It is lovely, though.” She rolled her eyes appreciatively.

She had managed to get cream all over her fingers and a smudge of icing sugar on her cheek. It was a delight to Jean to witness her childish pleasure in things; that interlude between the dawning of consciousness and the onset of self-consciousness was so brief. Margaret was now ten; there were perhaps two more years at most.

“What would you like to do after this?” Jean asked, helping herself to more tea. An art gallery might be pushing things. You could have too much culture.

Margaret looked shy. “Shall I tell you what I’d like to do most?”

“Yes, please do.”

“I’d like to go and surprise Daddy at his shop.”

“Oh.” This wasn’t what Jean had been expecting and she had no ready excuse to hand, so she said, “Well, all right. If that’s what you’d like. But if he’s busy with customers we’ll have to keep out of the way.”

When the bill came, Margaret produced a small beaded purse from her shoulder bag and tried to give Jean a shilling.

“Mummy gave me some money to pay for things,” she said.

“Oh no,” said Jean, laughing. “That isn’t how it works at all. This is my treat.”

Margaret accepted this as she did all of Jean’s utterances and dropped the coin back in her purse.