Fleur and Nikki walked slowly, shaking their heads as the shopkeepers called out persistently, each trying to outdo the others. They stopped at a shop with a rack containing vast quantities of batik shirts and Nikki riffled through looking for one for Jack. Immediately she was surrounded by whole families. What size, Mem? What colour? How many you like? This colour? That colour? This size? That size?

What am I doing here? Nikki thought, suddenly claustrophobic; buying shirts for Jack when…Hastily she bought two large traditional ones with subdued colours and she and Fleur moved on.

Out of the corner of her eye Nikki suddenly spotted a corner shop selling baby clothes. She moved towards the rail with its tiny shirts and dresses and trousers hung neatly in rows under the hot sun. She had not bought anything for the baby yet because she was superstitious and now she glided towards the shop as if pulled by a magnet.

Fleur smiled as she watched Nikki touch each item with wonder, fingering the dresses and baby suits with amazement that any human child could be so minute as to fit into these Thumbelina clothes.

Nikki had clipped her long fair hair up but strands had escaped and curled in the heat round her neck and face. As she made her way dreamily through the baby things a small smile lit up her face at the prospect of dressing her child in little garments like these. It was as if this array of baby clothes had reignited the excitement, the reality of the life growing steadily inside her.

Fleur, watching her, was suffused with love and pride. How beautiful Nikki looked bending to baby clothes with the same concentration she and Saffie had picked out clothes for their dolls. Nikki’s face changed when she smiled, lit up everything around her. Her blonde hair against her creamy brown neck was ravishing.

How wonderful she would be to paint, Fleur thought. How lucky I am to have my lovely daughter here with me.

She saw how people turned and watched Nikki, smiled at her obvious pregnancy and dreamy expression, totally oblivious to them all; bent, intent on a miniscule white dress with pink rosebuds. She took it from the rack and held it up and her fingers trembled.

‘Our white dresses. Mine was like this. Saffie’s had blue roses. Do you remember you only liked us to wear them on holiday?’

Fleur said quietly, ‘How could I forget? Ah Heng brought them back from Chinatown for you both.’ Her fingers reached out to touch the dress. ‘I was immature and snobby in those days. Ah Heng loved dressing you both in clothes she bought from the markets but I thought her clothes looked cheap so I used to change you back into my clothes in the car as soon as we turned the corner. I kept those little dresses for your holidays…’

They both looked down at the dress. Saffie had been wearing the dress with pink rosebuds when she died. Nikki could not put it back. She held it to her, clutched it to her and tears streamed silently down her face. ‘Saffie wanted the one with the blue roses because you laughed and said there wasn’t such a thing as blue roses…’