Julia elbowed him and said:

Come on, mister, where’ve you got to?

He frowned.

I’m having a think, he frowned.

And what are you thinking of? she asked.

Nothing, he said, carefully.

Which was truer than it sounded, he knew. There was not much connexion between the blur of things that eddied and jostled in his mind, not much meaning, that you could explain to people, anyway.

Eden looked at him out of her small, wondering face. It was not the wonder of a face impressed. It was more the wonder of contempt. Sometimes he could feel the small, wondering contempt, which was the contempt of sisters in prams. And it exasperated him. Sometimes he put his hand on the back of her neck, to feel how small and frail it was, to measure the smallness with his hand, and to see, if he squeezed, just a little, and then a little, to see exactly what. When Eden screamed.

I’ll take the brush to you, said Julia. A big boy, five years old, and a torment to his sister.

Yes, he was five. On his fifth birthday, he had a pink cake, like a rainbow inside, and a lot of children he did not like who came to help him eat it. They stood about in the rooms of the house that was no longer his. The strange, resentful children. They resented each other because they were strangers. There were very few children that he ever knew. Eden, and possibly Connie Tiarks, and there it just about ended. But then it is usually like that. And on his fifth birthday he was no different from any other children. Even though Mme Adorée said: Il est énormément intelligent, ce petit, je vous félicite, Madame. Mme Adorée gave him a little book of French songs. It had ‘Savezvous planter des choux?’ and ‘Sur le pont d’ Avignon’, which he learned to rattle off with Mother, run together in a movement of sound, from which he could not detach the words, let alone their meanings.

Ell-yott, Ell-yott, cried Mme Adorée, when he passed the shop. Tu vas chanter? Une seule petite chanson?

So that he dared not look inside the shop. He was afraid to encounter in this gauzy cave the face of Mme Adorée as it peered out. She had a funny, swollen neck and protruding eyes. When Mme Adorée spoke to him, he felt embarrassed and looked at his toes. And the two workgirls came up from the basement, smiling, and laughing, and stuck with pins. They bent down over him and made a fuss. They kissed him and he felt hot.

Julia said they was saucy girls.

Why is Mme Adorée called Mme Adorée, Julia? he asked.

That’s her name, said Julia. It’s French for Adored.

Oh, he said. How do you know?

I’m not stupid.

She pulled the hatpins out of her hat.

It sounds silly, he said.

No, she said. It’s only French.

Mme Adored! Mme Adored! he sang, till he began to laugh.