She had let Mary go up by herself and she waited here, full of doubt, misery and reproaches that were beginning to bubble up wanting to overflow. But not in anger, no, she needed explanations. She took Shirley from Mary, and the two young women, their children in their arms, stood together on the path, just outside a plumbago hedge that was the boundary for another cafe. They did not speak, but looked into each other’s faces, Hannah seeking confirmation, which she got. ‘It s true, Hannah.’

And now, the laughter. Roz was laughing. The peals of hard laughter, triumphant laughter, was what Mary and Hannah heard, each harsh loud peal lashed them, they shrank away from the cruel sounds, ‘[‘hey trembled as the whips of laughter fell.

‘Evil,’ Mary pronounced at last, through lips that seemed to have become dough or clay. And as Roz’s final yells of laughter reached them, the two young women burst into tears and went running away down the path, away from their husbands, and their husbands’ mothers.

Two little girls arrived at the big school on the same day, at the same hour, took each other’s measure, and became best friends. Little things, so bravely confronting that great school, as populous and busy as a supermarket, but filled with what they already knew were hierarchies of girls they felt as hostile, but here was an ally, and they stood holding hands, trembling with fear and their efforts to be brave. A great school, standing on its rise, surrounded by parkland in the English manner, but arched over by a most un-English sky, about to absorb these little things, babies really, their four parents thought - enough to bring tears to their eyes! - and they did.

They were doughty, quick with repartee, and soon lived down the bullying that greeted new girls; they stood Lip for each other, fought their own and each other’s battles. ‘Like sisters,’ people said, and even, ‘Like twins.’ Fair, they were, with their neat gleaming ponytails, both of them, and blue-eyed, and as quick as fishes, but really, if you looked, not so alike.