He found this young-love rapture almost embarrassing in its intensity; it was something he was delighted to have, determined to hide, and wary of examining. It was enough to know it was there, and the very commonness of it was reassuring in a way. Let others have felt this way, let them feel it now; it would never be exactly like this, never be identical. Revel in it, he thought, why not?

A worn and grubby old man stood with his back against the wall of another tall grey-and-brickred building. He wore a heavy grey-green coat, even in that heat, and one of his shoes was open at the toe, baring skin inside. He held two huge boxes of mushrooms. It was the sort of sight - the poor, the strange - which usually alarmed Graham.

So many strange people in London. So many of the poor and the decrepit, the still spinning shrapnel, walking wounded of society. Usually they oppressed and threatened him, these people with little threat to offer, and much to fear. But not today; today the old man, hot in his thick coat, blinking from his grey face, clammy hands round his two two-pound boxes of mushrooms was merely interesting, just a possible subject for a drawing. He passed the Post Office, where a young black man, tall and well dressed, stood talking quietly to himself. Again no fear. He realised that maybe he really was after all, just a little, the country hick he had tried so hard to avoid being. He had been so determined to be ungullible, city-wise that perhaps he had gone too far in the other direction, and so read a threat in everything the big city had to offer. Only now, with the promise of the strength she might give him, could he afford the luxury of thinking so closely about himself (you had to have armour in the city, you had to know where you stood).

He had opted for the cynical, guarded approach, and now he could see that for all the safety it had brought him - here he was, in his second year, still solvent, heart intact, unmugged and even succeeding in his studies, despite all his mother's fears - every defence had its price, and he had paid in a separating distance, incomprehension.