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You can get shrimps in paper cones, whelks and fried potatoes, and you can eat them outside. Food tastes better outside, don’t you think?’
    ‘I’m not keen on outside eating,’ said Ada, polishing an apple on her sleeve.
    For a few long seconds, the sun was eaten by clouds, and Beatrice felt the goosebumps springing up along her arms. Looking at the sky, she smiled at the warmth that suddenly reappeared, when a breeze sent all the clouds scuttling.
    ‘A lotus,’ she said. ‘That cloud is shaped like a lotus.’
    Madge looked puzzled. She couldn’t see a thing.
    ‘So where are all its legs?’ said Billy.
    ‘A lotus is a flower,’ said Jeffrey. ‘You’re thinking of a locust.’
    ‘I’ve never heard of a lotus,’ said Tom.
    ‘It’s a blossom from the Orient,’ said Jeffrey. ‘Like the ones on Mrs Crane’s fan. Have you been there?’ he asked. ‘It sounds like a fascinating part of the world. I hear everyone’s very small.’
    ‘Gosh, no,’ said Beatrice, opening out the fan. The lotus blossoms were pretty, but a couple of them had smudged. ‘This is just a cheap trinket, from Mr Wong’s emporium in Brooklyn. He sells hundreds of these every day.’
    ‘I think it’s charming,’ said Jeffrey.
    ‘It is very pretty,’ said Tom.
    ‘I used to have a fan,’ said Lizzie. ‘Real silk.’
    ‘I don’t remember that,’ said Tom.
    ‘It was a twenty-first birthday present. I hardly ever used it. Then it broke.’
    ‘You always were clumsy,’ said Ada.
    Across the field, the vicar stretched his bony legs, while women offered him cake, and hovered with the teapot.
    ‘I hear your brother’s a vicar?’ said Madge.
    ‘Not exactly. Elijah is what you’d call a preacher. He travels with his sermons. In Normal, Illinois, almost every other son wants to go into the Church. It’s either that, or the cannery.’
    ‘I can certainly see the attraction,’ said Jeffrey. ‘Have you ever been inside the vicarage? It’s huge and full of silver. He has a housemaid, and a secretary, not to mention the gardener, who doesn’t charge a penny, and who cuts the vicar a fresh buttonhole every morning. I could do with some of that.’
    ‘You’re doing all right, old chap,’ said Jonathan. ‘You’re hardly in the workhouse.’
    ‘But look at all that fawning. They just won’t leave him alone.’
    ‘You’d soon get tired of it.’
    ‘Try me. I could get very fond of sycophants.’
    Beatrice leaned back on her hands as a ladybird tripped across her fingers. She closed her eyes. Somewhere over her head there were birds that sounded like seagulls. The afternoon wore on. Boys full of pie and warm lemonade threw down their hats, and girls tripped over their new spring dresses, scraping their knees. Madge left early, pulling Frank home, with the promise of cold beef and pickle, and a hidden bottle of stout. The vicar had long since disappeared inside the sanctuary of the vicarage, and with the shades pulled down, his trousers loosened, he dreamed of a chubby girl called Iris, skinny-dipping in the reservoir.
    ‘I’d like to walk home,’ said Beatrice.
    ‘But you have the motor car,’ said Lizzie. ‘You could be back in ten minutes.’
    ‘I’d really rather walk.’
    ‘Would you mind if I walked with you?’ Jeffrey asked.
    ‘I wouldn’t mind at all.’
    ‘You have a deckchair and a basket,’ said Lizzie. ‘However will you manage?’
    ‘I’ll take them in the car,’ said Jonathan. ‘And I’ll trust Jeffrey with my wife.’
    They walked slowly, making their way around families rolling up their blankets, brushing grass from their clothes, pressing at their faces. The sun had made them tender.
    The lane was overgrown in parts. A woman in a red skirt was letting out her chickens.
    ‘These hens don’t lay in the same place two days running,’ she said, rolling up her sleeves.
    Smiling, they walked in silence for a while. Beatrice liked looking at the hedgerow, the cow parsley, wild garlic, and