In the morning there are no buses, you walk home. Seven miles, you don’t mind. The morning is quiet and the air is fresh and new, as if a box of it has just been opened. You enter the house to find your mother, sitting at the kitchen table, sorting through a mound of buttons of every flavour, grouping them by colour and shape. You find deep satisfaction and calm in the order and regularity. “What are you going to do with all those buttons?” you ask. She doesn’t know. These things just accumulate, from dead relatives, dead clothing, anyhow, best keep them tidy, she adds. “I know a seamstress” you say. You do.