And she could see the patch of green – the newly named Moon Park, once just ‘the park’, where the hippies had played chess and bongos and someone had put up that sign that said Welcome, Flower Followers. Was that only last summer? Now the tables were gone and it was just grass…

‘I’m burning the midnight oil to get the moonstick finished. Enough prototypes. I’ve probably done 50,000 drawings of the damn thing.’

He stopped at a sign in someone’s front garden. PLEASE DON’T STOP AND SMELL OUR ROSES. Why would anyone have a sign like that? Tris said to himself. He was constitutionally unable to cruise by a rose without wanting to inhale its fragrance.

He went over to his file cabinet, unlocked it and reached into where he’d put the report. It didn’t seem to be there. He went through the files one by one. It wasn’t there. It made no sense. Had he taken it out? It had to be somewhere. It couldn’t have just disappeared.

A bus shelter appeared, a few hundred yards away. Pollution-ville, Banno thought… He got to that key last stretch of pavement where some people might run, so as not to miss the bus. Bus riders are punctual; they have no choice.

Banno saw that the passenger poles were white. He was pretty sure they’d always been yellow. The white made the bus feel brighter, fresher.

‘Have you heard that Bee Gees album, Tris, that’s just come out?’ ‘It’s great.’ ‘I agree. “There’s a light…” ’ Banno half sang. ‘Pops into my head. It’s the beginning of one of the songs. I can only remember the early part.’

He saw that familiar hedge ahead. He neared it, as always, in anticipation of its sweetness; but as often as he’d passed it, he still hadn’t identified its scent.

Had Banno kept his own counsel – like an injured baseball player who maintains his tough façade by refusing to rub –

The door was open; wonderfully, church doors were always open. Tris walked in, and down the middle aisle. He remembered the church as being dark and dreary. Now it felt light and airy.

He doubled back up Crescent Crescent and turned the corner into what was usually that warm bath of the familiar shops of his everyday walk

He doubled back up Crescent Crescent and turned the corner into what was usually that warm bath of the familiar shops of his everyday walk…