ind the buttons of my trousers (in fact, one of Florence''s gloves: I could never look at it again, without blushing]. I had had such dreams before, at Quilter Street - minus the detail of the glove, of course; but this time, when I woke, there was a prickling at my scalp and a tickling at the inside of my thighs that remained insistent, and I fingered my drab little curls and my flowery frock in a kind of disgust. I went, that day, to the Whitechapel Market; and on the way home I found myself lingering at the window of a gentlemen''s outfitters, with my forehead and my fingertips pressing smears of sweat and longing against the glass . . .
And then I thought, Why not? I went in - perhaps the tailor thought me shopping for my brother - and bought a pair of moleskin trousers, and a set of drawers and a shirt, and a pair of braces and some lace-up boots; then, back at Quilter Street, I knocked on the door of a girl who was known for doing haircuts for a penny and said: ''Cut it off, cut it all off, quick, before I change my mind!'' She scissored the curls away, and - toms, grow easily sentimental over their haircuts, but I remember
this sensation very vividly - it was not like she was cutting hair, it was as if I had a pair of wings beneath my shoulder-blades, that the flesh had all grown over, and she was slicing free . . .