Four-petal flower with swirling vine design

The man at the Dover desk turned your postcard over three times before he stamped it, so I hope it reaches you in Lille. Your mother says you are sleeping on a bench with your rucksack for a pillow, and I have decided not to argue about it in a letter.

Instead, here is what happened this afternoon. I took the silver scissors from the sewing tin and cut the vine off the old trellis by the back wall, the one your grandfather swore was dead. It was not dead. It had sent out curls like watch springs, and at the top of one stem sat a flower with four petals instead of five. Mrs Okafor next door says four is luck. I say it is only too much rain.

I pressed it in the Atlas, between Portugal and the Pyrenees, and left the book shut on the kitchen table. When I opened it again after supper, the petals had gone the colour of old pewter, and the tendrils had curled themselves flat against the paper as though they were listening for the ferry horn. I stood there a long while with the lamp hissing and thought about your grandfather counting tickets on the quay, always twice, always aloud.

So count for me. When you get to the border, look at the first thing that stops you and count its parts. Then write and tell me the number. I will keep the flower in the book until you come home to see it, and I will not let the scissors near anything else until you do.