It came from a fluff who had been handed the job of going down the bank to fetch what had rolled, and who is frightened of the bank, and who had said yes anyway because everybody was standing there looking.
Nobody else heard it. There was far too much morning piled on top of it.
And then the thing happened that always happens to me. The noticing, and then the quiet, and then the moment going past — with me still standing in the lane holding it, like somebody holding a coat at a party for a person who has gone home.