How to Stop Time

After his mother’s drowning, Tom flees Suffolk for London. He walks for three days. Tom notices the noise as he draws closer to the outskirts of London, where people gather in the streets selling their wares. He becomes delirious. Then, however, he sees Rose selling fruit from a basket. He approaches her and asks if he can have a plum. Images of his mother flood his mind, causing him to stumble. Rose says, “Steady thyself,” but tilted by grief, Tom falls. He comes to lying in a puddle surrounded by plums. Rose tries to rescue the plums and yells at him to pay for the damaged fruit. He confesses that he doesn’t have any money. Rose asks for the lute instead. He tells her it was his mother’s and he can’t part with it. Without giving away too much, Tom summarizes his circumstances. Rose offers to let him live with her and her sister while he earns money playing the lute to pay for the damaged basket of fruit and rent. He agrees.

Leaning against the wall with Abraham, Tom doesn’t see give teen boys approach. Abraham growls. The boys stop and look at him. One moves closer, pulls a knife, and demands Tom’s phone and wallet.