Gordon was indeed behind the bar. His famous, fiery red hair and beard were faded almost white now: only a few traces of pale orange remained. The furious, pale blue eyes were still alert, though. He polished a glass all the quicker as he fixed me with them. It took him a moment, but then his face relaxed. That was as good as it got. He never actually smiled, it was part of the charm. He nodded in recognition as if he'd only seen me yesterday and not twenty-five years ago, and jerked his head to the little room below.

“Down there."

“Thanks, Gordon."

"What'll you have?"

"Orange juice, please."

He looked furious.

"With vodka," I added hastily. If people were to come into his effing pub they could effing well spend some money. And I could sip it, I reasoned. Since I was driving.

"How's your Mum?" he asked as he turned away towards the optics, which was beyond charming for this publican, so I told him she was well and would be pleased to hear of him. He swung back and glared at me. Too much conversation, clearly. I pocketed my change, collected my drink and went down to the gloomy little room below.

I think Shona, who has the sharpest eyes and ears known to man, had already heard me above, because all I can say is that when I went down the few steps into the dark little parlour, neither she nor Tommy looked surprised to see me. Wary, yes, and tense, but not that surprised.

Tommy got up and found me a chair from another table. Shona stood to hug me briefly and move her chair around to accommodate mine, but only murmured "Flora" in my ear, before sitting down. She didn't apologize for standing me up earlier, and suddenly, having bowled over here at quite some speed, mind whirling like a dervish and in something of a high dudgeon, I didn't know what to say. I looked at her nervously.

"How was the regatta?" she asked politely, as if it were perfectly normal for me to have driven twenty miles and walked in on her and Tommy Rochester having a private drink together in this out-of-the-way place! I rallied and played along, not quite knowing what else to do.

"Oh, you know, same old. Peter and Janey came second in the Wayfarers." I glanced brightly at Tommy, hopefully conveying that, no, I didn't mind that they'd sailed together, and that I'd grown up a bit, but tricky in the space of one glance. He rose to the occasion enough to say, ‘good’ and gave a polite smile and contrived to look interested. Then I babbled on about Belinda, who, as usual, had queened it over everyone, and how she referred to ‘dear Shona’ these days, when she hadn't been so dear when she was young! I laughed nervously.