Tara reached for a smoked salmon blini, then grabbed two. Might as well line her stomach for the compost-liqueur assault to come. ‘That’s what those yoga mats are for, so we can lie down and let the therapeutic soundwaves of the gong bath wash over us.’ She nodded at the stack of purple mats by the window. ‘Bryan’s wife brought them.’

David looked dubious. ‘I’m not really a yoga mat person.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ Tara assured him. ‘In a gong bath, no one can hear you scream.’

‘I thought that was scream therapy.’

‘I suspect it’s much the same thing.’

They stood and gazed round the room, where the therapists and their partners were milling with drinks and plates of food. The Centre’s WAGS/HABS were a mixed bunch: some seemed normal enough, whereas some had grown, like dogs, alarmingly like their partners. Most of them seemed on edge, as if they weren’t sure if they were having a conversation or an assessment.

‘Nice bunch of people,’ observed David, neutrally.

Tara opened her mouth to say something cutting about Cressida, then decided against it. Tonight she was going to be positive, a team player – Jacqueline’s ideal new Centre Director. Think of the mortgage, if nothing else, she told herself. Visualize yourself in a steady, salaried position, paying for the house, healing Longhampton and clearing your conscience at the same time.

He raised an eyebrow at her, tempting her into an indiscretion.

‘Yes,’ she said, equally blandly. ‘They’re very nice people.’

The five blinis and two mushroom mini quiches Tara managed to grab from the canape table weren’t nearly enough against the corrosive power of the homebrew on offer. But then a full Sunday roast and a whole roasted piglet wouldn’t have stood a chance against the combination of spirits she and David were forced to taste, one after another, while the assembled brewers eyeballed them from the far side of the banqueting hall, and Kemi, Emily and Roger danced somewhere in the middle. Emily kept checking her pedometer every so often, which rather diluted the impression that she was having fun.

David sampled his way manfully through the first four bottles, until they reached bottle five, a purply-blue liquid with a hand-illustrated label announcing it to be Midsummer Gin.

‘I think I like this one,’ said Tara, taking a second sip from the shot glass. ‘It’s quite … floral.’

‘Yes.’ David had almost finished his glass. ‘Rather wildflower meadow-ish? Poppies and cornflowers and sunlight and long grass. Not freshly mown grass, long grass.’

She looked at him with surprise. He was taking another sip, so she did too.

‘It tastes cerulean blue, like an evening sky in June,’ he went on unexpectedly. ‘Who made this one?’

‘Ah-ah!’ Jacqueline waved her clipboard playfully. ‘I can’t tell you that! How many out of ten?’