‘Justanothershot,’ gasped Patrick, ‘really.’ Mopping his brow again, he stared fixedly at the stem of his wineglass which, caught by the sun, cast a fractured bone of light onto the white tablecloth, like an X-ray of a broken finger. The twisting echoing sounds around him had started to die down to the faint hiss of an untuned television. It was no longer incomprehension but a kind of sadness, like an enormously amplified postcoital gloom, that cut him off from what was happening around him. ‘Martha Boeing,’ Ballantine was saying, ‘told me that she was experiencing dizzy spells on the drive up to Newport and that her doctor told her to take along these small French cheeses to eat on the journey – evidently it was some kind of protein deprivation.’

‘I can’t imagine that Martha’s malnutrition is too severe,’ said Tom.

‘Well,’ remarked George diplomatically, ‘not everybody has to be driven to Newport as often as she does.’

‘I mention it because I,’ said Ballantine with some pride, ‘was getting the same symptoms.’

‘On the same journey?’ asked Tom.

‘The exact same journey,’ Ballantine confirmed.

‘Well, that’s Newport for you,’ said Tom; ‘sucks the protein right out of you. Only sporting types can make it there without medical assistance.’

‘But my doctor,’ said Ballantine patiently, ‘recommended peanut butter. Martha was sorta doubtful about it, and said that these French cheeses were so great because you could just peel them off and pop them in your mouth. She wanted to know how you were supposed to eat the peanut butter. “With a spoon,” I said, “like caviar.” ’ Ballantine chuckled. ‘Well, she had no answer to that,’ he concluded triumphantly, ‘and I believe she’s going to be switching to peanut butter.’

‘Somebody ought to warn Sun-Pat,’ said Tom.

‘Yes, you must be careful,’ drawled George, ‘or you’ll start a run on this butter of yours. Once these Newport people take to something, there’s really no stopping them. I remember Brooke Rivers asking me where I had my shirts made, and the next time I ordered some they told me there was a two-year waiting list. They told me there had been a perfectly extraordinary surge in American orders. Well, of course, I knew who that was.’

A waiter came to take the orders and George asked Patrick if he was absolutely sure that he didn’t want ‘something solid’.

‘Absolutely. Nothing solid,’ Patrick replied.

‘I never knew your father to lose his appetite,’ said George.

‘No, it was the one thing about him that was reliable.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,’ protested George. ‘He was an awfully good pianist. Used to keep one up all night,’ he explained to the others, ‘playing the most spellbinding music.’

Pastiche and parody and hands twisted like old vine stumps, thought Patrick.

‘Yes, he could be very impressive at the piano,’ he said out loud.

‘And in conversation,’ George added.