So Hamish was that guy, Stephen thought. There was always one, at every party back home; not especially good-looking, not especially good to talk to; the guy who produced the dope, the one who the girls always fancied. The one with the battered Zippo cigarette lighter from which he was expert at commanding flame, but which invariably refused to light in anyone else’s hands. Stephen wondered if these people practised their lighter skills in the mirror, back in the bedrooms of their suburban homes: flick, strike, flare; one seamless motion which made momentary Jim Morrisons out of them all. And how come the lighters were so battle-scarred, as if they’d been dented on some epic motorcycle adventure, as if their just-out-of-school owners were the stars of Easy Rider and not boys who rode everywhere in the back seats of their mothers’ Toyota Corollas?

‘What shall we put on?’ asked Cass. ‘Genesis, or Emerson, Lake & Palmer?’

‘Selling England by the Pound?’ said Hamish.

‘Yeah, classic,’ said Georgie.

Cass appeared to have been struck dumb.

‘I hate my dad sometimes,’ said Lucy. ‘He’s so … he just thinks it’s so clever to annoy people.’

‘Your parents are really different from mine,’ said Stephen.

‘In what way?’ asked Helena.

‘Well, we don’t really talk like that at home. It’s more about what we did in the day, what we’re planning to do tomorrow. Little stuff, practical stuff.’

‘Georgie’s parents are really cool,’ said Helena.

‘Until Dad comes in here and puts on Tea for the Tillerman and starts singing along at the top of his voice,’ said Georgie. She looked at Cass and they both laughed.

‘I reckon Dad thinks he looks like Cat Stevens,’ said Cass, joining in at last.

‘Steve, you want some?’ said Hamish, in a strangled, holding-his-breath voice, proffering the joint.

‘Sure,’ said Stephen.