Realising what he meant, she looked down, heat spots in her cheeks. She had enough on her plate without being told she was in his head. He was in hers, too. It was getting way too crowded.

His phone started ringing. He ignored it, holding the whisky bottle like a grenade, free hand raking his hair so it stood up in strange spiral peaks.

Yet she still couldn’t move. She wanted to tell him how much his friendship meant, but she worried she’d give too much away and his phone was still ringing. No sooner had it stopped than it started again.

‘Why not just answer? Whoever it is isn’t going to stop until you do.’

‘Maybe I need to be drunk first.’ He took a swig from the bottle.

It’s not me on his mind, Pax realised with a thud of recognition; it’s whoever is making that call. It should have been a relief but wasn’t.

‘Is it her? Dizzy’s mother?’

‘No.’

Across the orchard, the crowd launched into a song:

‘Here’s to thee, old apple tree,

That blooms well, bears well.’

‘I’ve not been to… …est, Pax.’ It was hard to hear him over the din. His face was in darkness again, just the glow of firelight eclipsing his gold hair like a corona, and a glimmer of the bottle as it went to his lips again.

‘Not been what?’

‘Hats full, caps full,

Three bushel bags full,’

The dancers drew closer and they could hear the crackle of the flames.

‘Honest.’

It shocked her. She’d started trusting him implicitly. ‘About what?’

Rubbing his face then raking back his hair in his hands, he seemed to change his mind. ‘Forget it. It’s best you’re not involved.’

‘An’ all under one tree.

Hurrah! Hurrah!’

Cheers went up amid much bell-jingling and tub-thumping, the hurdy-gurdy in overdrive.

In Luca’s pocket, his phone was in full cry once more. When somebody calls that often, Pax reasoned, they are very obsessed indeed.

‘Are you in danger?’

Ignoring the question, he watched through the trees as the wassail king and queen, in rival elaborate leafy evergreen headdresses, soaked toast slices in the ceremonial flagon of cider and wedged them in the branches. ‘That’s just weird so it is.’

‘Luca you have to tell me about this. Are you in danger?’

He ducked his head with a dry laugh. ‘Catch me in that ditch later and I’ll tell you all my secrets. I’ll probably tell you I love you too, but I say that to everybody when I’m blootered.’

The wassailers were singing and dancing round the trees nearest them now, bringing the braziers closer, light spilling into their dark corner of the orchard, burnishing trunks and casting golden shapes through the branches. The whites of Luca’s eyes flashed, and his face was gilded in light for a moment, hollow-cheeked, lashes like gold veils, a sun god out after hours.

Attraction cut through Pax without warning, a reckless urgent need to kiss and be kissed. To be loved by Luca, however briefly, even Bacchanalian in a ditch.