There was someone standing with the little Frenchman now. Or was she seeing double? No, they were sharing a bear hug.

‘There you bloody are!’ the second man bellowed, his drunken voice full of plums and silver spoons. ‘Happy New Year, Binkers. All bets are off. Mine’s scarpered.’ He was slapping Hairy Wrists on the back. Then he spotted Pax. ‘Fuck me, you got lucky!’

‘That’s my line,’ said Hairy Wrists, honking with laughter.

He didn’t sound at all French now.

‘Binkers?’ Pax managed to say it on the third attempt, her vision tunnelling.

‘Seb Bink.’

She gaped at him. He was a Gallic romantic. He couldn’t be a Binkers.

He was also disappearing down a black tunnel. She swayed, nausea rising. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her. ‘Are you okay, Tish?’

‘Don’t call me that.’

His friend started to laugh, backing away, holding his hands up. ‘I’ll leave you two lovers together, shall I?’

Pax squinted at ‘Binkers’ through ten glasses of rapidly circulating wine, vision slewed, swallowing down the rising bile, her brain ever more sluggish. ‘You’re not French at all, are you?’

‘I’m from Worcester.’

She should have seen through it. He wasn’t even a good actor. Why hadn’t she seen through it? Not that she could see much at all now. If she opened just one eye she could focus on his face. ‘Wasthisall some sortof bloody act? Chatting meupforabet?’

‘Most of it’s true. I’ve got two kids, I was going to a party in Paris; I worked there for years. I have a French dog.’

‘What about being fiveyearssober and one lastdance?’

‘I’m going to do dry January.’

She glared at him, trying to pinpoint his eyes in his spinning face. ‘You lousy liar!’

‘C’mon, it’s not that bad. We get on, don’t we?’ He was swaying with her now, eyes glazing, starting to giggle.

‘You bastard!’ It was herself Pax wanted to shout at. Pax who never lost control, never lost a sense of fairness, who saw through fools and yet suffered them too, perpetually keeping the peace. She was drenched in shame and self-loathing, rapidly losing cognisance as well as balance, her start to the year a self-destructive disaster. She had to get back to her room.

‘I do honestly think you’re fucking gorgeous,’ he was saying in a lazy drawl, eyes crossing. ‘Let’s start again. Come and sit down with me. We’ll order one for le rue, shall we?’

‘Go to hell, shortarse,’ she growled, angry enough to hit him, but far too drunk to try.

‘Steady on. I’m not the one wearing a wedding ring, darling.’

She drunkenly made to slap him, but a hand grabbed her wrist to stop her – strong fingered, engraved silver rings, a plethora of knotted leather surfer bracelets around a broad wrist. Not hairy.

The blond, bearded Viking loomed in front of her. Two blond Vikings. Then one. Black Puffa jacket spinning. Eyes the vivid green of sliced kiwi fruit.

‘I think you two need some time apart, don’t you?’ He had an accent she was too drunk to work out.