She has put herself back together by the time the roast is served; mascara reapplied, the blurred smudges of her cried-away first coat removed with a lotion that has trespassed into her eyes and is making them sting. In her absence, Finlay has roped in Frank and Phil as his minions; Phil has carved the turkey with professional precision and Frank might well have arranged the carrot batons with the help of a set square. Finlay has applied the care he usually reserves for his reports to the timing of vegetables and trimmings; alarms keep chirping as another perfectly judged item is decanted into warmed china dishes and brought to the table.

The table is chaos; Sue and Pat have done their best, but their best is a mishmash of three-star restaurant and roadside café. The best crockery, to be sure, but the second-best cutlery, and, folded into uneven rectangles, some God-awful napkins from Finlay’s aunt that Jules has been meaning to ship to the charity shop. She sits at her usual place and feels her stomach tightening. But then Finlay gives her a shoulder squeeze as he passes with a bowl of sprouts and she decides on the instant that she doesn’t care. She tops up the gin in her tonic, swigs, waggles a Christmas cracker at Sue like some half-hearted handshake. Sue wins the prize, of course. Jules is left with the smell of its small explosion and a fistful of paper. She pulls with Frank and, again, he gets the joke, the hat, the useless key-ring compass that only guesses true North, and then changes its mind. Her stomach begins to tighten again, even against the gin, the whine of nothing works out for me, but Finlay says, You’ll win this one, and she does.

A ring falls out of it. The weight of it. No cracker ring, but a circle of white gold, encrusted with small red stones that Frank swears, even from a distance, are rubies.

I might have doctored it, admits Logan. The cracker.

She stares at him. Stares at the ring.

It’s an eternity ring, he says. Doesn’t mean you have to stay with me for an eternity, though. You can swap it for something else if you like.

Okay, she says.

Can I see? asks Sue.

Passed across, into the perfectly manicured hands. Then to the wiggling fingers of Pat.

Oh my, says Pat. Finlay, I had no idea you were such a romantic.

Yes, you do, says Phil. You’ve seen the rose on his buttock.

You have a rose on your buttock? asks Sue, who wasn’t there in the beginning.

Jules feels herself watching this, as though she is watching a play. Is it a farce? The ring comes back to her.

Put it on! says Sue.