Cate watches Hannah watch them and feels a sudden spasm of protectiveness towards her friend. “Hey,” she says, nudging Zoe. “Hey, you two.” Nathan and Zoe look up, startled. Now that she has said it, she doesn’t know what else to say. “Food!” she says, clapping her hands as Sam puts the fish down on the table.

Hannah

CATE IS DRUNK. SHE IS SWAYING, HOLDING THE PLATES; HANNAH reaches up and takes them from her.

“Here, have some water.” Hannah holds out her glass.

“I’m fine,” says Cate. “Really, I am.”

Hannah drinks the water herself. She has had two glasses of wine and her head feels fuzzy. She already has a headache beginning at her temples. She is finding it hard to concentrate on the conversation that is swirling around her; she keeps thinking about the car, about how it will be stuck in the parking lot and they won’t be able to get it out. She needs to call the hotel—she needs to let them know that they will be late, to ask whether that’s OK, whether they need to have a special key. She can’t remember how far it is to Whitstable. Twenty minutes? Maybe more? It is ten o’clock and they are just eating their main course—at this rate they will be here until one.

The conversation is getting heated now: Dea, Cate’s new friend, and that guy Mark with the big diver’s watch, the one who’s fond of the sound of his own voice. She recognizes him from the wedding—he was Sam’s best man, wasn’t he?

“It was needed,” Mark is saying, “if the markets aren’t going to turn their backs on us. You want to be like Greece? Didn’t you see the note they left in the Treasury? There’s no money left. Idiots. Fucktards.”

“Sure,” says Dea, “and austerity is going to hit the poor the hardest. What about a tax on the banks?”

“They’ll just take their business elsewhere.”

“So they are in charge?” says Zoe, leaning in. “So they dictate policy now?”

Mark turns to Zoe. “I’m not sure you quite know what you’re talking about, love.”

“And why is that?”

“I mean, you’re American for a start.”

“For a start?” says Zoe. “And what comes after that?”

The temperature has dropped a couple of degrees in the room. Hannah stands, and quickly makes her way to where Sam is sitting. She leans in and thanks him for the food and asks him if he has a landline. “Sure,” he says, “it’s in the bedroom, first on the left.”