She looked away, checked the time on the oven clock. 5:08. The show started at eight and it wasn’t that far to the venue. She’d borrow Suki’s car, pull Vincent out of the queue, bring him home and be back in time to say goodnight to Helena.

21

21 It was six-thirty on a darkening evening by the time Petra got to the tiny village of Sling Sutton, on the northern edge of the Cotswolds. She’d never been down here herself, but she’d seen photos of the iconic brewery building, and seen their beer listed on menus in some independent restaurants in Leamington until the beermaker had ceased trading a year and a half before. The village consisted of nothing more than a small church, a village hall, the Sling Puppy pub, and some disparate houses hidden shyly behind overgrown hedgerows. Petra had to slow to a crawl to find the pitch-dark entrance to the country lane the Abarth’s GPS was indicating, but as she rounded a narrow bend and cleared a gloomy copse it was hard to miss the brewery. The massive Victorian soot-stained brick monument to chthonic industries loomed from the top of the little hill like a demonic cathedral from William Blake’s nightmares. Spotlights the colour of blood and flame underlit the building’s jagged face, exacerbating the effect.

Marshals dressed in tuxedos and ball gowns were directing traffic away from the brewery’s car park to an overflow lot in the churchyard. In small-town England, unlike in Joburg, it wasn’t so unusual to park next to graves, but still, on this moonless night in the middle of what felt like wild and ancient nothingness, the thought sent a ripple of fear through her gut. She focused on the animated voices of the other guests, who were slamming their car doors and laughing in defiance of the heavy night, and followed them down the rutted lane back to the brewery building. The people ahead of her were dressed in elegant, formal outfits, and Petra felt like she was following them underdressed and uninvited towards an opulent country wedding or an upmarket premiere.

She followed a couple who had emerged from a car parked a few bays away from her, the woman holding up the hem of her deep-yellow dress in her right hand, her ankles buckling on the stilettoes as she navigated the rutted country path. Her partner, trim in a white-jacketed tux, was tugging at his collar.

‘This is meant to be a recreation of a university ball, isn’t it?’ the woman said.

‘Yeah, I think so,’ said the man, adjusting the waist of his trousers.

‘I couldn’t afford a dress like this when I was a student, that’s all I’m saying.’

In response, he put his hand on her ass. She leaned into him, and they turned left, then right, following the tiki lights towards the brewery building.