In her low squat, she wasn’t able to balance herself as she fell off an edge of crumbling soil and onto a slick incline. Trying to twist as she landed, she ended up flat on her belly and sliding the three metres to where Ellis was sitting on a simple padded bench at a tinted viewing window, looking into a dining room with several round tables laid for a formal dinner. About a third of the seats were occupied, and couples and groups from the audience were being shown to their places by waiters.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Ellis said, utterly unrepentant. ‘I should have given you a heads-up. Are you okay?’

Petra was lying flat on her face, her cheek scalding and her stomach painfully scraped, and pumped with a blend of mortification and déjà vu. But was there an element of endorphin rush there too? She’d had this sensation before – recently, and long ago as a child swimming in the ocean. It was that first embarrassed, stoked gasp after being dumped and rolled by a huge wave.

‘I’m fine,’ she said, straightening herself and sitting next to Ellis as he watched the dining room. The brick-walled siding where they sat would have been part of the brewery’s original Victorian crenelations, an alcove with some arcane industrial function, but tonight it served as a small viewing deck for two. The thick glass pane was sealed and the close, earthy, yeasty, meaty smell in the small space made Petra think of a peepshow in a dingy strip club. She scanned the walls around the dining room and noticed several mirrored windows framed with antiqued gilt. How many other members of the audience were gathered in these dark alcoves, voyeuristically observing the chosen guests milling around the room and sitting down to their meal?

Ellis took a phone out of his pocket and scrolled. With an autonomic pat, Petra confirmed that her own phone was still there. ‘They’re a little behind,’ he said. ‘It’s eight and a half minutes until our cue.’

Two couples who had been standing a little way away, their silent conversation and laughter playing out in front of them like a muted film, shifted closer to the mirror. The man in an emerald bow tie flicked around and stared directly at Petra. She flinched backward as he adjusted his fringe.

‘Don’t worry,’ Ellis said softly. ‘He can’t see us. Shouldn’t be able to hear us either if we don’t scream. It’s loud in there.’