Merry smiled, took another sip of vodka, picked up my dry hand with its chewed nails. ‘I should take you to my nail girl,’ she said. ‘She’ll change your life.’

‘I’d love that,’ I said, and in the moment, the vodka making my brain a drifting island in my skull, I meant it.

Merry poked the skin of my forearm with one of her long, glossy, french-tipped nails, and I felt an almost primal desire for my own nails to be glossy and french-tipped.

‘See how strong they are?’ Merry said.

‘Like diamonds.’

‘Exactly.’

That’s when Bruce, and to a lesser extent Tate, filled the room.

‘Finished the tour?’ I said.

‘What’s in here?’ said Bruce. He walked up to the tiny room off the kitchen where Tate did his filming. Without waiting for a reply, without waiting for permission, he pushed the door open. He took in the camera, the tripod, the wires snaking all over the floor, the white sheet tacked to the wall.

‘You kidnapping people?’ he said. ‘Making ransom videos?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Tate. ‘I —’

‘You gonna cut some poor son of a bitch’s head off?’ Bruce said. He laughed. ‘This some kind of Taliban deal, is that it?’

Tate smiled, and his smile was still so full of good faith. I wanted to warn him. If there were spirits in the house, I wanted them to warn him.

‘It’s for my business,’ he said. ‘I’m a —’

But Bruce didn’t care what he was. ‘Business?’ he laughed. ‘You?’

Tate folded his arms, then unfolded them.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I studied enterpen… enrrepren… entrepreneurship,’ he finally managed to say, his professional self trying to steer over his drunkenness. ‘My idea is solid. I’ve researched the market.’ And then, because he couldn’t help himself, ‘I got the highest score in my marketing class.’

‘Good for you,’ said Bruce.

Tate smiled again. ‘I’d actually love to get your advice. Someday,’ he said.

Bruce seemed so much more sober than Tate. He seemed so balanced, and to be surrounded by a magnetic field to which we were all drawn, little iron filings, all equally insignificant.

‘You want my advice?’ said Bruce.

He went to the kitchen bench. He picked up an after-dinner mint – I’d set them out on one of the rosebud plates, ready to take to the dining room – and peeled away a ribbon of gold foil to free the half-melted pastille inside.

‘In all seriousness,’ he said, ‘I’d advise you to quit while you’re ahead.’

Tate’s smile was still there. He blinked. He didn’t seem capable of processing what Bruce had just said.

‘What?’

‘Give up,’ said Bruce.

I really wished Tate would stop smiling.

‘What do you mean?’ he said.

Bruce chewed the pastille and swallowed. He was in no hurry to reply. When he did, his voice was reasonable, even kindly.