My father looked up at me, as if what my mother had said was news to him, as if the last twelve years had passed him by and he still expected to see a fifteen-year-old girl standing there. I couldn’t bear it, that feeling of being small under his gaze, so vulnerable. I left the table and put on my coat.

‘You have a lovely time!’ my mother called after me, a cue for those who remained to be cheerful now. ‘You young ones,’ I heard her say to Luke, as I opened the door, ‘you have so much energy, you make me green for it!’

I stumbled back down through the estate, past the sycamore and the pine, sliding on catkins, tripping on the brick path. The Cedars women are not sots at all. They practise too little with the stuff; it knocks them unsteady.

I went to the Anchor because I’d told my parents that was where I was going, because it’s wrong to tell a lie. I met Ruth and Cat; I was true to my word. They expressed surprise to see me there. Was I really up for such silliness when we all had to be bright-eyed for school the next day? I shrugged away their assumptions, feigned offence at the idea that I would not be in the market for fun.

I was wary though, of being in that bar room. If Ben showed up, I would be forced to have the conversation that I had closed my kitchen door upon – explain why I believed, without question, he was doing something terrible with those girls. He wasn’t there, of course. He was supposed to be doing penance and drinking in public would never do.

I felt no such restrictions on my own behaviour. The wine had relaxed me. Standing up to my father had filled me with a strange sense of rebellion. I tipped back every glass of rum that was brought to the table, and time slipped. I found myself joining in with the dooking for apples hanging from the beams. Ruth laughed uproariously as I stumbled towards her, a mangled fruit gripped in my teeth.

‘You look like a suckling pig,’ someone was saying, and I looked down to see that apple juice stained the front of my blouse, turning it transparent.

Then, Saul Cooper’s whiskery face was close to mine, yet there was none of the revulsion I usually felt when in proximity to the man. I was mesmerised by the way the hair on his head had prematurely greyed, the centre of his beard too, but not his eyebrows, nor the remainder of his facial hair; that was all still darkest Larkian black. I think I might have licked a thumb and stroked one of his eyebrows into place, then joked about how his appearance seemed different while I was under the influence of rum.