When she’d finished reading she looked out on the river, barely visible in the fading light, and sought to interpret her thoughts and feelings. She was mildly ashamed of what she felt was her voyeurism. Yet, putting this aside Arfona felt a certain liberation from a fear she had never fully realised. Reading her son’s prose, she’d come to see that what two men might do together wasn’t that much different from what she and her husband, Eifion had enjoyed. She smiled as she recalled the experimentation the sexual revolution of the 1960s had invited. They’d been sexually naive students at Bangor University then and the uninhibited exploration of one another’s bodies had become their act of rebellion against the stifled sexual mores of their parents’ generation. The thrill of Eifion’s tongue on her clitoris for the first time… her first taste of his semen…. And she laughed quietly, remembering the student demonstration in London when they’d bought a dildo from a sex shop near Carnaby Street so that they could both feel what anal sex would be like before trying it out properly. The comfort of the armchair suddenly seemed to close over her… suffocating. Arfona Lewis yearned for her dead husband’s lovemaking; she thanked whatever god that listened to silent prayers that Tecwyn and Uwe had each other.

Pouring more brandy over the pears and checking the loaves in the oven, Uwe wondered fleetingly if Arfona was becoming a bit unhinged. Coming down from her nap she’d given him the longest hug, a kiss, and said she loved him. It just wasn’t her way. Her piano playing from the lounge hijacked his thoughts. Relishing the memory of a Chopin recital at the Bridgewater Hall he put the goose fat to warm and went down to the cellar to select the wines. Back in the kitchen he found Tecwyn sticking his fingers into pots and bowls, tasting, a crime punishable by finger amputation with the sharpest cleaver Uwe owned. Tecwyn left the kitchen in a hurry and went to check that there were enough fresh guest towels in the downstairs bathroom.

Richard and Penri were the first to arrive, immaculate, like models from some Paris autumn show. Close on their heels came Nick Bassham, all black leather and smiles, a tattoo of Celtic knot-work around his left wrist and not at all what Uwe had expected. As Tecwyn sorted their drinks, the phone rang; Tara and Mike would be late because the baby-sitter got the time wrong. Tecwyn winked at Uwe as he did his best imitation of a waiter and passed around the glasses: he’d won his bet again for those two were always late. Judith and Nia arrived; two beautiful women, elegant and understated, their skins tanned and hair sun-bleached after a holiday in Sri Lanka. And shortly after the appearance of the late arrivals, all moved into the dining room.