Then she was distracted because Hari spoke to her and surprised her by being friendly, making a point of saying nice things about her work, so that she was buoyantly afloat at the heart of the occasion for ten minutes. When Hari turned away she didn’t mind sinking under its surface again, slipping between the turned animated backs, sipping at her drink for something to do, getting drunker, pretending to give Hari’s installations her sustained attention. The crowds were beginning to thin out because the party had started early; its high-pitched excitement wound down amiably. Long before it was even midnight Hannah was chasing the last stubborn pleasure-seekers out of the gallery. — But we can’t go to bed! protested Zachary. — I’m not ready for bed, not for hours and hours! I’m just getting into my party mood.

A few old friends retreated into Lydia and Zach’s new place next door. They’d moved in a few weeks ago. Isobel was asleep upstairs with Grace; they had paid a babysitter for the duration of the party, a nice teenager – Alex walked her home, she only lived around the corner. They weren’t any of them habituated yet to the new rooms – glass and steel fitted cleverly inside the lovely old forms, blond parquet floors restored, a new spiral stair, features made of the great chapel desk and the stone sink in the kitchen, huge as a cattle trough, with its brass tap. It was like staying in somebody else’s house which you coveted madly, Christine said: you found yourself playing at being the somebody else. They were all showing off, in the unfamiliar spaces – and they were suddenly shivering too, exhausted from socialising. Christine, going up to check on the children, swayed from the door jamb dizzily: the little girls were flung in sweetly unconscious disorder in their sleep, Grace on her tummy with her arms up in surrender, Isobel curled around herself protectively. When Alex got back from dropping off the sitter he lit a fire in the new wood-burner, crouching on his heels in front of its window in his smart suit, jacket undone and tie loose, hands hanging between his knees, watching the flames take hold. — You’re like primitive man, Alex, the fire-maker, Jane Ogden admired. He flashed his palms at her, filthy with ash and charcoal, mock-threatening, then went to wash. The women eased out of their shoes, groaning. Zachary came in dangling a choice of bottles at them – which? More champagne or Armagnac or both?