They all ate something of the lasagne on their plates, they were actually hungry. The noise of their forks scraping against the china and their glasses chiming was like familiar life returning to their circle, however bruised and subdued, and they began to talk. Nathan Kearney, who’d known them all forever – he reviewed films and was sometimes on telly – was usually unstoppable, but couldn’t speak about Zachary. He bent his big head low over his plate, lank hair hanging down like a curtain, concealing his expression, and could only join in with the talk when they were safely on the dry ground of art and politics.

Lydia pushed the rest of her food aside.

— You have to eat, Alex said, concerned and gentle. He had been round to her place earlier, to pick up a change of clothes and her wash things.

— I know I do. I’ll eat tomorrow.

He put his arm around Lydia, pulling her close, managing his lasagne with his other hand, waving his fork around when he spoke. Christine was grateful to him, for taking charge of the occasion. Grace had done something extraordinary while she was away at Isobel’s: she had chopped off all her thick curls – in mourning for Zachary, she said – so that the silky under-hair was exposed, curled close to her skull, like a shorn lamb’s. Isobel defended Grace’s action stoutly, said it was a beautiful idea. — Anyway, I couldn’t stop her.

Lydia said drily that it didn’t look too bad. — Luckily her head is a good shape.

Now Grace was questioning Sandy about his music, flirting feverishly with hot spots of red in her cheeks, embarrassing him because he was so sorry for her. He was shocked out of his usual charmed self-belief by what had happened, and by her naked head. He didn’t want to be holding forth, at that moment, about his own successes; his glance kept slipping away from her uneasily, he laughed self-deprecatingly as she tried to draw him out. Grace was too much for Sandy. He was fond of her but wrong-footed by her crush on him, because she wasn’t his type: he thought of her as an honorary boy, masculine in her assertiveness, and preferred women who were polished and self-possessed. Sandy’s own good looks were sinuous and sulky, evasive as if he were keeping something back – perhaps for when he was on stage. He was in a band, they were big. Sandy was famous. It was only in his own family that he wasn’t treated with adulation, as a star.