“It’s a pleasure,” Chris said, shaking Tommy’s hand and nodding at Malcolm.

“We’ve heard so much about you, Tommy,” Mary said, and then seemed to show, by a fractional change in her expression, that she regretted this banality, which carried so much more weight than she’d intended.

Fortunately the short silence that followed was broken by Gavin. “Can I get you both a drink?” he said. “Wine, beer, whisky?”

“Just water for me, please,” Tommy said, and Malcolm quickly added, “And I’ll have a whisky if it’s going, Gavin,” to ensure no one had time to query Tommy’s request.

Fiona had been hanging up their coats in the hall, and now she came back in. Of course she could never help but make a fuss. When Gavin returned with a glass of water and a whisky, she said, “Gavin, get Tommy some cordial to have in his drink. He can’t be drinking plain water like that.”

“It’s O.K.,” Tommy said. “I like it.”

“I suppose water can be very refreshing, can’t it?” Fiona said, back-pedalling rapidly. “Sometimes nothing else will do, will it?”

Tommy shook his head, smiling politely. Malcolm hoped the whole evening wouldn’t be like this.

The doorbell went and Fiona said, “That must be Ed and Kathy,” with a slight tone of surprise, as though she hadn’t been expecting them. She came back a moment later followed by the MacDonalds—Kathy, large and comfortable, her husband, slender and grey and perpetually frowning a little, even when he appeared otherwise to be in a good mood. The only time he cheered up a bit was when the drink was in him.

“Hi, Malcolm,” Kathy said. “Good to see you again, Tommy.”

Malcolm was immediately grateful for her easy manner, and wondered again at the mystery of her marriage to Ed, who seemed on edge even with friends as old as these. Malcolm tried to imagine what he was like with strangers, and then realized that seeing Ed meet Tommy again as an adult was probably one of the first times he’d witnessed Ed interacting with a stranger.

Ed overcame this social hurdle by saying nothing, putting his hands in his pockets and looking at his feet.

Gavin bustled round again, taking drink orders and then returning with beers for Ed and Kathy. Malcolm sipped his whisky and wished he’d asked for a beer too. At some point he seemed to have gone off whisky. Heather had liked it; perhaps now she was gone he didn’t need to pretend anymore. He found himself standing with Fiona, who was saying, “How is it out on the farm, Malcolm? Tupping must be underway now.”

“Almost,” Malcolm said. “Robert pushed it back a week. Next week, I think we’ll make a start.”

“The work never stops, does it?”

“No. That’s a fact.”