Above the bench, loops of black flex with bulb sockets at eighteen-inch intervals hung from a steel hook. He unslung the flex and searched in the cupboards for the coloured bulbs, which he found, blue, red, green and yellow, neatly stowed in their corrugated boxes. These were the party lights, and though there was not the slightest need for him to test them tonight – it was another three weeks before Alice’s birthday – he let himself follow the promptings of the moment without question or analysis. He knew when the bulbs had last been used: Alice’s retirement party ten months ago, and the bulbs’ little skullcaps of dust confirmed that they had not been touched since. How well she had seemed then! Allowing herself a measure of optimism, a bullishness the family had been quick to share in. There were plans to travel. France, of course, particularly her beloved Brittany; but she had also sent off for brochures on the Far East and India, and in a short impromptu speech in the orchard at the beginning of the party, she had announced her intention to spend more time, much more time, in California, with Larry and Kirsty and her granddaughter. Among her retirement presents from the school there had been a smart leather holdall, airline carry-on size, and of all the gifts she received that day, none had delighted her more. It had been used, thought Alec, three or four times. Only once to America. Not quite enough to lose its bloom of newness.

He sat tailor-fashion on the concrete floor of the workroom, moving the flex through his hands and patiently screwing in the bulbs, careful to keep the colours in sequence. The party had been a success. Nearly all the staff from the school had attended, including Alice’s doting secretary, Mrs Dzerzhinsky. The neighbours, Judith and Donald Joy, lawyers who liked to wear white, had strolled over from their thatched cottage, the roof of which, topped by a pair of straw squirrels, could be glimpsed from various parts of Brooklands’ garden. And Osbourne was there, paper plate clutched at chest height, moving his bulk among the guests like a flightless bird – benign, myopic, faintly comical.