In a wet month they had been fortunate to have a balmy evening; real southern air that people said excitedly was like Tuscany or the Cote d’Azur. The women in summer frocks showed off their tanned arms; the men hung their jackets from the branches of the trees. Alice, tipsy on wine, slightly hoarse from too much talking, held court at the end of one of the trestle tables. Everyone knew what she had been through the previous year, events referred to as her ‘close shave’, ‘that nasty business’, or even ‘when she was away’, and they were determined to show their pity and their affection. Mozart and Rodriguez and old-time jazz played on the ghetto-blasters, and there was a barbeque, a kind of brick altar, at which Larry presided, flipping steaks and searing tuna, sometimes with Ella on his shoulders, until Kirsty, fearful that the smoke would bring on an asthma attack, had reached up to rescue her.

The first guests left around midnight; a last case of white wine was brought out from the house. The late stayers made themselves comfortable on the unmown grass. Someone fell asleep under a tree and snored contentedly. Then everything was doused in a warm rain – the lights fizzled, a fuse blew, and amid much laughter people took shelter where they could. Alec found himself under the branches of an old cherry tree with Alice, just the two of them, listening to the splashing of the rain on the leaves.

‘Promise me something,’ she said, breaking the silence between them. ‘If I get ill again you won’t let me die gaga.’

‘But you’re not going to get ill again,’ he said. ‘What are you talking about?’

She turned to look at him, though to each the other’s face was no more than a shadow, the obscure locus of a whispering voice. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I’ve spoken to Larry.’

‘Larry? What did you say to him?’ He was furious with her, but then the rain, as in Tuscany or the Côte d’Azur, ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and someone called, ‘Where’s Alice hiding? Come out, come out wherever you are!’

‘It’s all right,’ she said, touching his arm, and she left him. ‘I’m here!’ she sang. ‘I’m he-re!’

Larry fixed the fuse. Everyone cheered when the lights came on again. The party had a new lease of life. Mr Bajrami, who taught maths, performed an impromptu flamenco with Miss Lynne, who taught art. Larry dispensed nightcaps from a large bottle of Black Label he had bought at duty-free in San Francisco. Alice told a risque joke about two nuns on holiday in Paris, a joke Alec had heard her tell once a year for as long as he could remember. The last car door clunked shut just as the light came up, the dawn mist drifting off the fields.

‘Bye-bye, Alice. God bless. Marvellous party!’