‘You know what? I’ve never worked out what I’m supposed to say to that sort of thing. The polite thing to do, it seems, would be to blush all dainty-like and apologize for my presence. Unless I was a bloke. Then I should just nod, like of course, take what is probably just you being a nice polite guy as my due, graciously allow you into my presence. But a woman doing that, you think, ooh, she’s up herself, don’t you? So instead I get all flustered and self-deprecating when what I really want to do is say yeah, today I fucking nailed that, didn’t I?’ She beamed at him. ‘Thank you! Thank you is what I should say. Jesus, manners, you silly bint. It’s Simon, isn’t it. Si?’

His head was swimming with her.

‘So, how do you know the happy couple?’

‘Oh God, just uni. We were all in the Green Party student chapter at Bristol. Went to dance parties. Bit more hardcore than this.’

He smirked, being Luke again, tried to tell her about the thrum of bassline, bloated cartoon characters done in UV paint shining on the walls, the smell of Jess’s sweat, her cropped top and massive frayed army trousers, a keffir scarf wound round her head; running his hands over Greg’s flat teenage stomach and under the waistband hanging off his hips that once. Simon had been a handy sounding board for all those enlightened little straight boys feeling a bit curious, had wrapped palms round each of their cocks at some point or another, received precious little back. A tick-off along the way, a thing to do before you were thirty, before you got the girl.

‘And nine years on, here we are. Wearing suits, signing marriage certificates –’

Jess, in the centre of the hall, spun in a circle and rolled herself into Greg’s waiting arm, a pastiche of old-time dance-hall moves.

‘– watching all your old pals committed and settled down, feeling lost and wondering where your youth went?’

‘It’s like you’re in my head.’

She poured the last of the wine into two glasses, then reached over and grabbed another half-empty bottle from a different table, topped them up red-into-white. He winced, involuntarily, imagining his father’s thoughts on the subject, and she caught him at it.

‘Sorry. Call it a cocktail. I don’t think I’m spoiling any particular vintage, eh no.’

He grinned and she clinked his glass.