At the pre-party party, champagne corks popped. Guests took off their suit jackets and pulled their ties loose, or kicked off their high-heeled shoes, easing their hot, aching feet on the scratchy grass. In the distance, Katherine was singing ‘Ten Green Bottles’ but skipping or repeating numbers randomly. Duncan held a glass in each hand. He kissed Mary on the mouth, then tried to do the same to Lorrie but she ducked her head so he found himself kissing her hairline. ‘Wonderful, wonderful,’ he kept saying. ‘Brings everything flooding back, when we were young and foolish.’ Toni followed his zigzagging course round the garden, and her daughters followed her. Jem’s mother was talking animatedly to Jem’s two old school friends, hands on hips and legs apart, her dark hair straying from its pinnings, her lips rubbed bare of the lipstick she’d put on for the service. Juliet changed into her silver halter-neck dress and unloosed her hair so it sprang out around her flushed face; she looked like a pagan woman, thought Irene: wild and strong. Catcalls greeted her as she came into the garden and she twirled round, the dress floating in a circle.

‘Anyone who wants to change into something else had better hurry,’ she said. ‘Everyone will be arriving soon.’

‘Presents first,’ said Mickey. ‘We’ve put them on the table.’

‘Presents?’

‘What did you expect?’

‘I dunno. Just – having you here.’

‘That’s too generous,’ said Juliet. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

Jem kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Thank you,’ he said into her ear. ‘It’s lovely.’

They turned away to the next parcel, ripping off shiny paper, greedy children at a birthday party. Irene looked back at the photograph.

‘It’s very empty,’ she said out loud. ‘I never realized quite how empty it is. Just sand and sky.’ She shivered, suddenly cold under its inhuman glow.

‘There’s a figure, just there,’ said a voice beside her: Luke. She glanced at him, his soft, tufty hair that she wanted to run her fingers over, and his wide-set caramel eyes, and for a moment wondered if he thought she was sweet, or if he thought she was odd. There was a small scar on his lip that she hadn’t seen before. She followed his pointing finger and saw that on the desert’s horizon, at the far left of the picture, almost out of the frame, was a speck-like figure in white, though she had to peer closely to make it out.

‘So there is. I never noticed.’

‘But is he on his way out of the photograph, or is he arriving? That’s the question.’

‘I can’t tell.’

‘It makes a difference though, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

‘Which would you prefer?’

‘I don’t know.

‘I think he’s arriving.’

‘How do you know he’s a he? Maybe it’s a woman.’

‘I feel it’s a man.’