‘That’s because you’re a man,’ she said. ‘I feel as if it’s me. Me leaving.’

In her orange dress, in bare feet, she danced. The candles flickered and glowed along the garden, the insects hummed. She danced with Jem’s tall friend Peter; with her lurching, fumbling, sodden father; with a French bacteriologist with garlicky breath and tiny feet; with a small, bald doctor who tried to talk to her about French politics as he swung round to the music; with Jem, who was a terrible dancer and trod on her toes and flung his hands wildly in the air; with Juliet’s father, who was red-faced and stocky and who jogged on the spot; with Mickey several times, who grinned his white grin and held her close when the music slowed; with Luke, once, and when she looked for him later she couldn’t see him although by now she had realized that he was the only person she wanted; with Coralie and Emma, in a small, bopping circle; in the middle of a conga line that weaved its way round the house, her hands on Lorrie’s waist and Neil’s hands on hers; with her father again, though she wanted to escape his glaring eyes and his thick voice saying: ‘I made a mistake, a terrible mistake, I never should have, a mistake, oh the things we do …’

The music crackled out of the speakers that had been placed at the open windows. She stood under the walnut tree and let the breeze cool her cheeks, and watched Jem doing his mad, splay-footed dance with Toni, whose own delicately swaying movements were barely perceptible; watched Mary dancing with Luke, who at one point stopped and took her face in his hands, gazed at her for a few moments and then kissed her on both cheeks.

She held her father’s forehead while he was sick into the toilet bowl, then mopped his clammy face with a damp towel. She had so adored him when she was a child and he was tall and fine and strong. His laugh had filled the house and his hero’s arms had swung her free and high in the air so that for a time she had flying dreams at night. Presents had been mysteriously conjured from his pockets, promises were laid before her like coloured sweets and she had believed in them, over and over again. It had taken her a long time to realize they were so many bubbles of air, and more time still to understand that he wasn’t insincere. He just said what he meant at the time and then moved on. He had the endless capacity to begin afresh, as if the past didn’t stick to him, but slid harmlessly off.