A few strands of gauze came away in my fingers and floated towards the fire. I watched them whirl upwards, staying just abreast of the flames. ‘I don’t know.’

Ash caught in my throat. I plucked up the girl’s hand. She resisted but I held firm, her fingers gathered, and she let her arm go doll-limp and hang there, standing awkwardly with me. It was as if we’d always been here, two swan-girls together.

A youngish woman in a leather coat half-heartedly called out ‘Davy’, over and over again, while the girl’s big brother continued to buzz round the flames, a boy-tiger-moth. Smoke was coming off the fire like the morning mist off the mountains. It did a slow, billowing dance, a seal rolling, or a white skirt underwater.

‘Good Lord, darling, where did you get those?’ Lottie was wearing fox-ears. The little girl sensed her moment and wriggled her fingers free, dashing off.

‘Present,’ I said.

Bev came whirling up in a long velvet cape, her hair piled high on her head. She was making a sound like an electrical toy low on battery and drawing bright holes in the air with a sparkler. ‘We’re banishing the spirits, Polly, every one of them!’ She made the sounds again.

The fire stirred itself into the sky, into a sun that was orgasming like I never had. The musky clouds were a sleek, long-beaked flock of birds.

Adam was by my shoulder. He wasn’t wearing a costume, of course. He handed me a slim, chrome flask cup. ‘Mulled wine. The Bev special.’

I gulped some down, burning my lips. ‘Do swans fly at night?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ he said in a mulled voice. ‘Thinking of trying it?’ A hit of ginger on the back of my throat. ‘I don’t think there are swans here, anyway,’ he said. ‘Apart from you. Herons, they’re pretty statuesque. Though I can’t say I’ve seen many at night. Turning all ornithologist, are we?’ I shook my head and handed back the empty cup. ‘Well, I’ve never seen one anyway. You must be specia—’

I was already wandering off.

Shards of flame appeared higher up in the sky, not attached to the bonfire, like unruly kites.

I was in front of Jim’s fire again. The low whisky-burn of his words.

‘You all right, darls?’ A zombie was looking at me.

I stared at him and felt my knees collapse. My arse met the ground very suddenly. Wet grass. ‘God, Finn,’ I said.

He sat down and put his better arm round my shoulder. It hung there in an amateur fashion. I wanted to wail, shove my face in his warm neck, tell him to just gnaw the flesh off my bones and be done with it.

Finn-the-zombie gave the thumbs up to his two mates, who were by the keg, trying to scab beer off Haimie. They sniggered back and made creatively graphic hand gestures. ‘Do you want a beer? I’ll get you a beer.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I want a beer.’