The garden was bathed in a golden, antique light. It was those old days we were mourning, of course. Our own golden, antique youth, all those possibilities ahead of us. Alex’s death had simply triggered this group embrace. By now I was an old hand at funerals but this was different. It wasn’t just Alex who was haunting our little band of stout women and balding men.

‘Here’s to us, the playground mafia,’ said Rachel, swaying as she raised her glass. She’d had a brief affair with Rosie’s husband and now ran a breast cancer survivors’ group. ‘And here’s to the people who can’t be with us today.’

We drank to them all.

‘I’ll always remember Greg on the allotments.’ She turned to me. ‘Not planting his potatoes. Standing there, a potato in each hand, giving me his latest theory about Cervantes.’

‘Cervantes?’ said Calvin. ‘What team does he play for?’

Everybody laughed. Calvin wandered off, munching a slice of cake. I wondered if he was joking. I hadn’t seen him for a while. He seemed to have spent most of the time in the gazebo, on his phone.

I can’t remember who suggested skinny-dipping. I remember a hand grabbing mine and then we were running across the field, as fleet as deer. We were in our seventies, for God’s sake! Somebody gave me a towel and now we were down at the riverbank, where the cows came to drink. The mud was pitted with hoof-prints and buzzing with flies.

I didn’t feel self-conscious, unzipping my black dress and pulling off my underwear. These were my friends; we knew each other’s bodies—from breastfeeding to holidays, to bacchanalian summer evenings like this one. So we were old? Who cared? We strode into the river, screaming as the icy water hit our legs and the mud slumped up between our toes.

Calvin stood on the bank. He’d taken off his tie but remained fully dressed.

‘Come on in!’ I called, but he shook his head.

As we swam, dragonflies darted above us, blurs of metallic blue and emerald. They hovered for a moment, then darted away. I watched Calvin trudge across the field to his helicopter. There was something pitiful about his hunched shoulders; the little boy who’d brought his prize toy to school only to find that nobody was interested.

Calvin was silent on the flight back. I couldn’t have heard anything anyway. I combed my damp hair with my fingers and longed to be home.

It was dark when we landed. He was silent in the car, too, as he drove me back to Talbot Avenue. I looked at his grim profile. His lower lip stuck out.

‘Sorry we were all so drunk,’ I said. ‘Shame you had to stay sober.’

He didn’t reply. When he stopped outside my house he simply waited for me to get out.