My friend whose party it was came to the door, took my arm, and led me through the house. Perhaps she thought I might run away. The truth is, these parties make me as anxious now as they did when I was twenty-five. What’s worse is knowing that these terrors, destructive of one’s pleasures as they are, are not only generated by one’s own mind but are still inexplicable. As you age, the source of your convolutedly self-stymieing behavior seems almost beyond reach in the past; why, now, would you want to untangle it?

“Don’t you just hate the young beautiful ones with their vanity and sentences beginning with the words ‘when I left Oxford’ or ‘RADA’?” she said, getting me a drink. “But they’re a necessity at any good party. A necessity anywhere anyone fancies a fuck, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not that they’d want either of us too close to them,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said.

She took me out into the garden, where most people had gathered. It was surprisingly large, with both open and wooded areas, and I couldn’t see the limits of it. Parts were lit by lanterns hung from trees; other areas were invitingly dark. There was a jazz combo, food, animated conversation, and everyone in minimal summer clothing.

I had fetched some food and a drink and was looking for a place to sit when my friend approached me again.

“Adam,” she said. “Now, don’t make a fuss, dear.”

“What is it?”

My heart always sinks when I hear the words “there’s someone who wants to meet you.”

“Who is it?”

I sighed inwardly, and, no doubt, outwardly, when it turned out to be a young man at drama school, a tyro actor. He was standing behind her.

“Would you mind if I sat with you for a bit?” he said. He was going to ask me for a job, I knew it. “Don’t worry, I don’t want work.”

I laughed. “Let’s find a bench.”

I wouldn’t be curmudgeonly on such a delightful evening. Why shouldn’t I listen to an actor? My life has been spent with those who transform themselves in the dark and make a living by calculating the effect they have on others.

My friend, seeing we were okay, left us.

I said, “I can’t stand up for long.”

“May I ask why?”

“A back problem. Only age, in other words.”

He smiled and pointed. “There’s a nice spot over there.”

We walked through the garden to a bench surrounded by bushes where we could look out on the rest of the party.

“Ralph,” he said. I put down my food and we shook hands.

He was a beautiful young man, tall, handsome, and confident, without seeming immodest. “I know who you are. Before we talk, let me get us more champagne.”