“Rum and Coke, please,” she said.

“Which rum?” the barman asked.

Joanna looked at him in surprise. She didn’t want to have to make decisions; she’d spent all day doing that, or failing to. This wasn’t the kind of pub where she expected to have to show knowledge or preference.

“Any’s fine.”

“Shall I choose for you?”

“Please.” The idea of relinquishing responsibility, even for this minor thing, was a relief.

“Something with a bit of spice?”

“Something strong.”

He raised his eyebrows. Joanna flushed at how she must look, marching in alone and demanding strong alcohol. The barman scanned the shelves, swooped in on a bottle, and poured amber liquid into an ice-filled tumbler.

“You sure you want Coke in it?” he asked.

She nodded but then saw that he was grinning, that it was a joke. Joanna gave in to a small amount of banter: “But only because neat rum on a Thursday teatime isn’t socially acceptable.”

The barman opened a miniature glass bottle of Coke, surprising her again because she’d expected it from a pump. When he sloshed some into her drink before handing her the rest of the bottle, she couldn’t help twirling it in her hands, a nostalgic feeling rising in her. Picnics when she was young. Being allowed a bottle of Coke as a treat. Mum, before her illness, opening one at arm’s length in case it had got fizzed up on the way there. That blue and yellow checked blanket they used to have, which they would shake out afterward, sandwich and cake crumbs flying. What had happened to the blanket? It was exactly the kind of thing Joanna had been filling her new house with: artifacts from a pre- or post-Luke world, bracketing the chunk of her life that had been snipped out from the middle.

She realized the barman was waiting with the card machine. Not impatiently, though. He seemed to be watching her drift into a reverie about the Coke bottle as if he understood. Maybe everybody got nostalgic about those glass bottles. That was probably the idea.

“Sorry,” she said, tapping her card.

“No problem.” He smiled at her again. “Enjoy.”

The only spare table was so close to the toilets it got bumped every time somebody passed in or out, so she decided to perch on a bar stool instead. The spicy warmth of the rum flooded her mouth, and the barman made a thumbs-up-or-down gesture, checking whether she liked his choice. She gave him a quick thumbs-up. Because she had hardly eaten all day and rarely drank spirits, the alcohol surged through her, blurring and softening the evening’s edges.

“Make sure I don’t have more than two,” she found herself calling to him. “I’ve got work tomorrow, and I have to be . . . can’t be . . .”

“Two.” He nodded. “Bad day?”

“Is it that obvious?”

He came back toward her. “What happened?”