In the study, the vicar is staring at the titles of Liz’s books. He feels left out, neglected. Alone of the guests, he feels he is not getting the best out of this gathering. He has no complaints about the refreshments, no, they have been more than satisfactory: but he had hoped for a little serious conversation. He is a conscientious man, a professional, and in preparation for this event he had dutifully read his way through most of the œuvre of Stephen Cox. He had sat up until the small hours, reading an essay on Coleridge and the French Revolution. He had been expecting a higher tone, a more reverent remembering, from these literary types. He had been game to talk about the historical novel, about the French Commune, about the Goncourt brothers, even about post-modernism, if it should come to that. But hardly anybody he has met has even mentioned Stephen, let alone his œuvre. They are all absorbed in their own affairs. Chatter chatter, gossip wink and wave. Who are all these folk? What strange hairstyles the young affect, and how bizarre the shoes of the counter-tenor! He cannot work out who is married to whom, who divorced from whom. Is it possible that the vastly pregnant not-so-young woman can be Dr Headleand’s daughter-in-law? Surely not. And who on earth was that shabby young man who had burst into the church so noisily in the middle of the service? What has happened to him?

‘Yes,’ continues Charles to his willing auditor, ‘I proposed to her in a Chinese restaurant. In the middle of some party or other. She was making eyes at Gabriel Denham. We were all having dinner after a show. I’ll put a stop to that, I thought to myself.’

‘Very wise of you,’ says Marcia. ‘Why don’t you ask her again?’

Liz, herding and rearranging, ringing an ambulance for Hattie, picking up fragments of Royal Worcester, encouraging Deirdre to make more coffee, wheedling the vicar out of the study and into conversation with Mr Goodfellow, looks around her with pride and satisfaction. It has all gone off very well. She should give parties more often, she decides, as the ambulance wails to a halt outside her front gate, as Hattie descends the stairs on Aaron’s arm, as party-goers assemble on the path to wave and blow kisses and shout good luck, good luck, let us know how you get on! Another grandchild, what fun! Ah, life is amazingly exhilarating, thinks Liz, as she turns back to her house full of people. The vicar and Mr Goodfellow are talking about Confucius, Jesus Christ and worldly goods. They speak of the blessed life of the vagrant. ‘Yes,’ repeats Mr Goodfellow, ‘Stephen didn’t have many things.’