A fatuous flame. A small ghostly light, a marshy phosphorescence. Misleading the night traveller, betraying him, leading him to a lonely grave. A pink plastic hand. A burning man. What a lot of very nasty images, thought Evelyn, opening her eyes to the sight of the supper trolley bringing her (oh dear, what a bad choice it suddenly looked) liver and bacon; and infidel Ted in its wake, with a more appetising pot of mushroom salad from the delicatessen and the interesting news that he had found the long-lost radiator bleed key in the bathroom cabinet, information certainly more cheering than any she was likely to find in Emily Dickinson. As for Meister Eckhart, he could wait. She didn’t need him yet.

Kate was to regret from time to time her impulse to have a party, particularly when she realised that Mark’s birthday inevitably fell uncomfortably close to the birthday of Simone’s dead brother, who would also have been nineteen, had he survived. But Simone, who turned out to be a tall, grave, rather silent young woman, did not seem to object to the idea (perhaps the Lebanese don’t go in for birthdays), and by then, anyway, it was too late to cancel. Mark, ringing from Waterford, was graciously enthusiastic. If Mum wanted to have a party, by all means she could have a party, and of course he would get back in time, and of course he didn’t mind sleeping at his friend Ben Eisenstein’s until Simone and Mujid vacated his narrow bed the next day, and would Mum mind putting Ruth on the blower so he could give her careful instructions about whom to invite and whom not to invite from their own circle?

Kate, issuing her own invitations, felt herself running a little wild, tried to check her exuberance, but failed. She invited at random—Stuart, and all her ex-in-laws: the Morton girls (though Josephine declined, being too absorbed in Pembrokeshire): far too many of her idle strike-struck colleagues, Joker James and his mates, Sam Goldman, Gabriel Denham and his second wife Jessica and his first wife Phillipa and half the crew of Women at the Crossroads: Hugo of course, Ted of course, and even some of the ex-suitors. She invited Marylou and an American woman she met at a bus stop. She invited Hugo’s mother, and the Irish teacher with whom Mujid had become so friendly. She did not invite Hugo’s wife Judith, for benevolence cannot conquer everyone, and she feared a rude refusal. Mujid invited some of his fellow language students, who over the weeks had proved less dull than he had at first feared, and Evelyn suggested Ayesha and her husband, Joan Kingsley and her husband, and her colleague the sad and widowed Mr. Campbell, who was having such trouble with the rehousing of Boat People. “Too many people,” groaned Kate three nights before the event, counting on a list, “we’ll probably kill Evelyn, not cheer her up: sixty people, however shall we cram them all into this tiny house?” “Oh, they’ll fit,” said Ruth, who was of an age to enjoy a squash: she had herself, as she saw it, saved the good name of Rastafarians by inviting an extremely peaceable and musical one whom she had met reciting his poetry in a pub the week before.