The barmaid brings a bucket of beers and some bottles of wine. The alcohol flows, and the conversation too. Someone hands me a wineglass and before long I’ve lost track of how many times it has been topped up. Ben has booked a large table for dinner and won’t hear of Carrie and me eating separately. He shanghais the poor waitress into squeezing in another two seats, though from the way she hangs on his words, I suspect she would squeeze in ten more seats and the rest of the customers be damned if it got her another heartfelt thank-you from Ben—and I think he knows that too. I answer the same questions from several different people by saying the same things—my name, where I live, what I do: a micro manifesto of who I am—but no one digs further. In any case, it’s a boisterous group and the conversation rarely runs straight; it follows any tangent that might lead to hoots of laughter. When I glance across to see whether Carrie is okay, I see her holding forth to Fiona and Ben, her audience in stitches. I suppose I shouldn’t have doubted that the actress knows how to play to a crowd.

But . . . Fiona. Still talking to Carrie. She’s hardly the unhinged nymph I had in mind, but now that I’ve seen her, that image is changing: now it’s her that I see, sitting cross-legged on the bed in the master bedroom. One elbow rests on her knee as she taps the end of her cigarette against the lip of the earthen ashtray that lies on the bed in front of her. Her head is bent to the ashtray but as I watch it lifts to reveal her face, at the exact same moment as the real Fiona turns to find my eyes upon her. That triangle of hair, atop a slight body . . . I turn away quickly, unease pooling in my stomach again, and find Ben beside me. “Come sit next to me,” he implores, ushering me toward a long table that must be set for at least twenty. “I haven’t had a proper chance to speak to you yet.”

“But it’s your birthday.” I resist the urge to glance back to see if Fiona is watching me. “I can’t really take pride of place next to the birthday boy.”