My father runs a beach bar in Vietnam. It’s a ramshackle place, but popular with the tourists, of which there are more and more as the off-the-beaten tracks become ever more beaten. He hardly ever travels; after all, where do you go on holiday when life’s already a beach? Though the more accurate reason would be that he’s fairly sure his false passport would no longer pass muster. He has a wife and a child—everything he walked away from, in fact—and the odd furtive hookup with a tourist to keep things interesting, and this time round he’s happier. Whether it’s the place or the timing or a change in himself that’s made the difference, he couldn’t say.

NINE

Somehow it’s past 1 A.M. and we are spilling into the breathless cold of the dark night. Carrie and I are losing an argument with Ben over the fact that he has picked up the tab for everyone, but won’t hear of us paying him back. People are milling around in the car park, sorting out lifts, wishing Ben a happy birthday as they leave. If this is an average Friday night for the Quaich, the management must be very happy with the business.

“Everyone—at least, everyone who’s left—is coming back to my place for a drink or two,” says Ben to Carrie and me. But mainly to Carrie. “I think the single malt Ali has just given me might be the main attraction.” He holds up an expensive-looking bottle in a presentation case. In the dim lighting of the car park, I can’t see the brand, but it wouldn’t matter to me anyway. I’m trying to work out who’s left in the much whittled-down group, but I’m hampered by the darkness. There’s Carrie and Ben and me, obviously, and Ali and Jamie—the latter smoking a cigarette at the bonnet of a jeep which, to be fair to Ali, does look like it was abandoned rather than parked—and Piotr, who I remember thinking at dinner looked more than a little enamored with Carrie. And Fiona. Still Fiona. I wish her gone, and the intensity of that feeling disturbs me. Though of course, this is her space, her homeland, her circle of friends. It’s Carrie and I who should be leaving.

“So,” prompts Ben. “A drink?”

I look at Carrie, who is looking at me. “Ugh,” I say. “I’m really not a whisky fan.”

“Aye, I figured.” This is Ali.