‘Come on, let’s hear the great statesman speak,’ Jessica said, throwing a Biro from her desk at him.

‘It’s just the usual stuff,’ Francis replied, still scanning the letter. Then he balled it up in his fist and brightened once more. ‘Come on then! Let’s go, people, my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset. Carpe P. M. and all that.’ I was a little shocked to see him destroy what a moment before had seemed a treasured article.

The girls made a few more calls for the letter, but he waved them away with his eyes down. He popped the bottle of champagne I had bought him as we walked down the stairs and upended the neck as we came into New Court. The effervescence bubbled up out of his mouth and down between the high banks of his pectorals, making wet shadows on his white shirt where the fabric stuck to his flesh. I was piqued when I saw him gulping the precious liquid without registering the quality, but I turned to the others, hoping to offer them a comic shrug to indicate that I was in the know about Francis and his excesses. When I turned, however, it was to see Jessica and Lisa looking with unease at one another.

Tudor had their own boats, but Francis did not want any of the party to have the trouble of punting, so he had hired one of the flat-bottomed barges from Scudamore’s, complete with a uniformed gondolier in a white shirt and tartan waistcoat. There were perhaps five guests waiting for us there, all beautifully dressed. I did not know any of them, though I recognized some from around college. The banks of seats for the passengers faced one another across the deck, which was decorated with a sumptuous picnic. Red tartan rugs lay across the seats for the cold, but the night was so still that the flames of the candles lit in the centre were barely troubled. The Cam was quite empty. When we set off from the weir and passed under the Mathematician’s Bridge at Queens’, the only sound was our quiet chatter reverberating on the stone walls, the clink of toasting flutes, and the splash of the punt pole as it fell into the black water. Mist rose from the fields along the edges of the river, shrouding the ancient buildings, where warm orange squares of the lead-latticed windows glowed in the dark walls. In the shadows on the banks appeared the white bodies of swans, their necks tucked under their wings.

Twenty minutes later we had slid gently through the body of the city and found ourselves outside Magdalene. Francis had been drinking steadily since our departure, and he chose this moment to rise on shaky legs and give a speech. ‘I would like to raise a toast to you all, my friends, for sharing this evening with me, for eating, drinking and being merry.’

An appreciative cheer went up from the audience.