It was a chance encounter at a party in London: some publishing do, a fancy affair at a restaurant beside the river. Will had gone with his partner at the time, a journalist called Emily Richards, a birdlike woman who main-lined black coffee and smoked too much. They were outside, on the terrace watching the tourist boats and river taxis puttering along the wide, brown water. The terrace was done up with bunting and clashing pelargoniums in trendy metal troughs. Uniformed waiting staff circulated with trays of canapés and drinks. The sun was beating down, that strong, dusty, London sun, the music was too loud and the champagne was sour in Will’s stomach, the sound of other people’s small-talk grating inside his head. The initial alcohol buzz had passed and he was at the stage of drinking heavily to fend off melancholia. Emily was wobbling on ridiculously high heels and chain-smoking stinky French cigarettes that made Will dizzy. It was in this condition that he suddenly found himself staring into a pair of feline eyes.

‘Good grief,’ Guy deVillars exclaimed, obviously forgetting how much he and Will used to dislike one another, ‘it’s Will Jones, isn’t it?’

Guy had aged well. He was still slim, well-dressed, well-groomed. He smelled expensive. His hair was slightly long, still fair. He wore a linen jacket, a hat, designer glasses. He looked chic and cool and sober.

Will, at that dishevelled stage of drunkenness where his shirt was probably sweat-stained and his hair rumpled, was at an immediate disadvantage.

‘Oh my God, do you two know one another?’ Emily exclaimed, bouncing forward, the smoke from her cigarette causing Guy to shrink backwards. ‘Guy used to write a finance column for the Indy, didn’t you, Guy! It’s wonderful to see you!’

There followed some catching-up between Emily and Guy. Guy kept a small flat in London but mainly he lived in South Gloucestershire with his wife and children. They’d bought an old country house near Wickwar, at the foot of the Cotswolds, which they were renovating. Emily brought Guy and Will up to date with one another’s careers – Guy did something in the City to do with money – after which Will had enquired after Guy’s parents.

‘My father’s well,’ Guy said, ‘but Mother has become rather absent-minded lately.’

Will recognised the euphemism for dementia.

‘But they’re still running the holiday park?’

‘I keep trying to persuade them to call it a day, but they won’t let it go.’

‘It was their life,’ Will said. ‘As I recall, it meant everything to them.’

‘Yes,’ Guy said, ‘but…’ he paused, ‘it’s not like it used to be.’

Guy’s face was lowered, tilted towards the drink in his hand and now he looked up at Will from over his glasses but beneath his brows. ‘It was never the same after that summer,’ he said, and Emily interjected: ‘Oh? What summer?’