“Now for the blue.” The man scooped up a nearby kitten and held her over a paint pot so that her paws were coated all over.

“You see?” Lulu nudged Genevieve. “What did I tell you? Crazy people. This is going to be quite a night.”

After an hour or so of dancing tight up against people like so many dancing sardines while a couple of old men played the accordion, drinking champagne from a case brought on by some people from the Moulin Rouge and eating cherries and scraps of Brie that were being passed around from hand to hand on ugly chipped blue dinner plates, Genevieve couldn’t tell if it was the boat that was rocking, or herself. Squeezing her way out of the crush and back down onto the shore for some air, she found Norman Betterson and Robert McAlmon sitting together on a bit of old wall, smoking and sharing a bottle of wine.

“Come sit with us.” Betterson patted the space beside him on the wall, and she was only too glad to acquiesce. “Here. You can take the minutes.” He shoved a pencil and a small notebook at her.

“Minutes? Are you having some sort of meeting?”

“So anyway,” said McAlmon. “Scott was so tight he fell off his stool—right onto the dog. Tiny little thing it was. Size of a rat. And sure enough, the titch is dead. Stone dead.”

“What did Scott do?” asked Betterson.

“What could he do? Said he was sorry and offered to buy her another one. And you know Scott—gets the money out then and there. She wasn’t impressed. And then Charlie starts talking about cooking the damn thing. Can you believe it?”

McAlmon passed the wine bottle over to Betterson, who took a swig and passed it back again without offering it to Genevieve.

There was something unpleasant about McAlmon. Tall, dark and lean, he ought to be handsome but wasn’t. It was to do with the mouth, she decided. Thin lips with a slight downturn at the corners, and with an odd, bulbous quality about the flesh. He looked permanently as though he’d shoved a small, live creature into his mouth—a mouse or a chick. He was waiting for the creature to stop struggling before swallowing it whole. The lips were shut tight to prevent it escaping. Meanwhile the eyes had a guilty innocence to them, as if they were trying to deny what the mouth was up to. Genevieve opened the notebook and began a sketch of him.

“Have you ever tasted dog?” asked Betterson.

“No,” said McAlmon. “But I know a man who has.”

“Ah, yes—if you can believe that story.”

“Who’s tasted dog?” Genevieve didn’t look up from her caricature as she asked the question.

“Guy Monteray,” said McAlmon. “Or so he says.”

“I should have guessed.”

“I’m surprised he’s not here tonight,” said Betterson. “Aren’t you, Bob?”