“Meredith I must go home now and these fancy people will walk me.”

“Keith—”

“It is not far away,” said Samuel Beckett, or Keith—it was hard to think of him as Samuel Beckett now that he was definitively Keith, but they put their minds to it—“But I could use some assistance.”

They looked at the bartendress.

“He’s harmless,” she said. “But he’s afraid of the dark.”

“With reason Meredith.”

“With reason,” agreed the bartendress.

“We’ll walk you home,” said Sadie.

“I guess we’ll walk you home,” said Jack.

They dismounted their bar stools. Jack could put his feet right to the ground. Sadie had to slide and drop. Samuel Beckett climbed down slowly and deliberately, chary of the pivot, as though his head were a tray of brimming glasses he was afraid of spilling, but then he didn’t stop—his knees folded, and he went almost to the floor before Jack caught him by the elbow.

“You are wearing a ladies’ scarf,” the man told Jack. Up close he looked less like Samuel Beckett. For instance, he was wearing a jacket with little cloth button-down epaulets and a tag that said MEMBERS ONLY, and his eyes were too far apart, like a hammerhead shark’s.

“That’s all you got?” Jack said. “You’ll catch your death.”

“Not if it catches me first,” said Samuel Beckett gloomily.

Sadie and Jack pulled on their winter coats, red down for her, black wool for him. Gloves, hats. Somehow it was agreed that they would walk arm in arm, Samuel Beckett in the middle, Jack and Sadie on either side.

“I live on Marlborough,” he said. “You know where that is?”

“I do not.”

“I do,” said Sadie. “So were you mugged?”

The weight of Samuel Beckett pulled at them as they walked. They followed him as though he were a dray horse. The cold had turned bitter: they’d drunk right through the start of real winter.

“Careful,” said Jack.

“You’re a beautiful couple,” said Samuel Beckett. Sadie was laughing as they slipped on the icy sidewalk. “I pronounce you man and wife. No I was never mugged. But sometimes in the snow I get too sad to keep on. So I sit. And then I put my head down. And one night I slept out all night and I woke up in jail.”

“Heavens,” said Jack.

“Too sad to keep on,” said Sadie. “I get that.”

“Do not, do not. My dear,” he said. “Or we could. Shall we sit? Look, a curb. Look, another one. It’s nothing but curbs this part of town.” He began to go down and then gave Jack a dirty look. “Why are you pulling at my arm?”

“I’m keeping you afloat, man,” said Jack, who by then was inexplicably smoking a cigarette.

“I thought you didn’t smoke,” said Sadie.

“Not much. Come, Sammy Becks. This way?”