A couple of local drunks staggered through the door, letting their eyes become accustomed to the gloom. One of them, a Hispanic chap called Pablo, had a fearsome black moustache and a serious tequila problem; the other, whom everybody called Paddy (he’d forgotten his real name years ago), had three missing teeth and a penchant for flowery whimsy.

‘Sheet, man,’ whispered Pablo as he spotted Damian still propping up the bar. ‘The Eenglishman is steel here. If I have to leesten to him talk about his broken heart again, I weel keel myself!’

‘Duck!’ Paddy whispered back, with impressive presence of mind, considering how few brain cells he had left.

But too late; just as they were attempting to duck behind a couple of chairs that afforded them no cover whatsoever, Damian looked up from his conversation with – no, make that monologue at – the barman. With enormous relief, the barman went to serve another (imaginary) customer.

‘My friends,’ Damian shouted, slurring and opening his arms. ‘What are you doing down there? Come and have a drink! Whiskey and tequila, yeah?’

Never ones to refuse a free drink, Paddy and Pablo answered in the affirmative.

After several toasts, Damian, inevitably, went all misty eyed.

‘Guys, guys, you are the best friends I’ve ever had. Have I told you about my wife?’

‘Eeees she blonde and beautiful and successful?’ asked Pablo, grinning. He was happier to indulge the loser, now that he was being bought tequila.

‘Wow! How did you guess?’ said Damian, gesturing to the barman for more drinks.

‘A floating little faerie from the Emerald Isle, a leprechaun looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,’ said Paddy. ‘She dances with flowers, that’s what she does. A faerie queen indeed.’

Damian wasn’t sure if Paddy was actually referring to Poppy, but he smiled soppily nonetheless. He hadn’t shaved for over a week, and the effect, combined with the soppy smile and seriously bloodshot eyes, was faintly disturbing. Even in this company.

Poppy, Bella and Lars, 270 miles away in a bar called the Texas Tavern, weren’t quite as drunk as Damian, but they were giving it their best shot.

After the tedium of Kansas, they had all needed to let their hair down a bit, and Poppy had started to panic, now that they were, apparently, so close to her husband.

‘I mean, what if I’m completely wrong and he really doesn’t ever want to see me again?’ she had asked, through a mouthful of incredibly hot chili con carne. It was served by the bowl, pint, quart or gallon. Both girls had gone for the bowl, while Lars, bravely, had attempted a quart. But even he had been unable to finish it, though it had been delicious, in a revolting kind of way.

‘Really, what level of lunatic would you have to be to eat a gallon of it?’ Poppy had asked, sotto voce.

Their stomachs had been too full to finish the beers they’d initially ordered, so Bella, in a moment of divine inspiration, had said with glee, ‘Margaritas! That’s what we need!’