I write a text to Anju: “Hey, it was really nice meeting you last night. I was wondering if you might fancy meeting up? I did my first painting in forever basically after seeing you guys, and I don’t really know any painters, so . . .” I delete the last part, so it just reads, “Hey, it was really nice meeting you last night. I was wondering if you might fancy meeting up?” and send that. I have a missed call from Crimson Orchard, but I ignore it for now, and tap on recent calls so it’ll stop showing up as a banner. I turn the corner, the river behind me. The Otter is all dressed up for its opening tonight. Its front is covered in strings of lights. Its door is open. A carnivalesque glow comes from inside.

Everything looks different, but it’s hard to pinpoint how, exactly. The Walter Potters stand out more, and so do the murals, the alligators eating acrobats eating alligators. As I walk down the corridor, my attention is drawn to the art. Small paintings of birds in flight that I hadn’t noticed before are spotlit on the walls. I wonder whether what’s changed is just that all the clutter—the sort of backstage stuff that’s always been here—has been cleared away, or if it’s the light; or, maybe it’s neither of those things and, rather, it’s that I’ve created a painting that I’m happy with and so, art is just central to my life again.

I stop at the Walter Potter cat tea party. There’s a warm glow to it now, like the feast is candlelit. The cats all look jovial and at peace with themselves, passing around cakes and chatting with each other. One is standing and pouring tea at the end. It looks like a pleasant occasion. I look at it with a new feeling of nostalgia. I imagine stuffed eggplants on the cats’ plates, in pools of harissa-infused oil. I imagine the conversation—the cats are talking about their art; one of them will be profiled in a magazine soon.

I go through the red curtain. On the other side, the tables are laid out with beautiful crockery and cutlery and crystal glasses, all empty and expectant, and a man is lighting candles that poke out of the tops of empty wine bottles, the ones I cleaned the other day. In the corner of the room, some musicians tune their instruments. The lights are being tested, as they were on my first day here. “Lower! Lower! The lights have to be low! Low lighting, low lighting! We need to see the candles, otherwise what’s the fucking point?” Heather’s voice cuts through all the other noise. Then she talks directly to me.

“What are you wearing? You need to get upstairs and change, now. You’ll be allocated a room up there,” she says. She talks fast. I look around her. Gideon is nowhere to be seen. It’s just Heather.