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measure, commiserating over aching limbs and backs which seized up after hours of abuse.
    Now they exchanged stories and recalled the more entertaining disasters of the last month, which were already being embellished with the hyperbole of nostalgia, as alcohol assisted imagination and the participants relaxed into a perfect English summer evening. The food was excellent, and Rosemary Lennox’s organizational skills had ensured that the selection of dishes they had brought to the trestle table in the Durkins’s garden was both varied and complementary. And the drink flowed, loosening tongues and weakening inhibitions.
    The laughter became more genuine and more prolonged over two hours of recollected disasters and plans for the future; the decibel level rose higher and higher, until any listener from a hundred yards away would have thought that there were far more than eight people involved in the party. But there were no near neighbours for them to disturb. The fishermen a mile away down the river wondered about the source of this noise and laughter as the evening moved into dusk, but they were too busy with their own concerns to have any real interest in such speculation.
    Robin Durkin had paid the builder to construct a small, unofficial gate in the back fence of his garden, to give him access to the land behind. He smiled and tapped the side of his nose when the others asked him about it. ‘All strictly speaking illegal, I’m sure,’ he said airily, in answer to their queries. ‘There’s no official footpath until you get to the banks of the river, but it’s only pasture land and I shouldn’t think anyone’s going to bother about it.’
    Emboldened by drink and the courage which comes from being in a group, they went out together and walked for a few minutes beside the river, admiring the deep crimson sky where the sun had disappeared over the Welsh hills, watching the numerous rings disturbing the still surface of the water as the trout rose towards the invisible flies. There was no one about here, but the occupants of Gurney Close found themselves whispering, perhaps because they felt themselves conspirators in this minor trespass, more probably because they did not want to disturb the peace of these magical moments by the river.
    And then they were back, lounging in their garden chairs with glasses refilled, full of good humour and relaxed reminiscence as dusk moved into darkness. The last of the breeze had disappeared with the sunset, and the night retained its summer warmth. There were not many better places in the world to be than the heart of England on an evening like this, Ronald Lennox announced appreciatively, and the others nodded sage agreement and sipped contentedly.
    It was at this time that Philip Smart made an unexpectedly graceful and well-turned speech about the excellence of the food, the quantity of the drink, and the brilliance of Rosemary Lennox’s original concept of an evening of celebration like this. It reminded all of them that he could be more than a lecherous bore when he chose to be: Phil caught the mood of the moment; the sense of general bonhomie; the pleasant, uncritical, alcoholic lassitude which seemed to be overtaking all of them.
    No one wanted to be the first to move, to break up the atmosphere which felt so relaxed and so right. Robin Durkin burrowed into a cardboard box he and Ally had still not unpacked and found balloon brandy glasses. ‘Time for a nightcap,’ he said, and went round the company with the cognac bottle. The last remaining signs of the caution some of his guests had displayed towards him seemed to drop away with the brandy. The talk grew more quiet and sporadic, the thoughts expressed more sentimental than they would have been in daylight and sobriety.
    The warmth of the night and the effects of alcohol meant that no one felt cold. It was almost another hour before the woman who had suggested this party drew it