Highlights

In the restaurant, after a quickly dispatched martini, Colin said, ‘Please don’t keep looking at it.’

‘Looking at what?’ said Archie.

Colin signalled to the waiter for another drink. He could tell that Nino had gone a bit further than Archie had expected. Archie had wanted him to make Colin less embarrassing, but it seemed he had ended up making him more so. This was an irony in which Colin himself could take only a limited satisfaction. The whole thing was a botch, and it would need a visit to another Nino to redress it.

‘Your hair, you mean,’ said Archie. ‘It looks great…amazing!’

‘You think I look a fool,’ said Colin.

‘Really, Colin, no one will notice,’ said Archie.

‘Well, make your mind up,’ said Colin.

Archie gave him the wounded look of the well-meaning meddler. ‘Well, I think —’ he said, but then his phone bleeped, and he had a text message to deal with. The second martinis came, and Colin sipped at his, feeling the alcohol sharpen his resentment of Archie’s mobile, and of these friends whose mere illiterate texts were apparently so amusing. Well, you could hardly call them texts. He watched Archie press Send, and put the phone down beside his glass, ready perhaps for a reply. ‘That was Aldo,’ he said.

‘And who might Aldo be?’ said Colin. ‘Someone you met this morning?’

‘Aldo — we met him when we were checking in. With the little goatee? We’re going to a club with him tonight.’

‘Are we?’ said Colin, and found his martini had gone already.

‘Well, you may have to wear a hat,’ said Archie. ‘Joke! Joke!’

They drank a bottle of wine with their main course, and when Archie said, ‘Shall we have another?’ Colin said, ‘Why not?’ He saw the day could sensibly be disposed of this way; and when they were drunk together the blur of a chance of fun seemed to shine through the misery, the expensive folly. Colin could take his drink, but he was wandering a bit as he went to the lavatory. He heard his name, looked round stupidly for three seconds, and there at a corner table were the Gortons.

‘We didn’t like to interrupt,’ said George suavely.

‘He looks rather super,’ said Emma. ‘Good for you!’

‘Oh…yes,’ said Colin, with a little gasp.

They eyed each other, jovially but warily. ‘You’re looking well,’ said Emma. ‘You’ve done something to your hair.’

‘Oh…gosh,’ said Colin, who had actually forgotten this fact as he approached their table. Now, he ran his hand through it. It felt silky but stiff.

‘Very dashing,’ said George.

‘Very bold,’ said Emma. And since Colin just stood there: ‘Well, lovely to see you. Don’t let us keep you from your friend.We haven’t exactly been spying on you, but we can see you’re having a marvellous time!’

Next page: It seemed absurd, but then again perhaps only prudent, to have another drink.