‘Josst feel it melting like my heart,’ he whispered, then turning to Marcus, said, ‘Sorry, mate, I can’t control myself any longer.’

Looking up, Flora was amazed to see the amused tenderness softening his thin face and narrowed eyes. His hair gleamed as gold as Mars in the moonlight. As he took her hot flushed face in his long Jack Frost fingers, she could smell the faint apple blossom of Giuseppe’s shampoo, taste toothpaste and feel the snowball clutched in her hands melting like her entrails.

Then he kissed her, first very slowly, his tongue flickering over hers, then harder and harder, a mixture of deliberation and such passion that Flora, arching against him, felt like a bonfire bursting into sudden spontaneous flame in the middle of the Antarctic.

Not having the superior breath control of a brass player, she had to pull away first but kept her eyes shut.

‘Is it really you?’

‘Really.’

‘Oh Viking.’

‘I am otterly, otterly hooked,’ he murmured into her hair.

Flora jumped as, like a rug suddenly laid over her knees, she felt Nugent leaning against her, gazing up with shining eyes, his tail sweeping out a black fan on the white path.

‘I’m enjoying watching Gone with the Wind,’ called out Marcus through blue lips, ‘but I’m about to freeze to death.’

‘Oh Jesus, I’m sorry,’ said Viking.

As his BMW slid round the Close, icicles were glittering from the red roofs of the Queen Anne houses, magnolias and ceanothus in the front gardens buckled under their burdens of snow.

‘God knows how they got a licence for this place,’ said Viking, as he pulled up beside a club called Close Encounters which was pounding out reggae music. ‘Someone must have greased Planning Officer Cardew’s palm again.’

Inside, through the gloom, the Celtic Mafia, Cherub, Noriko, Clare, Candy and Nellie could be seen getting plastered, drinking half-pints of wine out of little jugs, coughing in unison and collapsing in laughter at their own jokes.

Once Viking and Marcus had sat down beside them, Dixie started acting up; he had taken a great shine to Marcus, and had them all in stitches offering to turn the pages of his menu for him, then handing it to him upside-down.

‘He’s Sonny’s Valentine, sweet Sonny’s Valentine,’ sang Randy.

Everyone howled again.

‘We have got some catching up to do,’ sighed Viking, looking sympathetically at Marcus.

Returning from the Ladies, Flora took a slug of wine and nearly spat it out.

‘Ugh, it’s corked.’

‘That’s because you’ve just cleaned your te-heeth,’ said Clare slyly. ‘Even Krug tastes vile after Colgate.’

‘We ought to invent a drink mixing them,’ said Marcus, ‘and call it Buck Teeth.’

‘And Gwynneth could do the ads,’ said Flora.

So everyone stuck out their teeth like Gwynneth and giggled hysterically.

‘To stop arguments, I’ve ordered lasagne for everyone,’ said Blue.

When the band took a break, the RSO, to the other diners’ amazement, took over. Randy seized a trumpet, Nellie and Noriko picked up guitars, Cherub sat down at the drums, Marcus was persuaded to play the piano, as they swung into Boléro.

Blue didn’t want to dance, so Dixie got up with Candy and Clare, Viking and Flora followed them.

Viking was a wonderful dancer, he had the endless legs, and narrow rubber hips that slide into any rhythm.

‘Dum, de-de, dum, de-de, de-de, de-de, dum de-de-dum,’ sang Flora, writhing like a charmed snake in front of him, her hips occasionally grazing his body, her black skirt and red hair flying.

‘Marvellous beat to fock to,’ Viking drew her against him, rotating his pelvis against hers.

‘OK, Marcus?’ gasped Flora as she emerged from his embrace two minutes later with buckling knees.

What would she have done if I’d said I wasn’t, wondered Marcus, as he idly picked out the first subject of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto — moody, mysterious, impossibly difficult music. He wished he could go home and look at the score, which he had only two months to learn. It would be like taming a dragon.

He’d prayed for a break like this for so long, but looking across at Viking and Flora, he felt hollow with loneliness and would have given every note of the concerto to be able to wipe Abby out with the same white-hot passion. Marcus sighed. Viking had a terrible reputation. He did hope Flora wouldn’t be hurt again, and Abby was going to be insane with jealousy when she found out. What an awful lot of pieces to pick up.

The band and the lasagne arrived at the same time. Neither Viking nor Flora wanted theirs, so Nugent ate both.

‘It’s such years since anyone put me off my food,’ said Flora happily.

Turning towards her on the bench-seat, blocking out the others’ view with his broad back, Viking removed her mantilla from her left shoulder, examining a row of long scratches.

‘Jack Rodway do that?’

‘No Scriabin — he thinks he’s a witch’s cat, and takes flying leaps onto my bare shoulders.’

‘Locky Scriabin,’ Viking kissed the longest scratch. ‘Why’d d’you go to bed with Jack?’

‘I needed a practice fence.’

‘I was so opset.’

‘You’re so glamorous,’ Flora ran a finger along his jutting lower lip. ‘One can’t imagine you upset about anything except playing badly or not uniting Ireland.’

‘I’ve dreamt for a long time of being united with Flora.’ As insistent as the Boléro beat, his hand was stroking the inside of her arm, her jawline, her earlobes.

Then she told him about Carmine trying to rape her.

‘Jack was the escape route, he had a green Exit sign on his forehead, and a push bar at his waist.’

Viking laughed. Only by his hand tightening on her shoulder did he show his fury.

‘The basstard,’ he said slowly, ‘and he keeps his wife in a veal crate. Cathie didn’t have flu, he broke her jaw.’

‘Omigod, is that why Blue’s so down? They ought to elope, she’s so good, she could easily support herself.’

‘Carmine’s ripped away every thread of her self-esteem.’

The waiters were back with menus offering puddings.

Viking shook his head. ‘I’m having a pause.’

‘You’re going through the male menu-pause,’ said Flora, falling about at her own joke.

‘I’m sorry,’ Viking pulled her to her feet, ‘I have to fock you.’

Outside it had snowed and frozen again.

‘D’you think I’m too dronk to drive?’

‘Frankly yes,’ said Flora swinging round a lamp-post. ‘If you even looked at a Breathalyser it would play “The Drinking Song.”’

‘Why don’t we try one of these bikes?’

Hearing a loud bang outside, the others, who’d started trashing the place, rushed out swinging lavatory chains, to find Nugent barking, Flora giggling in the snow, Viking sitting beside her rubbing her laddered knees and an ancient blue bike on its side with its wheels going round and round.

After that everyone had a go on it, drink insulating them against the cold, their shouts of laughter sending windows shooting up all round the Close. Any grizzled head foolish enough to emerge was pelted with snowballs. Cherub was so drunk he kept climbing into the engine of Dixie’s car. Clare kept patting a black litter-bin, mistaking it for Mr Nugent. As Flora had another go, the seat shot upwards, nearly depositing her on the ground.

‘It’s a Fanny cycle,’ she shrieked, narrowly avoiding a pillar-box. ‘Oh Gilbert, Gilbert, oh fa la, la, la.’

‘Stop that noise,’ said a ringing voice from above.

‘Oh fuck off,’ said Randy. ‘It’s my turn now, Flora.’

Vaguely Marcus remembered he had been invited to a wassail party in the Close.

Clambering on board, Randy set off guiding the bike with one hand, swinging a Close Encounter lavatory chain with the other. Shooting across the grass in the centre of the square, straight through a bed of sleeping wallflowers, he hit the fountain where Charles I had refreshed himself during the Civil War with an almighty bang.

The bicycle was a crumpled heap, the fountain in intensive care, the imprint of Randy’s huge body lay etched in the snow, but remounting, the intrepid trumpeter shot off down the path, falling off again, so the bike carried on up a ramp, and disappeared through the door of some ecclesiastical building. This was followed by another loud bang to the accompaniment of police sirens.

‘Quick,’ Viking seized Flora’s hand. ‘They segregate the sexes in police cells.’

Very slowly Viking drove back down the middle of the road. Snow on top of hoar frost had fluffed up the trees on either side like cherry orchards in bloom. Huge flakes drifted down soft as butterflies.

‘Your place or mine?’ asked Viking.

‘Oh yours,’ said Flora, remembering the compost heap of her bedroom and that Abby would be home.

Viking kissed one of her hands.

‘So young and soft,’ he said mockingly.

‘Hands that don’t do dishes, I’m afraid. I’m an awful slut.’

‘But the nails are bitten — I noticed that at your audition. You smiled, pretty as a daffodil. You played In the South to tear the heartstrings. But I knew you were sad.’

‘I’m OK,’ squeaked Flora, jumping as the top of the car scraped against some bowed-down branches.

‘Who hurt you?’

‘Oh Christ, a guy called Rannaldini. I was terribly young — I can’t talk about it.’

‘I’ll kill anyone who hurts you.’ Somehow Viking manoeuvred the car into the lane down to the lake, skidding most of the way.