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Lacey took Jonas’s hand again and he stared at her for a few moments, watching the flames dance in her eyes.
    And midsummer’s night began to curl at the edges, like the twigs on the edge of the bonfire, the alcohol flowing and the laughter rising with the little orange embers into the dark blue sky, the Jonsok sky that would right now, east and across the North Sea, be blanketing the Skagerrak, smoke-hazed from the fiery necklace burning along the coast.
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    â€˜Penny for them.’
    Jonas turned to a pretty face, freckles and auburn hair.
    â€˜I thought I should say hello.’
    He stood back and squinted at her. ‘I met you at The Hub, didn’t I?’
    She smiled. ‘You did.’
    â€˜You’re not going to help me out, are you?’
    â€˜A woman could get offended. I mean, if I’m so immediately forgettable – ’
    He grimaced, but she didn’t help him out. ‘It’s – ’
    â€˜Mary.’
    â€˜ Mary . I knew it.’
    â€˜No, you didn’t.’
    â€˜You’re right. An akevitt to make up for it?’
    â€˜Well, why not?’
    She said a friend had invited her and hoped he didn’t mind her being there. Jonas blushed. Couldn’t help it. Tried to hide it with a laugh that was too loud, too loud . Gate-crashers have to pay their way , he managed to say. She had to man the records and the turntable.
    â€˜You mean wo-man the records.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Sorry. Bad joke.’
    Now she was blushing and that made him blush again. ‘If you don’t want to, you don’t – ’
    â€˜No, no. That’s ok.’
    â€˜You sure? You might not like my taste.’
    â€˜Try me.’
    So he did, and led her through to the living room and the records, where she told him he had a lot of blues .
    â€˜Don’t we all?’
    â€˜BB King,’ she said. ‘I’ve got this one.’
    He looked away quickly. Before the gaze was held too long, glad of a hand on his shoulder. Eggers. When he looked back Mary was talking to someone. He watched her surreptitiously, Eggers babbling on about the fantastic meatloaf and you outdo yourself every year, you’ll have us all talking Norwegian next, all that oordy boordy stuff from the Muppets, no, hang on, the chef was Swedish wasn’t he, you must have seen the Muppets, did you?
    When Mary caught his eye, Jonas again glanced away. He wasn’t listening to Eggers anymore, thinking instead about the indifference of memory. As above so below, nothing to be done about the press of guilt that followed the reluctant comparison with another face, another time.
    â€˜Why the grump, Mr M?’
    â€˜Just feeling old.’
    â€˜Well, you are old. You should just get used to it and have some fun!’
    And off Lacey went, as content now as she would ever be. She came back sometime after midnight to collect her forgotten jacket. He made sure to thank her for cheering him up.

Five
    First, Fletcher refused the return. Then he deferred it. For years, a spiralling backwards through a series of concentric circles, closer and closer to the village. He’d come closest two years back, taken the National Express from London. But when the local bus turned up he didn’t get on.
    Nothing was different the next time he took the London bus. The same grey sky and tightness in the gut. Except this time, he did get on the B4 and twenty minutes later was standing by the village green. He had been there - in thought - many times, staring at the invisible crowd of people who knew he was coming or had never stopped waiting for him to return.
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    Fletcher wandered. He realised that the insistence of certain memories obscured so many others, elusive little hints in the name of a street, a shop sign, the kids spilling out of the school. He decided on a more systematic homecoming and decided to walk each of the village’s six access routes, centre to periphery. Today