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need more booze,’ he said. ‘Two bottles of white, one of red. Wilson? I think I’ve got some more of that Belgian microbrew.’
    ‘Just water. I’m driving. San Pellegrino, if you’ve got it, thanks,’ Wilson said.
    Hope realised that as Jack and Susie had left the table, Wilson had no one sitting next to him and she’d have to get up and take Jack’s seat so Wilson wouldn’t be a total Billy no-mates. She was just glancing down the table to ascertain that yes, Wilson still looked as if he was suffering from a particularly painful bout of lockjaw, when he lifted his eyes from silent contemplation of his pudding spoon and caught her eye.
    After a few seconds Hope wished that he’d stop looking at her because his gaze seemed rather resentful, like he begrudged having to spend the evening eating all the lovely things she’d cooked when he could be polishing his collection of horn-rimmed spectacles or alphabetising his scratchy vinyl records. Both her grandmothers and her mother were insistent that a good hostess made her guests feel welcome and included, no matter what, but it had been a really long day and she had a bread-and-butter pudding in the oven, and Hope’s grandmothers and mother would never know that Hope’s way of dealing with a difficult dinner guest was by removing herself from the room.
    ‘I’m going to check on pudding,’ Hope said loudly, scraping back her chair and standing up. Her voice was perilously high and her face felt as if it was on fire. ‘And I’m going to find out why Jack’s taking so long to bring us more booze.’
    With that, Hope squeezed past Allison and fled from the room without even pausing to pick up any of the dirty dishes.

 
    BEEEEEEPPPP! BEEEEEEPPPP! BEEEEEEPPPP!
    The sound of the oven timer pierced the air and Hope jumped back, just as Jack and Susie tore themselves away from each other.
    It was strange that when Hope’s world was falling into pieces, tiny, torn pieces that couldn’t be stitched back together, she still had the presence of mind to scurry out into the hall so she could re-enter the kitchen and even bang a saucepan lid down on the worktop as if she was in a tearing hurry to turn off the oven before her pudding burnt.
    BEEEEEEPPPP! BEEEEEEPPPP! BEEEEEEPPPP!
    Hope could hear Susie and Jack talking over the sound of the shrieking alarm but it was impossible to know if they were panicking because they’d seen her jump back from the door, or if they were congratulating themselves for fooling her yet again – and God, just how long had this been going on, anyway?
    There were a million thoughts racing through Hope’s head, a million fragments that she needed to trace back to their original source but …
    BEEEEEEPPPP! BEEEEEEPPPP! BEEEEEEPPPP!
    ‘Fuck off!’ she screamed at the oven, scrabbling to turn off the timer as she wrenched open the door and yanked out the Pyrex dish.
    ‘Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!’ she howled, dropping the dish on the floor so she could clutch her burnt hand to her mouth. ‘Fucking fuck!’
    Jack was already rushing in through the back door, closely followed by Susie. ‘Hopita! What’s up?’
    Hope couldn’t speak. She just stared at him with eyes widened in pain and horror that had nothing to do with pulling a blisteringly hot dish from an oven without the aid of a glove or even a wadded-up tea towel.
    ‘Shit! Poor baby,’ Jack cooed, trying gently to take hold of Hope’s arm, but she flinched away. ‘You look like you’re going to faint.’
    Susie had already pushed past him, so she could take the teetering pile of crockery out of the sink and start running the cold tap. ‘Come here!’ she ordered sharply.
    Hope blinked at her. Everything looked strange and frighteningly hyper-real, from the congealed pesto on the worktop to Susie and Jack’s concerned faces and the red and white mess of her own hand. Even the hum from the fluorescent strip light sounded deafening.
    ‘Is everything all right in there?’ said a voice