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who hadn’t been there. She then concluded that she could think of no occasion more convenient or appropriate than Gavin Hutchison’s school‐
reunion party. Ally took this to be a final confirmation – as if there had been any ambiguity – that Annette would not be joining him on the Floating Island Paradise Resort.
    ‘It sounds like the most bloody awful nightmare I could possibly imagine,’ she’d said, after her email invite was forwarded from the London offices of a magazine she still strung for. Ally’s, via plain old snail‐
mail, arrived at the flat, being his registered business address. He found her print‐
out and his postcard lying side‐
by‐
side on the kitchen table when he came in from work, Annette washing dishes at the sink.
    ‘I honestly can’t think of anything worse. If there’s one thing in my life I have never looked back on, it was getting out of Auchenlea, getting out of
that
school and getting away from
those
people. Now this clown, who I don’t even remember, is suggesting getting together with all of them – overnight – on a place you can only escape from by boat! It would be like … like … actually, I can’t come up with a metaphor. In fact, in future, people will
use
this
as
a metaphor. How awful’s that? That’s as awful as cooping yourself up on a bloody oil‐
rig with thirty or forty people you’ve never stopped hating in all the fifteen years since you last had the misfortune of sharing a room with them.’
    ‘So,’ Ally had ventured, ‘not up for it then?’
    She laughed, but Ally knew she wasn’t kidding. Realistically, apart from visits at her parents’ place, the only thing likely to reunite Annette and Auchenlea was a bad Monday, a tower and a high‐
velocity rifle.
    ‘And I take it you are?’ she stated, almost accusingly. The almost‐
accusation derived from Annette finding Ally ‘irritatingly well balanced’ when it came to his schooldays, or indeed anything; he never having confided the sudden‐
clarity/
dressing‐
gown/
etcetera scenario.
    ‘Of course,’ he said, feigning a wounded look. ‘This could be my only chance to tell all those people that I’ve shagged Annette Strachan.’
    Ally had to dodge a wet handful of water and suds.
    ‘See, I know you’re joking about that, but that’s what these things are about,’ she told him. ‘That’s the single reason anyone would go: the only people who turn up will be the ones who think they’ve done quite well for themselves one way or another and want to compare scores with the rest. This Gavin Hutchison idiot obviously wants to show off this ludicrous holiday resort he’s built, probably to compensate for the fact that he was so anonymous at school. I can’t even remember who he was.’
    ‘You can never remember who anyone was, Annette,’ Ally reminded her. ‘I’m surprised you remember the name of the school.’
    ‘That’s not true,’ she countered, grinning. ‘I remember Matthew Black.
And
Davie Murdoch.’
    ‘Oh, well, we’ll just call you Miss Mnemonic, then. Imagine bein’ able to simply pluck
those
names out of the ether.’
    ‘Easy for the human database to say. And besides, you remember everyone because you
liked
everyone.’
    ‘I did
not
.’
    ‘You did. You
do
. You get on with everybody. You don’t have many character defects, Ally McQuade, but that is definitely one of them. And don’t argue with me, I know you too well – you’ll already be looking forward to this thing because you
genuinely
want to know what happened to everybody, what they’re all doing with themselves. You can’t help it: you’re a people person. If I didn’t love you, it would make me sick.’
    So there they were, three weeks later, parked a short walk from the St Mick’s school gates on a dry Saturday morning.
    ‘You’ll be the only one there, I’m telling you,’ Annette said once more. ‘I’ll pass by again on the way back from my mum’s, and I’ll bet there’s just you