Home Fires by Elizabeth Day

not in his league. But he was so, so . . .’ She let the sentence trail between them. ‘So sweet .’
    Caroline did not want to hear any more. She walked away and left Angelique standing in the middle of the room with no one around her, cheeks wet and legs twisted around each other as if she were about to lose balance. She didn’t feel like offering the girl comfort. At that moment, she felt that she simply didn’t have enough of it to spare. Instead, she went to the kitchen, poured herself a neat tumbler of vodka and downed it in a single gulp. Andrew came in just as she was screwing the cap back on the bottle. He raised his eyebrows.
    ‘Dutch courage?’
    ‘Something like that,’ she replied.
    He came across to Caroline and she could see that he was about to put his arms around her but something stopped him from doing so. He pulled back, cleared his throat and went to the sink to wash up some glasses. There were trays of untouched food still on the table – no one had seemed in the mood for eating – and she started to wrap some of it in cling-film. A joint of ham they had bought at Waitrose, its skin studded with cloves. A platter of smoked salmon blinis. A bowl of grated carrot salad that Caroline had stayed up late to make the night before. Looking at it all now, she was struck by how awful it was to have put on a spread. It seemed so wrong, as if they were celebrating something.
    A strange, snuffling sound was coming from the sink and when Caroline turned towards it, she saw that Andrew’s shoulders were shuddering uncontrollably. The tap was still running but his hands hung immobile at the lip of the sink. His head was bowed. She knew that she should go to him, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t face it.
    They had asked Adam to say a few words and when Caroline returned to the drawing room, she could see he had positioned himself with his back to the fireplace, one hand in his pocket, one hand holding a glass of wine as if he were about to make a toast. When she looked at him, she could still see the traces of the boy who used to play with Max in the garden, small legs spinning, knees grazed, cheeks red. He looked ill at ease in his suit, the sleeves marginally too long for his arms, and Caroline wondered whether he had borrowed it for the occasion from his father. The thought of that made her well up so that her contact lenses misted over. She had to blink back the tears so that she could see clearly again.
    ‘Excuse me,’ Adam said, his voice hoarse. ‘If I could have your attention for a few minutes.’
    The chatter and the clink of glass subsided and Adam blushed deeply with the knowledge that everyone was looking at him, the redness filtering out from the tips of his ears and spreading across his face. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to stroke his hair back so that the tufts of it that always stuck out just above his sideburns would be smoothed down.
    She felt a breeze against her side and realised that Andrew had come in from the kitchen to stand next to her. She gave him a quick smile of support. He smiled back and put his arm around her, giving her right shoulder a squeeze. And then Adam started to speak.
    ‘I’d like to start off with a question for all the ladies in the room,’ he said, his mouth curling up at the corners. There were some vague tittering sounds as people looked at each other, bemused. ‘Please raise your hands if you ever snogged Max Weston.’ The titters transmuted into louder guffaws and a male voice from the back of the room started cheering as if he were at a sporting match. Caroline froze. She could feel Andrew tense up beside her.
    ‘Come on, ladies, don’t be shy,’ said Adam, taking an enormous swig from his wine. That’s it, she thought, he must be drunk, no one will take any notice of him.
    But then, slowly, the hands started going up, each contoured arm rising to the ceiling like a string trailing a helium balloon. Caroline could see Angelique