Merciless Gods

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I WANT TO TELL YOU A story about an evening many years ago. I hardly see anyone who was at that dinner party anymore; apart from the occasional email we have all disappeared from one another’s lives. I dare say it could be argued that our drifting away from one another is not extraordinary, that it would have occurred in the normal course of events — the raising of children, changing address, moving away, stagnating friendship — but I am certain that the events of that evening had no small role to play in the fracturing of our group.

There were nine of us seated around the table. We had been to university at the same time, some of us had worked together, we were a group of young professionals just beginning to pair off, find lovers, even think about marriage. Serena and Ingrid were the hosts that evening and the dinner was in honour of Marie, who was soon to leave for San Francisco to become an editor for a leading publisher of travel guides. I was there with Mark — we had just celebrated the first anniversary of our relationship — and there was Antony and Hande, and Madeline and Vince. We were also celebrating the news that Hande had just been accepted as a solicitor in one of the city’s major labour-law firms; we were all keen to toast her and Marie’s good fortune.

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