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expect you to prepare anything elaborate, Lisa. After all, the rest of us are couples, whereas there’s only one of you, and—’
    â€˜But an excellent one. One who more than makes up for the absence of a significant other,’ said Phil Smart unctuously.
    Lisa Holt looked at him coolly. Her calm grey eyes sank his lechery suddenly down to the soles of his well-worn sandals. ‘Oh, you can put me down as a pair,’ she said with a smile at the company. ‘I’m sure I shall have someone with me on the evening in question.’

Three
    T hey eventually agreed that the street party should be on Saturday the ninth of July. That was a little later than they had originally intended, but the first date which suited all of them.
    It was agreed after a short debate that children would not be present on this first celebratory occasion. That was no problem for the Smarts, whose daughters were working in the north of England, or for the Lennoxes, whose single son was now at Cambridge university. Lisa Holt had suggested this Saturday for the party because this was one of the weekends when her nine-year-old son was spending the weekend with his grandparents.
    The Durkins had no children; it was generally the opinion among the parents who inhabited the rest of the close that they would have enjoyed a much fuller existence if their union had been blessed with offspring. But people who undergo the more extreme trials of this life are normally anxious that others should have a taste of suffering.
    The British weather is much maligned. It does not exhibit the extremes which cause such havoc in the rest of the world. Earthquakes are not a problem; hurricanes and floods are rare and not usually as destructive as elsewhere on the planet. But one undisputed fact is that no one can arrange an outdoor function in Britain and be certain that the day will be fine. So it surprised not a single occupant of Gurney Close that, as soon as they had set a date for the street party, the weather broke.
    The new residents had some heavy rain, and even some unseasonably chilly days, in the three weeks between the setting of the date and the event itself. Rosemary Lennox said they must make contingency plans to take account of whatever the elements might throw at them. All the residents gallantly offered to use their new living rooms if necessary, but it was eventually agreed that in an emergency, they would use that of the Durkins, since they were awaiting the delivery of a new three-piece lounge suite and would thus have much empty space.
    â€˜If necessary, we’ll all move in with our glasses and our garden chairs, but hopefully it won’t be,’ said Rosemary Lennox.
    It wasn’t. The weather was unusually cooperative. It took up again a week before the party, and on the evening of Saturday the ninth of July, there was not a cloud in the bright blue sky, and but a zephyr of a wind from the Wye to rustle the fresh green leaves of the oaks at the end of the close.
    The tasks of the evening were resolved along traditional gender lines. The men set up two long tables in the Durkins’s back garden, one with the copious supplies of drink which Robin Durkin had obtained at wholesale prices, the other with the food which the women had prepared, covered with linen and wire at the beginning of the evening to protect it from the unwanted attentions of insects and birds. The participants arrived together, carrying with them a variety of garden furniture to supplement the expensive wooden set which Alison Durkin had just purchased for the small patio beside the newly laid lawn.
    It was a small group, and one which did not seem to promise a lively party. It was composed almost entirely from the people who had moved into the three new houses and the single bungalow between three and five weeks ago, rather than from old friends with many previous occasions to recall. Admittedly, they now felt that they knew each other quite well