If they had been younger such conversations might have pointed to serious dissatisfactions with their own bodies, serious longings. By this time they’re just repertoire. More or less.

There’s Roz now, waving to her outside the Toxique. Tony comes up to her and Roz stoops, and Tony stretches up her face, and they kiss the air on both sides of each other’s heads, as has lately become the fashion in Toronto, or in certain layers of it. Roz parodies the ritual by sucking in her cheeks so her mouth is a fish-mouth, and crossing her eyes. “Pretentious? Moi?” she says. Tony smiles, and they go in together.

The Toxique is one of their favourite places: not too expensive, and with a buzz; though it’s a little arch, a little grubby. Plates arrive with strange textures sticking to their undersides, the waiters may have eye shadow or nose rings, the waitresses tend to wear fluorescent legwarmers and leather mini-shorts. There’s a long smoked-glass mirror along one side, salvaged from some wrecked hotel. Posters of out-of-date alternativetheatre events are glued to the walls, and people with pallid skin and chains hanging from their sombre, metal-studded clothing slouch through to the off limits back rooms or confer together on the splintering stairs that lead down to the toilets. The Toxique specials are a chevre-and-roasted-pepper sandwich, a Newfoundland cod-cake, and a sometimes mucilaginous giant salad with a lot of walnuts and shredded roots in it. There’s baklava and tiramisu, and strong, addictive espresso.

They don’t go there at night, of course, when the rock groups and the high decibels take over. But it’s good for lunch.

It cheers them up. It makes them feel younger, and more daring, than they are.

Charis is already there, sitting in the corner at a red formica table with gold sprinkles baked into it and aluminum legs and trim, which is either authentic fifties or else a reproduction. She’s got them a bottle of white wine already, and a bottle of Evian water. She sees them and smiles, and airy kisses go round the table.