“No!” she said. Then, quickly, “No, thank you.”

“You want me to say I’m sorry?”

“That’s up to you.”

“I’m sorry.”

It sounded as if he meant it. She said: “What about you? Wife, I mean?”

“There isn’t one.”

“Why not?” Janet said, trying to hit back with the unsettling sort of directness that he had shown earlier.

The shoulders rose and fell once more. “Never the right person in the right place at the right time.”

“For the moment I can’t remember the movie that line came from,” said Janet.

Sheridan lowered and raised his head in acknowledgment. He said: “It just never happened, I guess. You sure about that drink?”

On the street outside the For Hire lights bobbed and dipped like leaves in a stream. Janet said: “Just one more.”

Janet watched as Sheridan made his way to the bar, properly studying him for the first time, deciding he was a difficult person about whom to form an instant impression. He was inconspicuous in stature and in demeanour and in the way he dressed-abruptly she realized he was wearing a collar and a tie and a muted suit while everyone else at the party had been laid-back casual-but he appeared in no way nervous or uncertain. Rather, the reverse. People parted at the bar and he was served almost at once, despite louder shouted demands, and people parted again for him when he turned away. Janet stayed intent upon him as he returned, concentrating upon detail now. He was a lean man, the skin almost taut over high cheekbones and a sharp, aquiline nose and there was some hint of discoloration to his face, as if he had spent a lot of time in the sun. She could not discern any beardline and wondered if he’d shaved a second time before going to the party. There was a slight sag of puffiness beneath his eyes, which had no positive color but seemed to her like a tweed, a mixture of browns and greens, and his brown hair was just lightening into gray at the sides and oddly at just one temple, the left. On the small finger of his left hand-the hand with which he proffered her drink-he wore a ruby-stoned ring and because his arm was extended she could see a thick, heavily calibrated Rolex watch. He repeated: “Cheers,” and she raised her glass back to him in response.