Bette gestured for her to lower her voice. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

‘Pull up chair!’ said Alice, who was wearing Bette’s sheepskin coat and a woollen bobble hat she recognised as Tina’s.

‘Where’s Joan Didion?’ 

‘Chalet.’

On the table in front of Peggy and Alice stood four wine bottles, three of them empty. Bette sat down. She felt half dead. Her eye was burning hot and the air was sharp with ethanol and the bready aroma of active yeast. A thick, sweet ferment that smelled primal, almost dangerous. 

‘Here,’ said Alice. ‘Use this.’

Bette took the glass she offered but didn’t put anything in it.

‘Why y’up?’ asked Alice.

‘Our bedroom’s right there.’ Bette pointed to a window close to where they sat. Alice noted that with a salute. 

‘We were just talking about marriage,’ said Peggy. She looked about a thousand years old in an Amistad hoodie, a huge woollen throw round her legs and her mouth blackened with wine. ‘Where do you stand?’

‘Um . . .’ Bette tried to pivot to the subject. ‘Each to their own, I suppose.’

‘I wouldda marr’d Dana,’ said Alice.

Bette looked at her properly. She was slumped in her seat, arms folded under her chin, blinking slowly at the floor. ‘Okay, let’s get you to bed.’

‘Who’s Dana?’ asked Peggy.

Oh God . . .

‘Lovva m’life!’ Alice half-shouted. ‘But sh’died.’

‘Alice, sweetheart,’ said Bette as she pulled Alice to her feet. ‘C’mon. I’ve got you.’

‘I luff you, Porter.’ Alice grabbed Bette’s shoulders. ‘N’like that, but you are a good lay . . .’ Peggy snickered. Bette wondered what she’d done to deserve this. ‘I hope you’n Tina make it. ’Kay? Keep up the ther’py!’

Alice weaved away in the opposite direction to the chalet. Bette turned to explain that she was going to make sure Alice got to bed but, incredibly, Peggy was asleep. Out cold, mouth agape, full wine glass perfectly upright.

***

In the morning, around seven, Tina found herself alone in the kitchen. Dani and Alice weren’t up yet, and she’d captured Bette’s phone and zapper so that she could sleep in. As for Alice . . . Four empty wines bottles and an iPhone with a custom case quoting the Real Housewives of New York (‘Mention all of it’) told their own story.