After the party, Alex, in the driving seat, seems rather out of sorts, whereas Barbara, who's sitting in the back, is singing her way through the George Gershwin songbook, which seems to indicate a state of happiness, or at least contentment. Andrew, third passenger in the car, riding shotgun beside his old friend Alex, whom he's just met again after a ten-year interval when he was living in America, can't quite judge - he isn't entirely used yet to reading all the signs of his native land. Feeling their way, both figuratively and literally, through the ensuing situation, each of the people in Madeleine St John's fourth novel at once reveals, and acquires, the mysterious attribute we call character.