Given Elijah's general larrikinism, it shouldn't have surprised me at all when all four hobbits, and Orlando, showed up on my doorstep that Friday night. Billy had a case of beer, Orlando had a pile of fragrant pizza boxes, and they all had broad, butter-wouldn't-melt grins.

"What is this?" I asked, when I opened the door to find them standing there.

"Party invasion," Sean said simply.

Elijah added: "Resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated."

I had a paperback novel in my hand; I'd been planning to finish it, and maybe have an early night. I laughed, and stepped back against the wall. "Kitchen's at the end of the hall." They trouped past, a procession of happy hobbit. I closed the door behind them, and followed Billy down the corridor, to where there were noises and voices coming out of my kitchen.

"Whoops-i-daisy." That was Orlando.

And then Dom: "Watch the plant, tosser."

"I'm watching the plant."

"Be nice to Eric!" I called out, as I entered. Orlando was at the sink, one hand on the pizza boxes, one on Eric's terracotta pot.

"Your plant has a name?" Sean sounded incredulous.

But Elijah was enthusiastic. "That's so cool! Do you, like, play music to it - sorry, him - and talk to him and stuff?"

It seemed almost a shame to disappoint him. "Um, no."

Dom cuffed Elijah lightly on the back of the head. "Doofus."

The doorbell rang again. The hobbits managed to look a combination of sheepish and cheeky. I raised my eyebrows. "How many other random arrivals are there going to be?"

"Well," Billy said, in a reasonable tone of voice, "we might have mentioned this little venture to a few people. Just here and there, you understand."

"Of course," I replied wryly, and headed back down the corridor.

Hugo and Dave were standing on my front verandah. "We couldn't leave you to their tender mercies," Dave told me, sliding past with a smile and a sixpack of Tooheys.

Hugo paused in the doorway to lay a hand on my shoulder. He frowned at me, which had always made me feel like a naughty child in the principal's office. "Are you OK, Miranda?"

I blinked. "Fine."

He nodded. "OK. You've just seemed a little distracted recently." He patted me on the shoulder, and continued on down the hall. I stared out the front door into the gathering dusk for a moment, before closing the door and heading to the kitchen.

I managed to persuade the party out of the kitchen and into the living room, which fortunately was clean enough to entertain. Good enough for this rowdy bunch, at least.

I got squished in on the couch between Billy and Dom, and when the phone rang, it had to be passed in to me, because there was no way I was getting out. "Hello?" I answered.

"Miranda?"

"Oh hi, Liv."

No chance for anything further. "Is that Liv?" Elijah perked up. "We couldn't find her. Tell her to come!"

Dom always suited the action to the word; he grabbed the phone from my hand. "Liv baby! The party's on at Mir's place. Get yer arse down here." A pause, and then: "His arse too."

The phone was passed back in time for me to catch Liv's laughter, and her promise to be there soon.

No sooner had the phone been manhandled back to its place on the corner table than the doorbell rang. Still no way I was getting out, so I just raised my voice and called: "Come in if you're not a hobbit!"

"Hey!"

The door opened, and after footsteps in the hall, Karl's head popped around the doorframe. "Just us." Viggo appeared behind him.

I smiled. Dom flicked his beer-bottle lid at Billy over my head, and I leaned forward to give them more room to tussle behind my back. "Hey guys," I said to the newly-arrived men. "There's beer and god-knows-what in the kitchen. I had nothing to do with any of this."

"I believe you," Karl told me, and laughed. They disappeared into the kitchen.

Hugo wanted to know how to work my stereo, and I used the opportunity to escape from the couch situation. He was kneeling in front of it; I sat next to him on the floor, legs crossed, and pointed out what he was doing wrong. Including in his music choice.

"I mightn't have a lot of say over this event," I told him, laughing as I tried to wrestle the Best of John Farnham away from him, "but I can damn well dictate the music if I want."

He relinquished that one, but didn't give in so easily elsewhere. We were still arguing - yes to Poe, no to the big-hair metal compilation I only kept for the memories - when the doorbell rang again.

I could, so I went to answer the door this time. It was Liv and a grinning fellow who she immediately introduced as Royston. "So you've been invaded?" she asked with a smile. I tilted my head towards the noise coming from my living room, and she laughed. "They do this on a regular basis. Be glad this is only small-scale. They ordered a stripper when they crashed my place last."

Dom came out of the living room, empty beer bottle in hand. "I knew we forgot something! Mind if I use your phone, Mir?" He grinned, and continued on his way to the kitchen.

When we went into the living room, Viggo and Karl had stolen the spare seats on the couch, and were involved in animated discussion with Billy. I leant against the wall next to Dave, and got drawn into a discussion on codes of football with him and Sean, which Hugo then joined with great violence of opinion.

It was a good party, I'll give the boys that. It had rhythm, and the bright promise that only comes with spontaneity. Or maybe that was just the point from where I was standing, having planned nothing, merely benefited. Maybe the hobbits themselves were terrified things might go wrong. Though it wasn't their rug that got the beer spilled on it. A small price to pay, anyway. I doubted the hobbits were concerned about anything. Certain things just seemed to come naturally to them, and parties were certainly one of them.

Orlando was just closing the fridge, new beer in hand, when I came into the kitchen. I tossed my third empty bottle into the case beside the fridge, and decided on a glass of water before anything else. "Great party you guys are running here," I said, as I passed him to get to the sink.

"Hey, I'm just a minion," he said with a laugh, and disappeared back out the door.

I finished my glass of water, poured another, and tipped half of it into Eric's pot. The stock of beer in the fridge was diminishing. All sorts of more sensible matter had been squished to the side to make room for it all, but we all have to make sacrifices.

I headed back out to the party, and finally ran into Viggo in the short patch of corridor between the living room and the kitchen. He had an empty glass in his hand; he and Karl were sharing a bottle of Wild Turkey, I remembered. I stepped against one wall to let him past, but he just leaned against the other and grinned. "Nice party."

I laughed, and relaxed against the wall. "Yeah, I really know how to organise, don't I?" I shook my head. "Bloody Elijah. I should have known he was up to something."

Viggo tapped his thumbnail against his glass, smiling down at it, up at me. "It wasn't him. The idea was Billy's, he just got Elijah to help him out."

I raised my eyebrows. "Billy?"

"Yeah. He's deceptive like that. He thought you needed cheering up."

Orlando came thundering back out of the living room, dancing between me and Viggo as we pressed back against the walls to let him through. "Oops, sorry!"

"Drunkard!" Viggo shot after him.

I grinned. "Well, it's worked. I feel much more cheerful."

"That's good," Viggo said, and we leaned away again to let Orlando back out of the kitchen. He disappeared back into the living room.

I turned from his departure back to Viggo. "I'm glad you came tonight."

He nodded. "Me too."

"Whoops!" This time it was Dom, with Elijah on his back, peering over his shoulder with blue eyes and a grin. "'Scuse us, coming through."

Viggo grunted, and reached out to grab my wrist as soon as the piggy-back went past. "Come on," he said, and tugged me down the hallway, away from the kitchen.

We passed the living room, me following unresisting. He left his glass on the table just inside the front door. "Where are we going?" I asked, as he opened the front door with his free hand.

"Somewhere else," he said succinctly, leading me out onto the verandah.

He grinned at me, and I grinned back. "But what about the party?"

"Was it your party?"

"Well, not really."

"Exactly." He pulled the door shut after us, and the noise lessened, muted through door and window glass.

Viggo let me go once we reached the street; I seemed to be committed now to this truancy from my own cheering-up. The night was still, and not too cold. We wandered side-by-side down the footpath, past the line of cars - Elijah's unbelievably blue Falcon, Orlando's black jeep, generic sedans that I assumed belonged to Viggo and whoever was driving out of Dave and Hugo.

There was a street light on the corner making a pool of light. We lingered it in, waiting for a car to pass before we crossed the road. The beer was making my hand cold; I took a swig. "What was I saying? Before you dragged me out of my own house?"

"I didn't drag you. You didn't protest much."

"I didn't," I agreed.

"You said you were glad I came. I'm glad I came."

"We're just an orgy of mutual congratulation," I commented. We crossed another street, carless this time. "Where are we going, anyway?"

He shrugged. "Anywhere." He grinned, and clarified. "Anywhere we can talk without hobbit interruptions."

I gestured with the beer bottle. "There's a park up there, I think."

There was a park. It had a few bits of play equipment, and a prominent no-alcohol sign. I lingered on the edge, and raised my two-thirds-full bottle. "I can't come in."

"Finish it," Viggo chivvied me.

I raised my eyebrows and held out the bottle. "You finish it. I'm a delicate female."

He snorted, but took the bottle, raised it for a swig. "You're not delicate."

I accepted the bottle back. "You've changed your tune. Seemed to think I was going to break last weekend." I took a long pull of beer.

Viggo grimaced, looked away across the darkened park, and down at his feet. "I'm sorry about that, Miranda. I was out of line."

With the lack of light, I could see him better out of the corner of my eye. I shrugged, and said as casually as I could manage: "Yeah, well. Maybe you were right." I held out the bottle towards him, almost finished now. "Sorry I slapped you."

He looked up at my face, intent, and I wondered how much he could see in the dark. He smiled slightly, and took the bottle from me. "I've had much worse wounds from this movie."

He finished the beer, and dropped the bottle into a nearby bin with a clink of glass on glass. Safe now, we entered the park. There was a little merry-go-round, and Viggo stepped on, started to spin it. I resisted his entreaties, and took a seat on one of the swings. "I could never stand those things as a child."

"Can't handle your dizziness," Viggo commented sagely, rotating slowly.

"Huh?"

"Dizziness is an upper for kids. It's what you have before you discover hard drugs."

I laughed out loud. "Yeah, OK. Well, I was the equivalent of a two-pot screamer."

"Two-twirl hurler," he suggested.

"It's a good thing they have sand around these things, that's all I'm saying."

Viggo left the merry-go-round still spinning gently, and took the swing beside me. I curled my hands around the chains, and folded my legs underneath the seat. There wasn't really room for an adult on these things. They were made for smaller bodies.

"His name was Paul," I said suddenly, and turned to look at Viggo, swinging slightly beside me. "The guy who isn't left as far behind as I thought he was."

"You don't have to -"

"I want to." We sat in silence for a moment, side by side, with the slight creaks of the swings under our too-adult weight. "We had a relationship for quite a long time. Even shared a flat for months. But we were never really together. Paul was never very clingy. Maybe that's part of what I liked about him in the first place. He broke it off, between me coming back from the States and coming down here. I told him he never really wanted to care for me anyway. He told me I never really wanted to be cared for." I looked down, traced a line in the sand with the toe of my shoe. "He had a point."

Viggo shifted beside me. "We all end up in relationships sometimes just because we don't want to be single," he reasoned.

I shook my head. "I never even thought about that. Liv, y'know, she was having this period of singleness because she wanted it, but... not one of my decisions was ever made with any sort of what-do-I-want process. I've just been doing things, and then having to deal with everything afterwards." I looked at him again, a difficult task on swings designed to never face each other. "I would have kept on doing it, if you hadn't stopped me."

He was looking away into the distance. "I didn't know anything, I was just going off half-cocked."

"Whatever works. Maybe I do need something to help me put Paul behind me, to reassure myself that I am still desirable and all the rest of the shit that rebound pick-ups are supposed to remedy. But I hadn't thought about it, and I would have taken a lot of baggage into bed with Sean." It suddenly struck me that this was a slightly bizarre conversation to be having in the middle of the night, in a playground, and I started to laugh quietly. "You were a good friend. To him and to me."

Viggo looked at me quizzically as I chuckled. I just shook my head, and he smiled. "We really are an orgy of mutual congratulation."

I grinned. "Shit, we're good."

He nodded. "We are."