IT WAS ONE OF THOSE moments where the music on the jukebox was switching from one song to the next, and the general buzz of conversation had reached a point where, by some strange synchronicity, everyone paused to take a breath at the same time. So our companion’s last sentence – in a voice which had previously been competing with the background noise – had made quite an impact.
Several sets of eyes turned towards our table. It felt a bit like Frodo’s group, after he’d fallen off the table in the Prancing Pony and turned invisible. Suddenly the centre of attention, instead of just part of a smoke-stained, beer-blurred whole.
Then Rafael laughed out loud. The spell was broken. The music – gone for what must have been less than a second or so – kicked back in, with Metal Church blasting fr
