Rona and Sacha got their drinks and retired along with Hannah to an ill-lit booth in a corner of the bar. There weren't very many people in the bar, so it was quite easy to find somewhere to sit that also had a clear view of the stage.

Rona placed her 'phone on the table, where it promptly bleeped loudly and wheeled fitfully as it received a message. She checked the 'phone: "Alain's not coming" she said.

"I'm heartbroken" replied Hannah drolly. "What about young Malcolm?"

But before Rona could answer a voice boomed out from the P.A. system: "Ladies and gentlemen" it said, as those few ladies and gentlemen who were in the bar tried to locate the person who was speaking, "please welcome to the stage Ms. Gina Bauble!"

The small crowd applauded, some with an enthusiasm that bespoke either familiarity or drunkenness, but the majority with the politeness that came of social obligation. The P.A. crackled awake again as an old recording of a '30s song filled the room with eerie loudness, like a roaring ghost of the past. After a few bars of music a woman strode out onto the stage wearing an old gingham dress and make-up which appeared to have been re-applied without first being removed.

She started swaying her hips in an exaggerated manner, grinning in a leer while she mimed the song in a deliberate fashion. Every double-entendre in the lyrics was doubled again as the woman played out every scene described in the song in such an over-the-top manner that the performance obliterated any subtlety the writers of the song had strived for so many decades ago. Occasionally she gestured as if to remove a small piece of clothing, though it seemed more like a threat than anything else.

"You know" said Hannah, "I like exhibitions of the female body as much as the next girl, but there's got to be some art in it."

Fortunately the woman only performed one song. "Well I guess that was . . . something, then" said Rona.

"Is that gonna be in your review?" asked Sacha.

"Honestly" Rona replied, "I wouldn't know where to begin."

"So with this hideous punk band" asked Hannah, "does the night get better or worse?"

Astonishingly, impressively, it got worse. The band was, as Rona had promised, awful, and with Rona's insistence that she had to be professional (despite, as Sacha pointed out, the fact that she wasn't getting paid to write the review) and that they all had to help her be professional, all three of them reluctantly stayed. Rona, at least, didn't feel that professionalism necessary demanded sobriety, and as the glasses mounted up around them Sacha was moved to remark:

"You know, this is why they invented binge-drinking. To forget about bands like this."

"No binge-drinking!" Hannah exclaimed, as forcefully as she was able to this far into the evening. "Alcohol poisoning isn't pretty, kiddo."

Nonetheless, though she had no intention of bingeing, Sacha - to her dismay - found herself again drinking her way through her savings, to the extent that she managed to ensure that in the morning her dismay would be all the greater.