We ate the brownie straight out of the tin. It was still warm, and the chocolate bits were melty. We cut a slim path around the brownie perimeter and ate inwards. There was enough left for piling upon a squat cake stand and dusting with icing sugar for when the boys came over Friday night, Dan and Nai outside on the pavement while I stuck my head out the window, and, later, Marc, whom I greeted with an olive-breadstick cigar in my mouth. “The butler,” I said, calling into the street, “will be down shortly.”