She could feel people watching her as they walked towards the hotel where the dinner was being held; men who stared across the street and internally deplored Clive for having such a beautiful partner that night; women who watched the gown in admiration, and a little girl who had gazed up at Martha in awe as they crossed the street towards the large, light stone hotel on the bank of the river, and Martha could see Clive suppressing a beaming smile as they walked, arm in arm, up the steps into the hotel.

"I feel like Princess Diana," she muttered, glancing towards the door, and he laughed, leading her towards the function room across the marble floor of the foyer, "I bet she had the sense to wear more comfortable shoes."

They walked into the dining room arm in arm, slightly late and thus received by a room thronging with people, milling around with champagne flutes and making small talk. Clive noticed the eyes of most of the room divert to watch; everyone's eyes focused on the woman with her arm linked through his, who he knew would have felt considerably more comfortable had she been walking into the world's biggest courtroom as opposed to a dinner. She held his arm a little tighter, and he smiled at her, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek and seeing Harriet in the corner of the room looking very much as if her ears were about to start emitting steam.

"Where's the booze?"

Somebody naïve had decided that it ought to be one of those functions where champagne glasses were perpetually filled without asking, and Martha being Martha, seemed to see this as some sort of challenge to drink the entire hotel dry and bankrupt the Bar Council's events department. Whilst making small talk with a group of barristers from another chambers, Clive was certain that she'd downed at least five glasses of the expensive drink, although this arithmetic was clouded by the amount of champagne he consumed himself, and they had immediately moved onto the wine at the table when they sat down. Despite this, she managed to be eloquent and charming as ever as they spoke to the others on their table through the meal, and he spent the entire three courses wondering if she'd slap him if he told her that he loved her again; looking at her when he hoped she wouldn't notice his gaze as they ate, drank and laughed through the evening.

"Dance?" he asked, holding out his hand to her as the band began to play and the bottles of wine lay empty; some sort of classical music as opposed to the 80s throwbacks that would eventually be played by someone who'd got fed up of the pretentiousness. Probably Martha, if his Silk party had been anything to judge by.

He remembered moments later that Martha Costello was not a natural dancer. Alcohol made her coordination worse and her confidence greater; a combination which provided Clive with great amusement as she stumbled around the dance floor with him, laughing until there were tears in her eyes as she fell over both his feet and her own, whilst most people glided around the dance floor with no catastrophes befalling them until Martha tripped over the edge of her dress and nearly tumbled into a highly respected judge who was at the event with his barrister wife. Others may have tutted, but Clive could only laugh as they tried, once again, to move in synchronisation, though neither could really care less about the dancing.

The band took a momentary break, and she looked up at him for a moment where the whole world seemed to stop, took his hand and lead him away silently and determinedly as she'd done at his Silk party, grabbing another flute of champagne from a waiter with a silver tray on her way and downing it as quickly as possible as they went towards the secluded balcony upstairs, hand in hand. He didn't ask her what the hell she was doing - if there was one thing he'd learnt in the past two decades, it was that Martha's mind worked in mysterious ways - and instead followed her up the staircase which led to the balcony overlooking the Thames, illuminated by the moon and some fairy lights woven into the ivy on the side of the hotel.

She turned around, resting against the stone edge of the balcony, and looked up at him, swallowing before she spoke. She looked nervous, and he looked at her questioningly, somewhat worried in case she passed out again, but she took his other hand and inhaled deeply, before she spoke.

"I love you, Clive."

He didn't know what to say to that. He stared at her in disbelief; stared at the way the moonlight danced in her bright blue eyes; at the way her light hair moved in the gentle evening breeze; at the nervous smile currently gracing her delicate features, and gulped, before replying in the only way his alcohol-influenced, slightly numb from shock brain could think of. It wasn't exactly smooth.

"As much as Joy Division?"

She burst out laughing, her light hair bouncing as she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. He let go of her hands and wrapped his arms around her waist, praising the God that he wasn't entirely sure he believed him for giving them that night together.

"Don't push your luck," she told him as she pulled away and they began the descent of the stairs to the dining room, hand in hand, though the smile on her face told him that he may have been heading up in Martha's league table - perhaps he'd overtaken The Cure, if he was lucky, "You've got lipstick on your face, by the way."

As predicted, somebody had the foresight to dismiss the band in favour of a playlist clearly intended for an event such as this where drunk so-called professionals were at the end of their tether with waltzing like they were ninety, and Martha, worryingly, was in her element. They both made total fools of themselves, and though everyone else was joining in with the outlandish nostalgic dancing, no one could possibly have been having as much fun as them, he was certain.

It seemed weird, watching someone in a ballgown dance wildly to Pulp and Joy Division, but it was so very Martha and he wanted to remember her awful dancing for the rest of his life, he thought to himself as he partially joined in, partially looked on at her dancing with CW and some other women that he didn't know. He was vaguely aware of someone with a camera, and made a mental note to trawl through any photographs he could find for one of Martha dancing; not least to embarrass her, but also because he genuinely wanted the memory of that night to last forever. Maybe he'd frame it, so that the embarrassment would be permanent - after all, she still had the photo of him face down in the street outside The Crown after a drinking contest when they were new tenants of Shoe Lane, so how unfair could it be?

When they left the hotel, he gave her his suit jacket to drape over her shoulders as they walked - or, more accurately, stumbled - through London, neither entirely sure whose flat they were going to, though both of them knowing they'd be sharing a bed that night. She'd pilfered a bottle of Bollinger from the table, and they stopped on the embankment near Tower Bridge to open it - he stood behind her and helped her ease the cork out of the bottle with a pop. Martha took a swig, leaving a stain of red lipstick at the mouth of the bottle and handing it back to Clive, who copied suit before climbing on the bench to sit on the light stone wall between the pavement and the Thames, staring at the flowing river as Martha hauled herself up unceremoniously to sit next to him, leaning against him as he put his arm around her.

They spoke aimlessly as they drank, forgetting due to a combination of inebriation and happiness their responsibilities and professionalism for one night. The champagne bottle was all-too-quickly emptied, and he jumped down from the wall, Martha watching him and raising one eyebrow in a show of reluctance as he encouraged her to follow him and jump.

"You mean you're not equipped for a bit of free running, or whatever they call it?"

She glared at him, resisting the temptation to make another comment about him trying to sound normal, and he held out his arms for her as she turned on the wall, lowering herself down as elegantly as she could manage, which, being both drunk and Martha, wasn't very elegantly at all. He didn't put her down, to her mild annoyance, instead carrying her to the side of the road and laughing as she kicked her legs in a show of defiance, and she hailed a cab, empty champagne bottle in hand as she waved her arm into the road for a taxi.

"Yours or mine?" he asked, putting her down on the pavement and ushering her into the black taxi which pulled up, closing the door behind him as he sat down on the back seat with her, draping his right arm around her shoulders as she leant against him once more and the lightbulb faded after a few seconds. This was quite unlike it had been that night in Nottingham, where nearly two decades of waiting had come to a head when he'd kissed her, and their journey to his room from the bar in the city was hurried, their kisses frantic - tonight, he told himself, they weren't just going to fuck drunkenly; tonight would be special.

She gave the taxi driver her address by way of response, and somehow that was a sign that she wanted this to be special, too. She didn't take one night stands back to her flat; he knew that, and as she turned her head and moved to kiss him, she took his hand in hers, linking her fingers with his and smiling as he squeezed her hand.