Dally

Dally is Richard Galloway’s companion at Azna and one of the people who bids the departing guests farewell. Her small gestures of hospitality give way, after a weekend she describes as ghastly, to a private evening of drink and firelight in which she registers the strain and danger the guests have left behind.

Farewell at Azna

As guests prepare to leave Azna, Dally and Richard Galloway stand together in the shade of the gate, handing out small garlands of flowers. They sometimes drop the flowers into the passenger seats of convertibles and send the departing visitors off with a blown kiss and the farewell, “Come back next year!” The scene presents Dally as part of the estate’s outwardly festive leave-taking: even as cars rev and guests arrange rendezvous for the road back to Casa, she helps make their departure warm and ceremonial.

That polished farewell sits against the disruption of the weekend. The guests are leaving after events that have unsettled the household, and the flowers mark the return of ordinary social ritual without erasing what has happened. Dally participates in the welcome-and-farewell rhythm of Azna, but the evening that follows makes clear that the weekend has not been merely a busy social occasion.

After the Guests Leave

Once the gate has slammed shut, Dally pours Richard Galloway an aged Lagavulin in the library. They make a fire, eat mince pies, and drink quietly while the wind moans around the delicately painted casements. The shift from the open gate, cars, and departing guests to the enclosed library gives their evening a distinctly quieter register: the crowd is gone, and the two remain with the fatigue and unease it has left behind.

Dally eventually sighs, puts her feet on a leather pouf, and calls the weekend ghastly. She says they are lucky to be alive and asks Richard whether he spoke to the French girl, adding, “Amazing that people like that actually exist.” Her remark brings the weekend’s danger and its extraordinary encounters into the room without explaining them away. She sounds exhausted, but her surprise also suggests how sharply the visitors’ experiences have unsettled the familiar domestic calm.

Relationship and Narrative Role

Dally’s presence is most clearly established through shared action with Richard Galloway: together they see guests off, and afterward they share the fire, food, and drink. The episode offers only a brief view of their relationship, but it shows them moving from public sociability into private decompression after a weekend that has tested the household’s composure.

When Richard says he has told Hamid to lock the outer doors, Dally is startled by his strangely vacant yet domineering tone. Her reaction registers a change in the atmosphere between them: the convivial evening does not mean that the weekend’s threats and puzzles have been resolved. Dally’s role is therefore modest but telling. Through her farewell gestures, weary assessment, and moment of alarm, the narrative contrasts Azna’s practiced hospitality with the unease that persists after its guests have gone.