Lydia remembers a lunch she had been invited to once, long ago, when the parents of Serena and John were alive. They had ail been seated formally round the dining table, crisp, starched serviettes unfolded and spread on their laps. The lunch began with a soup. Afterwards there were ripe mangoes for dessert. John was petulant. ‘Bring me another knife,’ he demanded of a servant who hovered near at hand. Sharp bladed knives were always kept away from him. He used the indigenous word, motta. He embarrassed his parents. There was a well-bred silence. So John persisted until another knife was brought him. The use of one’s own tongue, one’s own language, was not encouraged in that environment. Manners, ritualized, belonged to another era and clime. The family had no language to talk to the servants in.

‘My mother never talks to the servants so they blackmail her,’ Serena had once said.

Serena remembers other parties. ‘My grandparents had such grand parties in that huge house m Alfred Place. The house belonged to an aunt who lived a simple life in Moratuwa. My grandparents did the grand in her house. The aunt’s children did not like it. My uncles were wealthy businessmen, they entertained lavishly. Oh, those dinners where they entertained all the Englishmen! There was this enormous table and the most important guest would be served first. Starting from the top right hand corner, coming down to the end and then the next serving would begin from there.’

It must have been terrible to be at the bottom of that table. The lesser beings.

‘The table was always beautifully arranged—gleaming cutlery, cut glass, damask. The dinner would begin with a clear soup with a little wedge of custard in the middle. Tiny strips of carrot cut in juliennes would be scattered in it. Then the fish course would follow. Tiny portions, but the plate would be decorated. Then the meat dish, all sliced on a salver, would be taken round and the melt-in-the mouth dessert and wines, red, white, the water, the claret, served.

‘For us it was Sunday lunch with yellow rice and roast chicken—lots of plums in the rice. My mother, too, would entertain guests. She would create wonderful table arrangements with fruits and vines. They were my father’s friends. Englishmen.’

Now death, bereavement, going away … There are no guests at that empty table.