I did so, and instead poured seltzer water with ice and mint and made her a drink. She took it, rolling the cool glass against her forehead.

‘I won’t do it for ever you know,’ she said. ‘I’ll stop, some time. I just need it now. While I’m renovating myself.’ She smiled up at me, with her lovely, sad grey eyes. ‘I’m trying to outgrow her, Mrs Francesco de Luca. You understand.’

I thought of the woman I had outgrown, hiding beneath her stained apron, looking at the world with her head lowered, like a dog expecting to be kicked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I understand.’

That day passed, quiet and drowsy, and then another. I kept myself busy taking inventories of the bar and pantry, with polishing pans and brining olives. Although none of us said anything, it was obvious we were all anxious for Langham’s return.

Hilde was the one to break the unspoken vigil. On the fourth day she emerged at noon, looking clear-eyed and impatient. I was feeling better too, more my usual self. My course seemed to have finished, and my body no longer felt swollen, my breasts had stopped their aches and protests beneath the tight brassiere.

‘Bouzid,’ I heard Hilde calling, ‘telephone Mademoiselle Alisée, tell her that I will come this evening after all. Oh, and could you send my blue gown to be pressed? It is on the table here.’

She came into the kitchen after that, ostensibly to ask for some lunch.

‘I can’t stand this waiting,’ she whispered to me, ‘and I don’t want to be here when he gets back. I can’t lie to him, he’ll know something has changed the minute he sees me.’ She stepped away abruptly as Bouzid came in. ‘No need to make me supper, del Potro,’ she said crisply, ‘I shall be dining out this evening.’

So she did, breezing from the house in a cloud of powder and scent and tinkling jewellery as evening began to blossom in the sky above the casbah. In truth, I was pleased to see her out and about again, though the thought of facing Langham alone made me more nervous than ever. Bouzid too told me that he had business in town to attend to, and would not require any supper.

‘And Monsieur Langham …?’ I asked.

‘Will be back tomorrow morning, no doubt,’ he said smoothly, before taking his leave.

Alone in the house once more. First I tried the study, but found it locked. Bouzid had taken the key with him, meticulous and mistrustful as always. But Langham’s bedroom was open, as clean and cool as it always was. At his dresser I sat and opened his pot of hair pomade, smoothed a little of it over my own short black curls. The scent lingered; wax and attar of roses. It smelled like him. I closed my eyes and breathed it in.