His mother is a lost cause, though. She treats Mags with vague pleasure when he arrives in Denmark. Like he’s a nice coat she’s found unexpectedly around her house. It raises my hackles, but Mags doesn’t seem bothered, so I keep my mouth shut.

Mags wanders out of the studio. “Have you packed for France yet?” he calls. “I’ve booked the ferry for ten. Endof is already excited about being able to make those lovely desperate lunges at the railings again. Those lunges that the people around us interpreted as him trying to escape us.” He huffs. “As if there’s another imbecile in Europe who’d want to adopt the strange creature.”

I laugh, but I’m already looking forward to being back in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. I want to feel the sun on my face and inhale the scent from the bougainvillaea that grows up the back of our house in all its shocking pink glory.

Mags is happy living there too, but then, I’ve learnt he’s comfortable anywhere. He seemed to know everyone within a few weeks, and wherever we go, he’s hailed as though he’s Elvis. He accepts this as naturally as if it’s his due. It helps that he speaks so many languages.

I’ll often find him in the little bar up the road telling one of his flamboyant stories in Danish or French or Spanish. He will, of course, be surrounded by laughter and eager expressions that are no help at all in levelling his ego. However, what I like most is the way his face lights up when he sees me. It happens every time and never gets old.

When he first arrived there and declared his arrogant decision to live with me, he requisitioned a small bedroom and declared it to be his study. I repressed a smile at seeing him in the room like a T Rex in a paddling pool and let him get on with it. He lasted three months before he promptly bought the house next door, knocked the two houses together, and commenced making a home.

When I told him he was nesting, he looked as revolted as if I’d said he’d sat in dog shit. It didn’t stop me noticing out loud the size of the study he’d given himself, but as he was heavily involved in writing his much-vaunted legal treatise, I left him to it. The book was, of course, a huge success and shows every sign of being adopted as a staple university textbook.