‘Well that was very complicated,’ Parvati said. ‘Alice was very hard to deal with, even worse than you. First she was feeding her daughter lunch. Then the baby started crying – I told her, go ahead and feed her, I am breast-milk friendly, and anyway, I can’t see what you’re doing. Then the toddler wanted ice cream. I could hear Alice saying, But you haven’t had your pasta yet, and so the toddler began crying too – and I said, Arre, why don’t you just give her ice cream on this one occasion? In India we really like to indulge our children; what else is childhood for? At this, Alice herself started to cry. She told me she’s been ill. Anyway, eventually I got her to calm down, and once the baby was drinking milk, and the toddler had her ice cream, Alice sat down in front of her computer and pulled up the files that Eva and she had got ready. She told me all about this really interesting theory she’d come across recently in an academic paper, very densely written but she wished she could tell Eva, about how, although most words for queen in Indo-European are derived from the word for king – you know, like rajan and rajni in Sanskrit – in fact, originally, back in the ancient days of sacral kingship, when the goddess reigned supreme, in the earliest Sanskrit texts, the Rig Veda for example, it was the female word for strength, raj in Sanskrit, that gave rise to the word for king! “The early Indo-Europeans had no kings.” Cute, no? Here in India we just celebrated the festival of Dussehra, which I guess is all about the annual death of the king, and the total triumph of the goddess. We call her Durga. So, you should be getting the draft email soon. I hope it’s not too late. Alice said, if you can just wait until eight or so tonight, after her children are asleep, she can discuss the final wording with you.’

INGA: The first I knew of it was the email, sent at 8.40 p.m., apparently from Eva, or from the office of Eva Levi, asking the recipient to be ready for a global gathering, all expenses paid, in the islands. A claim form was attached.