From the distance of the kitchen, I can still identify a postage-stamp-sized photo booklet of Hitler on tour in the early 1930s, a certified genuine piece of the Berlin Wall with pink paint on it, a troop of restored finger-sized Egyptian camel cavalry, a flat tin soldier from mid-nineteenth-century Germany and some coins. At least two of the coins are gold, one a guinea of one of the English King Georges, the other a Roman aureus bought by Simon on a layover in Rome that coincided with his birthday. Vespasian. He showed me the letters clearly on the coin: ‘Vespasianvs’. Struck in the last year of the emperor’s reign, AD 79. Simon was explaining how he could tell that when Faye stepped in to say he needed to release us so that we could freshen up.

‘But I haven’t even shown them the phrenology calipers yet,’ he said. ‘Knock-off ceramic phrenology heads are designer tat now, but these calipers are real.’

He lifted them out and click-clacked them, but Faye already had a weary Lacy by the elbow, guiding her to the stairs.

The moment she stepped out of the shower, her towel around her, Lacy took my face in her hands and said, with a mad intensity, ‘“But I haven’t even shown you the phrenology calipers yet!” Were you expecting that?’ She lifted her hands away and snapped her fingers and thumbs together frantically, like pincers. ‘You know you’ll be back at that cabinet. He’s not done yet.’

I know I will. But I’ll make it just the two of us, Simon and me. And he can tell me all the stories. I want to have another look at it when I haven’t just landed, and my brain isn’t still slaloming its way across the Pacific.

Faye comes down the stairs, in a black pencil skirt and black jacket, carrying a black bag with a gold clasp. She maintains the immaculate grooming of her flight-attendant heyday in the nineties, her hair in a gleaming chignon with not a strand out of place. She now owns a travel agency specialising in tours and getaways for women. Groups or individuals, no hens’ nights. She was clear about that when she mentioned it yesterday.

Before we arrived, Faye had Jonalyn arrange towels on our bed into fans, and stock the ensuite bathroom with organic mini-soaps, moisturisers and potpourri.

‘Good talk?’ she says, looking at Simon.

‘Yeah.’ He glances at me, as if he needs to check.

She’s stopped at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for more.

‘Oh,’ he says. He points to a book on the counter. It’s A4-size, blue, with a matt cover. ‘I found that Schubert score under the coffee table earlier. Do you think Annabel needs it? Do you reckon I should call her?’

Annabel is fifteen and at orchestra camp until tomorrow. She is the owner of the school water bottle I’ve carried on the walk. She plays violin.