A spectacular electrical storm took over at the very moment my spasm eased. Now it was the turn of the palm trees to fold and groan. We were in the Continental Hotel at the time – the Conti, as it affectionately referred to itself – watching the regulars engaging in the same ‘this-is-our-bar-why-don’t-you-fuck-off-out-of-it’ routine favoured by regulars everywhere but wrought to high art in North Cornwall. As indeed – since this was North Cornwall merely moved to a warmer spot – it was here. During a particularly violent passage of the storm a well-dressed and absolutely sober Aborigine ran in for cover. Apart from shelter he appeared to want nothing other than an instant lottery ticket from the dispenser on the wall, and a packet of cigarettes. But the Aborigines had their own space at the Conti, a great noisy barn of a lounge behind this one. As one man, the Rotarians at the bar swung around on their stools and stared the rogue Aborigine back where he belonged.

They would have done the same to us had we let them catch our eye. Their prejudice, you see, wasn’t confined only to colour. But we stayed out of their gaze, at a window table at the far end of the room, from where we could watch the palm trees tossing their fronds like Bacchantes, and the wet, livid sky sizzling. God, too, insisting on his territorial rights. It was the sort of tropical night frequently evoked by writers of imaginative literature as a backdrop to great emotional upheaval or sudden rushes of personal lucidity. So it probably wasn’t at all coincidental that the only other people in the bar who weren’t locals happened to be the handsome, well-preserved couple whose example on Cable Beach earlier that day had very nearly killed us. From the expression on their faces I could tell that they were thinking the same about us. We’d each followed the other supposing that the other knew it was safe. The deluded leading the denuded.

Although we knew perfectly well that we were wasting our time, that there was not the slightest likelihood of our finding anything remotely authentic in Broome, we still tried to dig ourselves out a Chinese meal that night, beginning our search – with reprehensible naivety – in Chinatown itself. I don’t know how many pagoda façades we peered behind, but we never saw or smelled a single dish which we could imagine any self-respecting pearler tucking in to after a hard day on the ocean bottom. Unless one side-effect of the bends is an inexplicable craving for sliced beetroot and sweetcorn salad.