I turned away. I became suddenly engrossed in architectural niceties I’d never before paid adequate attention to on the Strand; such as the deeply recessed clerestory fenestration of the building housing the New South Wales Government, and the ornamentation around the guttering of the Savoy. From the corner of one eye I could see my poor wife delivering herself of the usual courtesies – ‘Certainly . . . Only too delighted . . . If there’s any way we possibly can . . .’ – and Orianna rooting around in her handbag. Probably because they are never certain what errand they are on, whether they are meant to be ladies or bushwhackers, Australian women carry grotesque handbags. Orianna’s was a sort of sack made from emu feathers and the skin of fruit bat. But it was what was in it that frightened me. I looked just long enough to see her produce it – Jocasta’s Jest: Poems of The Domestic Life – and to hear her say, ‘What I was wondering was whether, while you’re on your travels, you could, you know, pop into every bookshop you see and check whether they’ve got stocks of this.’ Then I went back to staring at the Savoy.

When I felt that it was absolutely safe to let my attention return I discovered that Orianna had gone but that Jocasta’s Jest was still with us, in Ros’s hand.

‘She gave you a copy, then,’ I noticed.

There was a degree of hesitation. ‘Not exactly.’

‘How do you mean, not exactly?’

‘She didn’t exactly give it.’

‘You’re not telling me you nicked it? You didn’t mug her for it, did you?’

I could see that Ros was still thinking over what had occurred. There seemed to be some uncertainty as to just who had mugged whom. ‘No,’ she said at last, ‘I appear to have bought it.’

I let it go at that. Since I’d deliberately absented myself I couldn’t really complain about what had happened while I’d been away. And I’d long ago learnt that there was nothing to gain from being the sort of husband who took attitudes to his wife’s purchases. It was only later, when I caught Ros finding space for the poems in her corner of the suitcase, that I raised a query. ‘You aren’t really, are you?’

‘I’m not really what?’

It was too absurd to put into words. I gave one of those backward nods of the head that are meant to suggest previous events in other places – in this case yesterday’s encounter on the Strand. ‘You know,’ I said, adding a forward nod to suggest the next four months and bookshops all over Australia.

Her reply was more prompt than I thought it ought to have been. ‘I certainly am,’ she said. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Everybody needs a little project. You’ve got yours. This is mine.’