She noticed that most of the stall-holders in this section were Italian. ‘So it is true,’ she said to Andrew, ‘Italians are the main immigrant group here.’

Galina’s words caught Andrew by surprise. He’d gone out early to buy the Saturday papers to find topics of conversation; he’d been particularly pleased to find an article about the USSR under Gorbachev. ‘What’s your take on the current situation in the USSR?’ he had imagined asking, an excellent open-ended question that would keep her talking with only an occasional prompt required from him. But now she was asking about Italians and immigration.

He swung the shopping bag over his shoulder, shoved his sweaty hands into his pockets, and gathered some words together. He told her there were many Italian immigrants, particularly in Melbourne, but they were probably outnumbered by Greeks. Melbourne, he said, was the third-largest Greek city in the world. It sounded like a boast, which was not his intention at all.

‘We’ve a large Chinese community too, they’ve been here since the gold rush, and of course there’s the new Vietnamese population. And Jews, they came after the war.’ He looked around. ‘A lot of Jews used to have stalls here at the market. I expect they still do.’

Had he guessed she was Jewish? But how could he? Russians would recognise Kogan as a Jewish name, but he wouldn’t. Should she tell him she was Jewish? And quickly dismissed the thought: there was absolutely no reason why he needed to know.

They stopped at a deli that specialised in salted and smoked meats. Hanging from hooks were sausages that looked very much like sosiski. She made a mental note of the location of the stall: she’d return by herself to investigate these sosiski lookalikes. For now, she bought some bacon for the kasha, and at another stall, Andrew bought a loaf of bread. He then led her into the seafood area.

She was from Leningrad, she knew about seafood. Meat might not be available, and oranges and bananas could disappear for months, but there was always fish: pickled, salted, sometimes even fresh. But a glance at the very first stall was sufficient to prove that her understanding of fish was like an infant’s understanding of the world. Behind the glass were large, shallow trays, each filled with a different type of fresh fish: white fish, pink fish, whole fish, fish portions, and not a herring to be seen. And oysters arranged in lines next to piles of mussels in their shells, and bright-pink cooked prawns — she read the label — a mountain of them spilling into the adjacent tray.

‘Have you ever tasted prawns?’ Andrew asked.

She shook her head, not shifting her gaze from the display.

Andrew checked his wallet, and then bought eight large ones to eat with the avocado.

‘It’s a special occasion,’ he said.