A typical French house. Square as a box, three storeys, shuttered windows, tiled roof, trim, neat; not at all unfriendly, merely reserved, standing back from the street behind a low wall, iron railings and a lilac hedge. On either side of the gate there were two tall lilac bushes, a white and a purple, the number in blue and white enamel, No. 11. A perfectly raked, wide gravel path led towards the small flight of steps to the white front door. In the centre, a circular bed of grass, fenced about with scallop shells long since bleached by the weather, and, thrusting upwards with feathery grace, a rather fine acacia spread its branches across the shuttered façade.

At one side of the house, sticking to it like a limpet, but looking very much like half an upturned boat, the prow sticking into the garden and a thicket of laurels, was a conservatory. White, pristine, rattan blinds lowered against the warm April sunshine.

I was admitted to the house by an unsmiling, dark-haired woman in her late fifties who obviously expected me: asked me to follow her, assured me that I was not late – could I not hear the church bell ringing the hour of four? – but that Madame was a little delayed.

The hall was almost dark; faint light gleamed on a heavy carved banister rail, a brass rod on the staircase. There was a coat rack with various coats and woollen scarves hanging like striped banners, an umbrella stand in the form of a stork in bulrushes; beside it, a pair of children’s blue Wellingtons … one had fallen on its side. The wallpaper was dark, embossed. The woman pushed aside a thick velvet curtain and ushered me into the conservatory.

Brilliant, clear, no shadows here. Save for bars of sunlight slatting through the rattan blinds, which the dark woman was raising by cords, in a far corner.

Pots of plants, a tall banana tree in a ceramic bowl, cane chairs painted white, gay with chintz cushions, little tables scattered here and there, a small tank of goldfish, Japanese fans, a bronze figure of a heron, a brass tray on ugly carved legs, an Arabian, or Tunisian, or anyway Arab coffee pot burnished like gold, its small cups hanging around it on hooks like kittens around a nursing cat,

The woman left with a nod of her head, drew the curtain, and closed me into this glittering world which had little if anything to do with the dark, solid, bourgeois house beyond.

I sat in one of the rattan chairs under a bulbous Tunisian birdcage, containing a yellow paper canary on a perch, as if I was sitting in a dentist’s waiting-room, except that here were no tattered magazines, and no smell of antiseptic, only green, damp earth. I was pleased when the curtain was pulled back and my hostess arrived, looking slightly out of breath, still buttoning the cuff of her shirt.