Matilda stifled a yawn behind the menu. Why must they talk such balls? After a lifetime knowing each other, she thought, we might have at least one absorbing topic in common. She looked at the menu and longed to be home with Gus, eating a bowl of onion soup, reading a book propped up against the teapot.

‘I shall eat mussels, then salmon. I never get decent fish living so near the sea.’

‘Shall you be glad to get home? Aren’t you lonely?’

‘No.’ Matilda looked John straight in the eye. ‘Not a bit.’ It occurred to her that John thought she had a lover. ‘I like living alone, I am used to it now. You know what it’s like. Of course I’m not lonely.’

John ordered grouse. ‘Why don’t you change your mind and have grouse? There are no grouse in your part of the world. Oysters first.’

‘All right. I gather you want to drink red wine. All right, oysters first.’

‘That’s about it, you read my mind.’

They ordered grouse with matchstick potatoes. John ordered a second bottle of wine. Matilda drank more than she used to, he thought, watching the way she drank, not one mouthful at a time, but two, even three, emptying the glass frequently. The wine enhanced her looks. He told her about a very beautiful villa where he had stayed that spring.

‘In France?’

‘No, Italy. Marvellous wild flowers in April, one can still find so many different kinds of orchids.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t come to my funeral, John, Piers I mean.’

‘What?’

‘I said I’d rather you didn’t come to my funeral.’

‘I was telling you about Italy. Weren’t you listening?’

‘Only half. I’m obsessed by death.’

‘All right, we’ll talk about it. Why don’t you want me to come?’

‘You get too close. You think I have a lover.’

‘It occurred to me.’

‘Mr Jones made an advance.’

‘That fellow with a beard, that fat bald chap? What cheek.’

‘No it wasn’t. He isn’t fat, he is square. He can’t help being bald. It was very sweet of him really.’

‘Sweet!’

‘You talk as though –’ Matilda stopped, realizing the unwisdom of what she was about to say. I do not belong to John, she thought. He mustn’t get that idea in his head. She drank more wine.

‘I’m verging on tipsy.’ But John was looking towards the entrance. Matilda followed his glance.

‘Oh Christ!’

Strolling in, cool, young, exquisite, came Anabel, followed by a very tall black man with quite extraordinarily beautiful features. Anabel was laughing up at him, her teeth, larger than Matilda’s, flashing, her face alight with the joy of conquest.

‘What a wonderful young man. Who is he?’ Matilda had jerked into sobriety.

‘Quite a sizeable fish at the U.N.’

‘Is his wife beautiful?’

‘Yes, a very brilliant woman.’

‘Poor Anabel.’